Over the years, I have been exposed to many different things. Some of these things were great, others… not so much. Every once in awhile, something presents itself and I feel like I need to share it with my friends. I usually try to tell people about it so they can experience it, but I am afraid it falls on deaf ears some of the time. There is many different reasons for this, which I will not get into right now, so I thought it might be a fun exercise for me to write them down and put them up on here to give a few shout outs and opinions. I think that is one of the functions of the Internet, to help people push their opinions on other people. Also if I feel I need to add something at a later date, I will put it on a different post.
Well lets get started shall we? How about we begin with books.
Douglas Adams: This guy was the author of a trilogy of five books (yes you read that right) called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. These books start with the destruction of Earth in order to make way for a hyperspace by-pass route. Then the ultimate answer to “life, the universe, and everything” presents itself to be “42”. The answer doesn’t really make sense without a question so they must trek across the galaxy in order to find the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything.
Douglas has a way of putting thousands of different words in such an order that he tells great stories and shows you worlds you never would have imagined, yet all these worlds and creatures he describes can tell you about something that exists in our world and just how ridiculous it really is. I am not sure how you guys feel about British humor, but I am a fan and the humor in these books is amazing.
The way he puts some things is great. Here is his take on politics disguised as a description of the home planet of a giant robot that has landed on Earth in the fourth book (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish). This isn’t verbatim, but I think you will get the idea. When the robot landed, he told the first person he saw to “Take me to your lizard.” Back on his planet, you see, the people are people, and the leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards, but when asked why they keep voting for the lizards, they say its because if they don’t vote for the lizards, some of those OTHER lizards might get elected in. All five books are chock full of funny and smart little things like that.
There is also his Dirk Gentley series of books, especially The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul that I have read that are most definitely worth a look to any fiction fan. They are a little more grounded than the Hitchhikers books; they are still strange, but they are grounded because they stay on Earth.
Kurt Vonnegut: I have read around three Vonnegut Novels, starting with Slaughterhouse 5, Then Breakfast of Champions, followed by Cats Cradle as well as a few of his short stories. My favorite one out of all of them is Breakfast of Champions (not to be confused with the General Mills breakfast cereal); I think I have recommended this book to most of the people I talk to on a semi-regular basis these days. Out of all these people, I can recall only three people ever having read the book, and two of them were by my recommendation
Anyway, the book is kind of a commentary on American society. He has a way of describing things for what they really are. Some of the things he says may be shocking to some of my more sensitive friends. Some of these things will be revealed to you right now. Right at the beginning of the book he refers to the “Star Spangled Banner” as “gibberish, sprinkled with question marks”, then he goes on to call Christopher Columbus a pirate. Next he takes aim at how the people in the poorest countries in the world have starving families and yet they still go on fucking all the time (fucking is how babies are made.) Vonnegut also drew some pictures to be strewn about the book to illustrate some of his points. And yes, before you ask, there is a drawing of underpants in this book. This book is highly recommended not only to anyone my age, but also for people of all ages. I don’t want to sound pretentious or anything but I would call this book a “must read” for anyone.
P.S. Check out “Cats Cradle”, it will blow your mind.
Steven King: Given the two previous authors on here, you might be confused as to why I would include Steven on my list. Well let me tell you. Sure he doesn’t use a lot of symbolism; instead he just comes right out and tells you what he wants to say. The way he describes his stories make them easy to visualize. He makes you see his stories, even though they are usually pretty visceral and disturbing, I find them worthwhile stories to read if you are looking for just a good story without all that excess symbolistic baggage. I maybe have just made up a new word there (symbolistic) but I am not sure. It is kind of like watching a movie almost. (edit from the future: I have recently begun listening to his Dark Tower series, I feel it is worthy of reading, the first book is a little slow, but I have just finished the second book and I would compare it to a less boring Lord of the Rings. I have never read any Harry Potter books, but it seems like those, but with more guns, violence, sex, and drugs.) I recommend listening to them in audio book format. Speaking of which…
Books on Tape: This is a fairly recent discovery; it began one spring break with a drive to Salt Lake City followed by a drive to Reno, Nevada. My aunt in SLC let us borrow an audio recoding of The Da Vinci Code for the remainder of the trip. This helped wile the hours away very nicely… especially at night when everyone else was sleeping and I was driving all night with nothing but the darkness and my thoughts to keep me company. Then on the way back I found my CD player had been stolen out of my car in Omaha, Nebraska. Now that sucked and all but one positive thing that came out of that was that I got a new car CD player that had MP3 playing capabilities. After awhile I figured out you could find audio books online for download and you could fit an entire audio book on one CD. Being in the line of work I am in; I am in my car quite a bit. Sometimes I can get tired of listening to my music or the radio and I can throw on a book and it helps pass the time like a champion. Plus I have gotten a chance to experience all these classic books they tell you about in high school and college. Note: I have the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series on audio book; I mention this because the author, Douglas Adams, does the reading for all of them and he does a great job. Plus the stories sound a little better when they are read with an English accent; they sound like that is how they should be read. Let me know if you want a copy.
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Science: Ah science. You got me through many sleepless nights. Growing up I had myself a subscription to some magazines called Ranger Rick and World. With these I was able to learn about all sorts of stuff about science and nature. This, coupled with my parents not being big sports fans, made me learn to appreciate the science of things. The reason I mention them not being big sports fans, is that when people would have their “family bonding nights” or whatever you want to call them, many of my friends would go and watch the football game or whatever event happened to be on and have a grand old time. My family would gather around the TV for an episode of Nature, or NOVA on PBS. I think this may have benefited me more than watching football would have. I used to resent my dad for not taking me out to play catch with the football or the baseball; but now I am kind of glad for it. With the time we could have spent playing ball, he taught me about why the hills we have by our house are there, or why I shouldn’t stare at the sun for more than five minutes; many different things about why and how the world works.
I don’t see why I need to know what a touchback is (I actually don’t know what that is, but I know it is from football… maybe) when I know about Africanized bees instead. These little bastards are nearly impossible to tell apart from regular European honeybees when you look at them. But their behavior is easy to discern. When you walk up to a honeybee nest, they will give you about nine seconds to back away from the nest before they consider you a threat and start to attack, and once you start running they will consider you to be “chased away.” If you stumble upon an Africanized bee nest, they will give you about half a second to back the fuck off before emptying the entire hive to come after you. And as you are running away screaming and probably soiling yourself, they will keep chasing you up to half a mile. Now you are probably wondering why I am bringing these Africanized bees up, there are lots of nasty animals in Africa. Well they do not live in Africa. They hail from Central and South America, and they are man-made. Around 1950 some genius named Warwick (first name) decided he wanted to have some bees that could survive in the jungle so he crossed an African bee with a European bee. What he got was a crazy bee that swarms in the hundreds of millions, is insanely territorial, very aggressive, and has killed thousands of people. Oh yeah and it also can survive in the jungle. So of course they escaped and began moving north, and once they got to the American Southwest, it was found they did just fine in the desert as well. And they are still moving north; they are due to arrive in North Dakota around 2010….
Another branch of science that intrigues me more than biology is the Physics branch. This extends to many things, whether it is the collisions of pool balls all the way to astronomy. Anyway, the way that some of these physics things work really blows my mind. One example is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Have you ever been making a sandwich and accidentally knocked the bread off of the counter? It always seems to land with the buttered side down on the floor. This is because it does not have enough time to flip around again to land on the dry side. If our tables were all ten feet tall, this would not be a problem anymore. See, you take all this stuff for granted but if you look into it can be infinitely complex.
I would say my favorite branch of science is astronomy. I love learning about and looking out into space at night and wondering what else could be out there. While looking at Jupiter through a telescope, you can see its four larger moons around it. Each of these moons is like a little mini world that could possibly support some form of life. Imagine what could be around some of the giant red and blue stars strewn about our galaxy. We really don’t have much of an idea… there could be anything, we just have to stop listening to Einstein and crazy evangelicals so much. The speed of light is very easily broken I believe… it is just that I or anyone else cannot even fathom how to do it with out puny human brains. Maybe God can tell us how, well I am listening....
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Music: Ah music…. I love music and I don’t know how I could live without it. I would say I listen to pretty much any kind of music. I have recently even began to appreciate country music… man I thought I would never say that.
I would say my favorite type of music is rock and roll though, all kinds from metal to classic rock.
If I were to have to say, my favorite album of all time is The Wall by Pink Floyd. This perfect album covers all the issues that we as humans are still dealing with today. When I was a kid growing up and listening to this I was moved by “Another Brick in the Wall.” I was frustrated with elementary school (we don’t need no education was the chorus that brought me in) … why the hell do we have to stand in lines constantly and raise our hands to talk in school… all we are being trained to do is to become “another brick in the wall.” The wall is our society and the end of the wall is a drop off into the meat grinder of adulthood, what with voting for crooked politicians, getting jobs we hate, and going to foreign countries to die for “the greater good,” the greater good being someone else’s pockets getting lined while they stay safely behind their desks in DC (Dylan reference). Fuck all that.
As I grew up I began to appreciate the music behind the album as well. It is composed perfectly; Gilmore’s musical and singing talent blend perfectly with Water’s musical and lyrical genius, he also has a great rock and roll singing voice, he conveys a lot more anger than Gilmore does with his voice.
My favorite song from the wall would have to be “In the Flesh”, not to be confused with the opening song of the album, “In the Flesh?” The song I am referring to comes towards the end of the second CD. Musically it is pretty similar to the first song, but the words are very different… it is like the opening song of a concert gone horribly wrong and it turns into a hate rally. It is not Roger actually saying these things, I believe he did that song to make a statement… he does not believe in segregating people out by race, or lifestyle choices. He is a man who truly loves peace.
I have a few different versions of this album, and I would say my favorite is the live version called “Is There Anybody Out There?” It is The Wall Pink Floyd wanted to do without the sound and time restrictions forced on them from the days of vinyl. I listen to it about once a week and I love it each time.
This brings me to my next topic in music, live concerts. Something about a rock concert by a guy who loves his music puts the energy from that music into me somehow and I can really flow with the tunes. I love a good hard rock concert because I can go crazy for some reason. Papa Roach was a good one for that… Also the Rob Zombie/ Ozzy concert was good for my craziness as well.
I would say the best show I have been to would be the Roger Water’s concert I went to in the cities this last summer (would you expect anything else?) He was the man behind Pink Floyd as far as I am concerned. The effects, songs, and the music were all there and were amazing. There was even a flying pig, oh and a giant Dark Side of the Moon prism, complete with the beam of light going in and the rainbow coming out the other side. The crowd participation was great as well. While he sang “Mother”, he asked, “Mother should I trust the government?” a bunch of boos were heard from the crowd. Another example is during the opening song, “In the Flesh”, He is pointing out that he sees a Jew, A coon, etc… When he got to the part where he said, “There’s one smoking a joint” he had to pause a little bit to let the audience finish cheering. You really should have been there it was good stuff.
As for the other bands I like… I don’t feel like getting into them much right now, I will mention that my favorite hard rock band is Tool I would say. Their songs are very long and full of angry anti-establishment lyrics and guitar work.
My favorite new rock band, from a musical standpoint would have to be The White Stripes; Jack White’s guitaring really scratches me where I itch; the runner up from a musical standpoint would be Incubus I think.
For chilling out purposes, I think Cake is what I need, the guys voice blends with some funky guitars and drums… good stuff. For other tastes I have, see my music section in my profile if you really must know more (although it won't tell you more.)
Well I think that will do it for me for now… I could go on to video games or TV or friends I have, but I might leave that for later. I hope you look into some of this stuff and can learn to love it as much as I have. If you want me to help you acquire some of this stuff (the books or CDs) let me know, it is very easy for me and I would be glad to do it. I love sharing these things with my friends in the hopes that they will have their lives enriched by them as I have.
For a little outgoing statement, after reading through this after writing it I have said fuck a bunch of times… I hope it does not offend you. If it does, I guess I don’t care… but do I feel bad for you if you are offended by a word as simple as the word fuck. I think it is one of the most versatile words in the English language and can be used for many things. Well, fuck this anyway, I am gonna stop writing. Also I am getting the fuck out of town for this long Easter weekend; so for those of you around B-town, get a hold of me if you want to see me. As for the rest of you… have a great fucking weekend.
--Seth
Well lets get started shall we? How about we begin with books.
Douglas Adams: This guy was the author of a trilogy of five books (yes you read that right) called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. These books start with the destruction of Earth in order to make way for a hyperspace by-pass route. Then the ultimate answer to “life, the universe, and everything” presents itself to be “42”. The answer doesn’t really make sense without a question so they must trek across the galaxy in order to find the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything.
Douglas has a way of putting thousands of different words in such an order that he tells great stories and shows you worlds you never would have imagined, yet all these worlds and creatures he describes can tell you about something that exists in our world and just how ridiculous it really is. I am not sure how you guys feel about British humor, but I am a fan and the humor in these books is amazing.
The way he puts some things is great. Here is his take on politics disguised as a description of the home planet of a giant robot that has landed on Earth in the fourth book (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish). This isn’t verbatim, but I think you will get the idea. When the robot landed, he told the first person he saw to “Take me to your lizard.” Back on his planet, you see, the people are people, and the leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards, but when asked why they keep voting for the lizards, they say its because if they don’t vote for the lizards, some of those OTHER lizards might get elected in. All five books are chock full of funny and smart little things like that.
There is also his Dirk Gentley series of books, especially The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul that I have read that are most definitely worth a look to any fiction fan. They are a little more grounded than the Hitchhikers books; they are still strange, but they are grounded because they stay on Earth.
Kurt Vonnegut: I have read around three Vonnegut Novels, starting with Slaughterhouse 5, Then Breakfast of Champions, followed by Cats Cradle as well as a few of his short stories. My favorite one out of all of them is Breakfast of Champions (not to be confused with the General Mills breakfast cereal); I think I have recommended this book to most of the people I talk to on a semi-regular basis these days. Out of all these people, I can recall only three people ever having read the book, and two of them were by my recommendation
Anyway, the book is kind of a commentary on American society. He has a way of describing things for what they really are. Some of the things he says may be shocking to some of my more sensitive friends. Some of these things will be revealed to you right now. Right at the beginning of the book he refers to the “Star Spangled Banner” as “gibberish, sprinkled with question marks”, then he goes on to call Christopher Columbus a pirate. Next he takes aim at how the people in the poorest countries in the world have starving families and yet they still go on fucking all the time (fucking is how babies are made.) Vonnegut also drew some pictures to be strewn about the book to illustrate some of his points. And yes, before you ask, there is a drawing of underpants in this book. This book is highly recommended not only to anyone my age, but also for people of all ages. I don’t want to sound pretentious or anything but I would call this book a “must read” for anyone.
P.S. Check out “Cats Cradle”, it will blow your mind.
Steven King: Given the two previous authors on here, you might be confused as to why I would include Steven on my list. Well let me tell you. Sure he doesn’t use a lot of symbolism; instead he just comes right out and tells you what he wants to say. The way he describes his stories make them easy to visualize. He makes you see his stories, even though they are usually pretty visceral and disturbing, I find them worthwhile stories to read if you are looking for just a good story without all that excess symbolistic baggage. I maybe have just made up a new word there (symbolistic) but I am not sure. It is kind of like watching a movie almost. (edit from the future: I have recently begun listening to his Dark Tower series, I feel it is worthy of reading, the first book is a little slow, but I have just finished the second book and I would compare it to a less boring Lord of the Rings. I have never read any Harry Potter books, but it seems like those, but with more guns, violence, sex, and drugs.) I recommend listening to them in audio book format. Speaking of which…
Books on Tape: This is a fairly recent discovery; it began one spring break with a drive to Salt Lake City followed by a drive to Reno, Nevada. My aunt in SLC let us borrow an audio recoding of The Da Vinci Code for the remainder of the trip. This helped wile the hours away very nicely… especially at night when everyone else was sleeping and I was driving all night with nothing but the darkness and my thoughts to keep me company. Then on the way back I found my CD player had been stolen out of my car in Omaha, Nebraska. Now that sucked and all but one positive thing that came out of that was that I got a new car CD player that had MP3 playing capabilities. After awhile I figured out you could find audio books online for download and you could fit an entire audio book on one CD. Being in the line of work I am in; I am in my car quite a bit. Sometimes I can get tired of listening to my music or the radio and I can throw on a book and it helps pass the time like a champion. Plus I have gotten a chance to experience all these classic books they tell you about in high school and college. Note: I have the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series on audio book; I mention this because the author, Douglas Adams, does the reading for all of them and he does a great job. Plus the stories sound a little better when they are read with an English accent; they sound like that is how they should be read. Let me know if you want a copy.
__________________________
Science: Ah science. You got me through many sleepless nights. Growing up I had myself a subscription to some magazines called Ranger Rick and World. With these I was able to learn about all sorts of stuff about science and nature. This, coupled with my parents not being big sports fans, made me learn to appreciate the science of things. The reason I mention them not being big sports fans, is that when people would have their “family bonding nights” or whatever you want to call them, many of my friends would go and watch the football game or whatever event happened to be on and have a grand old time. My family would gather around the TV for an episode of Nature, or NOVA on PBS. I think this may have benefited me more than watching football would have. I used to resent my dad for not taking me out to play catch with the football or the baseball; but now I am kind of glad for it. With the time we could have spent playing ball, he taught me about why the hills we have by our house are there, or why I shouldn’t stare at the sun for more than five minutes; many different things about why and how the world works.
I don’t see why I need to know what a touchback is (I actually don’t know what that is, but I know it is from football… maybe) when I know about Africanized bees instead. These little bastards are nearly impossible to tell apart from regular European honeybees when you look at them. But their behavior is easy to discern. When you walk up to a honeybee nest, they will give you about nine seconds to back away from the nest before they consider you a threat and start to attack, and once you start running they will consider you to be “chased away.” If you stumble upon an Africanized bee nest, they will give you about half a second to back the fuck off before emptying the entire hive to come after you. And as you are running away screaming and probably soiling yourself, they will keep chasing you up to half a mile. Now you are probably wondering why I am bringing these Africanized bees up, there are lots of nasty animals in Africa. Well they do not live in Africa. They hail from Central and South America, and they are man-made. Around 1950 some genius named Warwick (first name) decided he wanted to have some bees that could survive in the jungle so he crossed an African bee with a European bee. What he got was a crazy bee that swarms in the hundreds of millions, is insanely territorial, very aggressive, and has killed thousands of people. Oh yeah and it also can survive in the jungle. So of course they escaped and began moving north, and once they got to the American Southwest, it was found they did just fine in the desert as well. And they are still moving north; they are due to arrive in North Dakota around 2010….
Another branch of science that intrigues me more than biology is the Physics branch. This extends to many things, whether it is the collisions of pool balls all the way to astronomy. Anyway, the way that some of these physics things work really blows my mind. One example is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Have you ever been making a sandwich and accidentally knocked the bread off of the counter? It always seems to land with the buttered side down on the floor. This is because it does not have enough time to flip around again to land on the dry side. If our tables were all ten feet tall, this would not be a problem anymore. See, you take all this stuff for granted but if you look into it can be infinitely complex.
I would say my favorite branch of science is astronomy. I love learning about and looking out into space at night and wondering what else could be out there. While looking at Jupiter through a telescope, you can see its four larger moons around it. Each of these moons is like a little mini world that could possibly support some form of life. Imagine what could be around some of the giant red and blue stars strewn about our galaxy. We really don’t have much of an idea… there could be anything, we just have to stop listening to Einstein and crazy evangelicals so much. The speed of light is very easily broken I believe… it is just that I or anyone else cannot even fathom how to do it with out puny human brains. Maybe God can tell us how, well I am listening....
__________________________
Music: Ah music…. I love music and I don’t know how I could live without it. I would say I listen to pretty much any kind of music. I have recently even began to appreciate country music… man I thought I would never say that.
I would say my favorite type of music is rock and roll though, all kinds from metal to classic rock.
If I were to have to say, my favorite album of all time is The Wall by Pink Floyd. This perfect album covers all the issues that we as humans are still dealing with today. When I was a kid growing up and listening to this I was moved by “Another Brick in the Wall.” I was frustrated with elementary school (we don’t need no education was the chorus that brought me in) … why the hell do we have to stand in lines constantly and raise our hands to talk in school… all we are being trained to do is to become “another brick in the wall.” The wall is our society and the end of the wall is a drop off into the meat grinder of adulthood, what with voting for crooked politicians, getting jobs we hate, and going to foreign countries to die for “the greater good,” the greater good being someone else’s pockets getting lined while they stay safely behind their desks in DC (Dylan reference). Fuck all that.
As I grew up I began to appreciate the music behind the album as well. It is composed perfectly; Gilmore’s musical and singing talent blend perfectly with Water’s musical and lyrical genius, he also has a great rock and roll singing voice, he conveys a lot more anger than Gilmore does with his voice.
My favorite song from the wall would have to be “In the Flesh”, not to be confused with the opening song of the album, “In the Flesh?” The song I am referring to comes towards the end of the second CD. Musically it is pretty similar to the first song, but the words are very different… it is like the opening song of a concert gone horribly wrong and it turns into a hate rally. It is not Roger actually saying these things, I believe he did that song to make a statement… he does not believe in segregating people out by race, or lifestyle choices. He is a man who truly loves peace.
I have a few different versions of this album, and I would say my favorite is the live version called “Is There Anybody Out There?” It is The Wall Pink Floyd wanted to do without the sound and time restrictions forced on them from the days of vinyl. I listen to it about once a week and I love it each time.
This brings me to my next topic in music, live concerts. Something about a rock concert by a guy who loves his music puts the energy from that music into me somehow and I can really flow with the tunes. I love a good hard rock concert because I can go crazy for some reason. Papa Roach was a good one for that… Also the Rob Zombie/ Ozzy concert was good for my craziness as well.
I would say the best show I have been to would be the Roger Water’s concert I went to in the cities this last summer (would you expect anything else?) He was the man behind Pink Floyd as far as I am concerned. The effects, songs, and the music were all there and were amazing. There was even a flying pig, oh and a giant Dark Side of the Moon prism, complete with the beam of light going in and the rainbow coming out the other side. The crowd participation was great as well. While he sang “Mother”, he asked, “Mother should I trust the government?” a bunch of boos were heard from the crowd. Another example is during the opening song, “In the Flesh”, He is pointing out that he sees a Jew, A coon, etc… When he got to the part where he said, “There’s one smoking a joint” he had to pause a little bit to let the audience finish cheering. You really should have been there it was good stuff.
As for the other bands I like… I don’t feel like getting into them much right now, I will mention that my favorite hard rock band is Tool I would say. Their songs are very long and full of angry anti-establishment lyrics and guitar work.
My favorite new rock band, from a musical standpoint would have to be The White Stripes; Jack White’s guitaring really scratches me where I itch; the runner up from a musical standpoint would be Incubus I think.
For chilling out purposes, I think Cake is what I need, the guys voice blends with some funky guitars and drums… good stuff. For other tastes I have, see my music section in my profile if you really must know more (although it won't tell you more.)
Well I think that will do it for me for now… I could go on to video games or TV or friends I have, but I might leave that for later. I hope you look into some of this stuff and can learn to love it as much as I have. If you want me to help you acquire some of this stuff (the books or CDs) let me know, it is very easy for me and I would be glad to do it. I love sharing these things with my friends in the hopes that they will have their lives enriched by them as I have.
For a little outgoing statement, after reading through this after writing it I have said fuck a bunch of times… I hope it does not offend you. If it does, I guess I don’t care… but do I feel bad for you if you are offended by a word as simple as the word fuck. I think it is one of the most versatile words in the English language and can be used for many things. Well, fuck this anyway, I am gonna stop writing. Also I am getting the fuck out of town for this long Easter weekend; so for those of you around B-town, get a hold of me if you want to see me. As for the rest of you… have a great fucking weekend.
--Seth
Too true
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