I like to define how it is to "live" through my experiences and luckily I was blessed to have one of these experiences several weeks ago. It was my last gig which happened to be in Yonge and Dundas Square, Toronto. It was late in the evening and it was raining. My Darkest Days, the opening act, had just finished a bone-chilling cover of Duran Duran's "Come Undone". I knew it would be hard to better that performance but I knew it wasn't about being better but about making music.

I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't felt an experience like this. The magical moment of when you stride out onto center stage, and the murmurs die down and only the light drizzle of rain echo through the crowd. And it begins. A single spark of explosive energy that sends shivers down your spine. Sound rips through the air and brings life to the crowd. Every eye focuses on you as you play and you play and you play. Music flows from your fingers and reaches the sky as if cracks of thunder were materializing from the speakers lashing out to the furthest regions of the square and comes crashing back onto you.

The crowd moves and you move in sync to the music. An invisible bond of energy that connects you to each and every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the crowd. The song ends and you stop, but the music still resounds. You close your eyes and you can feel everyone holding their breath as the sound fades. A single brief moment of silence that breaks as thunderous applause roars into the night. And I thought "These are the moments that define what it is to "live". " as I laid down that plastic keyed Rockband 2 guitar and strode off stage.

Every bad guy doesn't inherently think he's bad. His intentions seem evil on the surface but to the bad guy it may be something good. It's the same way with me being mean.

I've had a friend that I hung out with a bit back in college. We were going to have a get together at his dorm with other friends but due to BU's guest policy at the time, we were forced to sign people in. The exception being that you can only sign in three people under one host. He chose to sign two of us in and leave my other friend unsigned. The reason for it being was that there was a girl coming that he really liked. He wanted to sign her in and be the "good guy". Of course this is in violation of the "bro's before ho's rule". Dude... not cool. It worked out in the end because the guy found some random people to sign in under. But the whole situation is a familiar one that we find ourselves in often. He's willing to throw us guys under the bus in order to have a chance at with the girls he likes. This was just another situation that finally lit a fire under me. I came close to brawling with him in the hallways but in the end I just chose to leave with everyone. In a funny way, I think the girl he signed in also left with me. I can't really remember much since I was so pissed off. That was pretty much the last time I talked to him until the Atlantic City trip a month ago. In this case, I was choosing to cut off ties with a person who didn't respect his friends.

Another instance was a friend who always had a knack at ticking me off. He would often make remarks that is full of bullshit or outrageous lies. I don't really believe he understood. It's more like he talked so much without thinking. A few times he'd say such and such a person is a (insert adjective) person. It really ticked me off but I would take a breath and live with it. But the more often I hung out with him, the more I would hear these comments. From talking about how drums work (he has no experience in it) to how to use a knife to cut food, to how to play a guitar song incorrectly(especially when I know the song inside and out). Day doesn't go by without it. Finally, I just let it go. I didn't want to deal with it and in the end I could deal not having him as a friend.

And my proudest moment of all was when the girlfriend of a friend of mine had IM'ed me. He was on a snowboarding trip with me and had a concussion. We drove his car back to his house knowing that if he went home, his parents would make him go to the hospital to get checked. When I had gotten back home (must've been 1 in the morning), I went online to check my email. His girlfriend messaged me telling me about how he had been taken to the hospital and that she was fretting. He wasn't picking up her calls and that she didn't know what to do. Personally, I'm thinking, hey you could just leave it to the doctors considering.. you know.. they're doctors. But it was gradually leading up to me giving her a ride to the hospital. I fended off the subject and she had the gall to tell me "You don't seem to care about him at all". After all the effort to make sure he gets to the hospital, I didn't care about him? Two words that still make me smile : Fuck Off. And I signed off.

I gladly play the role of the bad guy by being mean. They are selfish reasons that I definitely acknowledge but I'll declare that everyone needs to be selfish in one form or another and I'm just more open about it. I'm blunt and brash. I choose ways that are definitely more violent but in the end, it's just the way I am. If I read this as if someone else had read this, I'd think to myself... "Wow, what an asshole. I'm not reading this guy's blog again."  

I think a lot of people maintain this idea that people need to be empathetic to others, to be understanding and forgiving. I used to believe in this when I was younger but today I stand for myself. Understanding, forgiving, empathetic are great traits. Congrats, you can work for the church. But I think it's more important for people to stand up for themselves and be selfish, opinionated, and be someone you can proudly say that's who I am and if you don't like it, fuck off.

However, I'm not stupid. I don't act before quickly weighing the consequences. What was the consequence of my actions above? I may have lost out on friendship but I gained much more which was my self. I'm selfish and I am proud of it.

Your mom. Sorry, dude. She's just too smoking.

   

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

There's a few stories I've shared with people in person that I haven't been able to write down. They're funny stories that just doesn't seem to translate well to text. I've decided to try a new medium to see if it works. 

 Flobot - No handlebars

 

  

 When a pair of intelligent, visionary emcees joins forces with a battle-hardened, groove-fusing rhythm section, a classically trained violist, 
 and a jazz trumpet player, the result is a sound that explores and expands the frontiers of live hip-hop.  Progressive in both style and
 message, the band's ability to drop from symphonic rock-infused crescendos into stripped-down string-laden breakbeats has earned Flobots
 a reputation for both originality and authenticity.  

 Plus, you can't really hate on a song with a trumpet solo.


 And one more for the road

 Flobot - Combat

While eating dinner in Chinatown, a waiter brought over extra dumplings for me and Cindy. We were wondering what was going on so the waiter started explaining in Chinese. I'm thinking... hmm this is nice. Cindy knows Chinese and can translate for me.

Waiter: (something in Chinese)
Cindy: (something in Chinese)
Waiter leaves...

Me: Hey, what'd you say in Chinese
Cindy: I told him I didn't know Chinese...

Wow....

sometimes called the Celestial Teapot, was an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970),  In an article entitled "Is There a God?",  commissioned (but never published) by Illustrated magazi, Russell wrote:

If I were tosuggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first.

Don't you just hate it when people think they know everything and start telling you how you should do this and that??  Sometimes I just wanna tell em "you don't know shit bitch.  I also bet you didn't know that I was with your mother last nite."  Sometimes I have the urge to say that, and other times I have the urge to burn their house down.

"What I've found interesting is how at every step along the way, her worst enemy has been - herself.

In December, she had more money - $175 million. She had more name recognition. She had her husband's legacy. She had the support of more super delegates.

And then - it's like she didn't know how to campaign. Looking back, I realize she's never had to campaign before. Let's face it - liberal area of New York against unknown, underfinanced Republican rivals isn't a real challenge.

But she neglected all of the "to dos": She didn't keep up with what her campaign was spending money on. She didn't have a constant message (first it was "experience", then "experience to bring change", then "I have solutions", and so on). She went negative right after the surprise loss in Iowa - and not "Obama's position is this, here's why mine is better", but trying to paint him as "not really pro-choice", "he's a former drug user", "he voted for funding the war just like I did. The lawsuits in Nevada, then telling people what states "mattered" and which "didn't matter".

Obama got on the ground folks working - going door to door. Finding out what areas were key to his winning to get more delegates. She decided that her lead in big states were enough - and she ignored the majority of small states like Idaho, Utah, etc which - while not significant in and of themselves in the Democratic primary - start to add up. According to reports, her team didn't even have people in the ground in Texas and Ohio until two weeks ago - Obama's folks had people working there nearly a month back!

In the debates, it's the same thing: she hurts herself more. Her little "Oh, you need to REJECT Farrakan" moment actually helped Obama out - if she had kept her mouth shut, he would have looked vaguely neutral for it.

The times that she's done the best is when she really connects. Her commercial in Ohio about "She's worked the night shift too" actually moved me a bit - it shows hey, I actually care. What was Bill Clinton's #1 success in his first campaign? Playing the sax, reminding people he was human, and showing them that "Hey, I feel your pain." Her Thursday night speech about being proud being with Obama and meeting veterans was a connecting moment.

Had she used more of those connecting moments, she might have kept her voting base, and added on more. Instead, she tried to divide and conquer, and got lost along the way.

When history books are written about this campaign, they'll likely say that Hilary Clinton had the best shot of them all at becoming the next Democratic nominee for President - and then messed it up by being disorganized, not focused on a positive message, and fell apart. Funny - David Brin once gave a talk about how when Democrats talk about the future and how things will be better, they win. When they get mired in speaking about "the good old days" like conservatives - they lose. That's how Bill won in the 1990's - "There's nothing wrong in America that can't be fixed by what's right in America". Hopefully, looking forward to new challenges. Whether you think he delivered is another thing - but that message got him in the white house (well, Ross Perot helped as well ;) ).

Odd that Senator Clinton didn't get the lesson - and Senator Obama, the "inexperienced, naive candidate" got it so much better."

-digg's johnhummel