Appetizer

It's funny, 1 month and a day ago I posted saying that it had been a month since I posted. I also believe I touched on the subject of how this is unacceptable, and blogs or writing endeavors must be maintained weekly if not daily. If I did not touch on said subjects, consider them touched. I have been without Internet this past month, and yes, it has been difficult. My phone in this day and age can do most of what my laptop can do, but there is no comfortable way to do things like upload pieces or write anything. Into a new house now, cozy little three bedroom with two of my Colorado roommates. Everything seems to be working out great, we're three pretty clean chill guys so it's a nice place to be. A lot of music, movies, smoking, drinking, hanging out on the porch. Garrett and I work a lot of mornings and get off around 3 or 4pm, which is when whichever of us is off first picks up a sixer of shitty tall boys. We sit out on the front porch and lawn, drink beers, smoke cigs, say fuck shirts, and generally mean mug anybody going by who looks like they got an ego on 'em. There's some type of mentality to establish myself (ourselves to an extent) in the neighborhood. We want to be friendly, our neighbors all seem cool and like stable put together laid back people, which is nice and fits in well with our aesthetic. Don't have much else to say at this point, and honestly, this post exists solely to exist. The WiFi just got installed today, I've got a fully functional system again, and I'm still here. I know, empty promises, but I'll make it rain with delicious literary treats for your eyes and mind grapes just keep paying attention. W5.

Status Updated

Sweet baby back bitch. It's been one month to the day since I last put up anything on here. I do have reasons though, valid ones. My laptop crashed out on me and quit charging, so I had to run it to Portland and then leave it there for a couple weeks. Only took a couple days and $10 bucks for them to fix the battery and replace the outer case (and somehow reattach my "I SKI LOVELAND" sticker), but I couldn't make it back to Ptown to pick it up. Had to wait on my sister's friend to make a delivery (thanks Sarah), got it back today, and here we are.

Been busy-ish the last couple weeks, putting in time looking for houses and apartments with Mr. Hayes and Mr. Gentry. Got a job at The Pretty Pussycat and been working there 3-5 days a week. It's been a pretty chill job so far, I've had experience working at sex shops before, but this one is tame compared to my last, more lingerie/headshop then porn and vibrators, although we do have some of that as well. The shop is nice and clean, and the clientele is a noticeable step up from 'ol Pleasure World, and I've got some seemingly cool coworkers, so it should work out nicely for the time being. Better then slaving under the corporate bullshit of somewhere like Borders thats for damn sure. It's strange, we've only been back from Colorado for a little over a month now, and yet it already seems like a dream. Thinking back to that condo, my mostly wonderful roommates, and the world-class skiing that was ten minutes in any direction, I miss it. Near the end of our winter, all I could think about was getting the fuck out of CO and back to Bend, now that I'm back I don't really want to be here either. It's a conundrum. I've got a good base of friends and people who love and respect me here, but the real pleasures and encounters are fleeting, and nothing gold can stay. Everything and everyone leaves sometime, and it's usually earlier then we want.

Helicopter school starts up in the fall, and as it gets closer I go back and forth on my commitment to it, swinging like an indecisive pendulum. It'd be something amazing, challenging, and in the end, rewarding both personally and monetarily. It also means I'd be in Bend for at least a year or two, longer if I'm working and putting myself through as I'd probably have to. I don't know yet that I want to make that decision, but at the same time, I'm 25 years old, I can't keep working for minimum wage and living paycheck to paycheck. It's getting to the point where its time to do SOMETHING, something permanent and that opens up a new world of opportunities. Right now I'm a high school grad with 'some' college under my belt and a rogues gallery of middling jobs that make up a fairly lackluster resume. I'm getting older and I'm starting to feel the pressure to 'do something' with my life more and more. I know, I'm still young, I could still wait around, travel some more, get on with 'real life' in a couple years, but I don't know that I want to put it off anymore. I want some real money, a real job I can go to where I see new things and go new places and don't hate being at work, but love it because I'm piloting expensive and incredible machines through the air on a daily basis.

So yeah. I've got many more entries partially finished, entries with points and reasons for existing and such, but I felt that a quick update on my life and status was warranted, and last I checked this was Sixth Stories, so I do what I want!

In closing I just want to put out a special shout out to my close friend and inspiration for flying helicopters, Matty Brantner. His older brother passed away two days ago, and it's been a really difficult time obviously. If you believe in God, send him some prayers, if you don't, think some positive thoughts. He's a solid guy and his family has been sucker punched by this tragedy. Wishing you well Matty and family, words don't do your loss justice, but nonetheless, I'm so sorry.

Back in the next couple of days with some more entries, they'll be coming in on the regular now that my laptop is back, so keep tuning in and reading. You know you want to.

Carter V. Carter

Today I had came across a blog my sister had, past tense as it hasn’t been updated since 2008. The last entry posted was entitled ‘Blaxploitation: A Black and White Issue?’, which immediately piqued my interest. Primarily as a film geek, and having been a clerk at an independent video store, films like “Foxy Brown”, “Shaft”, “Superfly”, and “Cleopatra Jones” were staples in my movie diet. So as I read down and see that my sister has been assigned to write a paper on “the media’s portrayal of individuals of a specific identity”, and has chosen “Friday” as her example I was needless to say very excited.

My sister is most often an intelligent and thoughtful writer, but oh dear Lord did she miss the mark on this one (just from my point of view, but when am I wrong, winning, duh). Badly enough that I felt compelled, nay, obligated to offer up a response. I will quote her liberally, but if you would like to read her piece now, you may find it HERE.

First off, I absolutely believe that "Friday" is a pinnacle of stoner films, the urban ghetto comedy that every film remotely like it after would have to measure itself by. Not only was "Friday" a funny fuckin movie that's endlessly quotable ("I'm gonna get you hiiiiiiiiigh today, cause it's Friday, you ain't got no job, and you ain't got shit to do!"), it was also an arguably intelligent movie. I know, that wasn't the first thing I got out of it either, but it's there. Friday was written by two people who literally grew up in the ghetto, and directed by a man who three years after "Friday" became the first black director to helm a film with a budget of $50 million dollars (so says wikipedia). The story and characters presented in "Friday" are both slapstick caricatures and true to life representations by people who have been there and lived it and now choose to laugh about it.

Now on to a back and forth from Erin's theories and my responses. She states that the producers (among them Ice Cube) "played into some of America's skewed misconceptions about the central and peripheral elements of black life." Ok, no, and what? You mean that by viewing this movie I'm going to, as a dumb average 'merican, think that all black people do is sit on their porches, smoke joints, and ride around on bikes in slippers stealing people's stuff? To open, aside from the crime, all that sounds AWESOME. But really, if you've ever had that thought then either you've seen "Friday", or you've seen ANY black comedian or comedy from the last 30 years. Racial stereotypes are everywhere, and that doesn't mean they should be ignored. They should be laughed at, turned on their head, made into something that is entertainment, not racism. If it is then Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Richord Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and ten billion other black comedians are racist and guilty of perpetuating stereotypes. Acknowledging a stereotype, making it into something funny if you can, that isn't same as perpetuation.

"If an understanding of black culture was derived from 'Friday', dysfunction would serve as its singular definition." I BEG TO DIFFER M'LADY. Friday treats it's main characters with a degree of respect and dignity even while making them the objects of jokes or humorous situations. There are two parents living in the house, both employed and seemingly happily married after an assumed 20+ years. There is stress placed on the main character to go out and find work by his father, seeming that the value of independence and self-sustaining are held high in the family. In Erin's article, the issue of unemployment being a prevalent issue seems erroneous to me, being as it's actually portrayed in an arguably realistic manner. The main character lost his job because someone was stealing from the company and on the security cameras it 'looked like him from behind', both a way to get the story of two slackers with nothing to do today going and possibly also a comment on 'all black people look alike'? Kudos Mr. Cube, well tread material but funny nonetheless ("How you get fired on your day OFF?!"). Nearly every adult in the film goes to or comes from work at some point, and the secondary main character does have a job, it's just that he's a pot dealer. Trust me though, that's a JOB, and it does involve work.

In this film, "poverty becomes a laughable condition, marijuana an instrument of relational bonding, and crime an effort to pass a lazy afternoon", according to Erin. Well, the poverty in such areas is portrayed accurately, and of course it becomes laughable you are watching a comedy, you want serious Ice Cube go watch "Boyz In The Hood". Marijuana an instrument of relational bonding? NO! That can't be! Wait no, I was thinking of something else that isn't awesome and doesn't make you want to eat sandwiches and kool-aid with your friends. Marijuana, just like alcohol or any other inhibition killer, is absolutely and nearly by definition a bonding instrument. As far as crime being an effort to pass time, that's not true. It's Deebo who is running around committing crimes, and its Deebo who forces Smokey to burglarize Stanley's house by threat of shiv. Everywhere you go there is going to be some kind of criminal element present, so including this in the film is obvious and unthreatening in any way. Deebo, this film's antagonist, is eventually knocked out cold by Craig, who decides to defend himself and his neighborhood with his fists despite having a gun in hand and facing a much larger opponent.

Erin finishes out by saying "Despite any redeeming qualities, 'Friday' undermines the efforts of thousands throughout history who have worked hard to build understanding and erase structural inequalities...Funny, yes. Inappropriate? Absolutely." First off, undermining thousands throughout history? Really? That statement is so overly dramatic and reaching I threw up in my mouth a little bit. "Friday" has enriched the millions who've seen it and enjoyed it, found it funny, still rewatch it and quote it to their friends on the regular. It's nothing deep, it's not trying to be, it isn't interested in addressing these social issues and stereotypes, just acknowledging their presence and hopefully get a few well earned laughs out of them. This isn't rocket science, but neither is it stupid, lazy, or race regressing comedy. So Erin. Funny, yes. Inappropriate? Yes. Everything it's supposed to be and even a little bit more? ABSOLUTELY.

Erin, you've been served. I also do take into account that it's been three years since you wrote that, and perhaps your feelings have changed. In any case, I've got two copies of "Friday" and you're welcome to borrow either if you want to reassess. Love ya kid.

Let's Talk About Sex

SEXUALITY. It's something oft discussed by me, specifically when I get drunk, or when people start talking about orientations both homo and hetero. You see my friends, I don't believe in 'straight' and neither do I believe in 'gay'. Not in the way you don't believe in say, unicorns or the Bible or whatever, but in the way the words are defined. It's always seemed to me that sexuality is a sliding scale from individual to individual, and the reason this isn't widely accepted or talked about comes from people not wanting to admit that they are anything but one hundred percent straight or gay (usually the straight ones). It's easiest to explain if you drag out the ol' 1-10 scale.

We'll go ahead and make 1 the baseline for heterosexuality. You are a 1 if you have never had even the slightest childhood inclination towards a member of the same sex. You are emotionally and sexually turned off by the sight or thought of any sort of intimate interaction with the same sex. You are a shining pinnacle of heterosexuality, always have been, and always will be. Most males you explain this to will inevitably try and immediately establish their position as a 1, and most of them would probably be at least a number or two low. Now we have 10. At a 10 you were gay at birth, born in a shower of glitter and sparkles, coming into this world at the same time you came out, proud as hell. Pretty much take the stipulations laid out for being a 1, reverse them completely, apply, and you have your 10's.

Where most people go wrong is not admitting to the existence of the other 8 numbers, ironic because whether you admit it or not, it's probably where you belong. We are human beings, we are extremely sexual in nature, and for most people that sexuality does not apply solely to one single sex, all the time, every second of every day. Be it a fantasy, a dream, your daily life, or a drunken moment, nearly everyone has had some sort of same sex experience (or opposite sex for those on the other side of the fence). The shitty thing is the stigma that still hangs over such things. I'm not going to use this (right now) as a platform for homosexual rights and acceptance, but I think it's time we all quit being embarrassed about who we are, what we think, and what we do in our own homes and most importantly in our own heads. We need to start by breaking down this wall of it being socially acceptable and even encouraged (usually by men) for women to experiment with each other while no one questions that ultimately they are 'straight'. It's a dirty double standard that we continue to perpetuate. Men constantly talk up and encourage this behavior among women, but would be ever so quick to pull out 'fag' or 'queer' or at the least get visibly uncomfortable if the same situation arose with two men instead. Even women who are professed bisexuals, that is still unfortunately often easier to deal with then being an experimental or bisexual man, because of the still ongoing prejudices, irrational fears, and mixed feelings about gay men. I also don't mean to belittle or disparage any and all homophobic vitriol that gets aimed at lesbians and female bisexuals at all, I mean only that it's often less widely acceptable and understood from a man to man point of view, be that right or wrong. I think that's stupid and ignorant. I'll be the first to admit that I've had a physical encounter with a member of the same sex. I'd also be the first to point out that I'm not gay, I'm not even bisexual. I love women, top to bottom, every inch of them. I don't feel that way about men, but I'm not necessarily turned off by them either. I'm able to appreciate a good looking guy just like I'd appreciate a good looking girl, I'm just 99% of the time not at all attracted to the guy in the same way I would be the girl. That puts me somewhere around a 3 probably, a place where I can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of somebody of the same sex, where if the inhibitions were low, the alcohol was flowing, the situation was perfect and everybody was on the same page, it could go further. It probably won't, but who am I to rule out that possibility. That would just be robbing myself of a potentially good time.

So I guess the general point I'm trying to make here is that people need to be more open and honest about themselves and their sexuality. I'm not saying you have to open yourself up to the same sex/opposite sex depending on your orientation, but only that we start to acknowledge that sexuality, like much else in life, is rarely a black or white issue. There is plenty of room for grey, and whether or not you can admit it to yourself, grey is probably the world you wake up in every day. Everyday I wake up hoping for a world where sexual orientation is not how you are defined, where there isn't anything that you should feel embarrassed or ashamed of. Where we just enjoy being people and humans and sexual beings in any way shape or form we feel is right for us. Obvious exceptions being made for child molestation, bestiality, necrophilia, ect ect. The kind of shit that not just the straights or the gays but evvvvvverybody knows is fucked up. In the meantime, lets just try and be who we are, lets come to terms with the fact that we probably aren't 1's and 10's, but somewhere in between, and that's ok. You don't have to talk about it, or announce it, or write long blog entries about it, but admit at least to yourself that it probably isn't a cut and dried matter, that you are or have the potential to be a much more sexually open being then you know or admit. I promise you it's freeing and liberating to be able to say to people that you have no sexual prejudices or hang-ups, that you are just you, unique and comfortable in your own skin. Straight people, embrace that 2-4 spread, it's ok, you can still be a heterosexual in life and in your actions, gay people I don't have to say this to as much, but some of you are as set in your ways and scared of compromise as much as us. For those of you that aren't already, jump into those 7-9 spots, you can still rock a rainbow tee and raise that fist in pride, but come on, throw back a few drinks and you aren't hitting on your straight friends girl? Just a little bit in good fun? I've seeeeeeeeen it. Being in the grey doesn't mean you can't be a hetero or a homo. You can, it's absolutely true that most people have a distinct predilection towards one sex above the other, but I think you sell yourself short when you completely shut down and ignore a part of you no matter how small, that's just a little bit different.

I have the balls to post this here in an open forum for anybody and everybody to read. All you need to do is find your own number, admit it to yourself, and be okay with it. Good luck.

Tupperware Bank Accounts

Been a while since I posted, my apologies for the slacking. Technically I wasn't, as I've been busy preparing for and subsequently making the move from Colorado back to Oregon and the West Coast. Took us four days to get here, made it a pretty leisurely voyage. Stopped in Arches National Park, which after very little consideration it was decided should be named Giant Rocks That Look Like Dicks National park. I mean once you see one, they just all become dicks. Seriously, go there, google some photos, whatever, it's insane. Some of those motherfuckers look they were carved by Druids or aliens or some shit to look like massive phalluses (phalli?), no stretch of the imagination required. What are you going to do. In our case it was take a bunch of forced perspective pictures of us doing obscene things to some strangely and hilariously shaped rock formations as tourists walked by and looked on. This of course just made us laugh even harder, literally doubling over laughing with these world class sights and miracles of nature all around us.

Sometimes we may be a bunch of guys in our mid twenties acting like we're twelve, but goddamn if my friends and I don't enjoy the hell out of life whenever and however we can. I hope I never lose that, I hope we never lose it, and most of all, I hope I never lose them. Some friends you have and they come and go, just passing through your life for a while, making it better, changing it or shaping it in even the smallest way. Some friends stick around, are forever, are family and not just in a jokey metaphor but real family, the kind of people you know will be there your whole life. I feel like at this stage in my existence I have a few of those people, guys and girls who have run the gauntlet, been there for years, seen me through a lot of hard times, never turned away. We've spent years at a time apart some of us, but when we get back together it just flows, we've all got love for one another and it shows through the bullshit and the drama that comes with simply coexisting alongside your fellow man.

To close it out this post has served mostly as a quick vent, a release, an update cum love letter to my friends. I'd like to put up some more detailed pieces on Colorado and the winter we had once I've had a little more time to reflect upon it. It requires more thought then just banging out something in ten minutes because I haven't posted in a while and I don't want to lose whatever 12 people are actually reading this. I just wanted to get something up so this blog, this thing, can keep going, moving forward, hopefully at some point growing and evolving into something of substance and consistency. We'll see.

It's good to be back in Bend, it's strange and a little surreal, work is hard to find but I'm staying optimistic, looking forward to whatever this summer and the future have to bring. I'm ready!

Sentimental Underthought

So it's been amazing moving out here and living the past six months. It's really made me realize how fortunate I am to be living the lifestlye I live. I answer to no one, I do what I want when I want, I've got a group of friends I'd fight and die for and it's reciprocal. I live each and every single day how I see fit, and I go to sleep at night and don't have an ounce of regret. It amazes me sometimes to think that I've been out of high school now for seven years, almost twice as long as I was in. Yet here I am, living with Stephen Hayes and Erik Benson, kid's I've known for upwards of twenty years, and Dustin Deveaux is sleeping downstairs on the couch, us knowing each other going back 11 plus years.

I was bunking in the loft here in CO with Garrett Gentry, one of my most recent promotions to best friend. We started the W5 together over a long night of everclear and throwing knives and it was a historic occasion, although we didn't know at the time what we had set into motion. I wouldn't trade my year with that group of five guys for anything. I'd take a blade or a bullet for any one of them and I sincerely believe it goes the opposite way as well. We're family, and in many ways we are five guys who needed some form of alternate family, replacement family, real true blue we bleed and die with you family. Not all of us have two parents, or living parents, or families that are there for us when we need them. Some of us do, but it's never all roses and dancing with glo-sticks, there are skeletons in all the closests. Those are the kinds of friends that I have and I wouldn't trade it for the world. They have my back when I need them, they are there with cash when I'm strapped, drinks when I'm thirsty, beds when I need a place to sleep, and fists when I run my mouth a little too fast.

I love each and every one of my friends, but those that deserve special shout outs are the original W5 besides myself; Stephen Hayes, Austin Marsh, Garrett Gentry, Erik Benson. There's also those homies who are just always there for ya when you need 'em, people like Casey Cathcart, Kaylin Landry, Marta Gurule, Eric Gastelum, Gabe Edwards, Eli Goodall, Amanda Gabourey, Ryan Moss, Natalie K, Amanda Wilson, Colleen Whipple, my sis, and countless others that I'm sorry I didn't have the time or presence of mind to mention. I promise I still love you. Anyways. Tonight was just one of those nights, one where over many many drinks and smokes you just appreciate and love your friends. I hope you are all as well if not better then I am. Much love. Goodnight Colorado! Posting from Oregon in less then a month!

Absolutes and Absolution

I am a writer and these are my words. They come from different places, from uncharted areas of my thoughts, from past experiences, a mishmash of past present and future emotions and expectations. This life that I live, the places I go, the people I am with, the choices I make, all things that I try each and every day to be proud of. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it takes a little work. As my musing trickle down my ever firing synapses and down into and through my typing fingers it's hard not to reflect. Writing has taken me to so many places, both literal and figurative, peaceful and torrential, I learn more with every word and sentence and it keeps me moving forward.

In response to reading a piece on deconstructionism by my friend Gabe over at the Common Flow Narrative I have some thoughts that are perhaps corresponding albiet in a more nihilistic tone. I very much enjoyed his piece and for better or for worse it's inspired the following.

The world is a nasty place. Everything and everyone have teeth, and you can get bitten no matter where you are, both geographically and metaphorically. We build up our beliefs, our standards, our views and opinions but there is no absolute, nothing is finite. It is truly a meticulously assembled model just waiting to be taken apart piece by piece, spread out, mixed in with new pieces, and rebuilt as something new. Familiar yes, but never the same.

It's been my experience that all this, life itself, isn't happening within some personalized self contained bubble universe where you are free to go about your philosophizing and mental construct building without outside influence, be it good or bad. Some people will come into your life and just step right up and start fuckin with the controls and not word one from you can stop it. Aspects and understandings of and in your existence that you thought were concrete, you thought you knew through and through, dashed against the rocks into a million little pieces. Pieces that fly up into the air like pixels in an early nineties screen saver, swirling and changing right before your very eyes. Where they settle, what formation they take, it's going to be something you hadn't planned, couldn't plan, and thus enters the human factor.

You cannot predict your fellow man. If you are reading this than you are old enough to read and you should know this already. We are absolutely unconventional, fallible, misguided, self-serving, and entirely contradictory to nature and common sense in general. You may have a wonderful thing built up, each tiny cog and screw lovingly put into place over a long period of time, and no matter what kind of fences you build around it, no matter how strong you believe it to be, there always exists the truth that at any time, anybody, anywhere, could come along and tear it down. I'm talking scorched earth, absolute and total destruction, nothing left, no more pieces, time to go back to scratch. It happens. You can't control it, predict it, or God help you stop it.

I figure the only way to deal with this is to just go with it, accept it, know that it's out there and could happen and come to terms with that. You will rebuild, you will make something new and different and no matter what, better. It's better because it's progress. It's forward motion, and if you don't commit to it you will die, there is no place in this world for the stagnation and decay that accompanies motionlessness. You will be stomped on and beaten back and down until you know nothing but the intimate details and cracks on the floor.

If you accept that it's all fleeting, that everything is meaningless and nothing lasts, you open a door to freedom of a nature you've never known. Learning to just say 'fuck it' to those myriad obstacles you can't control or change is eye opening. There is so much worry and thought and time wasted on things that worry and thought and time have no effect on. It's all pointless. None of it makes any sense and it's just pissing in the wind to bother wasting brain cells on a meaning or a purpose. Just concentrate on the truths. Every day the sun will come up. You may or may not be around to see it, so live fast, enjoy all you can, and never put too much stock in things that fade. Take a deep breath and exhale everything that you don't have a direct influence or impact upon, because these unchangeable forces will suck the life right out of you in a sinkhole of stress and worry and panic. Embrace the void, and fall face first into the cleansing nothingness. The ultimate deconstruction will come when there's nothing left to pull apart. Just white noise.