Max Bemis is a talented, talented man. Colorblind was originally an up-tempo punk rock jam. This version is a heartwrenching tale of regret and a hopeful future.



It really gets to me. Colorblind was one of the first songs from Max that I ever heard. I was in the process of finding tracks from "...Is A Real Boy" when I found Colorblind and wasn't sure if it was from the record or not. I liked it a lot back then and it has always been a good one to listen to for me. It's not in the top 10 Say Anything songs or anything, but it was always a solid track. This new rendition nearly puts me to tears. It makes me think about my life and things I could have done differently, things I need to fix, and it makes me hopeful for plans I already have.

If you're an old Say Anything fan, you know this song and this new version is, at the very least, a treat. If you don't know Say Anything, who are you and why are you reading my LiveJournal?you should check them out. Here's a link to the original song.

- toddly

First and foremost, I feel like absolute shit. I'm definitely coming down with a cold, or maybe worse... maybe I shouldn't have fucked that pig last week. o.O

Anyway, I just watched Stranger than Fiction for about the 10th time I'd have to guess and I realized something new about the film. If you haven't seen it, stop reading if you plan on seeing it. This post is spoily.

I realized that the ending wasn't what I thought it was. I thought that Karen Eiffel had written some masterpiece of an ending that required Harold Crick to die in some heroic fashion that saved humanity and we were left none the wiser as to what that was. Now, this interpretation leaves the viewer open to make up their own ending, their own meaning, and while I love a create your own story book just as much as the next guy, I do not see this movie in that way any longer.

I've decided I was right in one sense. Harold is meant to die in some heroic fashion that saves humanity. I was wrong in that it's something we're left to imagine for ourselves what that meaning is. The story is the meaning. The story is also the story. Now, follow along with me here. And maybe I'm just an idiot... but I felt, before today, that Karen Eiffel was writing some book with Harold Crick as the character and the heart, the meat, the meaning of the book was in some other part of Harold's life that was unknown to us, the viewer. I suppose I believed that Harold was dying for that unknown meaning.

Now, the meaning of his death is meaning itself. Prior to Harold's existential awakening, he was utterly worthless. He was a deplorable excuse for a human life and nothing worth emulating whatsoever. Through the story, he awakens. In part, due to the mundane existence that no longer satisfies him and, in part, to the narrator he begins hearing that leads him down a series of events that he might not have otherwise gone down. His life gains meaning. He falls in love with Ms. Pascal. He learns the guitar. He lives life. And he does all of this already knowing that his death was imminent. He follows that old, inspiring storyline, "It's never too late to turn it all around." And so many great stories are based on that idea. I could write a post on those movies alone! So, we have a character whose life is meaningless and whose death is imminent. He, whether of his own persuasion or because of external influences, changes his meaningless life into a very meaningful one. This is pause for reflection for Harold. Now, he does not want to die. Not that he was suicidal before, but now he has a whole butt load of meaning to keep meaningful. He had resigned himself to his fate of death and decided just to take it easy and take Professor Hilbert's advice. Now, he wanted desperately to keep on existing. He seeks out Karen Eiffel and makes his existence known to her. He reads the book and decides that he must die. Why? It is very plausible that there is still some meaningful, external storyline that we are unaware of, but what if there isn't? What if the very meaning of Harold Crick's death is his life that we have just spent an hour or two learning about?

Harold is willing to die. That means there must be something worth dying for. What could that be? Professor Hilbert says it's the greatest English piece of literature in years. That could be considered something worth dying for. Harold Crick was willing to face his death in spite of the fact that he had created a very meaningful existence. He was willing to die to preserve the story of a meaningless man making his life meaningful and then dying to preserve the power of meaning. That's a punch to the gonads! He was willing to make the sacrifice for the power of literature and the power to change lives for the better. He was willing to die for the hope that other meaningless people might read about his story and be inspired by fiction to change their lives for the meaningful. That is what Harold Crick was willing to die for. And the integrity of the story is not compromised by the alternate ending. He left that night, after returning the manuscript to Karen Eiffel, thinking he was going to die. He went about his daily routine just as the manuscript outlined with every expectation of dying by that bus. Karen realized that a man like that, a man willing to do that was worth saving. If Harold did not know the circumstances of the story, if he had just made those meaningful changes without foreknowledge of his death and the story being written by Karen Eiffel, then his death would have been a more meaningful ending. And this is because it would have meant that you need to change your life before it's too late. You don't know when you'll die so live life now. But, since he knew when he was going to die, the story takes on a new meaning. It's now about meaning and what is worth dying for. And if a man is worth dying for a powerful, meaning piece of literature, it's not worth killing that sort of man to accomplish that piece of literature. Harold Crick became more meaningful than a meaningful, best-selling piece of fiction because he was willing to die for one. Now, that's an epic story.

And if all of that was already known by you, go to hell for being smarter than me and screw you for not sharing that awesome story with me before.

- toddly

I just saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

I'm becoming a hopeless romantic, again.

I sit here and type about three pages worth of ramblings then delete them all because they feel too revealing. I don't know if I'm reaching out or just bored.

I should probably just post this before I think that I'm giving too much away.

For the last time Hollywood...

You cannot CHOOSE your FATE.

You cannot CONTROL your DESTINY.

You cannot ALTER your SET PATH.


If you ever say, "Your path has been laid out before you, now you must simply walk it," or "It is your destiny to do XYZ, you simply must choose to do it," or any lame-ass, cheesy, wanna-be epic bullshit line, you are being fucking retarded. You are being contradictory and creating a paradox. If it's your destiny, you cannot control it. If you can control it, it is not your destiny. It's simple logic and semantics. It's gone too far. I swear, I'm going to hear something like, "The choice is yours. Your life is entirely up to you. Now choose your destiny," and my fucking head is going to explode.

For the record, if the hero is merely fulfilling his/her destiny, then what that hero is doing is entirely meaningless, has nothing to do with any sort of inner struggle, and becomes a moot point. However, if there is no destiny, if it is not written that one day this hero shall come forth, then there is no ultimate plan or final battle. There are simply interactions between people. You want the hero to win, but the hero isn't fulfilling a prophecy. The hero is simply acting and it becomes so much more real. Because if it was fated to happen, the actions are meaningless, but the ending was "foretold." If it wasn't fated to happen, the actions mean everything, but the ending is meaningless from the "grand scheme of things" point of view. I, personally, like the latter because I don't have a say in the prophecy. But I do have a say in what isn't scripted, in what doesn't matter.

To put it in perspective, if an enormous meteor crashed into the Earth tomorrow, the universe wouldn't blink an eye. The cosmos would swirl, whatever other lifeforms that are out there, be it sentient or single-cell, would keep on keepin' on. It would be a speck of dust floating through the vastness of space. And what does that mean? Everything you do matters to you and no one else. So make it matter because you're all that you have. And tell fate, prophecy, destiny, and all that other shit to leave you alone. It's your life. It's meaningless. And you're gonna make it the best you can.

I like answering questions. It's fun. If you have any questions you'd like to ask me or that you just want to talk about, I'm inviting any and all questions. They can be on LiveJournal or if you want to e-mail me it's toddly at gmail dot com. They can be philosophically inclined (the best kind), advice related, my deepest darkest secrets, or you can ask me about the weather. I might give you a rather snide reply should you ask about the weather, but nonetheless, you can do so. I expect maybe one question from Christen and that's just because she likes to humor me...

- toddly

PS - Maybe my sister. If she reads it. She has a tendency to do silly things like this.

Crazy, I know. But something happened that prompted me to draw attention to myself via a post on Live Journal...

One of my best friends from Orlando tried to kill himself last night. It shocked the hell out of me. I mean, in some sick and twisted way, it almost feels like a statistical thing. Like, "X out of Y people know someone who's attempted suicide." It's a horrible thought, but it's the one I can't shake from it all. And it fits the description that those "X out of Y" slogans give you. No one saw it coming. He acts normal in every regard. Yada yada yada. I mean, I saw this guy not a month ago. Hung out with him in Orlando and there was no indication whatsoever. It was business as usual when I'm in town. We hung around, told horrible jokes, just had a good time. And now he's Baker Acted for the next two days and he's lucky to be alive. Well, lucky from our perspective, as the rest of the world. I can't say if he feels lucky to be alive. I'm not sure what a failed suicide attempt would feel like if made so public that all your friends and family will know about it. It's just one of those wake up calls. Do I really know anyone? Is EVERYONE capable of attempting suicide? Am I capable? I don't think I am. I hope you're not. And if you're thinking about it, ask me first if it's the right idea. I'll give you the straight talk. I'll weigh the pros and cons with you and let you know if suicide is right for you. I don't think I'm suppose to be joking at a time like this, but it's what I do. I make fun of things. I make fun of everything. I just made fun of suicide when I found out a very close friend of mine attempted suicide not 24 hours ago. I think for most people it's a way of denying what has happened. Push it away. Make it small. "Look! I can laugh about this!" I'm not sure if that's what it is for me. In a way, I feel that making fun of something like this is my way of conquering it. But I can't help but wonder if I'm suppose to be "more" messed up over this. How does the average person respond to a friend's attempted suicide? What an asinine question. I think these "deep moments" in our lives make us so self-absorbed that we are driven to make asinine posts in LJ about it like I'm doing right now. I think I'll leave you with that. And seriously, if you want to weigh the pros and cons of suicide, call me. I'll decide if you're worthy of living or not. And even though I know he won't read this at all, I think the pros of living would out-weigh the cons anytime for you dude... anytime.

- toddly

you thought i was posting something in livejournal...

well, technically i am...

but not really...

good day...

Pushing Daisies is canceled. It will end after Episode 13 of this season which will be a cliffhanger. Fun.

Say Anything has a new album coming out sometime in 2009 and there's a couple of linked songs on Youtube: Tickle Me Red, Ahh Men, Cemetary, Loathing

I love Ahh, Men. It's going to be amazing live.

- toddly

PS - There's something magical about laying on your back with your feet toward a bonfire, looking at the stars and the new constellations that the floating, burning embers create.

Apparently, Wall-E is liberal propoganda. Disclaimer: Think Progress is, in fact, a liberal media blog website, but I imagine we can give a little creedence to this article seeing as most of the entertaining and shockingly dumb conservative statements are direct quotes from conservatives. I love how the messages of "over-consumption is bad" and "take care of the Earth" are liberal propoganda. Those are just a couple of the more latent messages of the movie. The more explicit message of the movie is love and curiosity are worth risking everything to experience. If I've had this conversation with you, you know I have a history of attacking cartoons for their latent messages. So, I'll actually grant conservatives that Wall-E has some latent liberal messages.

That being said, let's take a look at conservative propoganda in cartoons. Now, my definition of conservative propoganda might be a bit wider than what the conservative media would like it to be, but they can deal with it. This would take a while if it were comprehensive, so let's just take a few of my favorite examples: The Little Mermaid. The wonderful story of a female mermaid who longs to be human, but resigns herself to her life in the sea. Upon seeing the most handsome human male ever, she decides to trade her VOICE for LEGS in order to win the heart of this young man. Now, it doesn't end there, but the only reason it doesn't is because an evil witch-type lady (who happens to be ugly and overweight - any connection there?) foils all plans for happiness and attacks them and so on. So, she trades her VOICE for LEGS. Women should be seen and not heard? That's a conservative message to me.

But that's not a talking point on the conservative agenda. Here's a talking point of the conservatives that is represented in a movie. Now, this hurts me a bit, because I actually enjoy the movie for the characters mostly. Robots. Here's the message of Robots: A relatively poor boy from a suburb moves to the big city to make it as an engineer in the big world for the big company. He gets down on his luck and the bad guy almost kills him, but the former big business owner comes in to save the day and everyone is for the better because of his big business strategies. In a nutshell, big business will save you! Guess who made Robots... Fox.

So I think it's okay that we have a "liberal" cartoon every now and then.

- toddly

We all suffer. Here's a quiz...

A - AGE: 24

B - BAND LISTENED TO MOST RECENTLY: Murder by Death

C- CRUSH: None really to speak of.

D - DAD'S NAME: Dale

E - EASIEST PERSON TO TALK TO: I can talk to just about anyone.

F - FAVORITE BAND: Say Anything

G - GORGEOUS PERSON: Meh. I have my top 5, but who cares?

H - HOMETOWN: Zephyrhills

I - INSTRUMENT: Guitar... hero

J - JUICE: Apple

K - KIDS: Subbing at high school is making me reconsider procreation, but so far I don't think it's the worst think you can do.

L - LONGEST CAR RIDE: Out west with the family on a vacation to see lots of national parks

M - MUM'S NAME: Ellen

N - NUMBER OF SIBLINGS: One

O - ONE WISH: Have enough money to not work and not worry about living my lifestyle. It's really not as much as you'd think.

P - PHOBIA(S): Spiders mostly.

Q - QUOTE: "When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? To surrender dreams - -this may be madness; to seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all - -to see life as it is and not as it should be." - Man of La Mancha

R - REASON TO SMILE: A lot

S - SEXIEST FEATURE: Brain? Idk. You tell me.

T - TIME YOU WAKE UP: 6AM mostly except for weekends which is like Noonish

U - UNKNOWN FACT ABOUT ME: Uh, I'm actually funny, no really...

V - VEGETABLE YOU HATE: Fuck lima beans.

W - WORST HABIT(S): Eating too much.

X - X-RAYS YOU'VE HAD: Brain... when my eye doctor thought I was going blind. That was awesome.

Y - YUCKY FOOD: Not sure. I'm not into salads with fruits and vinagrette dressings.

Z - ZODIAC SIGN: Libra

I love refreshing randomly on The Nietzsche Family Circus from time to time. You get such wonderful gems as this.

If I haven't told you before, the Nietzsche Family Circus takes comic pictures from the Family Circus and replaces the text at the bottom with quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche. Priceless.

Fuck every single person who voted against gay marriage. Some of them may be some of my friends, but whatever. Fuck it. It's bullshit. It's not your fucking place to hold anyone else accountable to your moral standard if it has nothing to do with your well-being. If two men or two women want to live together and be recognized as a union in this country, go fuck yourself for saying they can't do it. It does not hurt the "sanctity of marriage." Marriages are not exclusive to YOUR religion or YOUR beliefs. To recognize that homosexual marriage "taints" marriage is to recognize marriage as it is defined in one set of beliefs as opposed to another. That is NOT separation of Church and State and, therefore, is unconstitutional.

I don't care if you don't like gays just the same way that I don't care if you don't like blacks. You just better realize that you have no place interfering with them as people and you best damn well let them live their life. So a big fuck you to bigots across American who voted against gay marriage this election.

And a big fuck you to the democratic spineless candidates who agree that gay marriage is a "states' rights issue." Bull-fucking-shit. It's ENTIRELY a federal concern because it basically becomes state sponsored bigotry from state to state. I think well all can remember what happened the last time we let states decide to be racist and/or bigoted without the federal government mandating it.

I've been reading various news articles online lately and some of the more conservative sources have been attacking what Joe Biden said about middle class people making $150,000. First off, this is yet another wonderful example of taking something out of context. Here is the verbtim qute from an article from Fox News:

“'That $87 billion tax break doesn’t need to go to people making an average of 1.4 million, it should go like it used to. It should go to middle class people — people making under $150,000 a year,' Biden said."

First off, let's use some good old sentence logic to show how this is NOT saying that Biden wants to tax people making between $150,000 and $200,000. His first proposition is that the tax break shouldn't go to people making $1.4 million. That is damn right irrelevant to our question about his proposed taxing. The second proposition is that the tax break should go to the middle class. This, while important, does not have the answer to our logical problem. His third proposition is an act of defining the middle class as people making under $150,000 a year. Okay, sentence logic works like this: If you attribute a characteristic (like making under $150,000 a year) to an entity, unless there is a qualifer such as "only" that characteristic does almost nothing to limit the scope of the entity you attributed it to. I could amend his statement thusly: "It should go to middle class people - people making under $80,000 a year." Now, I've attributed the characteristic of making less than $80,000 a year to the middle class, but that does not, in any way, exclude the characteristic of making less than $150,000 a year from being attributed to the middle class as well. If Biden had said something like "It should go the middle class - ONLY people making under $150,000 a year," that would exclude people making more than $150,000 a year from being a part of Biden's definition of middle class.

I'm pretty confident that Obama will win this election and he's definitely a beter choice than McCain. After the 2004 election, I thought I'd never be on the winning side of an election in my life. I was simply shocked that Bush got re-elected. At any rate, I hope everyone can make it out. Everyone should vote for Steve Donaldson for superintendent of Pasco County Schools. Everyone should vote against Amendment No. 2 - same-sex marriage should not be banned.

It may not be your cup of tea, but if it is, this is grade A chamomile shit.

It's a musical created by Thomas Durden from Forgive Durden. I had never heard of this band until this album. And I hadn't heard about this album until Eslyn told me it was coming out. But, it's awesome.

So, you know it's a musical and it's by Forgive Durden. Let's just say that this genre of music would be pop punk, I guess. It includes a lot of guest vocals: Max Bemis (Say Anthing hehe), Aaron Weiss as narrator (mewithoutYou squee), Chris Conley (Saves the Day), Brendon Urie (Panic at the Disco) and a slew of other people that I had never heard of but want to hear more from now.

Ok, now you know it's a musical made by a pop punk band with a ton of other popular pop punk band people. Do you know what to expect yet? I'm not sure, but honestly, I was VERY surprised how much like a musical this was. It had all the beautifully silly things I've come to expect and adore from a musical. The only difference is that was sung by pop punk icons and not Broadway stars.

I don't really want to tell the story because, honestly, it was really cool to listen to it and hear the story progress as I listened to the album for the first time even though it was a little hard to remember everything since there wasn't a visual. Albeit, I was distracted and didn't listen to it in one sitting. But, since I want to give you a little taste, I'll tell you it's a story of pride and love.

Favorite quote:
"Don't you ever feel like you’ve been destined
For something bigger than your skin?"


Links:
Forgive Durden's website - You can listen to the entire album streamed on their website. At least for now, that is.

Razia's Shadow website - See the drawings for the characters and all the collaborators for the album.

I really like this album. You should listen to it.

- toddly

They both spout off that they are proponents of free trade.

Where's the fucking candidate who's against free trade that I can vote for and actually have a chance of him/her getting elected? Where's the politician in Washington saying that free trade is what got us where we are in the financial markets? Where's the media calling John McCain out on being a FUCKING MORON for thinking that the trickle down theory of the Reagan days is the ideal model?

John McCain bullshits about cronyism. I say they're all fucking cronies. Even though they "disagree," they just sit by and give each other the spotlight when they win it. They don't actually fight for their policies. They don't give one shit about average Americans. They're all out to serve their own fucking agendas and they'll say what it takes to get elected then maybe DO what it takes to hopefully get re-elected. In the case of Bush, he had to stick us in a war in order to get re-elected. What will these guys do to get re-elected? I shudder to think.

I'm gonna let this post spill over into my remarks on absurdity. When it comes to government, it's absurd that emotions are favored over rationality and reason. It's absurd that you could lay out a step-by-step, simple, logical argument for or against ANYTHING and it would mean less to the American public than simply saying, "I'm going to lower taxes." That statements means ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY nothing, GOD FUCKING DAMN IT! I don't care who the fuck says it. If Obama says he's going to lower taxes, you say, "Show me how, god damn it!" If McCain says he's going to lower taxes, you say, "Show me how, god damn it!" The average fucking American doesn't even want an explanation. They just want to see pretty faces and hear pretty promises during commercials for their fucking football and Dancing with the Stars. If you think Obama is a terrorist or is linked to terrorists or will somehow aid terrorism, you are an ignorant bigot and you need to do me a favor and not vote or go drink the "special" punch at your next Klan meeting.

God, I got side-tracked in that. At any rate, this country needs to take a step towards reason and logical principles with regards to politics. Slogans and catch phrases used to represent refined, ideological principles. Now, they're simply empty rhetoric to placate the masses who don't even know what rhetoric means.

- toddly

This political climate is absurd.

This country is absurd.

Human nature is absurd.

Where's my god damned rock? I want to crawl under it.


- toddly

PS - I don't even think I want to vote now. And I really do have a lot to say on the topic of absurdity, true absurdity, in the strictest sense, but I don't have the energy to do it now.

Yes, I used ABBA for my subject heading. Deal with it.

There was a long post about how life is just a game and we're all playing to win... but it seems irrelevant now to have all that typed out when I kinda just said it. Life's a game. People are greedy and want to win... now we have a depression in the making...

Have you ever tried to create a long, elaborate post detailing events in your life and your thoughts on them in the hopes of having some cathartic moment that you can share with the people on your flist only to realize that you've done nothing but puke your brain onto your keyboard in a haphazard, meaningless way, to the extent that you abhor every word you just typed?

I've done that a lot lately. Maybe I won't delete it one of these days.

I just filled out all the answers to a silly quiz thing... and deleted it because it's stupid.

And now, for a quote:

"It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not." - Andre Gide