free wifi at rest stop about an hour from Des Moines! Spent last night in Toledo, Ohio. Tonight, I’ll probably catch dinner in Des Moines and try to find a hotel way on the outskirts of town where it will be cheap. Spent a couple hours today in the middle of Chicago after making a series of wrong turns. Do not eat Cinnabon for breakfast or you may become disoriented by sugar and transfats. Ok, off again! Dinner plans are Denny’s. If I can find one. w00t.
Tag: Celesteh
See you in a few days. Cola will be posting periodically as to my whereabouts.
Tag: Celesteh
I’m replying to a comment in another blog and feel strongly enough to want to post it here.
I preface it here by saying that this argument is not new. Whites argued during Jim Crow that integration would unfairly abridge their right to discriminate. Rights must be balanced based upon real-world outcomes. It really does violate a restauranteur’s rights of freedom of association to say that he must serve all races. The supreme court decided that rights violations endured by african americans was greater than rights violations pushed upon racists. As was once written, the right to swing your arms in the street ends at another person’s nose.
Forgive me for saying so, but it’s quite obvious from your reasoning that you have never experienced the sort of discrimination that befalls minority groups.
There are people in the world who do not appreciate being told that anti-semitism is wrong and there are people in the world who do not appreciate being the only Jew in their school and hearing every day about how they are going to hell and about how the holocaust was just fine and dandy.
There are people who don’t appreciate being told that homophobia is wrong and there are people who don’t appreciate being utterly isolated and enduring daily threats of physical violence, general social ostracism and ongoing sexual harassment.
Conflicts between minority groups and majority groups are not meetings of equals. Discrimination implies power inequality. Children exhibiting racism are hurting the object of their ire in a way in which racists would not be hurt by having their beliefs altered.
You may think it possible for somebody to believe that an individual is sick and disordered and going to hell and destroying society and to still treat their object of contempt with respect, however, I find this to be very unlikely even with sophisticated adults. Certainly not with kids.
It may violate some sort of dubious rights to force people to confront their prejudices and help them overcome them, but it very definitely violates the rights of minority groups to force them to “tolerate” harassment. You say forcing tolerance of difference is bad, but this explicitly allows tolerance of racism. In the first case, you are forcing an oppressor to tolerate a group they see as beneath them and which, likely, they have some social power over. In the second case, you are forcing a victim to tolerate abuse.
A classroom discussion wherein one student who is in a privileged position says something negative (perhaps hypothetical or theoretical) about a minority group, is directly harmful to the members of the minority group. Hypothetically, you think all gays are objectively disordered. Joe in the corner is gay. Joe just heard somebody in class say that HE (Joe) is objectively disordered and the teacher said nothing to counter it. Joe takes this personally and the teacher implicitly endorses this judgement.
What about freedom of speech? Well, freedom of speech does not include sexual harassment. Freedom of speech does not include bullying or teasing. Freedom of speech should not include making disparaging remarks that apply to other members of the community based on immutable characteristics without those remarks being challenged. Challenging the remarks is challenging the belief that spawned them.
You argue for some sort of freedom of thought. What is thought without speech? You can think that gays are evil and disgusting, but you can never let anyone know what you think? Is your right to hate gay people greater than the right of gay people to be able to go to school? Since gay people are targets of discrimination, to say that those rights are equal is to say that gay people do not have rights.
To say that whites have the right to be racist is to say that blacks should not be able to frequent all businesses and apply for all jobs and got to all schools. Speech is a form of action. If I put up a sign in a restaurant which says “whites only” I have taken a definite action through my words.
You got over your queerphobia because your friend came out. In cases where homophobia is unchallenged and allowed to continue unchecked, it is much more difficult for gay people to come out. If some social changes (whether in general society or by a conscious decision by your school to fight homophobia) had not occurred, Nyssa might have stayed in the closet, or, like ONE THIRD of gay kids in 80’s she might have tried to killed herself.
I was the first out person in the history of my catholic highschool. Teachers did not challenge homophobic statements made by students because of some sort of “morality” issue. I got beat on in gym class. I got sexually harassed continually in some of my other classes. I took is very personally when people said “[all] gay people are (sick|wrong|perverts|child molesters|…).” This is not hypothetical. This is a deeply hostile classroom environment which makes it very difficult to learn, which lead me to contemplate suicide, which lead at least one of my friends to attempt suicide.
Letting individuals grow in whatever direction they find satisfactory may or may not be a noble goal (I’m not sure that it is. There are cultural memes like “reason” that should be propagated), but we live in the real world and need to think about how these ideals would be realized in the ugly, dirty worlds of high school and junior high.
One third of gay teens in the 80’s attempted suicide. Some lower number were successful. A very high percentage contemplated it.
Tag: Celesteh
Just ask and it’s yours. All items in Middletown Connecticut.
Tag: Celesteh
Ok, I read the news reports about the trial. I admit it. I do it for the titillation. But I am no longer titillated at the deeply homophobic turn things are taking. You see, Mr. Jackson has a few books that show images of adult men engaged in sexual acts with each other. Should he be allowed around children if he has gay porn?????!!!!???
This would maybe be funny, except the prosecutors are asking witnesses this and they’re saying “no” and it’s being presented to the jury as “evidence” that Jackson is a pedophile.
Images of adult men.
Is it 1985? I thought we were past the all-gay-men-are-pedophiles bullshit.
So I own the Tom of Finland book. And an old boss gave me a book of art photography nudes. Some of the nudes are children. Apparently, the possession of these books (they’re up on a high shelf) shows that I’m a pedophile. Not that we’re homophobic or anti-art in the unites states. It’s just that all queers are evil alien others who are going to hell.
Tags: Michael Jackson, Queer
Ok, so I didn’t do much packing today. I recorded a double-CD thinge with Braxton that’s going to be released, um, maybe next year some time. Apparently, I’ll be getting money for this. I said, “I’m only in this for the coins.” but that’s not true. Getting coins from music is just gravy. Andrew Dewar did the recording.
So now I’m an avant-garde tuba player. It was making me nervous playing in front of andrew, because he plays a lot more than I do and I’m always comparing myself to everybody else here. I’m going to spend my summer practicing scales, so I can figure out what notes to play much faster instead of going for random. Also, I think I rely on didjeridoo textures too much or rather, I don’t have enough variations in my textures. I’m not sure. Anyway, so it made me nervous. I was gripping my horn with a death grip in my left hand. After the first set, my hand was numb. Yeah, my left hand doesn’t do anything but steady the horn. thing #2 to practice is having a loser grip.
So hours of playing tuba is kind of exhausting. I was playing some stuff that was kind of physically intense and loud and it’s pretty draining. I love the tuba because of it’s physicality. I really feel connected to my horn, more like I think a vocalist feels about her or his voice than a guitarist might feel about her axe. Like, there are some low notes that I play that actually rattle my eyeballs. Everything gets blurry when I play them. It kind of shakes my whole head all the time actually and makes my nose itch from the vibration. This is probably bad for me somehow, alas. The medical profession always views the tuba with suspicion. Bah. It doesn’t hurt my wrist at all though, except when I hold the thumb trigger down, I learned today. I felt like I was playing too much in C, because that’s my open note, so I was holding down the thumb trigger to change my key. I don’t recall what note the trigger plays.
So near the end, I guess I was hitting my fourth valve too hard because the paddle came loose from the rotor. I’m into the half valving thing, but it’s kind of inconvenient having the rotor move on it’s own. I cursed during taping. Alas. I also sniffled a few times because of my poor vibrated nose. The bit driver on my pocket knife is exactly the right size for screwing my tuba back together. It can also dismantle/remantle a mac laptop.
When I play with Braxton, I try to use forms from his music, like ideas from ghost trance or language musics. In general, playing with somebody I try to treat it like the game “Set.” I try to do what they’re doing or do the opposite of what they’re doing. Like if he’s playing something high, fast and quiet on the soprano sax, I can’t do high or fast, so I do low and sustained, but I can do quiet, so I do. If somebody’s playing some phrases, I might echo them, but I end up with oddball notes, so it’s like I’m parodying them. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. When I think of playing this way, I think of “Complement or Contrast.” If I’m doing the same ideas, that’s complement and if I’m doing the opposite, that’s contrast. I want to sound like I’m playing with the other person even if it’s a weird combo, like a high pitched saxophone or a clarinet or a flute.
so exhausted. . .
Tags: Tuba, Celesteh
PLEASE tell me if I’m forgetting anything
Tag: Celesteh
look around you look at a control machine programmed to select the ugliest, stupidest, most vulgar and degrading sounds for playback which provokes uglier stupider more vulgar and degraded sounds to be recorded and play back more inexorable degradation look forward to dead end look forward to ugly vulgar playback tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow what are newspapers doing but selecting the ugliest sound for playback by and large if its ugly its news and if that isn’t enough i quote from the editorial pages of the new york daily news we can take care of china and if russia intervenes we can take care of that nation too the only good communist is a dead communist lets take care of slave driver castro next door what are we waiting for lets bomb china now and let’s stay armed to the teeth for centuries this ugly vulgar bray put out for mass playback you want to spread hysteria record and playback the most hysterical reactions
marijuana marijuana why that’s deadlier than cocaine. . .
only way to break the inexorable downward spiral of ugly uglier ugliest recording and playback is with counterrecording and playback   the first step is to isolate and cut association lines of the control machine carry a tape recorder with you and record all the ugliest and stupidest things cut you ugly tapes in together speed up slow down play backwards inch the tape you will hear one ugly voice and see one ugly spirit is made of ugly old prerecordings the more you run the tapes through and cut them up the less power they will have cut the prerecordings into thin air
The Ticket That Exploded P 215-7
Yeah, ok, now I see why my advisor wanted me to read this book. This is from the last three pages. With the exception of 4 other pages also towards the end, the entire rest of the book is about anal sex.
I mean, I don’t have anything against anal sex, I just didn’t see what it had to do with my thesis.
Until tonight when I decided maybe I should gather up my library books and maybe finish reading this one and boom, there are the program notes for my Ann Coulter piece. holy shit.
could you imagine if burroughs had a blog? he was down with this lazy punctuation way ahead of the times.
Tag: Celesteh
I want a dashboard widget that can deal with RSS and quietly download mp3s, etc. If the file is a torrent, I want it to automatically get it via bittorrent. When I go look at the widget, I want it to have a play button next to the file name or a button that means send to itunes. This widget should be open source.