You are all lucky to even be seeing a blog. For some reason, windows with tabs are 3x as likely to be mistakenly closed by me, even when one tab contains a nice, hearty blog that I have absolutely no motivation to try and round up again. It was so full of hearty laughs, tender moments and a description of this guy who always returns his adult DVDs to our store coated in sick amounts of lube that to even try to replicate it again would be a travesty.
But I shall attempt it. My absence from blogging can be explained by a few factors, primarily being:
1. sickness heading into its 4th ridiculous month
2. job
3. resuming classes
4. Guitar Hero with two guitars
5. death of beloved PC, purchase of beloved new Mac Powerbook
6. subsequent loss of FTP programs (nerd rule)
But I was roused up because my name is in black, which is shameful, and also because this morning I bought life-changing tickets for Jeff, Monica and I to see Andrew WK's self-produced documentary on himself at the Two Boots Theatre this upcoming Saturday. And what makes this awesome is that tickets are normal movie price, but Andrew WK will be there to have a Q&A, take pictures, and play a keyboard solo. I am way excited. This could be the greatest thing to ever happen to me, and I'll be sure to have a camera there to faithfully record it.
Jeff and I also uploaded a list exported from my new DVD catalog software showing what I've recently acquired. The list is already out of date by about 30 things, but that's what happens when the collection expands so rapidly.
I haven't posted any detailed writing yet, although I've been doing quite a bit, so I thought I'd share a short essay here that I wrote for my African American English 2 class (following on the heels of AAE 1, if you didn't know I am now an Africana Studies minor). In class we had a rather vivid debate about why people insist on calling themselves Polish-American, African-American, French-American, whatever--hyphenating their "true" culture, which is American. And when asked who would describe themselves as just American, nobody raised their hands, so our discussion prompt for this little essay, which we'll all read and discuss in class, is what's so wrong with just being American? I went the firebrand political route, probably the more offensive, biased and debatable choice. But here it is anyway:
Each year on November 2nd, I take a look at the direction of the country and decide whether I want another year of subscribing to American ideology. Two years ago was downright awful; the kind of idealist-crushing event that teaches young citizens they don't matter. I actually looked forward to being able to vote, only to learn the important lesson that this country is not solely built around people like me, but that a thing called "democracy" actually allows many people to vote. Even if I consider them morons. My classist, elitist senses sometimes feel this is a truly dangerous thing, but on the other hand there really isn't a better method to mass government than polling the masses, take the results as you may.
The reason I hesitate to call myself an American is because at this point in time I don't agree with many of our foreign and domestic policies, and I don't agree with our national legacy. Most European nations have some sort of horrific asterisk next to their name in the books, be it Spain's Inquisition or Germany's Holocaust, and it's true they've been warring with each other every few decades for the past few centuries. But at least these nations have an enduring and proud heritage with traditions and settlers that go back well before national borders. What did we do with our original settlers? We slaughtered most of them, eventually rounded them up, stole their land and stuck them in reservations where they can entice us with gambling opportunities until they die of diabetes or alcoholism, both of which they are at a much higher risk of developing. And sometimes we name our sports teams after them, unless they complain too much. Then we call them "ungrateful" and "too politically correct." Native American culture, perhaps our only true national past, has been largely boiled down to stereotypes and New Age feel-good mysticism.
America also had slavery longer than most European nations, and when combined with Reconstruction-era hijinks and the many decades of Jim Crow, the country only really started to patch things up racially in the past 30 years. Even then, racism endures institutionally. Somewhere during all of this we even found time to hate immigrants, particularly those from Eastern Europe, while the country ironically trumped its status as a true melting pot of cultures.
During our nation's history we've also entered numerous ill-advised wars, one of which is still continuing. Normal countries unfortunately go to war; it's part of the fact that humans who land in power often would like more power, and are willing to bend a few rules to get it. However, America will be 230 years old this year (a decade or two longer if you count from original colonization), and we've got our feet muddy awfully frequently for such a youthful and supposedly promising nation. Instead of being progressive and truly freedom-loving, politicians and citizens have dragged their feet in almost every instance of providing more freedom, be it the right to vote or simply the right to live in peace--just look at the recent back-and-forth war on gay marriage.
So I tend not to actively call myself American, simply because I don't like to associate myself with such a troubled history nor do I wish to lump myself in with the many bigots and close-minded folks who are often so loud about it. This is not to say that I use the flag for kindling on winter nights; I just don't watch Fox News, or put those cute little ribbons on my car (even though they improve fuel efficiency). I haven't said the Pledge of Allegiance since 5th grade, and I feel like that's true of most people.
I do take a little pride in the fact that most Americans now polled realize they made a bad choice in voting two years ago, and the radically conservative politicians have seen their numbers drop while common sense moderates have gained plenty of ground. But my feelings are mixed, because it's a bit like seeing a 43-year-old man react after touching a hot stove. On one hand, you want to congratulate him for finally learning the stove was hot. On the other hand, you want to say, "You're 43 years old and it's a damn stove! What did you expect?" And you just know in 2008 he'll want to touch the stove again. It's enough to make someone downright cynical.
What people don't realize is that it's actually not that hard to make a decent government on the shoulders of a powerful, industrialized nation. Almost all the governments we really hate and secretly want to overthrow/assassinate/dictate have economies based on poor peasants and overcrowded, dilapidated and poverty-stricken cities, where people struggle day in and day out to make our clothes, DVD players and heroin--if they're lucky. In this sense, America's government has few things are truly special, and the things that do make us special, such as the First Amendment, are under constant fire from people wanting to shut them down in support of their own narrow worldview. Although I love and cherish many friends and family who hold sometimes wildly different viewpoints than my own, and I respect them for those differences, I find it harder to identify with different views held by something as monolithic and anonymous as "America." Without a single unifying ethnic heritage and a relatively short history (in the scale of things) of what could be called a national culture, there are simply too many fragments and identities to sweep under one tent. That's why we've entered the age of the hyphen, and that's why a broad word like just "American" no longer cuts it for me.
Told you it'd be a long azz blog. I'll try to get an FTP program to upload some pictures next time. I have new fun ones.