Rules of the Road

1. Thou shalt not tailgate while driving 80 mph

This bugs the shit out of me. You're driving a 1500-pound block of steel filled with explosive liquid, and some people feel that they have superhuman reaction times and are able to stop on a dime. This occurs at least five times on the way to and from work. I know this is southern California and everything is at least 20 miles away, but holy crap, what the hell is wrong with you? The "thing" out here is to drive a jacked up, gigantic truck (despite nonexistent gas mileage and the highest prices in the contiguous United States) and on top of that you're going to run others off the road? And how is tailgating going to get you to your destination any faster? Just relax, keep at least a car length off my ass.

2. Thou shalt pay attention to the traffic light.

Huge truck + cell phone + cd player + dvd player = total lack of awareness. In this same vein, please try and understand how traffic signals work. If the cross street is turning right/left on a green arrow, and you're waiting to turn right at a red light, then for fuck's sake get on with it. Obviously the turning traffic is "blocking" the straight-ahead traffic, so you're in the clear to turn.

3. Thou shalt be aware of others.

If you're driving 60 mph on the freeway side-by-side with another slow car, you're blocking any and all traffic from bypassing you. Not everyone wishes to take in the lovely desert scenery. Try and understand that, no, you are not the only person with a car and in fact the world does not revolve around you, although many people are fat enough for it to. Same applies to sitting in the left lane and going slow. The signs/driving manual/driving test/law states SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT. This means you, minivans.

4. Red doth mean red.

This hasn't changed since 1917 and the installation of the first traffic light. A red light does not mean "one or two more cars may pass; three if you're in a hurry." That's what yellow lights are for. Red = stop. Not stopping at red = death by own arrogance.

5. When thou mergest on thy mighty interstate, geteth on with it in a timely fashion!

This is what totaled my car. When you're merging, then FUCKING MERGE! You do NOT slow down to get onto an interstate! You do NOT wait until the last possible second to do so! You do NOT try and get in front of as many cars as possible by riding the merging lane into oblivion and merging from the shoulder! I see this last one occur daily.

5a. One when lane hath been shut, enter the open lane ere the first doth end.

This ties into the last rule - when signs are posted MILES in advance, with flashing lights, flares, cones, and a guy waving a big flag at you, go ahead and get the fuck over! By waiting until the last possible second to move into the open lane, you are creating a bottleneck that has a much larger effect on traffic flow then you may think. Think about it like this: what moves quicker, sand pouring through a single spout (like an hourglass) or sand pouring through a dozen spouts (like a sifter used for panning riverbeds)? It's just common sense! The best example of this is in Georgia, where 316 West merges with I-85. The two-lane road becomes one, with signs posted literally two miles before the merge. Yet nobody feels the need to get into the continuing lane until the last possible second, backing up traffic for 45 minutes. I'll even coast down the continuing lane leaving four or five car lengths of open space in front of me, yet not a single person will move over. Traffic in this case is caused by the bottleneck; wouldn't you rather be speeding along with no delay? Then no bottleneck!

6. Witnessing other's misfortunes is not tolerated on the road.

Rubbernecking: retarded. Someone changing their tire on the side of the road does not merit slowing to 10 mph and staring like you've just seen the holy grail. Even worse, an accident (that has been cleared from the road): would you want someone staring at your wrecked car, bloody nose, and/or dead friend? Yeah, me either you voyeurs, so put your blinders on and get a move on!

Definition

A buddy and I were discussing the differences in our musical tastes, and we boiled the whole thing down to this: what's more important, lyrics or music? What they are saying or how they're saying it? For him it's the latter; jam bands fill out the majority of his top ten favorite bands. Myself, I prefer a story to go with the music. Lyrical content plays a large role in whether or not I like a band. For example, my friend would enjoy a band like Phish, a band that may be musically competent but lyrically are on the same level as Koko the Magic Gorilla. I do not enjoy a band like Phish because songs that last longer than six minutes bore the shit out of me, and I don't enjoy spending my time listening to some bearded dude twiddle around the twelfth fret for half an hour. So I've decided to share a few bands who I feel are particularly excellent at writing lyrically-based songs. I've also decided to share a few choice lyrics from bands at the other end of the spectrum, and I'm not talking about just jam bands! So let's get this adventure started!

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
We make our days as they make us,
As I must, as Odysseus,
Make myself my own Telemachus.
"Bous Stephanos, Stephanoumenos Dedalus!"

And if it hasn't been a bust,
Then "land-ho, Ulysseus!"
And all of us like Dedalus:
Dead, dead all of us.
-"My Vein Ilin"

If you didn't catch all the references in these two verses, it's the literary equivalent of stopping a Mike Tyson uppercut with your groin. Often you see the sacrifice of musicianship for lyrical content: a band may write fantastic lyrics but the music is very simple and plain. Ted Leo is a guitar virtuoso and incorporates some serious punk and rock influences into his songs. He graduated Notre Dame with an English major, and can turn a phrase into a catchy lyric better than anyone else. He's also a very liberal, renegade songwriter and can write some very combative lyrics. Here's a quick example:

And when the crying starts, you won't have to see their bloodshot eyes turn red.
And when the dying starts, you won't have to know a thing about who's dead.
This is your mission - like television - where the good guys always win.
-"Bomb.Repeat.Bomb"

Combative lyrics are one thing, and they can be very impressive, but they really lack any impact without a strong voice behind them. If you've seen Eddie Izzard's "Dress to Kill" you know exactly how important the right voice is (...yeah, a small pony). Ted Leo can push a lot of passion through the microphone, but this often tempers the anger with pure emotion. A more directed, focused voice can be found in the throat of Zach de la Rocha, lead singer of

Rage Against the Machine
revolutionary rhetoric. But the combination of There doesn't need to be a lot of introduction here, as almost everyone is familiar with RATM'sde la Rocha's screaming/rapping and Tom Morello's heavy metal fiddling can overshadow the actual lyrics

The present curriculum, I put my fist in 'em
Eurocentric every last one of 'em
See right through the red white and blue disguise
With lecture I puncture the structure of lies
-"Take the Power Back"

That last line is just fun to say, the way your lips have to clip out each syllable. Of course the idea behind the lyric is valid as well: American history and social studies focus almost exclusively on Europe, ignoring African, Latin American, and Asian ideas. That's a whole other debate however. Let's switch gears and look at what sort of lyrical contribution Phish makes.

Phish
Welcome this is a farmhouse, we have cluster flies alas
And this time of year is bad, we are so very sorry
There is little we can do but swat them
-"Farmhouse"

This is just a fantastic example of the interplay between metaphor and alliteration. Notice how the writer conveys the crushing depression of enclosure, surrounded by the biting "flies", which are a clear reference to the structure of American government and wait, no it's not, it's something he wrote on the back of his hand while waiting for the mushrooms to take effect. I don't expect too much from these guys, but I'm not going to pay money and listen to cross-dressers tell me about their fucking insect problems because they're too stoned and forgot to close the door last night. Now, I know that no one goes to a Phish concert for the lyrics. They go because the music is funky and they can smoke metric tons of marijuana for hours. But you shouldn't have to sacrifice lyrical content for groovy riffs! Here, take some of this and call me in the morning:

Mos Def
Wear those pretty clothes, drive them pretty cars
You a super hero, you a super star
You a super man, go head fly yo cape
Blowin' in the wind, let them touch the hem
Stand and fight and win, snatch the crown again
Wit' yo mighty swing, and yo flashy smile
Let them see the light
You so black and bright
You so bright you black
Shinin' you cryin' to fight them back.
-"Blue Black Jack"

This is part of a six-and-a-half minute blues/rock song during which Mos Def works his way along an ex-Parliament Funkadelic guitarist's trippy version of an old blues standard. The song slowly loses form throughout, ending up in a loud howling, chant of "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" as the guitarist goes to town. Added bonus: the song is about Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, who won the title in 1910 after going fifteen rounds with the previously undefeated, white champion. Race riots followed. But now we can delve into the world of hip-hop without mentioning

Talib Kweli
People thinkin MC is short hand for Mis Conception
Let me meditate, set it straight, came to the conclusion
that most of these cats is featherweight, let me demonstrate
Walkin the streets is like battlin, be careful with your body
You must know karate or think your soul is bulletproof like Sade
Stop actin like a bitch already, be a visionary
And maybe you can see your name in the column of obituary
-"Definition"

Talib Kweli and Mos Def both spring forth from a place where rap isn't about ho's and ho-related things like benjamins and yachts. They actually have something to say in their songs and express it creatively in a way that most cannot hold a candle to. Lastly, let's look at two more artists, one who sucks at writing lyrics and the other who doesn't.

Jason Mraz
I’m just a curbside prophet
with my hand in my pocket
and I’m waiting for my rocket y'all
-"Curbside Prophet"

Jesus Christ shut the fuck up.

Bruce Springsteen
Now Tom said, 'Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Ma, I'll be there.
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom - you'll see me'
-"The Ghost of Tom Joad"

I mean, come on, it's no contest.

Now don't think I don't enjoy lyrical nonsense. I mean, I have a song about a guy throwing an awesome pool party in my regular rotation. Anyway, I've been doing this for an hour and a half now so I'm leaving for dinner. Welcome back to me!

Sorry

It's been a pretty intense last few weeks, hence the lack of awesome writing for your face. I've had two interviews with schools, a full week of training in addition to an MRI, five days of teaching class in the morning, an appointment to determine where I'll receive an epidural, and something else I'm sure I'm forgetting. So, briefly:

Finally got a job. Sports bar 30 miles south of my apartment. Good money though, $7.50/hour plus tips. Take that, Georgia and your low cost of living. Made $100 in three hours, bank.

There's a stupid, wannabe punk-poser half-assed revolutionary bitch in my biology class. She's an 11th grader (by default, not academically) taking a 9th grade class. She's Hispanic. And she draws swastikas on everything. Of course she has a crappy jacket that she safety-pins different patches on advertising punk bands that haven't played together since before she was born. Swastikas on her notes, on her stupid jacket... I'm wondering when I get to say something to her. I doubt it's racially or religiously motivated, I don't think she's smart enough to hate effectively. Most likely someone "underground" from Spin magazine or MTV told her to do it.

I'm about to kill everyone in the education department/school district. How did all these stupid people come into being? I think they spawn from that faceless beast known as Bureaucracy, or as some ancient texts refer to it, The Uglyness of Man.

Speaking of half-assed revolutions, if my riot were going to have a soundtrack, it would have to be Rage Against the Machine. There is no other option. Witness Exhibits A- :
Sleep Now in the Fire music video
Testify music video

And lastly, ask yourself this - what exactly are the benchmarks everyone keeps bitching about?

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/22389

Read the five benchmarks. These are Fearless Leader's own benchmarks, but he will not approve them if Congress passes the bill. First, the benchmarks are pretty sick - giving foreign corporations first call on Iraqi oil contracts, for starters. Anyway I gotta run and pretend like a give a shit about this class. It's costing me thousands of dollars, I might as well.

Evilution

A study released this week states that since chimpanzees and humans diverged genetically 6 million years ago, chimpanzees have evolved more than humans. Scientists (those evil, godless heretics) found a greater ratio of positive mutations in DNA to silent (non-expressed) or negative mutations than in humans. The article I linked does point out a great number of mitigating factors that may nullify the results, such as there being a much larger population of chimps than humans over the time period since the split. However, the conclusion reached brings up an interesting point, that humans have removed themselves from the evolutionary chain.

To put it simply, humans have stopped evolving at a rate consistent with the rest of the natural world. First, what causes evolution? As I understand it, evolution is the result of many factors, but primarily it is the selection of beneficial genetic mutations over time resulting in genetic and physical changes in a population. Those changes that are advantageous are kept in the population via the carrier not dying. Usually these changes go unnoticed (silent) or are quickly eliminated by the death of the new mutation. However, as the environment changes, a genotype that once worked may not be as efficient as before, and a new genotype arises that is more efficient and outcompetes the older type, resulting in a change in population or even extinction. The key word here is "environment". Environment does impact genetic change, but almost always indirectly (weeding out the ineffective genotype/rewarding the more effective type). So with that in mind, I would postulate that humans have removed themselves from the environment that they have ceased to evolve. If the environment remains static, there is no need for adaptation, and diversity in the population goes to zilch. This is of course bad, because when there is a shift in environment (and because of how we live that shift will most likely be swift and dramatic, as opposed to the long and drawn-out time frame needed for evolutionary change), then humans will be left in the dust, as it were.

Now I'm absolutely talking theory here, with very little evidence to support my claim. It's mostly an exercise in thought - I was originally going to write about how bad California drivers are (again) but heard this story on the radio as I was coming home. Or better yet, what if humans began adapting to our current sheltered environment of plenty? Would we see a decrease in brain size or cerebral folding as we rely more and more on technology, a body more suited to metabolizing fat and artificial chemicals as we ruin the natural food supply, less muscle mass as we continue to use and abuse transportation systems? Whatever the answer, it's still an interesting and frightening idea with a whole lot of pride wrapped up in it - how come we, as a species, are exempt from the natural order? We have been living outside of the natural order for thousands of years, ever since we began creating unnecessary surpluses and warring against the environment rather than living within it. Ah, so. Time for homework.

Controlling the Present

Today I went questing for a new car. My old one actually still runs and runs well, but the insurance company has already laid their demon eyes on it and are trying to reclaim it quickly so they can cut me a wholly inadequate check and wash themselves of me. Well, screw them, I liked that car and don't have another one yet. So, I find myself traveling thirty miles south to the lovely town of Hemet, a place whose look matches exactly the quality of the name. Hemet follows in the great tradition of shitty places given equally shitty names, and I'm not sure which one determines the other. Were places like Gary, Indiana, Twiggs County, Georgia, or East St. Louis awful places to begin with, or did they mutate along the aesthetic lines of their names?

Hemet is, surprisingly, in the desert. It is just a poorer city than Riverside and cannot afford to import and steal as much water as we can, so the place is rather dryer, dustier, drabber (?), and other similar-meaning d-words. Despite being located in the blasted wasteland between two other blasted wastelands, Los Angeles and Arizona, people here (and I'm sure elsewhere) are crazy enough to insist on maintaining some sort of lawn. Despite the fact that the closest body of water is the Pacific Ocean, residents of this little burg have created gravel front yards, lined with fences. The classier homeowners in fact lay down Astro-Turf, complete with a brick-lined walkway to their front door. Some of you may have read that and thought it was a typo, or that you haven't had your bran muffin this morning and are hallucinating, so let me repeat that: Astro-Turf yards. With brick-lined walkways, to keep the plastic weeds out. Ten-to-one they actually landscape that shit with a Pop-Pop toy mower.

Why do these people insist the world must change to fit their needs? All around Riverside there are fountains and lush lawns, as if people are flaunting the water in the face of four billion years of geology. "Haha, desert!", they seem to say, "we're such opulent persons and such engineering geniuses that we pipe in water from hundreds of miles away just to gush it up in the air for no reason at all!" It reminds me of the opening scene in the novel Dune where the ruler of the desert planet pours out a glass of water onto the ground before a state dinner, displaying his elevation above the natural state of things.

Well bad news human beings! You are not exempt from the natural state of things (see Global Warming). Stop trying to terraform an already abundant planet. Any good argument of course must offer a solution, so mine is this: stop moving to the fucking desert. Who the fuck walks 100 miles in the scorching sun and plants his flag right next to an ocean of sand-blasted rock and a sun-bleached cow skull and says, "Let's put a city right here! And you know what, let's call it Riverside just to fuck with people!". So in protest I've decided to stop drinking water altogether and imbibe nothing but bottled spirits and beer. It's for your own good I'm doing this, you know.

I didn't buy the car.

Education, then LONG rambling rant

Originally I was going to harp on about the No Child Left Behind and state of education in America today, but there's nothing new I can really say. It seems I missed the golden age of teaching, where the educator more or less ruled the classroom and taught whatever they deemed necessary for a proper education. Today, as no doubt everyone is at least peripherally aware, educators are handcuffed to a strict code of standards in the government's effort to make education uniform and identical in every classroom across the nation. One of my professors is also a high school English teacher, and even she has very little flexibility in what novels are taught in her classes. You would think a more liberal arts subject such as literature would have some leeway in what is taught - as long as it's appropriate, you can teach it, right? But she told me that she can only work in one or two novels of her choosing a year, and the rest is regimented by the school board/district/state/federal government.

(Note: please ignore opening sentence.)

The standardizing movement is doing more harm than good. This strict formalization of education across America is rooted in an educational philosophy termed "Essentialism", which is exactly what it sounds like: students should be taught the fundamentals in the basic subjects, such as Math, English, History, and Science. This philosophy pushes other pursuits such as Drama, Visual Arts, Physical Education, and Music to the very fringes of a curriculum. The reason the government is pushing this philosophy more intensely than before can be blamed on any number of causes: America's continual middling placement among global Math and Reading scores, President Bush's attempt at having something positive associated with his term in office, or a reaction and fail-safe against the overall lack of talent found in educators. No matter what the reason, it boils down to the homogenization of education in the nation, just like our housing, shopping, and culinary options have. This is to the detriment of our students and will further scare talented teachers away from the field of public education (as low salaries, little respect, and handicapping from parents and legal systems already do.)

(Now for something different.)

I haven't been able to write anything funny or make any jokes recently because for the past month or so I've been in a pretty bad place and it looks like it'll get worse before it gets better. I did finally get a job - in a restaurant that doesn't open until April 29th. The job market around here is so stagnant that the only job I could get was in a brand new restaurant 30 miles south of my apartment. Getting there will be a real hoot too, since my car was totaled last week by a fucking AAA driver who's so old his claim number was "00000-2" and by a gigantic Suburban driven by a tiny Hispanic woman. I'm sure I've mentioned that construction is rampant in these parts. Additionally, the interim roadways the geniuses at the CA DOT have provided are narrower and more dangerous than a badger's asshole.

Here's the skinny: the on-ramp at one of these improvised stunt tracks/heavily used roadways is about 150 feet long and simply meets the freeway at a 35-degree angle, with no merge lane whatsoever. Additionally, the shoulder is comprised of seven-foot tall concrete barriers sitting inches from the so-called on-ramp. Also additionally, the next exit from this on-ramp is a total clusterfuck where two highways and an interstate converge and diverge in the space of one-fifth of a mile. So anyway, I am proceeding down the on-ramp at typical merging speed: 45 mph. One especially wants to be up to speed because I said, there is no merging lane, you just have to get the fuck over at speed or slam your face into two feet of concrete.

So it's 10 am, past rush hour, traffic is medium heavy but moving at a good clip, with no stopping/starting. Tra la la, here I go, oh wait, what's this? Why is this gigantic Suburban 75 feet in front of me slowing down and stopping? One second goes by - at 50 mph that's 73 feet - and in that time I have to make a decision. I slam on my brakes while honking my horn, put on my left blinker and because I have so little room to stop and cannot pull to the shoulder on the right, must try and merge to the freeway. Unfortunately, the fucking dumb shit bitch has stopped her Suburban at the point where the on-ramp and the freeway meet, effectively blocking both lanes. I cannot merge without blindly throwing myself across two freeway lanes of heavy traffic. I have no choice but to try and screech to a halt. I do, inches from the Suburban. A late 1970's pure steel pickup truck slams into the back of me. My Honda, weighing all of 700 pounds with me inside, is launched forward under the Suburban's bumper. Damage done to the pick up: pretty bad. Damage done to the Honda: total loss. Damage done to the Suburban: none. NONE. In fact, she almost drove off, I wrote down her plate while honking to get that dumb bitch to pull over. So what is her excuse for stopping the Suburban on a freeway on-ramp/lane of traffic in a construction zone with no shoulder and heavy traffic??? Could it be something legitimate like her car died or the transmission exploded or she had just seen a vision of God in her tortilla who told her to stop the car so He could start the Rapture? Nope! It's so bad, I swear I almost pushed her into traffic. I almost murdered this woman. And you think I'm going to say she was on her cell phone, right? Well guess again, it's even better than that. Ready?

THE BABY WAS CRYING AND SHE WAS NERVOUS.

Oh, oh no! The baby was crying at you! Well by all means please go ahead and continue acting like you're the only creature here on this Earth and tend to whatever little need right away! Never mind that you're driving a behemoth of an automobile, or that you're so small you probably need a two fucking L.A. phonebooks just to see out the windshield, or that you're trying to merge onto one of the busiest freeways in Riverside while the entire thing is under construction! No! No no no, please, don't let any of that bother you. You were nervous? THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING DRIVING A TWO-TON, TWENTY-FIVE FOOT ENGINE OF DESTRUCTION?!? If you're so incapable, incompetent, so below normal functioning then what the fuck are you doing outside of your cage, let alone reproducing, let alone being allowed to operate a motor vehicle when you should be locked up in a cosmetics factory and have oven cleaner shot into your eyeballs while bunnies and puppies that would normally take that punishment be allowed to run free, where even if all they do in their short lives is fuck and shit, they will have accomplished so much more than you ever will, you damn worthless monkey!

.........Whew. Sorry. That's a lot of frustration coming out at once, and not just about the car. The car is a total loss, I'll get about $1200 from insurance. So I've got to find a new car, and quick, because starting next Monday I need to be at Corona HS every morning for six weeks. There's also a whole host of other shit going on right now, but I'm so angry after retelling the car wreck that I need a break, and besides who the fuck wants to listen to me complain. I would really enjoy a nice hot shower right now, but oh wait, guess what? Not only have we not had hot water since January, but we haven't had running water at all today. How about a shower and a shit? No sir! Can't flush, can't wash, can't drink, can't brush your teeth. Hoo-ray for today.

AMERICA!

There are too many things I could write about today, so I'm going to try and spread it out over the next few days so it looks like I'm coming up with a lot of fresh ideas in a short time span.

Someone needs to turn off America's expansion engine. We are rushing construction projects and continuously building as if we still had a frontier. Bad news guys - we ran out of new land some sixty years ago (note: I am not including recent foreign conquests, because it is pretty clear we're not planning on building anything there at all - except this). Yet we continue to expand throughout the countryside with no regard for civic planning or even actual need. Everywhere I look there are half-finished construction projects spilling over into giant, empty lots with dozens of dusty parking spaces and "Office Space for Lease" signs in every window. Companies are treating the already stressed landscape like a contract crapshoot, just building blocks and blocks of office or retail space that no one requested. These vacant shells wait scornfully for tenants, unapologetic in their uselessness.

To be fair, rapid expansion and construction provides countless jobs and generates tons of money for the economy. Businesses have access to more affordable space, which in turns (ideally) translates to lower prices for consumers. Standardized home construction provides cheaper living space for our growing population. However, as much as I would like to believe that the driving force behind our constant expansion is to create a better society, I can say with certainty that a vast majority of these construction projects do not stem from some altruistic notion but rather for that almighty Dollar. I'm not here to rail on capitalism, which I'm all for, but rather to point out that because construction is so profitable it is that much more resistant to change. Why fix it if it's not broken?

I would like to see the huge economy of construction distilled out into a multitude of smaller economies. I would like to see many local companies that only concern themselves with building in single states (maybe three or four for you tiny statettes in the northeast). I would to like to see the rampant expansion reigned in, to quit building just for the sake of it and refocus that engine inward toward building a local community.

I'm ending this one now because I'm about to shoot off on a completely different tangent, along the lines of the update I wrote called "Countrified Counterculture", which I'll be rehashing and refreshing in a few days. For tomorrow, a comedic update about one of my favorite topics: education!