I REGRET NOTHING

"Will I regret missing this?" The weight of consequence varies for everyone, but that question captures the conflict of decision. This is a good thing. I'm not alone in my fear of reaching old age and being filled with regret over some of the lost opportunities of my youth.

Lately I've noticed an insidious trend: a lot of people have been talking about regret like it doesn’t exist anymore. The “No Regret” credo has been hijacked to justify reckless impulses, reject responsibility, and suppress overwhelming insecurities. Instead of being used to make decisions, it's abused as the ultimate excuse. "I don't regret anything." It's a beautiful self-fulfilling logic: I can do whatever I want if I don't regret it later.

It's time to grow up. Chronic denial is the surest sign of a weak mind.

This is Fucking Awesome

Vinny sent this .wmv to me. I've literally watched it dozens of times.

Brilliant

This mother's concern for her unborn child is clearly evident.

The All Day Hangover

If you've ever read survival stories, you'd know that when a human experiences starvation and extreme deprivation his or her body readjusts poorly to its previous diet. In the worst cases a special diet must be adminstered to get the various digestive functions working properly again. Oftentimes this runs contrary to the desires of the survivor, who has likely been suffering from visions of food and feels an overwhelming urge to binge. I think this is a good analogy for my resumption of alcohol intake. Unfortunately, I don't have trained medical staff on hand to assist me.

Last evening my downstairs neighbor suggested we go hit a coupla bars and catch some bands downtown. It's nice having everything within walking distance. Joe has a much more practiced "bar nose" than mine and we proceeded to hit five non-student places, ranging from a super-nice jazz club to a semi-ghetto bar. We got to meet a very nice gay bouncer who insisted he wasn't gay, a Wing Chun-practicing bartender who gave me some tips on Tai Chi, a random drunk Norweigian, and countless drunks screaming HHHHHWHAT? YEAAAH! OH-KAY! Given their obvious appreciation for timeless humor, I'm surprised we didn't hear a single WAASSAAAAAAP.

When I finally woke up at 4 this afternoon I put together my dart board backing and threw an inaugural game of cricket with my next door neighbor Eric. Such a productive day of action deserves an equally productive night of sleep--I truly earned these next 10 hours.

Do Make Say Think

Warning: there's a bunch of music shit here that you probably don't care about. PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY.

This past Friday I drove two hours up the road to Portland to see one of my favorite bands, Do Make Say Think from Toronto, all by my grown-up self. I rolled into Berbati's Pan (the venue) at 9:30 only to discover that they weren't to come on until midnight or so. DAMMIT. So I stood around looking conspicuously alone and sipped a coupla $3 PBRs while listening to the two opening bands. Remember when $6 of PBR from Macado's was enough to tranquilize apartment 160? Needless to say, it was a long wait. However, I gotta say that the second band, Adelaide, put on a great show, complete with two old 8 mm projectors of bizarre footage and a great set of droney music.

Do Make Say Think finally came on at midnight and proceeded to rock my knees straight into my face. I was seriously ROCKING THE FUCK OUT. Which, if you've heard their music, might seem a bit odd. It's not super intense unless you're standing 15 feet away from all six of them, like I was, as their amps transform music into Rayleigh waves. So they played through most of their set, then took a break to drop some bad news. Apparently we were missing out on the full Do Make Say Think experience: their trumpeter isn't allowed into the United States because he got busted for smoking a joint in 1984. Or so they say. Anyway, as the bassist told us that the American taxpayer didn't want this guy in our country, people in the crowd started yelling back "DRUGS SUPPORT TERRORISM" and "KEEP YOUR DRUGS IN CANADA". Which was awesome.

And just then, when I thought the show couldn't possibly get any better, he announced that he was gonna do a Steve Reich cover. I literally screamed, along with the four other people in the audience who knew who the fuck Steve Reich is. So much blood rushed into my naughty bits that I began to feel light-headed. He chose "It's Gonna Rain" ... Reich is partly recognized for finding rhythm and tones in natural speech, and this old piece is a phasing loop of a Pentecoastal preacher talking about Noah and the Ark. The bassist on stage nodded to the sound engineer in the back and began to loop his own voice. Eventually it looped and layered and repeated and built itself into a cascading mass of voices drowning out everything with the threat of rain. And then they launched into the last set.

I got home at 4:00 a.m.

Oregon Transplant! GET IT?! HA HA HA HA HA HA

I've had a bit of free time lately since I've (re)started my life in Oregon, so I thought I'd start writing again. This is a generous way of saying, "I have no life and few friends and am often bored." It's not quite that bad, but you get the idea. Anyway, I've been thinking about it for awhile and got fired up when a co-worker mentioned that he'd written and published a paper, for fun, about an historical Oregon flood. He's got a family and yet he still made time to write. Besides, I don't want to keep my ideas confined to the comments section of Mikey's blog. ONWARD, SLUTS!

My upstairs neighbor, Dine (prounounced like Renee), took me to a "clothing optional" hot spring yesterday. She was about to exercise her "option" but decided not to when I said I had my trunks on. It's probably for the best as I imagine raging mega-huge veined boners violate hot springs etiquette. Unless there's a ring toss or something. The spring itself was really sweet. It emerged from a tiny cave and descended down a tiny gulch. The USFS had built small pools into it with local rocks. Besides us two, the other half-dozen people were RVers in their 40s and 50s. Once I got over the initial shock and remembered not to glance down, it was surprisingly easy-going. I'd like to go back when it's raining or snowing.