Recently in The Hopelessness of it All Category

People are impressed by big numbers. How much money do you make? How much did your car cost? How many women have you slept with? The list goes on.

How about... how much alcohol do you drink?

UPDATE: David Remnick, Editor-In-Chief of the New Yorker has written me a brief e-mail in response to the video:

Unless you're a superdelegate. Their vote is worth about 10,000 of ours.

Anyone remember the good old days when having your vote only be worth 3/5ths of a "real" vote seemed like a raw deal?

Democracy: Don't call it magic! It's an illuuuuuuuuuusion.

For those of you who haven't heard the grim/hilarious news, "we" = Georgians, specifically Atlantans, and "water" = "the life-nourishing substance we [humans] have spent the last two hundred years systematically polluting and using up."

It's all gone. We're fucked. (Well, I live in New York; my parents and two of my brothers are fucked.)

Lil Jon did of course gift us Crunk!!!, a delightful beverage indeed. And I take great pleasure in Itoen's Tea's Tea, which is just tea - really good tea. But somehow I think plentiful water will remain in the near future as essential to human life as it's been over the last, oh I dunno, hundred million years.

Georgia's genius plan to keep its millions of citoyens watery? Invade the fuck out of Tennessee.

I guess Paul and Patrick and Sam and I are gonna have to go down there and wrassle some Chattanoogans or something.

(Thanks to Paul for the article.)

She must be bored with her singing-dancing-acting-fashiondesigning-babymaking-Ashtangayogapracticing lifestyle. Because she is now a film director too.

At this year's Berlinale Madonna debuted her directing skills in "Filth and Wisdom." I haven't seen it and I'm not sure I want to. (Except for the fact that Gogol Bordello is in it as themselves with Eugene Hutz in a lead role. That does intrigue me somewhat.)

In blogging about progressive political theater, I've increasingly wondered what "other side" (there are probably a few other sides, Venn diagram-like) is (are) thinking. So I googled "Republican blogs" and looked at a few top results. Here's what I found, in the order I found it:

1. This was a top result, an old lady in Texas who likes racist cartoons and reports, regarding terrorists within the U.S., "We're all probably better off not knowing." Wow. You see, every time I give the far right a chance to make sense, it comes up with racist cartoons and contradictory points about "security" that alternate between nuke-worshipping and head-in-sand-burying. One racist cartoon:

2. A site that's currently down called "BoottotheSkull.com." I mean, does it matter what's on the site, if it's a political blog invoking boots to the skull? One flashes back to curb-stomping in that Ed Norton movie about Nazis, soccer hooligans, Abu Ghraib, The Siege, etc. Let's hope the barbarians who run the site don't read this post and find Steve and steal his cute dogs.

3. This is the worst of the bunch, partly because it's the most reasonable (unreasonable as it is), and it's authored by the youngest blogger - a mere 18 year-old, a kid who hasn't had time to look at all the philosophical positions in America yet. He does have crazy typoesz ("...the election’s still a ways off, and I’m there’s a conservative out there somewhere who’ll step up..."), so that makes him more of a crazy internet kid, right? But he also has a right wing/Christian magazine called "Regenerate Our Culture." (Not currently in print, as the kid's off to college. The homepage invites you to "pursue our archives," lol.) Overall impression: Not so hateful, but not a great source for real educational or political material. These are top results. This means these blogs, for whatever reason, by whatever magic feat of SEO and Digging, have had lots of hits, at least in the last few years. They span from young to old, heartland to coast, but they all seethe with undisguised rage - rage you'd never find here, as Ryan posts about Assassin's Creed or I post about giant scorpions or Harry Potter.

The Republican blogs, these random samples, don't challenge my views via argument or information.

I love what my friend Garrett Heaney at Wishtank stresses about information. It's harder, actually harder, to change someone's mind by arguing simply from an emotional or even an abstractly logical standpoint. And if you personally differ on views ("Well, I was raised as a...;" "I don't think all men are such..."), what can you do besides argue your emotion or lay out an ideal logic? Well, you can provide data. You can back up your words with sources. You can do research and keep telling people "look at these numbers!" or "look at this video!" until someone looks.

Well, or at least not have such crahze typoes whne you'r talingk about infallible dietys and how stupid liberls are.

A must-read: What the fuck is happening to Bushwick?

Says one real estate guy: "People in the neighborhood are ready to take their lives to the next level."

I'm so confused by that sentiment that all I can do is dribble green tea out of my mouth until my brain stops burning.

The crux of the problem is monetary, of course:

"It's happened so fast," says Roberto Marrero, a Legal Services attorney who has handled housing cases for the poor in Bushwick and Williamsburg for 10 years. "Rents were all around $600; that was what owners got. Then all of a sudden, in the last couple years, they doubled. Everywhere people looked, owners were asking $1,200—like that was the magic number all of a sudden." Even if the rent hike is well above the maximum set under state rent-stabilization guidelines, owners just take the chance that they won't get found out, Marrero says. "If no one challenges it for four years, it's legal."

Who's paying 1200 a month? Who? Where? ARGH.

The real travesty is that landlords don't listen to tenants, don't make repairs, and try to evict families if they think they can double rent. Read the article. It's astounding. (Thanks, Justin, for forwarding it.)

Check out this article from the Times about Evesham, NJ.

Long story short, an educational video called "That's a Family!" has just been banned because one of the families discussed is of the two-dads (a.k.a. "gay dads," "happy dads," "multi-dads") type, which upsets roughly 49% of the town. Apparently, if you show kids that gay people are normal and can raise families, you run the risk of convincing those kids to disown their parents. I don't get it.

Here's what one proud hetero child-builder had to say:

“I don’t think it was appropriate,” said Jennifer Monteleone, 35, who is a parent of two children at the Robert B. Jaggard Elementary School. “If it was maybe in fifth grade, but in third grade they’re a little too young.”

Riiight. By that reasoning, I know plenty of thirty-year-olds who are too young. Newsflash Jenny: Little bigots grow up and become big bigots.

These goings on in New Jersey almost disturb me as much as the disappearance of the bees and gorillas does. WTF, ebola gorillas? That's like some Bioshock Steve King South Park totally evil heavy shit.

O Everest - how we de-magnify your magnificence...

Check out this story from the New York Times detailing China's innovations on the great mountain.

Basically, China's adding cell towers, a paved highway to base camp, and other un-Everest-y Olympic doodads so that they can reap money from foreign tourists, amateur mountaineerers, and confused middle income goats.

FYI: Tibetans call [Mt. Evererst] Chomolungma — the “Goddess Mother of the Universe.”

Meaning, besides taking from the Tibetans their political freedom and right to peacefully meditate and hang out with goats, we (the modern, corporate, "MADE IN CHINA" world) are also planting cell phone towers on their momz, yo. Weird.

Man, I love Creationism: Instead of saying, "If God can sculpt the entire fucking earth out of nothing, then maybe he could create even a complicated process like evolution," thus rendering biblical objections to natural science effectively moot, the apparent bulk of serious Creationists insist that earth is 6000 years old and that man lived in harmony with dinosaurs until L. Ron Hubbard, Marilyn Manson, Sponge Bob, and I came and fucked it all up.

Well, they're right, I guess, because they now have a 27 million dollar museum explaining that they're right. How very P.T.Barnum of them. I salute anyone willing to put $27 mil. into a wrong idea, just to prove how very right it is. Next time I'm in Kentucky, I'm definitely checkin it out.

Read the good news your(damned)self...

look at how much fun I'm having!

(Question-Proem: Why don't we have a frickin "Animals" category? I mean, come on, guys... Let's get on the ball. In it = to win it. Anyway...)

All the bees are disappearing.

This is obviously a sign that we are all dead; the Apocalypse has already occurred; only demons and (rapidly diminishing apiary arthropods) are left; thus we are demons.

This theory of demon-hood was posited by a friend recently. We were both drunk at a party. I thought about it, forgot about it, and thought about it again after reading about the Rapture Of The Bees (see below).

I would here quote poems by Emily "Bees-n-Depression" Dickinson, but I'm too frightened:

If I'm a demon, I'm a demon who loves some muthafuckin honey...

Read about the End Times, in the Times...

So I was in MT for almost two weeks. My 22 year old brother had the flu, and it became strep, and then became pneumonia, the bad, kill-jim-henson-christian-science kind. He was put into a medical coma and his vitals slipped, and my mom, myself and my uncle made it out to Bozeman, MT.

We arrived and it looked like he was getting better and would be off the respirator in a few days. My uncle left. My brother slipped. The doctor said he'd be dead within the day. His vitals climbed a bit, but now his kidneys and liver were failing, building up dangerous levels of potassium. But with the stronger vitals, we decided to airlift him in a small jet to Billings, where he could recieve dialisis for his kidneys.

He's now been in billings for two weeks. I'm back in LA. He's still in a coma, but they turn down the sedatives and paralytic once in awhile and his wriggles his eyebrows. My moms still with him. He's inching towards health, but then he'll get a new infection. His respirator balloon is deterioating and he needs to get a tracheotomy on friday.

He has no health insurance. The jet plane was 10k.

I'm not particularly close with my brother, but goddamnit, I've known him his entire life.

And that's why I haven't been blogging much lately.

So if you're not sure if you can hack it, bail out now before you start rolling your eyes and calling me to let me know how it ruined your day that my first post in ages was such a ball scratching timewaster.

In the interest of mass appeal, I give you dry ice bombs. This is a DIY kit for harmless destruction of plastic bullshit and your precious eardrums : water, dry ice, a soda bottle.

On to the main event...

This week the Apophis fans at the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) are petitioning the UN for contingency plans for the 1 in 45,000 chance of a collision on April 13, 2036. Apophis was first spotted in 2004 by astronomers worrying about a collision in 2029, but this was later discovered to be nearly impossible. However, after it passes us in 2029 it will swing around again be much closer to hitting us. Contingency plans may include the use of a gravity tractor to push it off course. The Planetary Society is also offering a $50K prize for planting a tracking device on the harbinger of doom. If it does in fact hit us damage is expected to do between 800 and 1400 megatons worth of damage, roughly twenty times the damage of the largest nuke ever made, possibly creating impact winter. Mark your calenders!

....will you be my valentine?

Yesterday, six people were murdered, and many others wounded, by a (as of this writing) random gunman who walked into a mall that I worked at for two years, and drank at for three, and started shooting. When you read this, I'll be on my way back to Salt Lake for the completely unrelated funeral of an overly talented painter and dear friend (see below). Its not ironic, but its still seven more people dead. This has nothing to do with comics.

Daniel John Nuzman
1977 - 2007

Yesterday I received some mail I'm sure we've all had before. A call to donate money and save a starvin marvin, complete with a free gift just for opening the envelope of address labels. I always felt a little guilty when I used those address labels to sticker my father's face during his naptime, knowing that the money used to make those stickers should have gone to the needy children, but that wasn't enough for Unicef. They had to push my self loathing a step further. Yesterday, along with the address labels, came a nickel. A REAL NICKEL. They sent me actual money. With a little note that said, "As a sign of your support, please return this nickel with your contribution -- it might be enough to save a child's life!"

So now if I don't donate, not only am I an asshole, I'm also a theif. Stealing the real actual money straight from their emaciated little fingers. I wonder how many nickels they sent out to people who didn't even bother to open the envelope. If this nickel could save a child's life, why the hell are they sending it to me? I suddenly have this weird feeling that my minimum of a $25 donation would just end up broken down into tiny incriments which would end up in the trashcans of families who already have many many nickels and no starving children.

Poor form, Unicef. Poor form.

...and even if you didn't, the Zoological Society of London has launched the most wonderful site, called EDGE (which stands for Evolutionarily Distinct & Globally Endangered). It was created to raise awareness of unique and critically endangered animals that you have probably never heard of. Two-thirds of the top 100 EDGE mammal species are currently receiving little or no conservation attention. Little guys like The Indri, pictured at left The Long-beaked echidna, and The Long-Eared Jerboa could be DEAD FOREVER, but at least their pictures will live on in the Information Super-highway. However, the point of the website is not to delight us for years to come with its funny little pictures of animals soon to be DEAD FOREVER, but to implement the research and conservation actions needed to secure the little fella's future. It's also a place one can donate money to support local scientists in the conservation effort. Specifically, they aim to see that every animal in their Top 100 most endangered receive attention within the next 5 years.

As part of the continuing struggle against SPAM (we've been hit by increasingly larger waves as we stick around), I will be upgrading Movable Type (our blog engine) and making a few other changes.

There may be a little turbulence. I appreciate your cooperation.

It is hot today. I don't mean unseasonably hot. I mean regular old no long sleeves hot. In New York. In January. Al Gore is right. What are we going to do without Cold Miser?

What do you do when you're driving down an interstate highway at 1:00am the Sunday following Thanksgiving while you are the only car on the road and deer stand on the shoulders threatening to dart out without warning?

Why, the speed limit of course!

Which is what I was doing when I got pulled over by Connecticut State Policeman Deslaides (or something - his handwriting is unreadable), badge number 440 (or 448, 441, or possibly 446 - again, illegible handwriting).

As per usual, I had my license and registration (in this case, rental agreement) out and ready for him when he approached my vehicle.

"Good evening."

"Good evening, sir."

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know how fast you were going back there?"

"Yes, sir. Sixty-five miles an hour."

"I clocked you back there at speeds ranging between 75 and 85 miles an hour."

"I find that pretty hard to believe, sir, as my cruise control was engaged and set to 65 miles an hour and plus with the deer I was being pretty careful with the speedometer."

"Well. My. Radar gun is calibrated. Your speedometer must be wrong. I'll be right back."

Fifteen minutes later he returns with a ticket for $213.

Anybody know how on earth I'm supposed to fight this? I know I can bring up all sorts of issues about calibration, etc. etc. if I actually WAS speeding, but since I was going the limit, I mean... What the fuck? I can't just say he was lying, can I?

Oh, and by the way, in case you haven't seen this already, I've got a nice little video here of our troops - camouflaged policemen, as far as I'm concerned - taking care of business.

And if this is what these armed, immune motherfuckers get up to when public television is following them around with a camera crew, I wonder what they do when no one is watching?

Maybe they rape little girls and murder entire families? Nah, of course not, that's something only a terrorist would do.

America loves my most hated "celebrity". Which is why I'm leaving the country.
The bubbly, perky cook (if you can call using a microwave "cooking") with the robotic smile, Rachael Ray, is Ameria's #2 most trusted person according to Forbes Website. In other news, Liam's most hated "celebrity" also made the list. Can you find him?

Here's the list:
1. Tom Hanks
2. Rachael Ray
3. Michael J Fox
4. Oprah
5. James Earl Jones
6. Denzel Washington
7. Ty Pennington
8. Ron Howard
9. Morgan Freeman
10. Reese Witherspoon

I trust Rachael Ray for one thing: to be the absolute most annoying person I have ever experienced. Actually, two things: to trigger my gag reflex everytime she calls a Sandwich a SAMMY.

I'm trying to quit smoking again, and it is really hard. What is strange is that although I don't want to smoke anymore, I don't regret having smoked up until now. Wish me luck.

I'm trying to quit smoking again, and it is really hard. What is strange is that although I don't want to smoke anymore, I don't regret having smoked up until now. Wish me luck.

On August 27, 2006, around 6:01 a.m. local time, a Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100ER flying the route crashed after attempting to take off from the wrong runway at Lexington. The first officer was the only survivor among the 47 passengers and three crew on board. The flight was scheduled to land in Atlanta at 7:18 a.m. local time.

This is a page that has completely captured my attention.

So as not to ruin your own particular experience of the thing, I will say no more above the jump and merely post the link.

Whether or not you think graffiti qualifies as art or if it merits jail time, you should be appalled by the tactics of the NYPD Anti-Graffiti Initiative. The campaign's newest posters are all over the subways: bright yellow background with a graphic of handcuffs next to bold black letters that proclaim "VANDALISM IS A CRIME." That's not the worst part. The NYPD is offering a "reward up to $500 for the arrest and conviction of anyone who commits Graffiti Vandalism." (And yes, in case you were wondering, the G and V are actually capitalized on the poster. If capitalizing random words makes them more important, I would think that rape should be capitalized before graffiti vandalism ever is). Not to mention that the only other NYPD posters offering rewards are for information leading to the arrests of wanted criminals. But that's not the worst part either. The worst part is that the NYPD is asking citizens to "call 911 to report crimes in progress." Really? You want people to tie up 911 operators with phone calls reporting petty crimes when no one's life is actually being endangered? Why can't all graffiti informants call 311 whether the crime is in progress or not? If there is a dedicated graffiti clean up Task Force that has access to the 311 system "to track and monitor all graffiti complaints on a daily basis", why should anyone divert the city's emergency resources for something which doesn't really qualify as an emergency? God forbid that the latest victim of violent crime in NYC can't get help because the emergency operators are busy coordinating with the police to take down the latest tagger in the neighborhood.

Doing in reality what was all but done practically, I killed my friendster profile today.

Dear friends, if you see me missing from your friends list, do not dispair. I did not drop you as a friendster. I dropped myself as a friendster.

Friendster is dead! Long live Myspace!

(Although, according to popular NYC blog Gothamist, Friendster was dead three years ago this month. Am I the antithesis of hip or what?)

Oh! Right. And Castro has ceded power, too.

In response to my blogger/roomate Goodiemonster's recent post about swearwords, I thought I might shed a little historical light to how words become curses, and where the so overused "F-Word" originates from.

Last night I had the dream about daylgiht savings, again. More like a nightmare.

I've got a link here to an exciting read on The Consumerist: an article about the AOL Call Center client retention guide.

By now you've probably all heard the audio of the guy trying to cancel AOL and finding it impossible to do so.

You've probably even heard about how "AOL sent him an apology and said the customer service rep was no longer with the company."

Well, as it turns out, he was just following his training.

Here's the upswing: If, in 2006, after all the time you've had to get used the internet, how it works, how your computer works, and how it all fits together and you're still using AOL then you are almost certainly old, unquestionably stupid, and deserve only the worst in access and service.

I mean, get this: I know someone with an AOL broadband account, and despite the fact that she has a router installed on her cable modem she can only use the internet on one computer at a time because AOL only allows you to use the internet on a computer that is currently logged in to AOL.

But I am not without my own stupidity: Verizon still owes us $120 and we still have not canceled the account or had the credit card company reverse the charges. And I can't take my service elsewhere; despite the fact that I live in the most populous city in America, Verizon is my only choice for high-speed internet service providers. Those motherfuckers.

This is the extended cut of a submission to cryingwhileeating.com, a terrific site that lives up to its name. This is the greatest thing I have ever done. Its also, like, three minutes long.

It's over. The ashes have been sprinkled in Monterey Bay, and the people are slowly going back home.

Thanks to everyone who has been supportive during this difficult time.

Kevin

Best jingle ever. Take a guess what publication this ad is for.

Ohhhh Sammy, this one is for you.

Evidently, AIDS patients have achieved a near-vampiric status. We already know that people with AIDS are frequently feared and reviled in our society, but the upswing to being a vampire has come around, too. According to a new Rolling Stone article, there are weirdos out there fetishizing the AIDS virus and looking for people to infect them, lusting after their moment of infection as the most erotic moment of their lives.

Hey, whatever dooms you to extinction, right?

But all in all, I can't decide if it's the article that's making me feel sick to my stomach, or the Todd Solondz-level upsettingness of co-worker Claire Square's music video for Cripple & The Starfish.

i have shrunk my world
to the size of five close friends
but miss everyone

I got this email about a child that was lost in a Tsunami, pleading help with her to be re-united with her parents, but according to snopes, the girl's identity was discovered a few days later, and she was reunited with her relatives. I guess it doesn't hurt to fact check these things, but it also doesn't hurt to take the time to do what you can to help.

Perhaps the saddest exhibit this year at E3 is a videogame version of Desperate Housewives. Apparently you sit around and talk shit about the other housewives? Well, I guess techincally here in the screenshot they're standing around. I bet the first development meeting went something like this:

"Okay. So Vivendi wants us to make a Desperate Housewives video game."

*groans*

"I know. But they've given us the money already. No, the president of the company signed off on it before leaving for some golf tournament somewhere. So. How are we going to make this happen?"

"Why don't we just, like, have some women standing around talking shit?"

"It'll be just like the TV show!"

"That's a horrible idea, John, but I can't think of anything else so we'll have to go with it. You start programming the 3d engine, make it look six years old like the original Sims. And then, uh. David? You can, uh. I don't know. Write some bitchy dialog."

"You know I'm no good at that crap!"

"Watch some episodes if you have to."

"Oh no! I have to watch the show to get ideas? I quit!"

How they ever got the game done, I don't know.

Also, on the E3 page, Tylenol has begun marketing itself as an EXTREME product.

Finally, a miracle product for the fat bastards who play so much they develop callouses and carpal tunnel? I guess sitting on your ass passes for extreme these days.

And it will never get any better.

Maybe I should save this for notbreastmilk.com.

It's my birthday soon.

Happy Birthday!

I swear to god. I've got things cooking, things to share. I've got pictures of a shoot I worked on with the new ARRI D20 camera, ARRI's first video camera. An ARRI video camera, that's right. Crazy, I know.

I've got pictures of the Tennis Hoes vs. Golf Pros party, too.

I've got stories of long days on set and my latest bank balance after working for nearly a month of seven-day weeks. It's shocking. Honest!

But not right now. Right now I'm busy, I'm actually writing to you from work, and nobody knows I'm blogging. We've got clients arriving in an hour and a half and the office is a mess. The space is ages away from being ready for a shoot, but I'm still blogging. It's because I miss the site, I miss you guys and I hope you miss me. I keep checking that's plenty, but I haven't seen anything new for a couple of days.

Anyway. I hope to talk to you all soon.

I actually promised myself and told my boss that I needed two days to attend to my own business. But I got called in on this emergency. That's the way it goes.

Someday soon I'll have a day off. Someday soon, I promise.

It's already been so long since I've had time to get my life together that every dish in my apartment is dirty. I drink soup straight out of the can like a beer. I drink orange juice in the morning by pouring myself shot after shot in the collectible Budapest shotglasses Karen brought home from a trip to Hungary. I fork the lettuce in the salads karen makes by making a fist around four or five chopsticks and stabbing the leaves. I eat ice cream straight out of the carton without a spoon by squeezing the bottom of the pint and licking the bucket-shaped "scoop" that pops up.

My laundry is long, long overdue. Even after a shower, the crotch on my unwashed pants smells so strongly of ballsweat that Moksi sniffs at my junk as though carefully reading my genetic history. He is fascinated, captivated, enraptured by my stink. I have never seen him so fascinated, so preoccupied. He is focused on my balls, with the concerned concentration of a grand master playing tetris.

I will have a day off soon.

I'm moving to NYC.

Someday they will make one of me, with a guitar hero guitar in my rocking immortalized hands.

Rock and Roll Dolls

You know how rich people all have sub zero refridgerators, a kitchen island with a second sink, TeeVo, and spare bedrooms? Well now they can all have this to keep their many wood floors tidy without having to bend over. I mean, without the help having to bend over. You know, when their Roomba isn't working.

So.

Right when I've hit a low re: the inevitable end of everything good, the hoplessness of creating something genuine, true, good, worth seeing, etc. against the all-consuming powerful market forces that propel our culture, our very world, towards Purchasing Goods and substituting Consumer Decisions for happiness, love, joy, interaction, and how no matter what we do to resist and circumnavigate the Choad, we have to pay the motherfucking goddamn landlord at the end of the month and however sad and difficult and unbelievable it may be the fact remains that joy, love, community, etc. are not feelings or events that generate the money needed to pay said motherfucking goddamn landlord, and yet somehow all of the things that dehumanize us as a race, the things that divide us and commodify us, change us from people into 8 hour chunks of Work Units to be used up and distributed and fed, housed, and clothed just enough to return to the workplace the following day to become once again Daily Work Units in exchange for just enough food and warmth and fashion to encourage us to return the following day but never enough to permanently or even temporarily free us, those are the things the somehow Generate Income.

Right when all this is crushing me, emotionally, inside, and causing me to seriously contemplate returning home, going back to Massachusetts or perhaps Los Angeles to live rent-free with family members while I continue to try and sort out why I'm here on this wretched ball of dirt infected (the ball of dirt is, not me) by a virus with shoes determined to turn every river, tree, and emotion into a dollar until, ultimately, there is nothing left on the planet but money and the bones of the virus that struggled to horde it...

Well.

So. Right then.

Here it is.

This is an article about the neighborhood we all live in.

If you don't have an ny times account, sign up. You have to to look at it, but it's free and you get a free electronic edition of the paper in your e-mail every day.

I'm not really interested in money. I don't care about it. When I was a bartender, for months I had a hard time taking tips from customers. I just don't like money. After I had to bug my dad for money a few times to help pay my rent, I ended up working extra hard at the bar to make sure I was earning all the tips I got, but I never got lazy on people.

I would work just as hard as I do now, maybe harder, even if I didn't get paid. I love my work and I love working hard and I'm good at what I do. Long nights working on shoots is quite a rush for me.

I'm wandering. Excuse me.

Okay. So this is my point: The entire world, specifically America and specifically New York city, is focused, more or less, on the dogged pursuit of money. Often, the most efficient ways of gathering money involve deceiving or hurting other people.

Non-participation is impossible at worst and a failed endeavor at best. Because, eventually, you're going to have to buy food or pay your rent. Even if you live on a commune where you grow your own food, you're going to need to buy the gasoline to power your farm equipment, pay for the electricity to keep your refrigerator going, pay for the water that keeps your crops going.

Even if you use modified diesel engines and vegetable oil to power your farm equipment, keep your fridge up with solar power, and rely on rain and irrigation, you're going to have to pay property taxes on your land.

You cannot live without money unless you are a homeless scavenger, living off the fat of the land.

Which, you know, is possible, but not an altogether pleasing existence, if you judge by the smell. Which I do. I don't ever want to smell like the homeless people that make entire train cars smell like morgues suffering from week-long power failures.