Coming To Terms With Marijuana.

I have come to terms with being a pot head. Not the kind of pot head who gets high all day every day, although I have some dear friends like that and they are always fun to hang out with. You know the kind, the smoke a joint in the alley behind the club between bands while everyone else is a few feet away smoking cigarettes kind. That's not me, except when I hang out with them. I don't tend to do much of anything high. I'm more the smoke a joint at the end of the day and then eat too much while watching Logan's Run kind of pot head. I actually don't smoke too often, either. When I have a bag, I'll smoke daily, but I don't often buy weed. I'll go months or even years without weed sometimes. I love smoking it, smelling it, talking about it, and looking at it, but it's not a habit I actually get around to that much.
Maybe I'm a lazy pot head. Maybe I'm not a pot head at all. I know I really enjoy the occasional high.

Toke 'em if you got 'em!

Its Been Longer (In My Eyes)

It's been a while since I wrote anything here of substance. I wrote my first post here in 2007. I have continued writing posts here only on occasion. In six years I've only written just over 20 posts, many of which were quickies. In 2008 I wrote a post entitled Its Been While (Who Am I). It's now 2013 and I think it's time for an updated post.

I'm still in my mid-thirties, but am now closing in on the mid-to-late-thirties thing. I'm balder, to the point where I just keep my hair cropped short. No more colors or mohawks for me. I'm still overweight, a fat vegan. I do intend to loose weight though, if for no other reason than to fit a few shirts I like. I no longer like not having facial hair. I look funny without it. For the last year or so I've been wearing my beard with a little shaved strip on either side of my goatee area. I don't know what to call this beard style. Fuck it.

I'm still vegan and can not imagine being any other way. I know people that were ethical vegans years ago and seem to have given up the lifestyle. I cannot imagine doing that, but then again, I don't crave any animal products in the least. Being that I don't feel as though I am missing out on anything, veganism only effects my life where it interacts with normal society.  I understand the desire to fit in, to be normal, but I couldn't do it.

I no longer drink alcohol. It's been a few years now, and I don't miss it. I don't miss hangovers, and I don't miss getting shitfaced and ordering stupid shit on Ebay. I have a shit ton of drunken adventure stories, I don't need anymore. I really don't want to top the one where I passed out in a parking lot and got taken to the ER by the police. I still love beer though. Ocasionally I get on a kick of drinking N/A beer. Clausthaler and Buckler being my favorites, although cheap old Miller Sharp's will do in a pinch. I'm drinking a Sharp's right now in fact.

Politically, I am still into animal rights issues, as well as human rights issues, but I am getting more and more into pacifism and anarchism. I am absolutely anti-war. I can no longer vote for pro-war politicians, which excludes most of both major parties for me. Anarchism, for me, is more of an ideal, a philosophical goal. It has to do with real freedom, and really isn't the chaos that most people think about when they hear the word anarchy. I very much support marriage rights, and I don't really understand those that don't. I am becoming increasingly anti-corporate. The list of companies I won't support grows almost daily. You truly do vote with your dollar.

I still work in a factory. I've been doing factory work for fifteen years now, but I think I am done for good. I've never once been truly happy with factory life. Don't get me wrong, it's alright for some people. The routine, the stability, the easy work then retire blueprint. For me, I am really starting to see the toll factory life has had on my body, on my personal relationships, and on my happiness. My current employer, a multinational corporation, is following the typical maximize profit style that is becoming all too common in the workplace today. The idea is to save as much money at the bottom so as to pool that money at the top. Jobs are eliminated and combined, fewer employees are worked more hours, little things are taken away here and there. When you take into account benefits, it can be more cost effective to work one employee 80 hours a week than it is to work two employees 40 hours a week. This over working results in chronic pain injuries, high stress, accidents on the job, and a seemingly high divorce rate. Personally, I can't take it anymore. I see the problems other people have with their arms and shoulders and necks and knees, and I see the beginnings of these lifelong problems in myself. If I sacrifice my arms for this company, I give up playing guitar. If I sacrifice my knees, I give up skateboarding. If I sacrifice my marriage and my relationship with my kids, then what was the fucking point of all this work in the first place.

I guess I am at a crossroads right now. I am theoretically happy, although work has been keeping me from making that happiness a reality. I like the direction my life could take if I do manage to remove myself from factory life, from the traditional workforce in general. I am now doing many of things I want to spend my time doing, but I am just barely doing any of them. I want to perform, write and record music. I want to travel. I want to write books and articles and blog posts. I want to skateboard and go to arcades with my kids.

I apparently also like to ramble on and on.

There will be a next time...

Waiting at Sea: Empty Booth

Empty Booth by Waiting at Sea.
Words and music by Frank Lynch.
Waiting at Sea is Frank Lynch and Kristen VanLoon.

What Do Vegans Eat?

I made this shirt a while ago on Zazzle, available in both light and dark.

What Do Vegans Eat? Shirts by NiceTryLaoChe
Create one-of-a-kind custom t-shirts at Zazzle.

I then wrote an article about it at Triond. What Do Vegans Eat?

Recently I turned the design into a Youtube video.

Voting for More.

I understand and support the decisions of many of my friends to vote Democrat. While I disagree, I understand the concept of voting for the better of the two main parties. Personally, I differ too much from either main party to feel good about voting for either one, although there are individuals in both parties I can support. I will examine the ballot at my polling location before the election and research everyone I vote for. Win or lose, I can sleep with my decision.

End the War On Drugs.

The war on drugs affects everybody. First, we spend over 30 billion dollars a year on the war on drugs, money which could go to any number of things that would affect everybody. For example, better teachers, schools, and educational PBS/NPR programming. Second, when parents are incarcerated their children suffer. Alcoholics go to jail when they get caught breaking the law. Marijuana users break the law just by being users. Third, people often choose legal alcohol over illegal cannabis to stay out of jail/keep jobs/stay on welfare. Alcohol use in many, many cases leads to a wide variety of negative consequences that affect families and communities. Domestic violence, for instance. Drunk driving accidents/incarcerations for another. Poverty as well, as it is easier to get high on a budget than to drink. I can easily find multiple people who would smoke me down on a daily basis, while getting drunk almost always costs money. Hell, you can get a few seeds from a friend and grow your own crop for free, it costs quite a bit to get into making your own booze. Finally, if marijuana was regulated and taxed like alcohol we would have a huge revenue source from taxes and we would have a huge job market open up which could lower the unemployment rate. The fact is that our jails are overrun with non-violent marijuana offenders, and our cities are filled with black market marijuana trade based violent crime, both things affect everybody and both could be eliminated by legalization.

Thoughts on Columbus Day.

Does ANYONE celebrate Columbus Day? Can someone explain to me the attraction. I cannot remember ever feeling right about celebrating Columbus Day. I really don't see what he did. The 'New World' had been found before, albeit not by that era of Europeans. He discovered it by accident and if he hadn't another European explorer would have. As travel based technology increased, expanding colonialism was an inevitability.