Democrat By Default (Damned If You Do, Fucked If You Don't)

Part I (Heads or Heads?):
If I toss a coin, and ask you to choose, it doesn't really matter if you don't like heads OR tails, it is going to be one of the two. Such is American politics.
Ideally, all the political parties would stand on equal footing in the run for office. If the guy running for senate from the Green Party was better than the guy from the Democratic Party, he could win. Unfortunately, the political machine in this country has decided on one Right party and one Left party, and everyone else is locked out. The worst part of this equation is that usually both parties have a stance (usually quite middle of the road, please the bulk of the people in a "good enough" kinda way stance) that is followed by all the politicians in the party. This is not to say that all Democrats think the same way and all Republicans think the same way, it is just that opinions tend to stay very little from the party mainstream.
This is a system that might work out just fine for you if either party shares your views on the subjects that matter to you. As it so happens, on many of the issues that are important to me, I tend to differ from both parties. In fact on many issues, they are essentially flipping a two headed coin. Although Democrats might lean more my way on issues, they still differ so little from the Republicans that I end up fucked either way.

Part II (I'm Not Telling You What To Do, I'm Just Bringing Up A Few Things That I Happen To Find Importance In) :
The end of Marijuana Prohibition. Marijuana is safer than and should be as legal as tobacco and alcohol if not more so.
Equal marriage rights. The rights of two individuals to enter into a legally recognized marriage regardless of sexuality should be part of the bill of rights.
Freedom FROM religion. You have the right to believe whatever crazy fairytale you want, just keep your myths out of my laws.
Animal Rights. When you get down to it, the only thing that matters is ability to suffer. All beings have the same ability to suffer and therefore deserve the same protection from suffering.

Later On...

Its Been A While (Who Am I)

My last post was in January. I know its been 9 months since I last wrote but in my own defense I am a lazy fucking asshole. Several times I have considered writting but did not because it had been so long since I wrote. I don't fully understand the logic in that but why not.

I am in my 30's, balding and getting fat. This seems like a natural progression in life. I don't think there is anything I can really do about the age thing, and the other prollems come with the getting old thing. I was riding my bike five miles a day for a while, I never lost a pound. Fuck it.

I am vegan for ethical reasons. Veganism is a natural progression from vegetarianism. The only way I can rationalize going back to vegetarianism is if I am in the game for health reasons and don't really care that supporting the dairy industry or the egg industry is essentially the same as supporting a slaughter industry. Either way, the animals live short, horrid lives before being killed, all in the name of profit.

I like to drink. If you don't know that you don't know me. I wouldn't go so far as to say I am an alcoholic, but I do get carried away often. My favorite liquors would be Tanqueray Gin, Fireball Whiskey, and Jagermeister. I also love beer. I love art of making it as well as the joy of drinking it. Take the alcohol out of beer and I would still drink it, maybe even more. My favorite style of beer would be stout. My favorite beer would be Sri Lanken made Lion Stout. I also love good American pilsners like PBR and Strohs. Anything with enough hops to kill a moose is good in my book. I used to drink a shit ton of Wild Irish Rose, although I rarely do nowadays.

I am obsessively into music. I have close to a thousand real CDs, close to as many CDRs, and over twenty five thousand mp3 tracks on the computer. I actually bought a large backup hard drive for my mp3 collection. I am still a punk at heart. I love blues, metal, outlaw country, vegan edge, real emo, ska/rocksteady/reggae, and good hip hop. My favorite bands have to be the ones I have had personal experiences with. Like The Skabs from NYC, who played shows for me several times back when I set up shows. Or A Few Miles North (Patience Patients) whom I managed, toured with and got in trouble with.

Until next time... it won't be so long this time.

"Help control the pet population, have your pet spayed or neutured"

Cats and dogs are killed by the thousands in shelters everyday. The two primary reasons for this atrocity. First, too many people are too fucking ignorant to get dogs and cats fixed. they let their pets breed and either give away or sell the puppies/kittens for profit. The other main reason is that people buy animals. Buying a dog or cat encourages people to breed these animals for profit. IF YOU BUY A DOG OR A CAT YOU ARE DIRECTLY SUPPORTING A CULTURE THAT ALLOW THESE ANIMALS TO REPRODUCE IN SUCH VAST NUMBERS THAT MILLIONS ARE KILLED EVERY YEAR. If you want to open your home to a companion animal, do the right thing, find an animal that needs a home. You can visit your local animal shelter, respond to an animal rescue website, or adopt an animal that would have ended up in a shelter. While your at it, find a NO KILL animal shelter and give them a donation.
ANIMALS ARE NOT OURS TO BUY, SELL, OR TRADE.

Hey, it's Nynuk who stole the show.

Before I could drive myself anywhere, my excursions were led by my parents. At one point that involved a Ford Ranger with a cap on the back and about a foot of carpeting and padding covering the bed. That was my home on the road. Dana (mildly famous as the bass player in Berwer or the “hot one” at 303) and I would be back there for hours on trips to my relatives in Chicago, Marquette, or Lake Isabella. I am sure we had plenty to entertain us, but the only thing I actually remember having back there is a black boom box and a few tapes.

New Kids On The Block. Hangin' Tough and the self titled debut album. I make no claims of embarrassment for being a HUGE NKOTB fan. Dana and I would listen to the two albums over and over. While Hangin' Tough was the popular favorite, I always preferred their self titled debut, which may not have actually been released until after they hit it big with the singles The Right Stuff and Hangin’ Tough from the second album. Hangin' Tough on vinyl was actually the first record I bought, together with Roxette’s Look Sharp! on cassette.

Guns N’ Roses. Appetite for Destruction and G N' R Lies. I always tried to avoid listening to these around my mother, as I thought she would get mad about the foul language, even though both my parents swore quite frequently growing up. I would always skip one side of the tape when listening to G N' R Lies, the side without Patience. I think everyone did.

We may have also been listening to a lot of Too Short at this time. It would have been Life Is...Too Short or Short Dog's in the House, although I had the edited version of the latter.

To this day, I still regard those albums my those three bands as absolute classics. Ones that withstand the test of time. From the boy band pop of the New Kids, to the one of a kind hard rock sound from Axl, Slash and company, to the stripped down bass driven beats and dirty rhymes of Too Short, this is real music.

Its the vote that counts.

In 2000, Ralph Nader ran for president of the United States as the Green Party Candidate. This was the year that the election was almost too close to call, but the Republicans (led by world wide asshole George W. Bush) claimed they clearly won with no debate necessary, and the Democrats (led by now pop culture icon Al Gore) claimed they won but the courts gave it away to the other side. The fact is that with an election that close, neither side has a lot to crow about.
While I clearly favored the Democratic nominee over (rich kid, failed businessman and overall asshole) George Bush, Ralph Nader connected with me a lot more. I went in to the polls knowing that either Bush or Gore would probably win the election, but I voted for Nader anyway. I knew that a "vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" but still couldn't bring myself to vote against my conscious. The fact is, at the time, I didn't really care for Al Gore. There was nothing about him I really disliked, and he clearly was not the (major) asshole George W. Bush was, but given the choices, I felt Ralph Nader would have made a much better president. Actually, as the last six years has shown, it would be hard for ANYONE to do any worse.
What I really mean, I guess, is that it is better to be on the right side and lose, than the wrong side and win. If all people voted for who they honestly thought the best candidate was, regardless of the candidate's supposed "chances" of winning, that the political system (the same one currently led my an asshole named George W. Bush) would work closer to the way it should, and our country would be a better place. Not only would our government more accurately reflect the thoughts and concerns of our nation, but our people would feel a lot better about the system, regardless of winning or losing.

Until next time... Kucinich '08

Skate or try.

Paw Paw used to have a Big Wheel department store. This was in the eighties. I remember the big red sign, and buying my first CD there, Ugly Kid Joe. They also had a small (three or four games) arcade in the front, back when every store had a few games up front.
The story today starts with a sidewalk (parking lot?) sale at Big Wheel. Amongst the sale items, I came across the skateboard I had wanted since first seeing it wherever. Department store skateboards where expensive then, despite the low quality workmanship. But this sale had it so cheap I could talk my mom into buying it and letting me pay it off.
Veriflex Ramp Rat. The top had the classic eighties two part grip tape with the logo in between, the bottom was white with a graphic of a rat on a ramp in the middle. It came with large orange wheels and yellow plastic rails. Back then, wheels were soft and boards had extra plastic covering the nose, tail, sides (rails) and trucks. I think the idea was the wear and tear would be on the replaceable parts, so you could keep your deck forever. Problem being skateboard decks are like computers, outdated within a year.
So, this white, yellow, and orange monster of a skateboard started me on an obsession that would last all the way through middle and high school. An obsession that has not fully left me even today as I have just now beat my eighth Tony Hawk skateboarding game. In between we have years of mediocre skateboarding, lots of good times with friends, and too many skateboards to count. I haven't really skated in about ten years, save for a time or two. But I still remember winter days just waiting for the sun to dry the roads enough to skate on, wheel bearings that froze up because I couldn't manage to stay inside even though it was raining and wet out, and long long hours by myself just cruising back and forth, never really getting any better.
Back in the day, I would ride my board to school, the store, a friends house, or nowhere at all. I would play with it in my room if I couldn't go outside, I would take it with my on family trips and skate for three minutes at a time while we gassed up the car. I went from a time when I could be no more than ten feet away from by board at any time, to when I didn't have a board at all.

Until next time... gleam the cube.

Y'all eat burger, right?

I cannot recall how many times in my life I've gotten the "What da y'all eat?" question in response to my veganism. Most go through all the stuff I can't eat, listing mainly food that can easily be vegan. Spaghetti, soup, pizza, bread, cookies. Then there are those that think that I can still eat chicken, fish, or even steak.
People have a lot of misconceptions about veganism. The main one being that I am missing out on something. This one is simple: THE ONLY THING I MISS IS CONVENIENCE. I do not miss meat, not in any form. Actually, I believe a dead animal is a carcass, not food.
There is such a great variety of food outside the animal kingdom that it is almost impossible to not find complete satisfying meals. Since going from vegetarian to full on vegan, the quality of my food has vastly improved. I just do more cooking now, and eat less prepared foods. Which is something worthwhile for everyone to do. I eat better now than I ever have, in both quality and flavor.

So, what DO y'all eat?
Tofu. Prepare it ANY way. I fucking love tofu. I have it for breakfast almost every morning. Boil it, mash it, put it in a stew.
Pasta. Top with vegan butter and spices, or marinara sauce, or tvp-meat-sauce, or vegan mock cheese sauce, or peanut sesame sauce.
Classic Americana. Corn on the cob, steamed veggies, mashed potatoes, hot fresh bread, and a vegan mock meat (chicken style, rib style, tofu, baked seitan, fried tvp.
Vegan hot dogs and fries. Vegan hot dogs are made with good stuff, not scraps of barely edible meat, like their meat-world counterparts.
Sandwiches and chips. Tofurky slices are the absolute best.
Tacos. Refried beans or black beans, seasoned tvp, shredded lettuce, and salsa all wrapped up in a nice big soft flour tortilla. I little ingenuity can turn this meal into quesadillas, taco salad, or nachos.
Tvp-loaf. Tvp, cracker crumbs and barbecue sauce. Add corn and mashed potatoes. Eat.
Cold cereal, hot cereal, soup and crackers, mixed bean chili, bagles, PBnJ, fried rice with or without tvp or seitan.
I could go on...

Until next time... eat well.