Happy 4th, if anyone here cares much about that. What is it with Nationalism and blind faith in the holy destiny of one's country? In the belief of the honor of the fatherland? Jeepers! Has anyone here ever given a crap about their country? I certainly haven't. I mean, I do occasionally say the "Pledge of Allegiuance", but that's with the same faith and love that I say "grace" at dinner every night...It's nonexistant. I care. Why does life have to be all a vestigial sheath which covers the true motives of the human psyche, the absoulte base needs for self surrvival and reproduiction? It's so incredibly stupid. Why the hell do we need all the extra crap, like art, if our only real goal/purpose is to fuck, have kids, and continue the species? Yeah. Forget that. I've gotta go do something. Before I drive myself nuts. The hedonist imperative...it's easy to believe in and preach, but living it's a whole other matter. Why is love never mutual? Why does no one happen to believe what you do? Why? I probably just need some new music. Oh fuck. I forgot my prozac again today. That might be it.

Fuck the country. Fuck the police. Fuck the parade. But Ilike hte fireworks.

Hey Zephyr, did anyone ever tell you that you ask to many fucking questions???? I do agree with you though, people don't care anymore. Not like in the old days before WWII. See that was nationalism, self-preservation, fuck even the nazi's had a little bit of national pride going... ( the wrong direction but going none the less.) Since Vietnam no one has cared, we don't trust out goverment anymore.. And never will again.. Damn the world sucks now.

The Nazis had blind faith in a country which treated their fellow men cruelly. In my mind, the US has committed cruely to my fellow men, and thus I refuse to have nationalistic feelings about my country. However, I can have patriotic feelings. I can appreciate the good and attempt to make my country better by rectifying the bad. Bah at blind faith.

i saw 150,000 tons of fireworks explode over NYC while drinking beer on my roof. then i went downstairs, turned on the TV, and heard some guy say "it was sooo nice to see all these people gathering in the city to look up into the sky and see what this country is really all about." i need to stop turning on the TV.

FUCK TELEVISION Hal: Yeah, I ask a lot of questions! You have issues with that? Actually, the decrease in Nationalism also happens to coincide with the decrease in religious faith. If the US is to return to Nationalism and WASPage and all that fun stuff, We'll probably have to have some random countries attack us. Yeah. " then i went downstairs, turned on the TV, and heard some guy say "it was sooo nice to see all these people gathering in the city to look up into the sky and see what this country is really all about." " No it's not, you dumb bastard! America is about antidepressants, cable tv, everyone bitching about how bad they have it (nigeria, russia, north korea, anyone?), the rising middle class, money, fucking bmws and suvs and cars in general, shitty music, the corporate monster, MONEY, advertisments, the corporate data collection beast which knows which bathroom in your house you'll use after you've drunken your "FATASS BRAND" lite beer and what you're thinking about when you do for the express purpose of selling you polyethylene siding and magazines and dvds and whatever else, "FREE" stuff, no morals whatsoever, "CRUSH THE WEAK" mentality, general lack of regard for education (yes i'm feeling that too), oh and don't leave out the mastrubating minions and the sex industry and the whoring (!), and the anorexia modeling, oh fuck it.... I've hated tv for the longest time. I don't know why, really, even if I do, but I just dislike it and its morals and methods. Passive entertainment, which reaps massive profits through advertising which makes us tools of companies that are just trying to make us fat (for the purpose of eating us? hmm...) Oooh! I just realized something! No I didn't. Anyway, I think that modern culture is on its way out...just like the collapse of Rome, or Greece, or any other past civilization that's gone now. Think about it. I mean, we're certainly not as debaucherized as Rome was during their downward rush (Emporer Commodus!?!! no not from the gladiator movie the real guy that kept a harem of 300 women and 300 small boys!) but I think that at least we're on our way out. Yeah. Good riddance.

The "HEDONIST IMPERATIVE"....Yeah!!! Zephyr!!! I try to live it in my own way every day with various chemicals.....if ya know what I mean....

life is pretty much what you make of it. if all those things about america bother you, make a point to avoid them and not incorporate them into your daily life in any way. that'll show em'. first of all, turn your fucking TV off. i hate to listen to people bitch and moan about the state of things and here they are sitting around staring at a screen for six hours a day. don't allow yourself to be forcefed anything. make your own reality. even if it requires using "various chemicals". it's better than getting your sense of reality from fucking "Friends". while your bitching about it, life is passing your ass right by. i didn't watch dick for fireworks last night. not for any self-plitical reason, i just fell asleep. i didn't care though. no one gives a fuck that it's supposed to be a celebration of our independence. that shit was over 200 years ago. they just want to see the fireworks and have a day off work. just like christmas. no one gives a fuck about the real reason behind christmas anymore. what is it anyway?

I'd never felt so american as yesterday when I lost my ikea virginity with my fashion-plate nyt stringer friend. "do I need 100 votive candles for $4.99?" "no. should you get them anyway? yes."

Oh my god. I so give a fuck about independence day. So. So.

i went to Zambodia. Zambodia is a place just north of Santa Barbara. An old house, an older man, a friend's father hippie crapped out junked hippie bus Zambodia The movie by angry sam is coming in 2003 Zambodia Scaled a cliff to the water Kelp farms Sunburnt foot tops I always forget that spot Watched fireworks on a rock, above the crashing high tide Only 1 pair of shoes were lost in the ordeal The nude beach had the best fireworks

I'm surprised this country can even function. I went to the grocery store the other day. Outside, there were Watermelons. LOTS of them. WAY more than is sane for any one store to have. Just a rediculous amount of watermelons. I had to walk around huge boxes overflowing with watermelons to get in. I overheard a woman ask an employee if they had any watermelons. The girl said they were outside without blinking... Like it didn't surprise her that this woman didn't notice the watermelons she had to walk around to get inside. So I asked her how many people in that day had questioned her about watermelons. She said, with a sideways glance and a nervous smile, "Too many to count." Fucking zombies. Hey Hal... Long time... How've ya been?

I watched Princess Mononoke, subtitled in original Japanese. and ate good food. Then my best friend, my oldest friend, my newest friend and I went to Washington Park on the Max and hiked around all afternoon. Then we came back and deridedhow all the good restaurants in Portland were closed for the holiday. Then we goofed off at their house and ate good enchiladas and drank Mike's hard Lemonade (yum!). Then watched the all-american neighbors light off a big box of fireworks in the street. Then went to the Spare Room for a farewell beer, then drove to the airport through a haze of smoke. Then had an allergic reaction to the filthy carpeting in the airport and gave my friends a hug goodbye and got on the airplane and flew away from one of the best 4th of julys I ever had.

you went to the spare room? the spare room or the space room? the trendy place on hawthorne or the cool weird scary lovely place where larry and teri perform on friday and saturday nights? I'm going to portland tomorrow. barely missed ya, sem.

i was in a bar/restaurant and needed to buy some cigarettes out of the machine they had there. i only had a twenty so i needed ones for the machine. i went up to the bartender, who wasn't busy, and asked for change "for the cigarette machine". she gives me change. this place is pretty big so i have to walk up stairs and around shit and through people to get to the machine. i put my money in and try to pull the lever and nothing happens. i fuck with it for a while but nothing. so i make my way back to the bar and tell the bartender i'm having trouble with the cigarette machine. she's like "do you have the key?" of course i say "what key?" "oh we keep the cigarette machine locked, you need to get it unlocked before you put your money in." then she gets some big bouncer guy to unlock the machine for me. i was like, hello dumbass, don't you think you could have informed me of this when I asked you for change FOR THE CIGARETTE MACHINE. stupid fucks on this planet. what am i supposed to drink this coffee hot?

cyst! you know larry and teri! jeez.....do you also know the mark white band? yeah, i live one block from the spare room...we go there once in while for our dose of "a little bit of wisconsin/las vegas in portland ..i would NEVER take sem to the space room though. he's way to o fucking cool for that..

Ha. I gotta love how the local mobil station sells cigs to minors, no problemo, despite all the warnings and such. Jesus Smurf! I actually like Ikea, despite the corporateness and mass production. TV sucks...was that by MxPx, or NOFX? and does NOFX stand for No Fucking Straight Edge, or is it No Fucking Sex?

Or "no effects"?

Um, right. Well, other than that. It's the acronym. Fat Mike is purported to have said that it stands for No Fucking Straight Edge, but unreliable sources. I hate idiots that pronounce it "nouf-fecks"

i've heard the No Fucking Straight Edgers, as well, from a straight edger, who loved NOFX.

I played Scrabble. 5 points extra for sex words. I got "fuck" "porn" "sex" and "zoo," among others. Great fun.

I used to know a perve that would pay me to say dirty words to him,a buck a word,he told me what it started with.Worked as a lawyer for the state,Lester the molester.

hey, mavis, a friend of mine lives on prescott and 50something, right near the spare room. tonight I'm going to bernie's over on alberta. on my birthday this year I went to bernie's and the spare room. I met johnnie walker at the spare room. I have held hands under tables at the spare room. I have dirty-danced with people's grandparents at the spare room. I'm always amazed when I find out that other people know about it. hey, mavis, what are you doing tomorrow night? you should meet me and my best girlfriend over at the spare room.

That would be weird.

Ok...maybe we have different mating rituals down here, but how is "zoo" a sex word? Are the zebras nervous up there?

i think that was to throw us all off track. i had a friend once who wanted to rob a bank and take hostages and shit ala "Dogday Afternoon". he said he'd ask for 5 million bucks, a plane and the letter H removed from the alphabet. that way if he got caught he could plead insanity.

That's an awesome idea! There is some drunk guy howling at the moon down the road. I don't think there's even a moon, actually, but he's howling. The dogs near work howl whenever the noon whistle at the mill goes off.

Funny, I guess I should be cyinical (probably spelled wrong but ask me if I give a shit) about the fourth... I got dumped on the fourth. Great spectacular, and even shittier way was that I caught her fucking her EX... Go figure eh'?

I passed out before 9p.m. on the 4th,how did you catch them Hol,if that isn't too personal.

cyst- argh! i missed you! i leave work early on fridays and so i just found out you were here.......i live at 40th and going!!! i have boogied to "lay down sally" at the spare room....i have drank so much that halfway home (one block) i decided that i needed to pee on a cop's lawn...but mostly, i hang out and eat fries and harvey wallbangers while i do my laundry next door at sud's and dud's. small world.

a friend of mine found out his gf was cheating on him when he went in the bathroom to pee, and there was a condomn floating in the toilet. that has got to be a bitch. what's worse is that after he told me the whole story, (he stopped by and she was in the bathroom when he got there--he was there for a few hours before his bladder started to crinkle) it occured to me that the other guy was probably hiding in the shower the whole time. a whole new perspective

hey, mavis, it's ok. I plan to head down there at least one weekend out of every six. I'll give you more notice next time! and my friend lives on prescott between 42nd and 44th, not in the 50s. saturday night we did not go to the spare room. we went to the silverado (vaseline alley, near powell's, right by roxy). it was wild. I have a date. I sent cute guy e-mail. part of it went like this: ------------------------- I had a great weekend in portland. on friday the movers were 3.5 hours late, so I sunbathed and nearly finished the philip roth novel. later I had a nice fish dinner outside and only got one mosquito bite. saturday I woke up in the suburbs and ate the sweetest, ripest, juiciest bing cherries ever grown. right off my parents' tree. the morning sun had warmed them just slightly. and I went up to the old elementary school to play basketball with my brother, whom I hadn't seen in six months, and his friend, but I soon tired of that and played on the swingset instead. there were lots of flowers and butterflies. that night I was very naughty and broke some laws and did things I rarely do, like going to a disco/strip club where they show gay porn on the tvs around the bar. my friend is cute and looks gay, and the bartender gave us nine free drinks. I saw an ex-girlfriend of an ex-friend and drunkenly told her, "you were too smart for him! he likes to be the smart one!" when really they broke up because, he said, "she talked in the morning. I told her I didn't want her to talk in the morning, but she talked in the morning." one of the drag queens looked just like sandra bernhardt. -------------------------- and he replied: -------------------------- Why, hello there... So nice to hear you are still alive after a weekend in that crime-ridden sailor's hovel port town. As far as I am aware it is not actually illegal to enter a bar that is showing gay porn on the wall...so what actual laws did you break? I think you're not giving me the whole story. I would also like to point out that most people already think Sandra Bernhardt looks like a drag queen. So, wanna hang out sometime this week? I've been depressed and unfunny lately, but I have been known to lighten up a bit in the presence of alcohol and beautiful women. What say ye? -------------------------- that is so date. I told him he should come over here, as it's my last week in the temp condo with the great view, and then, in order to avoid any unnecessary awkwardness, we should go to a movie. he suggested "east is east," "me, myself and irene" or, god, I forgot what, something else I have no interest in at all. I countered with "croupier" or "chicken run." well, as long as I'm hopelessly infatuated with (now that we live in the same city, I must quit saying "love") someone else, these details hardly matter. or maybe they're all that matter. we sure as hell aren't going to see no jim carrey movie.

go watch scary movie. it's so stupid that you'll laugh. i promise. sides, laughing at penis jokes is the best thing on a first date.

It was funny. In a dumb way, but it was humor that took no effort. Just like giving your brain a break, and laughing at all kinds of "low" humor.

the only problem is that I have no sense of humor. jokes, slapstick, sight gags, british comedy, sit coms -- I don't think anything like that is funny. what I really want to do is fuck.

Damn, cyst, that's a shame. Not even Python? Eddie Izzard? Bill Murray for chrissake?

But sex can be quite funny. Or is that just me?

sex can be a total pants-pissing laugh riot...

as in..... i know about pain and suffering and being cold and all i want to do is fuck?

that's exactly it! my date tonight went well, I guess. I mean, it's just too bad we had to talk and get to know each other and interact socially and all that. I thought it would be funny (ok, this is my sense of humor) if I had him subsidize my meal and if I signed his credit card receipt and had him do some heavy lifting for me. like, that would be a funny first date. he wants to see me this weekend. now that it's not the first date anymore, is it ok for me to ask him to put out? maybe I'll wait. I got another offer from a guy whose girlfriend is going to be out of town.

like you need to ask a guy to put out. if you do, you should video tape his response and sell it. he probably wants to jump your bones so bad his nuts are blue.