Friday

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

It's easy

It seems James Cameron is going to film two sequels to the last year sci-fi blockbuster hit Avatar. I don't know about Avatar 3, but Avatar 2 (expected in 2014) doesn't need to be a full-blown movie. It could be a short movie. I don't know, maybe a ten minute movie. Fifteen minute, all right. After all, how long does Cameron need to shoot in 3D a fleet of spaceships nuking Pandora from orbit and turning into a glass-moon, without natives and trees and all the precious little ore ripe for taking?

It might be simple, but hey - it's Cameron. He usually does fine work (Terminator, Aliens - even Avatar was remarkable), but sometimes he fucks up just a bit. After all, he took what, two hours, two and a half hours? of a crappy, boring, "over-cliched" love story to finally go to the point and start showing the sinking of Titanic. So one never knows. Anyway, if everything goes as planned, in 2014 we'll have Avatar 2 and Kill Bill 3. It will definitely be an interesting movie year (way better than this one, by all means).

Hell-o-ween

Here in Portugal it doesn't make any sense to celebrate the Halloween. I suppose we like to import shit though; we can't possibly care less about our own traditions, but we're all up to borrow some. I don't care much about the traditions, it's true - but I'm happy without them, and I don't feel the urge to bring something that might fill a void I've never felt in the first place. Anyway. This time, I've been seeing and hearing about zombies pretty much every-fucking-where. Which is awesome - somehow I was afraid that everyone would be talking about sparking, vegan gay vampires that prefer to drool after some bore of a teenage girl than to suck her veins dry, but then I remembered that Twilight's so-called vampires are not scary at all - they're just gay and boring, so they wouldn't fit a Halloween celebration (sorry, girls). Zombies are fashionable this season. It's cool. Zombies are cool. Especially with a shotgun. Ah, the Resident Evil nights after all the lights were out. Pump-action! No - hell, no, not what you're thinking, come on. Everyone geek enough knows that a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun is the best weapon ever in a zombie holocaust - forget Magnums, grenades, flamethrowers, machine guns and shit alike: when it comes to zombies, the shotgun is the real deal. The point is - this is supposed to have a point, right? -, one doesn't need the Hall-fucking-ween to bring the zombies back (just as one doesn't - shouldn't - need Christmas to gather the family around the table, or just as one doesn't need the Day of the Dead to pay the local graveyard a visit). But I'm digressing between brackets, and you shouldn't let me digress between brackets, and, even more important than that, you shouldn't let me digress when I'm already digressing, even if I'm digressing about digressions. Anyway, back to the point again, zombies are cool, and one doesn't need Halloween for them. This was it. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaa-a-a-a-a-ains!

On questions, answers and hope

Cut to Thirteen walking into House's office with an envelope.
Thirteen: What the hell is this?
Puts the envelope on House's desk. House picks it up and looks at it.
House: Looks like an envelope with the results of the genetic test for Huntington's inside.
Thirteen: Did you look?
House: I thought it'd be fun to find out together.
Thirteen: I don't want to know.
House: No, you're afraid to know.
Thirteen: I might die. So could you, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. The only difference is you don't have to know about it today, so why should I?
House: I don't have to know the lottery numbers, but if someone offered them to me, I'd take them.
Thirteen: You spend your whole life looking for answers. Because you think the next answer will change something, maybe make you a little less miserable. And you know that when you run out of questions, you don't just run out of answers, you run out of hope. You glad you know that?
Thirteen leaves. House thinks for a few seconds then drops the envelope in the bin unopened.

She is right and wrong. She is right when she says that once we run out of questions, we run out of answers, and therefore we run out of hope. She is wrong when assuming we don't know the answers already. When it comes to us, we always know the answers. All of them. Deep down, we know them. What we do is, we chose not to know them, not to see them. So we keep the hope. Of all the futile things we do throughout the course of our lives, this is by far the most futile one.

Place your bets

All in.

Friday

Band of Skulls.

Happy birthday

For those of you who do not know this lady, I'll introduce her: Ursula K. Le Guin, science fiction and fantasy writer of remarkable talent, who wrote extraordinary books like The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness. And many others that I haven't read yet (but will), like City of Illusions, The Word for World is Forest, Lathe of Heaven and the Earthsea stories. And today she celebrates her 81st birthday.

The hunch

Expecting a display of common sense and reasonability. Shown none. Hide it under the labels "self-confidence" and "self-esteem" disguising the truth: I do possess the common sense; I just don't know how to follow it. So much for the hunch: it's lost even before it started.

It's funny how twisted are the roads life takes.

Motivation my ass (2)

Even worse are the job interviews. Or rather, some criteria of the job interviews. I don't really understand why do people dress up for job interviews. Unless they're going to apply for a job at the town's trash management department, they always dress "smartly" for the interview. Not that I ever understood what does it mean, "to dress smartly". Once I was supposed to attend a conference with dress code. "Smart casual", they said. I had no fucking idea what "smart casual" was. I knew I was a smart guy (still am), I know I was (still am) quite a casual dude, but somehow I figured me and them - the conference organization - had different meanings for the concepts "smart" and "casual", and to both concepts together, merged into one concept only, the dreaded "smart casual". Google didn't help much either. Shirt is okay? Seems that way. But what shirt? By the way, why on earth shirts are smart, when they are the most uncomfortable piece of clothing a man can wear? Anyway. Shirts are smart, it seems. What about some jeans, would they be casual? Perhaps too casual; but trousers should be too formal. So where on earth is the casual in the "smart casual"? Shit. And the sneakers? God, the sneakers. So what I did was, since it was in another country, I packed my suit, shirt and blazer and shoes and all (no one ever compromises in a suit, I guess), and the sneakers, jeans and t-shirts - and on the occasion, I would figure something out. But back to the topic: do they really hire applicants for the way they look when they go all dolled up to the fucking job interview? So I might have the most extraordinary CV ever, they're going to turn me down because the other guy before me had a fancy shirt and shoes so polished I could see myself reflected on them, while I was wearing some nice and comfy sneakers, jeans and a regular t-shirt? I know, I know, I'm a fucking idealist, appearances are everything and all that, but still: that's just silly, not to mention unfair. And not only silly and unfair: I do believe that the importance people give to clothes nowadays is the proof that our civilization is turning upside down. I mean, look at our prime minister, for God's sake: Armani suits, shop tab at the most expensive tailor shop in Los-fucking-Angeles, and yet he's the lousiest piece of shit this country has ever had in a government. Point proven, I tell you.

Motivation my ass

Whoever invented the "motivational letters" for job applications should be shot in the kneecap. Seriously. I don't get it: why on earth do the employers want to read god knows how many sheets of paper full of lunatic, self-delusional bollocks? Isn't the CV enough? Come on, it tells them our personal experience (or lack of it). Is it really needed for us to get a shot at a job to have our potential future boss reading something like "my name is John, I'm 25, I've studied at yada university, and I'm a clever guy who loves to learn and never shies away from new challenges, however hard they might be. I'd really like to get an opportunity here, as I feel I'm the right person for the job, and I'm positive it would absolutely expand my horizons". Bullshit. Pure bullshit, warm and stinky. Might as well write "Hey pal. Name's John. Age doesn't matter. I'm a pompous prick here ready to tell you a lot of mambo-jambo about qualities I don't possess, while conveniently ommiting what a rotten son of a bitch I am, to give you a good boot-licking, so you'd call me for a job interview and take me in. Best regards." Actually if I was the one hiring someone, I might give some credit to this for sincerity's sake.

I've never seen the stars

Everything was prepared. I was expecting to take off and go see the stars; as such, I prepared accordingly. Packed everything that had to be packed. Cleared the way for the landing zone and the space ship. Soon, I thought. Soon I'd be flying in orbit, across the void where we float and revolve around the sun. Soon I, too, would drift among the planets, would count them myself. Soon I'd be seeing the endless night, and all the stars the naked eye can see, inconceivable distances through time and space. Everything was ready, I thought.

It never happened. The big day arrived, but the landing zone remained empty, and the space ship never landed. We cannot afford it to land. For some days I looked at the night throught the windows, facing the darkness I'd never feel, seeing the stars so far away - stars I'd never see without the veil of the atmosphere. For some days I stared at the empty space where nothing came to happen. I knew it wouldn't happen. All the expectations and preparations for nothing. For emptiness. It was all I could feel, emptiness. No anger, no resentment, no contempt. Only emptiness.

Bodycount

The official bodycount has reached sixteen.

Five

Five years ago, I was starting the third year in college, and I created this blog after watching the movie "Fight Club" in a shady movie session I've arranged at the university's premises. 2005 was an interesting year. I've cemented three friendships which survived the end of university, and everything that happened ever since; three people who are still my best friends. In 2005 I've met someone who'd leave a mark never to be erased. In 2005 my pessimism was a funny mask, one that some people took more seriously than I did, as back then everything seemed bright and hopeful. In 2005 I was twenty years old. 2005 was five years ago, and five years is a lot of time. Anyway. I've been considering putting this blog to rest over the last year, since it has long since stopped being fun, and it's been a long time since the pleasure this blog once gave me is gone; it's way better to write under its shadow. But I've never pulled the trigger. Part of it due to the nostalgia - again, five years is a lot of time - and, in a way, I needed the smoke curtain it would provide. But above all, I like this blog, I like the people that still come here, and I owe it a lot. So it went on up until this day, and I hope I can keep it running.

It's nice to go fishing, but it's even nicer when the don't have to cast the bait, as there's someone else doing the job for us. So basically we just have to sit, grab a beer and wait for the fish to bite it.

The meaning of songs

We were talking those songs that have a special meaning between two people. You know, it's a silly old idea, one listens a song, dedicates the song to his or her beloved, he or she loves the long, and the song becomes the original sound track of their love. Until the day then the love starts to crumble and the meaning of the song changes: it no longer symbolises the love we have, but the love we lost. We assumed that most people have such songs, at least one. I don't know about the rest of the people, but although it will never be meaningless to listen to those songs, I still like to listen to them quite a lot. There was a time when listening to such songs would cause me pain, but that time was fortunately brief. Nowadays I get to listen to them, to remember what they used to mean, and although I don't feel extremely happy, I'm cool with it. They remind me what I have lost, yes, but also what I once got, and what I once achieved. And that kinda evens it out.

Is it just me, or this song totally rocks?

Routines

As you can see, lady, I'm trying. It's not as easy as it used to be though. Switched most of the talk about movies and books to one of the blogs I write for, and the political gibberish to another. That leaves the personal and emotional bollocks, but that's no longer taking much blog space, is it? The truth is, somehow I no longer feel like writing about it here. I feel it to be pointless. You know: eventually talking doesn't help us any more. Writing still does, in its own peculiar way, but not here. I don't feel like whining any more. I start talking about myself and everything is so fucking boring that I get bored of writing, so I can't imagine how bored anyone would feel while reading it. I suppose the blog needs some sort of adrenaline shot, something to give it its meaning back, to revive it. Anyway. The friday picture of a band will continue, yes, and it must continue. It's a routine I'm trying to establish here. Routines are important, even essential. Writing, truth be told, is a routine. So is reading. By the way: read this. It's perhaps the most brilliant thing I've read in a while in the blog world. If somehow you, my dear reader, cannot read portuguese and the translation add-on of Firefox or Chrome is not working well, allow me to give it a shot, knowing that it won't do justice to the original:

I had a friend who said to live vicariously through me. That was not true: neither my live was exciting enough, nor his life was tedious enough to justify such appropriation of someone's existance. Truth be told, that can never be true. Instead what commonly happens is to live vicariously through the lives we used to have, through the people we used to know, through the dreams we used to dream, etc. Mistake it not for nostalgia, for nostalgia implies a degree of awareness of the time that passed. It's rather a feeling of faint anachronism, one that we feel not to have the strenght - or the will - to solve. (from here, my crappy translation)

And the new year is taking a while

So another one went crashing down. I don't like to celebrate the new year, but I suppose the end of this year should be celebrated - exactly because it's going to end. 2010, the year without love. I can't think of any way for 2011 to be a worse year than this one.

The zealots

If there's one kind of people I really dislike, that would be the zealot. Everyone knows one: the zealot is that person that has found the truth in some cause, thereby devoting his or her heart and soul and - it gets worse - voice to it. To spread the truth, to show others how wrong and misguided they are. The zealots stand for their causes with fierce self-righteousness, and it's exactly this that makes them so fucking annoying - they don't even budge. Their causes vary. Back in the old days, zealots were possessed by religious fervor and would fight to death if that would be necessary. Nowadays, religion is no longer fashionable - not without irony, it's easier to find an atheist zealot today than a religious zealot. But the zealots I'm thinking about usually defend more "earthly" causes; that, however - and unfortunately -, doesn't mean they are less fierce when it comes to defend and preach whatever truth they think they've found. Causes they fight for nowadays usually include the environmnent, in many ways, the animal protection and vegetarianism, something against the USA, the help to the poor, and a thousand different ones. Those zealots no longer fight to death, and no longer use swords, spears and weapons of the sort. One might be tempted to say "fortunately", but I'm not so sure about that: once a zealot starts nagging me and arguing and passing those ridiculous moral judgements just because I didn't cast a bottle into the glass recycle bin or because I'm enjoying my steak, I kinda wish they had a sword and put me out of my misery. Or rather, I wish I had that sword, so I could shut them up for good. Anyway. They don't use weapons anymore; all they do is preach, sometimes yell, sometimes look like clowns in ridiculous public "performances". Never understimate them: once they start preaching, they get annoying faster than I can say "shenanigans". They point their fingers at you, their voice's volume starts arising, and they unleash a barrage of pre-made, pretentiously self-righteous sentences: How dare you not reclycle? How dare you drive your car to work? How dare you use those old-fashioned, energy-hungry incandescent lightbulbs? How dare you eat meat? Have you ever thought about that poor animal's suffering? (really, this one is the most annoying cause) How dare you not give? How dare you not help? You get the point by now. They are not really interested in everyone else's belief: they only want everyone else's guilt. Simple, devious, incredibly vicious. I really can't stand this kind of people. I don't care about what they believe in, or what they fight for. I just can't stand their self-righteous pose - as if they were without sin - and their ability to piss everyone else off.

We know it. Fuck yeah, we know it. Listen to the beat. Moments ago, it was The Doors, one of the best bands ever. Break on through to the other side. It's over now; there's something else in the air, something I cannot recall. I know it's not Radiohead. No. Not going into that. I know it's not a lot of damned things anyway. So it's something else, something else other than all those things I know it's not. Whatever. Drunk as hell, I don't even know why I'm here. Oh wait, I know now. Had never listened to this band before. I mean, not the band that's playing right now, but the band that'll come soom. Makes sense? I'm listening the pub's music. And conversations. Mostly girls here. Pretty, too. Have no idea what they're talking and giggling about. Mind their business, that's what they do. They don't notice me. Thankfully. I wouldn't know what to say. In this wretched party there's only one person I'd like to talk to. One person whose opinion matters, means something to me. Nirvana now. Someone's cell phone ran out of battery right now. Not mine. Twenty-three-oh-nine. Nirvana. Know not the song, matters little. Another shot. Had too many of them. The pub is nice. Tried to call my best friend, but phone's out. The walls are painted red. There are lights on the angular mirrors hanging on the walls. I don't know if anyone has noticed that I'm writing. I didn't; wonder if tomorrow I'll understand what's written here. Smirting is so overrated.

In rainbows

these guys require no introduction

Under the shadow

I know, I know, the blog is a bit quiet these days. The truth is, old habits die hard, and it's still easier (and more challenging) for me to write under its shadow. But I'll carry on.

Warfare

In that moment, I felt it as pointless. Remembering the past, I can still see months dedicated to warfare: Silence tossed as grenades. Bitter words spat as machine gun bullets. Cease-fire time spent restlessly, seraching new ways to hurt the other side, to inflict pain, to convice them of our superiority, of our innevitable victory. Everything to conceil that mattered, to sustain a mask of indifference that both I and them knew to be false. I won none of those battles. They are meant to be fought, but never meant to be won. In that moment, I understood that it didn't matter, that I've done it before, that I'd achieve nothing in arming myself and jump into the trenches again. A bloody struggle had just been fought, with far more casualities that I'd have wished for - why starting a new one? So I stood still. Well, I didn't quite stood still, the ammunition has been spent on the range, aiming lifeless, cardboard targets. Harmless range fire, meant for me alone. For the rest of the world I remained still. The time of warfare is long since gone.

Friday

For those who don't know them, Okkervil River - one of the bands I'd like the most to see somewhere.