I'm thinking of the HG Wells novel The Time Machine, in which a man travels hundreds of thousands of years into the future. The world has attained an even, pastoral existence without any direction or purpose. At first it seems as if all problems, all wars, strife, hunger and crime have been removed from society. As the man becomes more familiar with the future earth, he sees that mankind has progressed into two distinctly different species; the Eloi, who live a carefree, idyllic life, and the Morlocks who live underground and keep the world running through their labor and painful lives.
The Eloi are fed, clothed and have all their needs taken care of by the Morlocks who work underground and live miserable lives. All that troubles the Eloi is the fear of being kidnapped, taken underground and eaten by the Morlocks who prey on them for food.

Wells, along with George Orwell, has an uncanny understanding of human nature that resembles the present day. Much of what they've written about shadows today's problems.

One thing that has been nagging at me for some time, and does so increasingly whenever there is an act of horrible violence that people seems to latch onto with a ghoulish fascination, is today's similarity to Wells' futuristic world. The great majority of people seem to go about their lives unconcerned with what is occurring around them. Prescription mood-altering drugs are now more preferable to facing the reality around them.
Then there are others who are pushed and trod upon their entire lives. Aware of their place in life, they seem to resign themselves to it but grow incensed at their treatment, at the seeming nonchalance with which others address them. Their burdens are the runoff of everyone, which they take until they break. Many do and find suicide, alcoholism or drug abuse as their only option. Even in death these people are looked down upon and disregarded. They are the detritus of society.
When someone chooses another route and takes others with them it is seen as a freak occurence, a horrible coincidence with no explanation. As the weeks pass the despair shrinks only to be revived when the next inevitable act takes place worse than the last.

-Humans are cruel to each other, sometimes for their own gain, often for no reason at all.
-The mentally ill are considered "broken" or "weak" and are often left to fend for themselves.
-So concerned are we with the actions of mediocre celebrities, our favorite tv shows and impressing those around us that we ignore what happens beyond our small sphere of influence.

All these things, and dozens more, would make acts such as this week's shooting inevitable. What shocks me is not that it happened but that each time it happens there is a renewed camraderie, some attempt to connect us to the incident and a collective gasp and condemnation of the crime.
What eludes me is the shock that comes with it happening. All the ingredients in today's world seems to point towards such incidents happening more. Why are we expected to come together to feel for those that were murdered rather than try to fix the problems that created such an epidemic in the first place?
It is an epidemic- that is what happens when so many shootings take place in such a short amount of time. All of them, those given widespread coverage and those unreported, are systemic of a larger problem yet no one seems to find any connection.

It isn't guns, nor is it our worship of them, but our lack of empathy for those around us, which only makes the manufactured shows of emotion only more transparent. Most people don't give a thought to anyone but those in their own lives, if they even go that far. It's become a chore to even hold the door open for someone behind you. Compound that with the countless shows of aggression, inconsideration, bravado and superiority that most experience everyday and you're bound to have more than a few people that have nothing left but wanting to hurt those- anyone- around them.

Banning music won't help. I speak from experience when I say that for some it's all that's keeping them sane.
Banning weapons won't help. They'll always be there.
Political manuevers or religious opportunists will never have the right answer.

It's about respect for yourself and others. Take your head out of your ass and stop to help someone that falls down. Don't push ahead of someone, you're not going anywhere that important.
Keep yourself closed off, make others feel as if they are nothing but animals and that's what they will become.

The reading list of my Literature class including several books I had never read before. I usually look forward to learning what I would read each term and while a few of the students groan at the choices, I get excited at the idea of reading a book I may not have considered before.
Slaughterhouse Five, one of my favorite books which I had read years before was included, which I found strange. As seniors in college, shouldn't this book have been studied years ago?
I can't recall exactly when I first read the book though I'm sure it was sometime in high school. In the following years I picked up each book by Kurt Vonnegut, one after the other. I was drawn to his cynical, dark, unique view of the world. His view went beyond characters or the setting. He detailed dimensions, the universe and the vague line between characters and reality. Readers questions if his creations were patterned after real people or his view of people. Perhaps they were once real, people the author was immortalizing or immolating for all time.
I try to grasp the intent and mindset of each author when I read their books. Vonnegut seemed to be working on another wavelength. At times he was a down home humorist like Twain then he would become a brilliant social satirist then he'd resemble Ray Bradbury. Sirens of Titan was the book that cinched it for me. It was the one that made me realize his genius and I discovered how complex writing a book is. As I finished it I learned that anyone that makes a living as a successful novelist is more intelligent than almost any scientist, researcher or scholar. It takes the most forethought to write such a book the genuinely surprises and pleases the author than any task I can think of.



Then there is the author, a man of modest background who often found it questionable that a former wage slave with a brutally cynical edge and an eye for hypocrisy was lumped in with literature's greats. Writing was a way to let others see his view of the world. Disturbed by the ironies and hypocrises inherent in politics his works attacked them with the wit of one that can ridicule what most fear and turn it into literature.

He died yesterday and I can't help but think he would have found it funny that his death was overshadowed by the media circus of Imus/Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson/Racial Politics but then again, most people thought he was already dead, that is, if they knew who he was in the first place.

He was the last of the classic American authors. No one writing today could wear that title honestly. In light of the sensationalism of the media, I'm surprised he got any attention.

The crowd at the Type O Negative show was scarier than the one at the Macabre show. As usual there were the same goth, corsetted wearing, black eyeshadowed women on the lookout for Peter Steele.
Brand New Sin opened for them, a band I've heard very little about. They're new and follow the no bullshit line that I like in a rock band. They were only up for about forty minutes but they made the most of it, working the already anxious crowd into a frenzy.


Brand New Sin

Celtic Frost was next and the main reason for the dozens of photographers between me and the front of the stage. It was their first show in years, a reunion of sorts, but by the way they sounded it was poorly timed. In their defense, the sound was off and they couldn't be heard well but the whole spooky makeup a la Gene Simmons a la King Diamond is a bit of overkill when you're already using the growly cookie monster voice.
Not all bad though. They had a few good songs.


Celtic Frost

Type O Negative was great as usual though their show seemed a bit different. The songs were closer together so it was difficult to hear where each one started. Often it appeared to be one song broken only by Peter falling into the keyboard player and drinking from red wine from the bottle.

Never have I been to a show with so many photographers. At one point there was a jam of photographers between the audience and the stage.

I really don't like talking on the phone. It's an invention I think we have become too reliant on that has too large a place in our society only because we let it. I can be a gadget freak but my phone is one of the more basic models you can get. The purpose of a phone is to convey messages and make plans, not to have long drawn out conversations that take hours. If I'm going to do that I would rather go see the person and speak to them. Too often people want to call and have long conversations about nothing in particular, just to kill time. I do all I can to avoid this and try to hang up as soon as I can without appearing like a complete lout. Though, I must add, I have been guilty of this as well.

On this site I have spent a little time talking about my family. We're not as close so the space I've accorded to them is about equal to their place in my life. This is unfortunate in some ways, though I've never had a desire to have a close knit family. I think my brothers have similar feelings about that. We all live in three different parts of the county. My father lives hundreds of miles from each of us. My mom is not alive.

One odd things about my brothers and I- we are all very different people. We all look different with different eye and hair colors and we have chosen our lives differently. Our tastes run the gamut from hippie jam bands to easy listening to metal and punk. Our goals are all different as well.

This, as you can imagine, has been difficult for my father. While he cared for all of us, he has had difficulty in relating to all of us. My father made a lot of mistakes in raising three children while he also excelled in many areas. I feel lucky to have been raised the way I was while I also look at my childhood with anger. I have (had?) a lot of animosity towards my father for the many mistakes he made, which I consider unforgettable.

I touched upon this with my brother while speaking with him on another subject. While I love my brother, we are different and though we get along we don't often speak on the phone for more than ten or fifteen minutes. This conversation lasted well over an hour. During it I realized how little my own family knows about me and how much I've been keeping from them.

>>I'm deleting what I wrote previously to change what I've said. I've thought about the conversation with my brother a lot in the past few days. It's been on my mind more than I should.

During our talk my brother wanted to know what I've been doing these past few years and why it seems I'm not doing anything. When I told him he seemed shocked. Why didn't I tell him in the first place?

He didn't believe anything I said about my father and chose to believe only what he wanted. He seems shocked that he, the only son who was allowed to go to school away from home without his parents constantly on his back, was the most successful and he believes me and my oldest brother have no concern for anything in our lives. He still sees me as the angst ridden thirteen year old that caused the most problems. He doesn't realize that two decades later I may have changed just a bit and that really pisses me off. To him I am still that teenager. My friends are all drug users and burnouts and nothing I tell him he believes.

Fuck him. I didn't get upset when he locked himself away in suburbia with a bitchy wife to have three kids and become a younger version of my dad. He's become a closed minded asshole that believes everyone that lives differently than he is is wasting their life.

We have enough children in the world. We have enough yuppies with SUVs and enough self righteous assholes. We don't need any more.

After Zombie I began reading The Autobiography of Charlie Chaplin, which I picked up in Seattle. I've been fascinated with Charlie Chaplin for years. He's one of those very rare mythic people like Bruce Lee and Johnny Cash that came from very meager or strange beginnings to become a huge figure. All three of those people; Johnny, Charlie and Bruce had become some of the most famous figures in the world (Chaplin was THE most famous person in the world in his lifetime), which is even more amazing considering how they got there.



Charlie was the product of an alcoholic father that left his mother, who was a struggling actress. There was an incident where five year old Chaplin had to take his mother's place on stage to amuse a rowdy crowd when her voice failed. The Victorian crowd responded with applause and thrown change which Charlie stopped singing to pick up.

He came from very meager beginnings and chose the vaudville stage because that's all he knew. From vaudeville to plays, Britain to America, the stage to one reel films, he spent all his time perfecting his character. His creation; the Little Tramp, was a sensation that afforded him both untold wealth and success and the ability to go out in public unrecognized.
In fact, he once entered a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest and came in third. A young Milton Berle got first place.



Despite his wealth and fame he faced many struggles. He was highly intelligent, which is rare for someone with such an upbringing, and struggled with his new wealth in light of his past poverty. His mother, who sacrificed herself to raise him and his brother, suffered bouts of insanity at a time when the treatments were often worse than the affliction. Thanks to his wealth, he was finally able to provide for her in the last years of her life.

Though he enjoyed all that came with stardom; seeing the world, meeting the famous and the royal, he remained a solitary figure and kept closest to his brother and one of his oldest friends.

He believed in Socialism and spoke out against the evils of war, a difficult task during two world wars, especially when one as privileged as he doesn't have to fight in them. His first talkie, made years after the process was introduced, spoke out against Nazism and upset an America adamant in their isolationism. The final moments of the Great Dictator, when Chaplin fans finally got to hear the voice of the Little Tramp is remembered as one of the greatest moments in film history.



Hounded by J. Edgar Hoover, he eventually had his visa revoked and could never return to America. Instead he took up residence in Switzerland, where he lived with his wife and several children. Having narrowly avoided the Depression, World War I and lived through the rise of Hollywood, the advent of talking films and the beginning of the Cold War he found solace in the only woman to stay true to him, a woman twenty years his junior.

Today I came to the realization that I'm partly asleep all of the time. I'm not sure when this began or how but constantly I feel myself fading away, losing consciousness or drifting. It was a struggle to make it through work, if I closed my eyes for more than a few moments I would fall asleep.

This is due to getting only a few hours of sleep, which is due to spending most of the night burning dvds onto The Widowmaker which I couldn't have done had I not spent all of Friday night and most of Sunday sleeping as much as possible.

Friday night I was exhausted though now I can't remember why. I made a promise to get together with A though thankfully she was late and called at midnight. By that time I was half asleep and said I couldn't do anything but rest. She ended up coming over and spending the night with me. Nothing more. Just sleep. A deep, coma-like sleep that was incredible.

Saturday we went to Madison with her friends to see some roller derby. I don't remember visiting Wisconsin and haven't been to Madison at all so I went.

Sunday we both slept very late, so late the sun was beginning to go down and I had no chance of getting to bed at a sensible hour last night.

So now I realize I'm half awake at all time and this most likely is the cause of many of my problems. Today it was a combination of two things; lack of food and lack of sleep. I don't eat enough and I sleep too much. I feel like I'm wasting away and any moment I could drop off. That's not always a good thing.

Thankfully there were very few people at work and even less work.

I'm going to bed.