election
Originally written 04.29.2002.
i was totally stoked today because i got to eat my beloved microwave organic vegan “mexican-style” fajita, which despite the “-style” is still rather good, and more importantly, rather cheap. i would kill for that kind of product to be offered to students. hell, i would be thrilled for any kind of food to be offered inexpensively to students. the cool thing is that a number of university facilities are completely run by student organizations, and for the most part, they seem to do a really good job. they’re having an election right now, and, of course, there’s the ridiculous flyers everywhere. the thing is, it seems that they take politics far less seriously here which is really refreshing given the yearly quests for world domination that one sees every year at osu. the posters have a juvenile quality more reminiscent of junior high elections than the ridiculous seriousness of osu’s student government elections. however, when i look around thiw university, and all the things that students provide for other students, and i compare it to osu where it’s pretty much bullshit politics, it reminds me of what is really wrong with politics – too much politicking keeps people from actually doing something useful. in fact, i can’t think of one thing that usg at osu has done to benefit me. when i went to one of their meetings to talk about sweatshops for cusas, i fealt physically ill from the scene. it was mostly spoilt rich kids bickering over miniscule points and planning their social calendars. fuck that.
about about a boy
Originally written 04.29.2002.
i went to see about a boy, the recently (at least in the uk) released cinematic adaptation of the awesome nick hornby novel. nick hornby is hands down one of my favorite authors because he crafts novels that are simply entertaining and fulfilling and he does so in a manner that is straightforward yet completely perceptive and completely grounded in contemporary culture. so, even when the books get compressed over to the silver screen, and the really good endings get replaced by hollywood cheese, i still love it. hugh grant was pretty darn good. i’m by no means a hugh grant fan, but he was able to pull off the aging hipster role more than adequately. his young co-star was also rad and i was happy to see that the young actor got a significant share of the screen time. i think movies have a tendency to ignore young characters and it’s good to see kids acting like real kids on screen. the soundtrack by badly drawn boy was also quite rad, but i might just be a sucker for single-band soundtracks. the movie left me feeling pretty sentimental and wanting to hang out with 12 year olds in the worst way. i’d love to have that opportunity to reconnect with my youth in that way, and i think that a lot of kids need adults in their lives who aren’t related to them by means of some authoritative structure. i’m going to go and buy the new hornby book, recently out in paperback as soon as i get a chance. watching the movie has reminded me of how much i enjoy his writing. he just writes those novels that you don’t want to end. you find yourself deeply caring about the characters, wishing that you knew them, that you got to share their experiences, which i think, is at least some kind of metric for good writing. after the movie, as we were walking home, iain, anaise (sp?), laura, and i got into a mini-debate about whether we would want to have job or not (the protagonist in the movie doesn’t work, he lives off of royalties from his father’s song writing). iain and i were firmly anti-job, and laura was firlmy pr-career. it’s not that i don’t like working. i just don’t want to be defined only by my career, and i think that many people my age are getting sucked down that path. it’s not like i have any kind of lifestyle aspirations beyond my current state anyway. if i can just pay for school and keep being able to aford skateboards, records, books, and show covers, i think that i would be perfectly content. to me, the thing that was always attractive about wealth was that it was freedom – freedom from being stuck in a place geographically, freedom to learn new things, freedom to be exposed to ideas that allow you to think in new ways, freedom from having to disappoint people. what i see happening to so many people is the pursuit of money taking away from their freedom, and i want none of that. i don’t want to be the guy who works hard all day towards his only reward – some drinks with his pseudo-friends at happy hour.