This is Calcutta; Bohemia is dead.

Well, Cindy Boyle and I went to see Krysta up in Rocky I this past weekend. We got to play with Katie McTavish and her sister Ashley, as well as David Lopez, Joshua, and Hannah. It was pretty great, even though Josh felt like death. A muddy puddle and a sandwich filled with vinaigrette dressing attributed in a large part to my inability to keep either pair of my pants clean.

We went to Mr. Augustana, the crack-whore doctor’s office, the local hospital parking lot, the mall, Hooters, and a Panera that was potentially populated with the entire city. I also had love professed to me by David Lopez, because I like the West Wing, and got hated on for reading the paper and talking about Palestine. Also, a half naked girl, whom no one knew, was found sitting and crying in David and Bob’s room in the middle of the night, and would not speak to anyone. She then proceeded to disappear with one of Bob’s shirts in tow.

Not going to lie to you, one of the Mr. Augie contestants became my favorite after singing one of my new favorite songs, “Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Males” by Todd Snider. I’ll give you a snippet, if you so desire. Well, this is my blog, so I’m going to do it even if you aren’t desirous.

Conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American males.

Gay bashing, black fearing, poor fighting, tree killing, regional leaders of sale.

Frat housing, keg tapping, shirt tucking, back slapping, haters of hippies like me.

Tree hugging, peace loving, pot smoking, porn watching, lazy ass hippies like me.

Tree hugging, love making, pro choicing, gay wedding, widespread digging hippies like me.

Skin color-blinded, conspiracy-minded, protestors of corporate greed.

We who have nothing and most likely will ‘till we all wind up locked up in jails by conservative Christian, right wing Republican, straight, white, American males.

Anyway, I think I am really disgruntled. I guess the world really is what it is, and I can’t change anything. But maybe that same idea is the real problem with everything. The other day my mother asked me if I would want to have to fight a war on American soil. I thought that the obvious answer was “no,” and then I thought again.

I said “yes.” Perhaps seeing her friends, neighbors, and children dead in the streets would change her mind about supporting war anywhere. Perhaps that’s just what the whole of the American public needs to see to get their shit straight. We’re seriously living in a fantasy world around here, especially in our famed Ankeny Iowa, and I’m just about pretty darn fucking sick of it. I’m sorry. I really just want to scream.

Ashley

Coming of age during the plague

Of Reagan and Bush

Watching Capitalism gun down Democracy

It had this funny effect on me

I guess

.

I am cancer

I am HIV

And I'm down at the blue Jesus

Blue Cross hospital

Just looking up from my pillow

Feeling blessed

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

The world was not a line of cause and effect heading forward forever, but finite and ever repeating, so that all that ever was and ever will be is caught up in now, in endless Recurrence. As Nietzsche glimmered, life is a circle and so it is the going, not the getting there, that counts.

O

Damien Rice - Volcano

This seems to tell the story of a relationship between a younger girl and an older man.

don't hold yourself like that
you'll hurt your knees
I kissed your mouth and back
that's all I need
don't build your world around volcanoes
melt you down

She is either holding herself on her knees in a position of worship, or holding herself in the position of giving him oral sex. Either way, I think the image works. This girl is essentially worshipping this man, but he wants no part of it. She, however, doesn’t know any other way to show her love for him, other than this sort of iconic worship. The “don’t build your world around…” phrase, spoken by the man, is the one that you hear in your head every time you think of pursuing a relationship you know would look bad to the outside world. He’s saying, “Don't build your world around me. As much as we want this, we can’t pursue it. It’s just going to end up badly.”

and what I am to you
is not real
and what I am to you
you do not need
and what I am to you
is not what you mean to me
so give me miles and miles of mountains
and I'll ask for the sea

It’s sort of a retelling of his position. “Whatever you think this was going to be, it’s not.” It almost seems as he has an entire community looking over his shoulder to make sure he says it. This chorus is like every well known, fall back break up line. "What I am to you, you do not need," is very, "It's not you, it's me." Staged and phony, and she can see right through it. The lines about mountains and the sea is set up as a, “the grass is greener on the other side” sort of deal. He’s telling her, “even if you give me this, whatever it is, I would want something else.” But even though he says these things, his voice possesses a certain tinge of longing. He says these things only because he must, and his lust is beside the point.

don't throw yourself like that
in front of me
I kissed your mouth, your back
is that all you need?
don't drag my love around
volcanoes melt me down

She is given the opportunity to answer his statement, and she lets him have it. She is adamant about the fact that she senses he’s lying. “Don’t throw yourself like that,” she says. Don’t lie to me, and don’t drag my love around. The relationship is crumbling.

and what I am to you
is not real
and what I am to you
you do not need
and what I am to you
is not what you mean to me
so give me miles and miles of mountains and I'll ask..

They sing this chorus together, both recognizing the stagnation of the relationship.

..for what I give to you
it's just what I'm going through
this is nothing new
no, no, just another phase of finding
what I really needis what makes me bleed
but like a new disease, lord
she's still too young to treat…

He still feels kind of a yearning for this girl, but knows that the problems that would come out of the relationship would be far more than he is prepared to bear. So he shoves a lie onto her shoulders, denying his sense of longing, and giving in to whatever has insisted that he leave her. He seems to illustrate that this has happened more than once, whether with her or with mutiple other girls. The lines that show us that he still wants to be with her is that he needs what makes him bleed, which is her, a new disease who is too young to treat.

I can’t decide whose fault this relationship is. It could be the guy, who is obviously lusting over this girl, and only leaves her because of some outside force. The outside force is a community, in my opinion. Or it could be the fault of the girl who insists on throwing herself at an older man, though she knows that any relationship between the two of them would make him look bad.

If I had to take an insistent stand I’d say it was his fault. He loved her, and she believed him, and then he thought twice. He has the right idea, though. I think, though he lusts after this girl, he is breaking it off for the right reason. He could easily justify it with many Eastern philosophies that say that life shouldn’t be a struggle. Whatever you want, go for it. Don’t think, don’t question, just do. In this case I think the man is looking at this relationship with this much younger woman and saying, “You know, this isn’t going to work.” I think there’s a chance that he’s being forced into this way of thinking by someone other than himself, but that doesn’t make him all wrong.

Here’s to another relationship, bombed.

Ashley

What makes him stall?
What makes him stand?
And what shakes the elephant?
And what makes a man?
I don't know.

Case in point

My hatred for traditional religious rituals has been aroused. Case in point, the death of three hundred and forty five pilgrims at a stampede during the hajj ritual in Mecca. What are these lives worth? Nothing? Everything, probably. And you're willing to give them up so you can hit pillars with seven stones?

I often wonder if it would not be better to burn all of these places to the ground. To destroy every last holy place that drives men mad. Do you really think God, whoever he is, is looking down upon this mess and saying, "Well done my good and faithful servant?" I guess if you think he is, then all of the lives who have been lost in religious clash are worth it. But I can’t be so sure that these, these conflicts, are how it’s all meant to be sorted out. I guess it’s an important question, “What’s it worth?” Does blood have to be shed to feel like we’ve balanced the great scale in the cosmos?

-Ashley

Not an apology.

I put no stock in organized religion, and I finally said it out loud today. I didn’t care to look around at anyone’s faces to see what they thought of it, because it’s what I think and there is going to be no apologizing for what I think.

It’s not to say that a community of believers getting together to fellowship is inherently wrong, but the absolutely political atmosphere that always emerges is. People get together in camaraderie and end up attempting to claim what power they never had, the power to define God’s will. The power to decide which religion is more holy. They take it upon themselves to define right and wrong, which is simply a judgment they were never meant to make.

To see the actions of fanatics be called the will of God is disgusting. It’s abhorrent. It’s repugnant. It’s every synonym in-between. It’s also prevalent. Hypocritical, bigoted fanatics who will take any opportunity to throw a, pardon the gospel reference, proverbial stone at whatever wrongdoing they see.

The will of God is neither in man made rule, nor is it with the actions of fanatics and bigots. The will of God is in your head and in your heart. It is in right action, bravery on behalf of the weak, and in honor. What you chose each day will either make you a good man or a bad man. Forget traditional dogma. Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love you. Speak the truth even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless. That is your oath.

This is a lesson that took me a long time to learn. “Please God, protect me from your followers” is a prayer I’ve often prayed while being pushed and pulled from either side to do whatever. But I could not, can not, let these men and women move me, because even when those who are in power beseech me one way or another I know that when I stand before God, I will stand alone. To tell Him that these powerful people implored me this way or that will not suffice, and I must remember it.

If I do something wrong for the right reasons I have faith that God will understand, and if he doesn’t then he is not God, and I need not worry.

Ashley

Cold, cold water surrounds me now
And all I've got is your hand
Lord, can you hear me now?
Or am I lost?

My Life is Brilliant

My year has been really great. The first semester of my senior year was really something, not because it was devoid of frustrations, but because I’ve finally been able to see what sort of impact this whole business has had on me.

First and foremost, as nerdy as it is, band. Everyone has that thing that shapes them in ridiculous ways. It’s that thing they will never forget, and there is no real reason or way to explain it to anyone else. The directors have had some outrageous influence on what I do and how I do it, which is kind of sick. It has taught me a lot and brought me a long way from the pretentious jerk that I was. There’s really no reason or way to explain. I have been a part of something really great; though at times I’ve felt that I’ve done very little contribution to that greatness. For instance, repeatedly banging a C on the chimes isn’t a real accomplishment. I have been a part of something great. (I really just like to see that in writing.)

I really enjoyed this semester because I got to take classes that, mostly, I liked. They were subjects I enjoyed studying, which means that the work didn’t feel much like work. Even though I know I should be taking a math class, I didn’t miss doing math homework every night. Reading books and writing papers is my thing, and it’s good to have a thing. Next semester requires that I only take one class because I am going to be a page. I will be taking two fake band classes and Honors English. It should be a terrible amount of fun for me.

My doofy friends are pretty good too. Even though most of them are at college, I made some friends that are my age, which was a big step. Hah. We went to Happy Meal Wednesday, we played some band, and we did some Taraccino-age. And even though none of them wanted to ponder existentialism with me, they at least provided a way for me not to be alone every night.

I’m a little excited for things to come, but scared, too. Obviously I am far past needing to graduate, but even as I long to freaking leave, I know I’ll miss a lot of things. As Anatole France said, “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”

I will not miss the bullshit rules that I am surrounded by, because other kids can’t keep their stuff together, but I realize that a whole new level of bullshit is about to arise. I just figured out how to beat this system, even though beating it often requires tactics that I will not stoop to, I’m excited, but scared to face the realization that I also cannot beat another, bigger, stronger system.

I’m scared that I won’t get to go to college where I want to go. I’m scared that if I do get to go there, I’ll fuck up, flunk out, and move back into my parent’s basement. Something about uncertainty and insecurity gets under everyone’s skin, I think. But this story of fear and failure becomes cliche, because it's the same story that everyone else is telling. That, however, doesn't change the fact that my fear of uncertainty is incomprehensively powerful, but still, forget I said anything.

Ashley

It’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
That maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I’ve tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass