“I don’t like words that hide the truth. I don’t words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protest themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I’ll give you an example of that. There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ll bet you if we’d of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll betcha. I’ll betcha.”
George Carlin
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
this year marks the eight anniversary of douglas noel adam’s death, wear your towel with pride
in writing about my travels and travails in 2000, i mentioned briefly mentioned `the project` but never got into any details about it. it wasn`t anything top secret but years later it`s still one of my favourite pieces in my portfolio.
first let me give you some background. i started in the advertising business as a typesetter but my interest in design was peaked one summer when i worked at a printery. we have a one color Heidelberg press that required a blood sacrifice before every job. the Heidelberg was an old fashioned letter press, you had to pick your letters and numbers out of a box, put them in a frame, add your leading and your spaces, use the kerning knife to scrape the sides of the letter blocks. then when you thought you were done, you locked the whole thing in place and you put on the press and ran a sheet to check. because of the sharp edges and the heavy blocks of type the likelihood that you`d get cut or squeeze your fingers in something was pretty high, hence the joke about the printer requiring a blood sacrifice. the owner of the printery had actually lost the top two knuckles of his right hand to the press before i even started there.
so with my interest in printing and design peaked, i started work at an advertising agency as a typesetter. this was in the early days of the transition to computer graphic design. we had 13 fonts on a Mac SE and the traditional designers would come in, specify a type and size they needed, i`d type it up and we`d send it out to one of two companies that actually had a laser printer at the time and if we didn`t have the typeface on the computer, we could request one that the output house had. and if they didn`t have it, there was good old Letraset.
i could go on reminiscing about the good old days but they only lasted about a year and a half and that`s a story for another day. the agency i worked for, had the fortune and misfortune of having my name on the building. the fortune being, when i called vendors, they usually responded, the misfortune being people thought i was a close relative of the owner and expected me to coast along. coasting is not my speed. i spent five years at the agency and then they merged and they were filled with art directors and creative directors and more designers than you could shake a stick at, so i requested a lateral promotion to the sys admin job that i`d been doing and they denied me, so i quit and the agency imploded.
i did freelance design for a little while and then i got lured back into another agency and the only job i`d ever been fired from. which in itself is strange because the guy that fired me recommended me for another job and everytime i ask, writes the most glowing references. after i left that job, i swore that i was out of the advertising industy for good and like all such threats, it went the way of the dinosaur. in three months i was back at another agency thinking i was going to be working with a creative director i had a great deal of respect for. his last day was the day i started, which was interesting to say the least. they hired another creative director who i got along with fabulously but i had problems with management so i quit, not just burning that bridge but applying copious amounts of dynamite on my way out. hoping against hope that i wouldn`t get sucked back into advertising again.
fortuitously, at the same i left that job, a friend of mine offered me a place in his studio doing pretty much whatever helped pay my way and about a month after i started that, i got a job being webmaster for the national airline, which is a whole batch of stories on its own.
during my first trip to London, an ex introduced me to a friend of hers who was running a production company. they did promotion for up and coming artists, urban marketing and trend prediction and what turned out to be their last hurrah as a company they organised the Playstation 2 launch in London.
working on this project actually completely disenfranchised me with advertising and marketing in Trinidad, which always was and still is a hard sell. this launch was subtle, everyone on the planet knew what a PS 2 so why make launch a hard sell, instead they went with Mi Corazon, the Summer of Low Rider.
the concept was to bring Lowrider culture from LA to London. and it wasn`t going to be a half measure; cars, bikes, people, all had to be organised, paid for, transported and hosted. and the people who couldn`t make it, had to be photographed and recorded. it was a logistical nightmare and my job in all of this?
i designed the logo, the powerpoint presentation and the website and keep the computers running. i had a blast. i`d never worked on a project of that magnitude and this was the real world. in Trinidad, everyone knew who i was and knew my work, here i was in London, a tiny, insignificant fish in a huge pond and my work could stand the test.
i realised as i was writing this, aside from the logo, i don`t have anything else for this project. the cd that i`d backed up that years work on is scratched and damaged so all the image files that make up the website are inaccessible. i should try harder to recover those materials, because without this project i don`t think i would have had the confidence to make a lot of changes in my life since then.
it`s also kind of weird in this day and age, where you can google anything i can`t seem to find anything about the event.
having gone through the immigration process once to get my residency, i can tell you there is nothing simple or cheap about it. and the odds are stacked against you from the get go. even without a lawyer we spent over $4000 between 2004 – 2006 for filing fees, medical, notarised copies. vic and i are native english speakers and are fairly intelligent people and it would take us hours to decipher the instructions for most of the forms.
that said, we’re about to jump back into the fray, thanks to the generous contributions of friends, i’ve got the necessary funds to start my citizenship application. and with this multipage submission begins a new descent into the bureaucratic hell hole that is USCIS. more copies of our married and divorce decrees, tax returns, proof of address.
plus there are the biometric services, ie photographing and fingerprinting, bearing in mind that i’ve been photographed and fingerprinted by this same organisation on multiple occasions and it’s not covered by the $585 filing fee you’re required to submit with the forms.
why am i doing this again? so i can enjoy the same illusion that everyone else has – my vote can make a difference. wish me luck.
some time ago i read an essay that purports multiculturalism has been the downfall of all empires and that is the fate that awaits the US.
it`s an interesting idea, but i think it`s completely off base. the fundamental flaw i believe that exists in this argument is the US is the only empire that`s been built on immigration. historically empires were built on colonisation and eventually collapsed under the weight of greed, bureaucracy and the hyper-extension of resources.
the last major empire was the British and for nearly 400 years they were masters of the planet and by the end of the second world war there was very little left, not because of multiculturalism, but because of imperialism and greed. the first to go nearly 230 years ago was the US, why, because of greed. you know, no taxation without representation, remember that? and then at the beginning of the last century things really started to sour for the British as various countries in Africa tired of the yoke colonial greed and mismanagement also rebelled and then India and by the end of the second world war, the British were hard pressed to take care of themselves much a bunch of countries that were out of sight and therefore out of mind so it became easier to just let these countries have self governance than continue to be responsible for them.
the US empire is built on a dream that wave after wave of immigrants have flocked here to fulfil. this is an empire of hope and promise and if you work hard enough you can have your own piece of the empire. you can co-exist with every religion, every nationality because at the end of the day, you’re all chasing the same dream. but that’s all it’s ever been, a dream as each generation’s success puts them a step higher on the ladder, then they look down with disdain at the next wave of immigrants forgetting that’s where they started.
the pilgrims arrived here first to escape religious persecution, the next wave were the indentured servants, who for the most part were either guilty of being poor or the effects of being poor, then they were replaced by the slaves and then another generation of European poor trying to escape famine along with Chinese immigrant labour, then the people trying to escape the People’s revolution in Russia, then the Jews and people whose lives were destroyed by WWII, then people from the Caribbean, then Koreans after the war, the Vietnamese after the war, the Africans, the Arabs and the people keep coming, wave after wave of them.
Driven out of their countries by war or famine or politics or the need to be able to provide for their families, all wind up here do whatever it takes to survive. multiculturalism isn’t going to destroy this empire, monoculturalism is. this isn’t an argument about cultural identity it’s a class argument, it’s not new. it’s been going on as each successive wave of immigrants arrived and and became the lowest group on the ladder. those high enough up to forget when they were at the bottom want to believe that they can exist without them and those close enough to the bottom are afraid that they’ll be leapfrogged by the new group.
this country, this empire would not be what it is without being built of the backs of multiple cultures that came here voluntarily or involuntarily in search of betterment.
Common Sense and Personal Responsibility were slain today after a prolonged fight with the authorities.
The duo finally fell after multi-pronged attack by Legislation and Litigation supported the forces of Greed, Ignorance and Stupidity.
Spokespersons for Legislation and Litigation said they were serving Justice and trying to protect the general public. “They were troublemakers and we will not stop until they and their ilk are completely eradicated. We have the power and all who oppose us will feel our might. Those that question us will be viewed as supporters of the enemy and pay the price.”
Friends and supporters of Common Sense and Personal Responsibility — Intelligence, Integrity, Wits, Ingenuity and Free Will — have vowed to continue the fight, regardless of the cost.
it’s interesting that this came up, considering i got my personality test results back this week.
my support system is a small handful people, all of them close friends that i can rely on for unfiltered and completely honest opinions and if i need help of some sort they`ll be there for me.
growing up it was just my mother and myself and for most of my childhood, i was a latch key child and when i was out with my mother i was with adults of the `children should be seen and not heard` school and that was fine by me, i sat quietly and observed and read. and i came away with some warped life lessons, most of them having to do with the unreliable nature of people in general and only relying on yourself to get stuff done properly.
as an adult i applied that to my working life, so much that for a long time i ended up doing more work than i needed to and got a reputation as a control freak. in my personal life i was the person that couldn`t say no and tried to please everybody and took on more than i could handle because i didn`t trust people to do what i asked, no matter how clear my instructions were. it`s kind of hard to build a support system with that kind of attitude.
about the same time i was suffering from insomnia and realising that i could possibly spend the rest of my life alone, i was figuring out that having people i could rely on would not necessarily a bad thing. it`s a work in progress. i`m still incredibly self reliant and i`ll still bend over backwards to help people, but i am mastering the art of saying no and if i need help i`m learning to ask for it.
THREE NAMES I GO BY
keifel
k
pig
THREE JOBS I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE
bag boy
printer’s apprentice
internet support tech
THREE PLACES I HAVE LIVED
london
naples, fl
woodbrook
THREE TV SHOWS THAT I WATCH
dollhouse
top gear
leverage
THREE PLACES I HAVE BEEN
dortmund, germany
Macinack Island, MI
kingston, jamaica
THREE PLACES I WANT TO GO
japan
australia
south africa
THREE OF MY FAVORITE FOODS
spicy duck
roti
ribs
THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO
going to trinidad
the weekend
seeing the girls
THREE PETS THAT YOU HAVE OWNED
cleopatra: a calico minx that we had growing up
jiffy: an orange tabby i got my mother
orion: our current orange tabby
THREE FRIENDS WHO WILL REPLY
not sure based on this format
THREE FAVORITE BANDS/RECORDING ARTISTS
metallica
mos def
george carlin
THREE FAVORITE THINGS TO WATCH
movies
the cats
people
THREE FAVORITE DRINKS
water
coke (original sugar formula)
jack & coke
THREE THINGS YOU JUST DON’T GET
dirty hippies
deliberately ignorant people
recreational drug use
THREE JOBS YOU’D LIKE
house painter
sound engineer
travel writer
YES OR NO
The Rules
1. You can only answer yes or no
2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages or comments you and Asks!
Now, here’s what you’re supposed to do… And please do not spoil the Fun. Copy and paste this into your notes, delete my answers and type in your answers. Then see what happens.
Been arrested? no
Have you ever gambled with cards? yes
Have you ever played spin the bottle? yes
Kissed someone you didn’t like? yes
Slept in until 5 PM? no
Has your name ever been on the papers? yes
Fallen asleep at work/school? yes
Held a snake? yes
Have you ever had your heart broken? yes
Have you ever broken someone’s heart? yes
Have you ever flirted with someone you do not like? no
Have you ever been to another country? yes
Can you swim? yes
Ran a red light? yes
Have you ever smoked weed? yes
Been suspended from school? yes
Totaled your car/motorbike in an accident? yes
Been fired from a job? yes
Have you ever liked someone and never told them? yes
Sang karaoke? yes
Have you ever cheated on someone? yes
Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t? yes
Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? yes
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? yes
Have you ever rejected someone? yes
Sang in the shower? yes
Sat on a rooftop? yes
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes? yes
Have you ever liked one of your relatives? yes
Broken a bone? no
Shaved your head? yes
Blacked out from drinking? no
Played a prank on someone? yes
Felt like killing someone? yes
Have you ever made someone bleed in a fight? yes
Have you ever been expelled from a school? no
Have you ever met a celebrity? yes
Have you ever been to a fete? yes
Made your girlfriend/boyfriend cry? yes
Been in a band? no
Shot a gun? yes
Donated Blood? yes
Eaten alligator meat? yes
Has your best friend ever stolen one of your boy/girlfriend? no
Have you ever stolen one of your best friend boy/girlfriends? no
Eaten cheesecake? yes
Still love someone you shouldn’t? no
Think about the future? yes
Believe in Love? yes
Sleep on a certain side of the bed? yes
Gave your all to someone? yes
Can you play a musical instrument? no
Ever drag raced? yes
Want to kiss one of your facebook friends? yes
Will you redo this and re post this? yes
in a sentence, i met vic nine years ago in the personals section of nerve.com. but that sentence doesn`t begin to do us any justice.
nine years ago i was in London working on a project, plagued by insomnia. when you`re only sleeping an average of three hours a night, you find yourself thinking of a lot of things. i realised that on the verge of turning 29, i was divorced, with two children i didn`t see enough of, i had ruined three good relationships and was lucky not to take the friendships down with them too, i wasn`t a prize catch and i was probably going to be alone for the rest of my life. i accepted that and decided it wasn`t something that should depress me, i should just work on fixing me and making myself happy.
i had never been a big fan of personals websites, but the project photographer came back from LA with a copy from the short-lived nerve print magazine and during one of my sleepless nights, i read the magazine and then interest piqued, i went to the website. the personal section was funny and irreverent and featured areas you had to fill out like, best and worse lie you ever told and blank is sexy but blank is sexier. it was fun and it didn`t have to be a meat market if you didn`t want it too. i wasn`t looking for a relationship and that was cool, there were other people on nerve that were looking email/im buddies as well.
i think you have two options when you meet someone online, you could lie like hell and soon or later, you`ll get caught or you can be brutally honest about yourself, flaws and foibles writ large and if they can`t accept that then all you`ve done is displace a few electrons.
each profile on nerve, had a two mandatories, a username and what amounted to a tagline. mine was a Raoul Duke classic “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” and vic`s lured me in from the word go; “curiosity? poor cat.” i was hooked, i messaged her immediately with my email address and less than a day later we`d exchanged im addresses. for the next six weeks we im`d all day and at least two hours a night, talking about anything and everything. basically becoming friends.
about a week before the 2000 Olympic Games were scheduled to begin i was on a plane heading to Miami with a plan to rent a car, meet vic and another person i`d been chatting with from nerve and go see a long time friend in MS. i got to miami and couldn`t rent a car without a credit card, so i decided to continue my adventure by greyhound. i spent 22 hours on that bus endured strange people playing in my hair as i tried to sleep and arrived in Knoxville road weary and unwashed and wondered if this woman would take one look at me at the bus station and drive away, abandoning me to a strange city. vic didn`t she got out the car and smiled at me. if there was ever a moment when i fell completely and totally in love with victoria, that was it.
i was supposed to stay four days, i ended up staying almost two weeks. the following January i drove 11 hours to propose and we were married a year later, almost to the day.
