You may have recently seen the article on the Wired news editor that wrote a program to track registered sex-offenders on MySpace. This line stood out for me.
The Wired News project also illustrates something MySpace could do to make its community safer, she says: hunting down and banning sex offenders from its site.
I don’t think this is a good idea. I think we need to do what we can to make it easy for sex predators hang themselves. If they do not sign up with MySpace, then they may engage in activities which are less conducive to monitoring. I’d rather have a pederast on MySpace than hanging out in parks. Of course, I’m sure MySpace’s board of directors wouldn’t want their site to be a net of this kind.
I think a key to success is doing things once you find you have to do them. Get a bill in the mail? Pay it right then. Do dishes right after the meal. Send Christmas cards right after Christmas. Fix bugs in programs once they crop up. Do your taxes the first week of January. Any other examples, blog commenters?
If you don’t live in a place, it is not often that you first fly out of that place and then fly into it. It’s much more likely to be the other way around, but I’m one of the few, I guess. When helping Lance and Arica move to Atlanta I drove Arica’s car in the caravan connection; all the while thinking, “I’d like a car. Like this one. Nothing fancy, but you know, reliable. Smooth. Smooth as Gerber.” This weekend I flew to Atlanta to buy that very car as they are subbing out their sensible, compact yuppie cars for a big-ass-baby-mobile. While in town, Lance and did three paintings for the kids room (here, here and here). Look familiar? They’re based on the “Kenya” animation. We also watched a lot of the British The Office. I tink a successful weekend, ya?
“I really enjoyed the show. I’m glad you all could make it out,” I say, helping Doug disassemble the projector screen.
“Thanks, man, we had a great time,” Doug says, scratching his infinite beard.
Derek shouts from across the room, “Brian, didn’t you say that same thing to Everclear a few days ago?”
“Everclear?” Doug squawks. “They’re horrible! Aren’t they that 90’s cock-rock band?”
“Cock-rock with just a whisper of pussy,” I say. It makes Doug laugh, and I was surprised to hear him do that kind of grossly human activity… his stage presence screamed, “I have Aspergers syndrome. You all are an audience of sevens and fours.”
It was a great time these past two nights. Just about every song I could have wanted was played. Twice in the case of “Carry the Zero.” Last night Built to Spill became Bostick’s favorite band when the drummer started dismantling and packing up his drum-kit during the final song.
The night ended with a dude who everyone agreed sucked (he began his night trying to sneak in the back, tipped thirty cents on twenty five dollars of purchases, harassed Whitney all night, etc., etc.) trying to get in a fight. This action was, in a way, a relief as it justified me grabbing him by the neck to control him. It was something we’d all wanted to do. “You know, if we killed him and tossed him into the junkyard, those junkyard dogs would devour his corpse by morning,” Mike suggests.
Look at me… I’ve gone and used “pussy” in two consecutive blog entries. Which reminds me, I saw Tony near the intersection of 40 and Airport Rd… it looked like he was making good on his intentions to leave town.
I am tired and can feel that I might just say, “fuck you” to someone who doesn’t deserve it. I’m gonna try to keep this brief.
Tony shows up about an hour late and drunk. He is overly-interactive with the customers in that drunk kind of way where random conversations, handshakes, high-fives spontaneously erupt. The show is started so I can’t talk with him long, but essentially I tell him to sober up and return two hours later. He does, he’s more sober and he’s wearing a different shirt; a red t-shirt with “volunteer” on the back. Hipster points are sure to be scored with such a shirt. He does a tolerable job of cleaning up. Pretty much what I’d expect of a fifty some alcoholic homeless vet with colon cancer. At the end of the night the judgment is that the Cradle, one loud voice of the Cradle, doesn’t want him working there. The verdict? He’s going to spend the money on alcohol, so giving him a job is counter-beneficial. Fucking Christ, of course he’s going to spend some money getting drunk. Do I really think that some job picking up bottles is going to help him turn his life around before he dies of cancer? At least we can give him a reason to not get drunk and maybe some task which could build some minor self esteem.
After the show Tony tells me its the first full shift he’s worked in 10 years and he’s gonna celebrate by getting himself some pussy. “Quality pussy.”
I met him last year when he stopped by the Cradle asking to see if he could help clean up. He, like everyone else in the homeless world “just needed to get to Durham.” So I called him on it and said that if he were to meet me the next day at noon I would give him a ride to Durham. My thoughts were if he was bullshitting he just wouldn’t show. Next day, he was there and Billy and I drove him to the VA. On the trip we got to know him and he seemed like a pretty nice guy and I felt bad that the one homeless guy that I liked was now in Durham. A year later I see him back in Chapel Hill. I talk to Frank to see if we could get him to help us with some clean-up and Frank seems down with it. Thing is, being homeless, Tony doesn’t have any reliable contact info so I had to wait until I saw him again. That finally happened last night when I, Mer and Molly were outside of I<3NYPizza. Tony walks buy, I call to him, and he and his friend come sit down next to me. Immediately I am having second thoughts. I can tell he’s been drinking. He asks me for money. He tries to get his friend in on the work deal. A lot of strikes, so it saddens me to know that this year has found him worse for the wear. Still, I told him to meet me at the Cradle at 8 tonight. I’ll decide then.
The News and Observer quoted me in this article on Google’s acquisition of YouTube. Of course they left out my financial analysis and decided to run with my thoughts on Haddaway remix videos.
The great thing about the previous post is that I finished it at pretty much the height of sickness-induced haze. I left work early yesterday to recuperate and ended up passing out for two hours before going to temple with la Mer. During this fitful sleep I saw visions of white text on a black background scrolling to infinity as I did useless build after build (what I’m doing at work). I feel I should somehow be able to bill for those hours.
The service was interesting - this is only my second time. I found the minor-key, westernized Middle-East sounding songs to be quite beautiful. Standing for over an hour was fine and my state of health helped me to blend in as I was naturally swaying. I also found the story of the Rabbi that met with Elija in the Garden of Eden humorous. The Rabbi complains to Elija that he is poor and cannot sufficiently study the Torah because he is overly occupied making a living. Elijah takes him to the Garden of Eden and the rabbi fills his shawl with leaves and the sweet scent persists on the fabric. The Rabbi then takes the shawl –this priceless religious artifact– and sells it for twelve-thousand Dinars. I imagined the transaction going something like this:
Rabbi: I’ve got a priceless shawl which has cradled the leaves from the very Garden of Eden! You would like to buy it, yes?
Person: Perhaps I am interested. For what would you sell such a shawl?
Rabbi: 20,000 dinars.
Person: Ach! My cousin could find such a shawl for 7,000.
Rabbi: 7,000? That is an insult! It is worth 18,000 at the least.
Person: The quality of the fabric, it is not so good. I could maybe see that it is worth 10,000
Rabbi: Please! I have a wife and children to consider. Shawls so good do not fall from the sky! 12,000!
Person: My friend, it is a deal! Let us now make a bowl of olive oil sprinkled with sage and wipe it on our beards as tradition dictates.
Bits of stories which have slipped through in the past week:
Sweaty with shirt opened to i’m-ready-to-party mid-chest level. All night it’s Bush and Bush lite for him and his friend. Then jut Bush after Bush for him and him alone. Steph serves the final Bush that ruins his marriage. Screaching wife departs with flagelating arms.
“Isn’t Fag Satchel playing here in a few weeks?”
Kicked out about twenty people in past few days. Confiscated two pipes.
Guy I kick out comes back and I throw him out again into the arms of the police. “What’s the problem, officer” he mumbles then –ZOOM!– he is off in a drunken s-line. Three crusisers in pursuit. When he is brought back to the crusiser parked at the cradle he has grass in his hair and a cut on his head. Note to self: tune into this weeks episode of Cops: Paris of the Piedmont.
Used porta-john and experienced Ultimate Gross-Out Splash-Back. Used the provided hand-sanitizer on lower half in hopes of staving off flesh-eating bacteria. Everything seems to be fine… five one thousand… six one thousand… MARY MOTHER OF JESUS MY BALLS ARE ON FIRE!!!