- Wow, you can’t play (insert popular card game here)??? What kind of freak are you?

Not a freak, mind you, just someone who doesn’t feel the need to sit in one place and play with luck for three hours.

- But, it is so much more than that!

Yes, that’s what they all will say. They will say that it is about skill, bluffing, reading facial expressions, adrenaline, etc. However, any game that encourages wearing a hat and sunglasses indoors is not really worth it in my opinion. Just watching those dwarfs play their little tournaments rips my heart apart — hours and hours of sitting down, playing with their chips and hoping to get a good hand.

I was watching a poker game for a while one day, and I was really wondering what those people were thinking while they were playing. Some of them were stretching expansively, others were close to falling asleep. What goes through their minds during that time? Surely, their brains couldn’t be occupied with plastic cards and chips for such a long time. Maybe something like “Oh, I wonder why Obama changed his stand on the FISA bill?” or even something in the lines of “I wish the Backstreet Boys would make another CD” — I just want some kind of thought from these guys. By the way,  how do they reminisce over their games?

- Hey, do you remember that hand I once had? - generic poker player 1

- You mean the aces and the kings? - generic poker player 2

- That’s exactly what I mean, man! - generic poker player 1

- Cool! Those were some good times! - generic poker player 2

Am I forgetting something? Oh yeah, people play for money. I wouldn’t hate this game if money was not involved in it. Believe it or not, most people won’t play poker unless it is with real money. I know right? There are always going to be a selected few who “made a fortune” out of poker, but  for most it is a cycle of losing and gaining. Some are even addicted to this crap. It is such a terrible waste to use the perseverance of the human spirit on something so limited and pointless. Betting on a cock fight is more exciting than losing your money in poker. Then again, I am sure that there are people who are addicted to cock fights. I wonder how I know…

Anyways, it seems that the only climax in poker is when somebody goes “all in,” but what about the rest of the time? It’s a terrible thing to watch and play. Amusing, but still terrible. No matter how many movies they make about poker and its coolness, I will never buy into it because I am a man of principles (well besides the cock fighting, but that’s just something I do).

It’s 4:30 in the morning and I discovered a very beautiful song. I can predict that I am going to listen to it for a long time. The stars have aligned again. The band is called “God is an Astronaut.”

Of course, people have turned our “scent memory” into a business, by giving different enjoyable scents to bubble gum, detergents, toothpaste, etc. I think that times will come when people will use those artificial scents to judge the real stuff. A scene from the Matrix comes to mind, when the guy is eating a stake and says that even though he knows the steak isn’t real, it is still delicious. Yes, I think that we will be able to trick our minds in the future , but I personally prefer to stimulate my senses the old-fashioned way. Artificial scents, like online virtual worlds, can only go so far. But still, people want to smell (or smell like) tropical forests, vanilla,flowers, or whatever those marketers decide that it’s best for your nose. The shirt that I am wearing right now smells nice, but I really can’t decide if it’s morning dew or something else. It’s funny how all that we can say is “that smells nice,” without linking the scent to anything in particular.

(By the way, what’s the deal with fake flowers, can somebody explain that please? I think that people with fake flowers have some real issues.)

It’s very weird for me to smell an old perfume, I can almost feel the atmosphere of that particular time. One of my favorite movies is actually called “Perfume,” so if you haven’t seen it please do so. It really made me think about appreciating my sense of smell. Could it be that we have surrounded ourselves with so much metal and plastic, that Earth’s natural scent might disappear one day? If people had to choose between getting rid of their vision, taste, or their sense of smell, they will most likely choose the last one. When I think about it, we can live a pretty ordinary life without having a sense of smell (some might even like it).

People are very particular when they want to create the perfect atmosphere. Although, we don’t pay much attention to it, I think that we all have a particular idea of a “party” smell. Depending on the crowd, it may be expansive perfumes mixed with fine wine, or weed mixed with Milwaukee’s Best Light beer. Either way, we all have our idea of a party smell. In other words, we have artificial scents reminding us of our idea of a “fun time.” Well, unless our idea of a fun time is spending it outside in the mountains (but then we have that barbecue smell).

“Hey, I wouldn’t be surprised if they make a party smell freshener — that way you can still feel like you are at a party, but from the comfort of your home. They might even have an outdoorsy type one. I am just predicting the future, that’s all.”

In the beginning I said how certain smells can bring me childhood memories. I often use different scents to travel back in time and remind myself where exactly a particular scent has made an impression on me. I have come to the conclusion that what smells nice for me, actually encompasses moments in time that I consider worthwhile for one reason or another. This is something very unique for every one of us and it is worth being aware of. Do you all have a scent that you link to an event in your life? I link the smell of a tent ( I don’t know how to describe it better) to when I was five years old and ran in my grandparent’s backyard all day. I guess they had that certain fabric around. It is very uplifting to sense that particular smell after many years, tens of thousands miles away, and still be reminded of that time and place. A real trip.

PS. Another one of my favortite movies (ever since I was very little) is “Scent Of A Woman,” so don’t be surprised by my fascination with scents. And please watch that movie.

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night” (Eleonora)

Omitting some of the obvious reasons for day-dreaming loneliness, I have to say that one of the main reasons for the isolation that those people feel is seeing that there is no escape, but still searching for it.

How do they explain that to those who dream only by night? They really can’t. They can write songs, poetry, do stand-up, but I feel like all of those things are done just to “plant the seeds” for someone in the future, rather than a desperate call for understanding now, at this moment.

This is why the most influential people that we know of today, are said to have had “universal ideas.” I also believe that most of them were alone, but not lonely, because of the state of equanimity that they had reached. Still, I think that the ideas that spurred in their minds, as a result of self-realization, can only be truly felt by an individual who shares the same mindset. Sharing the same mindset, however, requires you to dream by day, which makes you feel like you are living in the ice age. So, we are back to where we started. We are stuck in the ice age, aren’t we?

I think that it would have been great if we lived in the ice age right now– we wouldn’t have all of those distractions that we have today. Maybe we will even dream all the time instead of choosing between day and night. Enjoy the song bellow!

I have a couple of things to say about this video, please click continue to read what they are after you watch it.

Ok, I seldom discuss politics in this blog, but this is just too good to miss. I want to rip what McCain said on the video above to pieces, because I disagree with 95% of it. Just the fact that he uses the word cyberspace twice, while admitting of being “illiterate” on this subject, can tell you how authoritative he is on that issue. But he is making some progress on getting online, so it’s ok.

“I am sure that we’ve had something to do with it, with some action of ours.”

Why not tell it like it is (especially concerning the Iraq war)? By “some action,” doesn’t he mean a war started by manipulating facts and using constant propaganda through the mass media, to sell a war that uses peace as a rationale? It is a war through which 90% of all casualties are civilian? Even the words that he uses — “something” and “some action” hint that there is absolutely no desire for him to self-analyze the situation and is eager to put the blame on religion and ideology.

“Perverted adaptation of an honorable religion.”

This is the 5% where I tend to agree with him. Religion has and will be used by religious leaders to gain control over the populace to execute their goals. Even John Paul II said that “A clash ensues only when Islam or Christianity is misconstrued or manipulated for political or ideological ends.” So, in that train of thought I will add that just as Bush used the word God when fabricating the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, religious leaders use Allah to justify their actions. They are both “perverted adaptations of honorable religions,” even thought for McCain that argument works only one way.

McCain’s next words are truly remarkable. He says that:

“they” want to destroy “our” ideals, principles and “Bill of Rights” in governing not only in America, but in other places of the world.

Well, isn’t it common sense that if you want to apply your fundamental principles in other places of the world, you have to expect some resistance? Of course that they want to reject your way of thinking if it contradicts with their whole way of life and philosophy.

“They want to destroy it and it is very hard for us to understand.”

Again, he uses the words hate and destruction and for the second time he has made clear that a self-analysis is not needed, which gets him into a one way street, which he dodges by saying the next pathetic thing:

“It’s very hard for us to understand, but we better understand that they are making good use of cyberspace.”

So, it is very hard for us to understand what prompted that hatred and destruction, but we better understand that they hate us and want to destroy us using cyberspace. What? That doesn’t make sense. He is basically saying over and over again that we wouldn’t be able to determine the cause of the issue, so we should concentrate mainly on its manifestation. All that we know is that it might be something or some action that we have done. Is that enough?

So, this weird, untraceable disease can take even doctors in Glasgow to Denmark to Germany and, course, build Al Qaeda cells in America. But, all of the sudden, he says that:

“At the end of the day it is going to be an ideological battle just as the Cold War was.”

What?! What happened to the “perverted adaptation of an honorable religion?” An ideology is an organized collection of ideals. Well, that makes more sense. However, you might be at the losing end if you are fighting an ideological battle with a nation that you have occupied by false accusations of having nuclear weapons and ties with al Qaeda. All explanations concerning the spreading of democracy and ridding Iraq from a brutal, evil dictator came after the invasion. So we have an ideological battle, or in McCain’s words “struggle,” that exists because one of the sides broke all international laws to accuse and chase weapons that didn’t even exist in the other side. Hey, maybe that’s the “something” that McCain couldn’t find earlier! Maybe that’s the “some action” ?

“We have to make better use of the internet.”

Something tells me that McCain should really not talk about this when he has absolutely no knowledge of the “internet,” and has even recently used it to provoke compassion by self-irony. So, he is telling us what we must do better, but he himself has no experience whatsoever in that area. That’s maybe a poor argument on his part.

“We have to set up radio and television the way we did during the Cold War”

Wow. Just wow. It takes a lot of courage to admit the constant propaganda that the US government exerts on the mass media. Some example include the hiring of past and present military officials even before the war had started, in order to convince the public of how inevitable the war is, and the refusal to show dead US soldiers or in other words the war’s “sanitization”. I have to disagree with McCain again and say that radio and television have already been “set up” quite nicely just like the Cold War.

“Advocates for human rights and democracy.”

Sure.

“And all of those kind of things that you and I would be standardized approaches.”

That doesn’t make any sense and it is what he said, I am not making this up.

So, we went from a perverted adaptation of an honorable religion, to an ideological battle, to a war between the good force and the evil force (those are McCain’s actual words). I think that it’s pretty easy to see how outrageously stupid his arguments sound. It doesn’t stop there:

“We will prevail in a long…in many ways, as I said, military and diplomatic intelligence”

Again that doesn’t make sense, but I know that we make those mistakes; we try to say something, but end up saying something completely different. There is only one thing that disturbs me. Why the word “long?” Long war, long presence, long battle? Why does it have to be long and how does he know that. He did a good thing by changing the subject.

He ends with the most hypocritical thing that he has said so far (notice how he gets uncomfortable when he says it):

“It will be our ideals, our beliefs and the common values that all of us are created equal by our creator with certain inalienable rights. That will be the way we prevail”

He is basically saying that American, or western, ideals, beliefs and values will prevail in the so-called ideological battle and, of course, he has to tie everything up with the word “creator.” Well, wouldn’t his “creator” maybe prefer his “children” to have different ideals, beliefs and values? Also, I want to see him talk about inalienable rights to the innocent Japanese-Americans who were put into “war relocation camps.” Where were their rights as American citizens and where was his creator then? Just like it was then, our rights today can be taken away any time if it suits the government’s agenda.

By using God in that particular statement he shows that he is no better than the ones he accuses of “perverted adaptation of an honorable religion.” As idiotic as it sounds, he is saying that his western God is better for them than “their” fanatical, hating, destroying, distorted God. You might say that that’s taking it too far, but why in the world would he mention his creator when asked “how do we win?” Come to think of it, this doesn’t sound nearly as bad as his words about the good and evil “forces.”

As far as his ideological war argument I shall ask: if there is a battle between two ideologies and one of them wins, we are left with only one ideology, correct? I think that, that’s a fair assumption when keeping in mind  what he has said so far.  Well, if we look at what history has to say:
“Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of an official all-embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that controls the state, personality cults, central state-controlled economy, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics.” (source)

Interestingly enough, that covers a lot of what has been said so far. Maybe McCain should consider his “good” force to leave a couple of ideologies floating around just in case.

The truth, as always comes out in the end:

“And there are many aspects of it, which would take you and I a long, long time – such as economic developments”

I know what he wants to say, don’t get me wrong. Yes, this has been taken out of context and, yes , he uses it to strengthen his flawed argument, but I just wanted to say that : “McBush we can finally agree, it will take you and I a long, long time to discuss this particular aspect of the war.”

PS. Afghanistan is a different case. Although I don’t agree with the idea of having a war to promote peace, Afghanistan is where al Qaeda and Bin Laden are (or were). It also had more international support then the Iraq war. I am just saying that in case somebody wants to point it out. I am also aware that McCain does not mention Iran or Afghanistan, he doesn’t even mention the word “terrorist,” but interesting enough, he manages to say “faith” and “religion” many times. Hmm, I wonder why? I am just connecting what he says with the war in Iraq and his firm, educated, experienced stand on it.

I chose this song because it  has a lot to do with my previous post. I have taken a more philosophical path latelely, but I hope that my readers enjoy it (as much as I do). I don’t really claim to be anything more than your ordinary guy, I just like to record my stream of thought and see what emotions it evokes in other people.  Anyways, I can’t really choose what to cite from this song, because  every part is a masterpiece on its own. Here it is:

I think I know what you mean but watch what you say
’cause they’ll be try to knock you down in some way
Sometimes it feels like the world is falling asleep
How do you wake someone up from inside a dream?

Your mind would wander and searched for its place in the night
Your body followed this feeling like following light
Once that your music was born it followed you ’round
And then it gave your activities meaning and let you be loud

You’re sad but you smile
It not in your eyes
Your eyeballs won’t change
It’s the muscles around your eyes

An egg to fertilize
A pulse to stabilize
A body to deodorize
A life to scrutinize
A child to criticize
Young adults to modernize
Citizens to terrorize
Generations to desensitize

You’re dreams are sweet and obsessed
And your overworked
You’re overtaken by visions of being overlooked
How disappointed would D.(ead) I.(dealistic) D.(esperate) I.(nventor) P.(ioneer) P.(hilosophers)
Be to see such power in our hands all wasted on greed
Am I a prisoner to instincts?
Or do my thoughts just live
As free and detached
As boats to the dock?

Just like when music was born
And detached from your heart
Is your free time to free minds
Or for falling apart?

Night after night
You turn out the light
You don’t fall asleep right away
“Are we… are we done?”

A desk to organize
A product to advertise
A market to monopolize
Movie stars you idolize
Leaders to scandalize
Enemies to neutralize
No time to apologize
Fury to tranquilize
Weapons to synchronize
Cities to vapor-i

Books seem to be the all time favorite history-wise. It is fascinating how something written hundreds of years ago can inspire the modern man. I think that we

appreciate the silence that we get when reading a book. It is a very peaceful process, in which we compare our ideas with those of another human being who had something to say. However, this one-sided process isn’t enough for us, because we are selfish creatures even in our attempts to get closer to each other. We want more and more ways to find the missing pieces. So, naturally, our interaction needs to be more direct. We need songs to express our ambitions more lyrically and/or cryptically, we also need movies to have a visual confirmation and understanding of where we stand in our beliefs. Then, we combine those mediums to obtain million other ways to find the unique path – songs about books, movies about books, songs about movies, movies about movies, books about books. It seems that we recycle the same basic ideas over and over again in order to adapt them to the next generation.

Lately, we have been taking this to a whole new level. Myspace and Facebook let us search each other based on songs, movies, religion, etc. With such abundance of ways, there have been some alterations, or what I call consumerist mutations, like finding our “self” in cars, cell phones, clothes, etc. Undoubtedly, that’s the easy way out, because unlike the one-sided journeys mentioned above, the material things can be easily found, traded, discussed, bought, manipulated, priced; while reading books, requires more of a inner challenge.

Everything has been heavily categorized. Even if we wanted to discuss fundamental issues, we would have thousands of ways to express ourselves and get to the information we need. Kenneth Clark said that, “The great artist takes what he needs.” I think that we are all artists in taking what we need from life. Notice, we take not what is best for us, but just what we need to carry on our quest to find our beliefs in someone else. What is best for us and what we need often coincide with each other; however I really doubt that anyone would need a fifty room mansion with three pools and a butler, but that goal is more visible than having to constantly question yourself through one-sided conversations, two-sided arguments, or three-sided…thresomes.

What makes me an individual,  somebody with educated opinions, or “a single organism as distinguished from a group?” Well, how do we distinguish ourselves from a group when each of our actions has been historically duplicated time after time? We might appear as one physically, but our thoughts and ambitions constitute of bits and pieces that have been transformed through time in order to reach us now, at this moment. Our surroundings might drastically change, our means of expression might have some more mutations, but our ambition to find our beliefs somewhere else remains the same. So, when amazon.com tells you that people who bought this also bought that, it’s just another way for you to try to connect to other missing pieces of your puzzle. Although, I would consider it a mutation because I wouldn’t really care if the toaster you bought is similar to the toaster that I want to buy. And still, I want to know.

PS. The title of the post doesn’t make any sense.

Watching commercials is something that I don’t particularly like to do, but it gives me a great insight of the world that we live in. The more I watch the more I see how those commercials reflect on the way that people behave. The same thing happens with movies. When people do something cool they say “it was like the movies.” Isn’t that strange? Movies are supposed to imitate our life, not the other way around. Come to think of it, the same thing happens with songs, magazines, etc. A commercial, however, has to be short, so all the gimmicks that we see have to be over exaggerated and memorable. Step inside the United States of Advertising.

Cars are my all time favorite. A car can never be a transportation device in the United States of Advertising. They must have a cool soundtrack, which coincidentally matches its trendy name. Everyone who drives that car must be smiling at all times and never encounter a red light. We sometimes forget that when they are shooting a car commercial there are cameras everywhere, but we never see them so we begin to question ourselves if it’s all real. Are those people really actors? I don’t think so. I think that they are just like you and me, it just so happened that there were cameras on their cars that recorded their jolly driving experience.

Female tampons/pads/etc. Ok, it doesn’t matter what techniques they use, those things are going to remain “a plug of cotton or other absorbent material inserted into a body cavity or wound to absorb bodily fluid” and “it is worn externally, between the vulva and a woman’s undergarment, unlike tampons which are worn inside the vagina. “ There is nothing glamorous in it. All of that camera work, song licensing and baby images don’t mean anything. Oh, and what’s up with pouring liquid over it? When did that become popular? Someone said, “oh, maybe we can imitate disgusting bodily fluid by pouring orange juice, that would prove how absorbent it is.” That makes it even more disgusting.

Food is a great follow-up to tampons. Why eat ordinary food, when you can eat food that is accompanied by songs, wit and extraordinary satisfaction. Why even eat? I get full just by looking at it. Most of the time the food that you see on TV doesn’t even enter your stomach. It goes directly to the food heaven that it came from, where M&M is God and pizza is delivered instantly with no extra charge.

Cell phones are here to stay. Not only do I have to see people using them virtually everywhere, I also have to be reminded what kind of cell phones people use or are going to use in the future. I think that cell phone commercials are a big reason why my bad generation is so dependent on a piece of plastic that let’s your mom call you while you are robbing a bank (for example). But then we have phones that take pictures and videos, making YouTube a semi-virtual dump of aspiring paparazzi. I am not a hater. I am just waiting for the day when I will use my eyes to record pictures and videos. Wait, I think that I am already doing that.

Reality TV is another favorite. Strangely, there are a lot of commercials advertising snippets of a reality show that’s about to air. If I get this correctly, people are willing to watch glimpses of pre-recorded visual images that depict what others were doing at a different time and place. This sounds better than taking AP History. Why even leave your home, when you can see a bunch of retards doing the same thing and fail miserably.

Game shows/news. It gets little tricky here, so bear with me. There are constant advertisements of game shows and news, which in turn advertise their sponsors like peanut butter and female pads (which is a great rock band name). So, the channels are basically advertising their most popular advertisement generators, which means that everything is geared towards making money. The only way to get out of this maze is to pay for channels like HBO, which keeps the channels commercial free while giving an insight to only those who can afford it. Stratification never looked so hi-def.

So there you have it – Bad Generation presented a complete guide to the United States of Advertising. The sad part is that it is slowly beginning to leave your TV and transfer to all spheres of life. Hey, why not? Those savings will come in handy when you must pay a fee to leave your home.

“I think that the family, children, whatever [of Akayev], should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library. It would be like, maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or something like that, not a huge amount but enough to show that they’re serious.” (source)

The story gets more interesting when we find out that the person who needs that publicity is Kirghistan’s past president Askar Akayev, who basically wants to use the opportunity as a PR service. It becomes more than apparent from that video, that the representatives from the White House are ready to say “positive statements” in order to give him a shot at the presidency:

“I think the main thing is that he [Akayev] comes, and he’s well received, that he meets with high-level people in the administration and most importantly we send positive statements made back from the administration about ‘This guy wasn’t such a bad guy’, [and] ‘Many people have done worse.’ Those kind of statements from a couple of people in the administration.”

You can see the video here. So, I think that we need a list of requirements for the people who are interested in the many services that the White House provides. This is going to save a lot of time for them, but they can thank me later.

1. You have to be a president who was overthrown by a people’s revolt.

2. You have to be in exile, so people can forget how your government killed six demonstrators.

3. You have to know powerful lobbyists like Payne who have sucked up to people in each of the seven continents and know how to get the job done.

4. The ideal time to use the services of the White House is when money is needed to build a library which will preserve the “legacy” of Bush. (by the way, isn’t it ironic that there is a library carring his name).

5. You have to arrange the details in a trendy hotel in London, while a bunch of grandmas are sipping on their tea.