Aliens in Roswell

Today was my last day working in Roswell, and I found this, buried behind the building in the crusty snow. I thought these things were a little more common around here.

A co-worker and I decided it would be a good idea to lower the alien body down over the fence into the dog kennel next door. We raised the alien up and down with a rope like a piñata. The dogs were going nuts! Lunch was over, so we had to get back to work. We put it under some trash for a couple hours then called somebody to pick it up.

Today’s duty for work was to pump tons of liquid concrete into the walls. A huge glob of wet cement slapped me in the face as Greg Jr. dropped the hose above my head.

When I got home, I told my mum about the concrete incident and she had a good laugh.

The Weirdest Video Ever – Children’s Yoga Teacher/Farmer

I’ve been taking yoga since June. After Ashley showed me this video, I think I’ve decided to rethink what I may become.

Prison For Dogs

In Roswell: We’re building a prison for dogs.  These are the walls of the cells where bad dogs are kept until cute children pick them up to keep as their own… or, until the dogs are put into the ovens.

It’s a little depressing coming to this job site every day. The building is actually an add-on to an already-existing dog prison. So, that means I get to hear all of the howling and sounds-of-misery coming from imprisoned dogs of all ages, including the cutest puppies you’ll ever… hear.

There’s dogs every where. The weird thing is, I can’t see any of them, unless I go to the single crack I can find to peek into the other building. Last week, I saw a German Shepherd neurotically pacing his cell, barking in the opposite direction at sounds I was making to get his attention.

Something is not right about being locked up. And these poor pooches know it. They’re deprived of affection. And they go nucking futs without human love.

What a crazy world we live in. Mammals depend on others for their very sanity.

I guess it’s not that mind-blowing. But when you let it be, it can be.

I guess I’ve been thinking in relation to all of the “texts” I’ve read about becoming “whole” and fully integrated with oneself. How much of that can possibly be attained with a by keeping a personality in tact? I think zero. We have to lose all ego before that happens. Some people spend their whole lives dedicating themselves to ego destruction. Is it worth it to transcend a dualistic state? I feel like that a person has got to keep one foot in each state of mind to fully experience what it means to be human. But in my experience, that’s as easy as balancing a chair on one leg. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever taken one foot out of where I’ve been, as much as I’d like to think so.

All because of howling dogs.

I watch movies in my bed.

I’m back in Roswell as of yesterday. This time I came prepared with some movies to watch, a couple that I haven’t seen before. Since I’d never seen it, and I’ve been on a little bit of a Danny Boyle kick, I decided to experience Trainspotting last night.  Apparently, heroin is fun and games, till the baby turns cold and purple.

The third week of my Roswell psychological state is comparable to the tour-psychology of maybe the second week. I’ve had weekend breaks, so I still have a little sense of time. But man, despite the better pay for being out here, I’m ready to be done, away from Roswell and away from the middle-aged roommate power-farts that wake me… every… single… morning…

Bread and Butter – Slamdance

“Dear Filmmaker,

We regret to inform you we were unable to include your film in the 2010 Slamdance Film Festival. Slamdance is limited by space constraints in Park City to screen less than 100 films, though the quality of submissions would allow us to program many more. This year, Slamdance received more outstanding film projects than ever before – just over 5,000. There were so many amazing films that deserved to be in Slamdance; it was an incredibly hard decision for the programming committee.

Please don’t take this as any indication of the quality of your submission, or its potential for a successful, well-regarded future for your film. We wish you the best and look forward to seeing more of your work. Keep in mind that we have shown many films by directors who hadn’t made the final cut in previous years. We appreciate your ongoing support of our festival and thank you for submitting.

Warm regards,
Slamdance Programming Department”

My only thought on this is that I need to do another one soon.

Sundays with the family

I spent the day with the fam, a semi-usual Sunday routine.  In the photo, that’s Erin, Josh, Jeremy, and Jodi. We will be mailing this out for the 2009 Christmas cards, I hope.

Today I watched 3 movies. I haven’t done that since I was, I don’t know, a lot younger.

The Train Car Jam Space

For about the last year, this is where I’ve been practicing with my mates. There are rows and rows of empty train cars, and we pay rent to play music in one of them.

It’s the weekend, so that means I’m back in Albuquerque for a couple of days. Today Tommy and I jammed; Tommy on drums, me on bass. I think it’s been about 6 months since he and I worked on some of my ideas. Sometimes I feel fresh and ready to rock. Other times, I realize I should have brought my allen wrench set, having left my bass in the freezing-cold train car for over a month. So, the entire jam session was laced with a lot of fret-buzz.

After that, we went to Noel’s grand opening for her make-up studio.  The majority of interaction involved sipping wine out of styrofoam cups and talking to parents about how making a living with music is dying unless you are somehow an artist who is independently marketing-inclined, or already at the brandable status of U2, Nine Inch Nails, or Radiohead.

I thought this article was fascinating about how the internet ruined music.

The art of posting comments on Facebook, and why I don’t go to church.

Probably 30-40% of the comments I type on Facebook are vetoed. That means, when I type a response to somebody’s status, I spend some time thinking about posting it, then eventually decide to ditch it. There are times where the world might be worse off from a Facebook comment, due to subtle attacks on one’s egotistical persuasion, or very bad response-jokes. The times I like to avoid hitting the comment button is:

• When I realize that the comment I’ve typed is absolutely generic and unoriginal, and somebody else is guaranteed to type it anyway.
• If it is a reference to an inside joke or previously shared emotions; “it was nice seeing you,” or “I love you snookums,”  or “thanks for cake,” etc.
• When there’s an evident desperation to be “witty” or “funny”
• If the “witty-ness” or “funny-ness” just turns into something too bizarre.
• When my response is a deliberate knife-swipe towards one’s lifeline to comfort.

These above are the unspoken rules I’ve dug from my psyche for the sake of this blog post. Many times I’ve misjudged my responses when held up to these personal rules for posting. And it’s a real bummer when you see 50 other people post the same thing you did.

“You are not a unique snowflake.” -Bradley Pitt, as Tyler Durden

So there’s a fear of unoriginality… but then of course, you can’t be too unique. And if you’re too unique, people don’t really want to have anything to do with you.

The solution to being truly unique? Don’t be a human. We need other humans to feel good about ourselves, and others won’t like you if you carry some crazy, twisty, chaotic energy amongst yourself.

But what about the enlightened ones who are ever so complete and whole? They don’t need the affections and approval of others?

Answer: They still need other people to climb up the hills to give offerings of flowers and oranges and everything.

(This was not the direction I planned for this entry).

Anyway, if you clicked on the photograph above, you may see that I have a tendency to get irritated by “Praise God” posts on Facebook. Perhaps that’s because I see from the perspective that a public forum is being used to seek the approval of a divine personality.

That sort of thing bothered me even when I went to church. It’s equivalent to making a scene by raising your hands up during the singing.

And it’s only because I’ve been there that I can see when joyful praises contain the seed of fear. The sad thing is that the modern church molds people into a belief system that is fear-based.  There’s so much joy, love, happiness, and various positivity in the preaching, which is a necessity for some people’s very sanity, but there is a haunting fear of a jealous, egotistical, wrathful personality who can take all of that away at any moment. Whether you’re forgiven or well-behaved, it doesn’t matter. To the serious modern church-goer, that fear is unavoidable. It’s important to one’s psychological well-being to be able to feel and think certain things without feeling like their lines are tapped.

I’ve been thinking about this lately. Also about the teaching of “God is love”. Well, if that is the case, keep in mind that the emotional and mental state of love or bliss can be measured energetically. So can fear. Fear is a lower vibrating energy versus the higher vibrating love. Our bodies are emotional mountains of walking, talking energy. As long as there is a deeply embedded fear that is not made conscious, it is absolutely impossible to fully experience the vibration of love. The interesting thing is, the way the church is structured, it fashions people’s beliefs in a way that actually cuts people off from fully experiencing real, true love (or “God”) in their ideology.

There are plenty of list-able reasons that frustrates me about modern church/religion, such as the listen-to-middle-aged-American-SUV-family-man-tell-me-how-to-live-my-life reason, but this is a big reason why I don’t go to church.

And if I seem a little polarized about it all, that will change when I smooth out all the knots in my body that I’ve accumulated during the first 23 years of my life by trying to fit in.

Passing the time on Youtube

Time in Roswell means time on the internet. Inevitably that leads to video-watching.

Here’s one. Jack White from the White Stripes has another project called The Dead Weather. But this time he plays drums (or in this case, machine gun).

And here’s another great auto-tune video.

“You’re smarter than you look… well, sort of.”

The good thing about Roswell is the free Mexican dinners we all get from Eduardo every night.  Tonight is tacos. Me gusta tacos. Me gusta tacos mucho.

Work is weird in the sense that everyone is still trying to figure me out. Guys try to do the bro-ah-bro teasing, seeking a connection in a way by which I’ve never fully learned to react. Then, sometimes dudes say things in passing that I take personally. Taking nonsense personally seems to be an INFP trait (not that I’m confining myself to a 16-personality-types-only definition), and it has happened all my life. The good thing is I’m in a phase that I don’t take shite from anybody when it’s unjustified. And what’s fascinating is, people usually come back begging for your respect again, without having to say a word. Like they feel your negative mental waves or something… justified, of course. That’s the important part.

Then sometimes you learn that what they meant is not at all how it was intended to be received.

Meanwhile, the TV is on next to me, and the national news reports:

“Amazing breaking news we will report on what is really happening today with spirituality…” as images of multi-cultural gatherings take place, including yoga classes.

The news is the first place I want to find out about this stuff, so I gotta go.