“What Time is ‘Pensacola Wings of Gold’ on Anyways?!”

I feel like I’m turning conservative. I feel like I’m malleable. Anyone can tell me something, and I’ll believe them. If they speak: fluently, intelligent, and with confidence, I’ll listen fully and take what they have to say. I am easily manipulated, because I don’t know what to believe. This world is full of confusion, and alone; I cannot find something to fully believe. My friends are as close as I come to trusting someone. My parents are included. I can see them. I can look into their eyes and see their lies or their truth. If I know someone, I am positive I can see their true intentions. I can’t look into my president’s eyes. I can’t look into my congress. Into my country’s churches, businesses, or government. I don’t know what their intentions are. Who can a kid believe, but himself and his instincts? I look around myself and judge my surroundings. I don’t judge to offend or to strike someone down with harsh words. I judge to find truth. I want to know if the person I’m next to or walking by is true to themselves, their friends, and their country. How do I judge that? I cannot. How can I go against society and reform my nation or world, if my counter culture is blindly following society? If my counter culture is following society by believing they are against it, and by going with society is the new counter current, where do I move? How do I tell my generation they are moving in the wrong direction? My generation believes that wearing home made clothes and eating organic local food and riding fixed gear bikes made at a local non-profit organization is against the main stream, but really they are conforming to a current of mainstream society. How is our country going to rise out of our economical, political, and socio depression if we are all banding against it? We are a generation of pseudo-indie shit heads, who look at our selves in the mirror and say, “I am an independent thinker,” but do not look at the kid who is sitting next to him and says he is too, although he is wearing the same clothes, rides the same bike, and shops at local businesses. We are afraid of being mainstream, but at the same time we are blindly conforming. I believe I’m an independent thinker. I read the news. I real classic literature, and listen to independent music. I am a hypocrite just like anyone else in my blind countercurrent. I say, “fuck you,” to anyone who has the same books sitting on his shelf, has the same music on his library, and wears the same band shirt I have on. I believe I am better than anyone else, because I think differently. Why can’t we all come together, with our brilliant views about psychology, sociology, politics, and art? We could become one of the strongest revolutions our world has ever seen, at least since the European Renaissance. Call it the American Renaissance, if we are so uncreative, we could be extra creative and call it la Renaissance Américaine, if we want a romantic twist. In my opinion, independent thinkers of our generation are a melting pot of knowledge, of philosophies, of reform. We are the youth who read, who think, who want to be part of something bigger than what our society is giving us. We see through the cracks, and read between the lines (and use ridiculous clichés to explain our thoughts). I want to be able to explain to our country what is going on around us. What hedge funds are. What the health care reform really is trying to do. What our government is hiding from us. Why our president won’t go up to President Ahmadinejad and tell him that we will not accept what he is doing to his people, that he is creating a genocide in his country. If our government is too afraid to do the right thing, someone who can has to. We have to. I want to. But this problem goes beyond politics, beyond society, it has to do with the way we conduct ourselves individually. We cannot be afraid to conform to something, because if we don’t conform to something we believe, we will conform into the Underground Man. Where we are too afraid to show our true selves. Conformity is not bad, conformity is important as long as we conform to something we think is right. We need to conform to change ourselves, change our government, and change our world, if it is possible. Our country was created; by independent people who banded together, and we change together. We have done stupid things. We have had stupid leaders. And we have stupid people living inside our borders. But we have smart people too, smart people who are too afraid to show themselves, and yell what they want. I don’t want the world to fall apart. I don’t want a third world war, or a second American Civil War. I just want to see everyone educate themselves and think freely, because that is where good ideas come from. I’m not a radical. I’m not a revolutionary. I’m not a patriot. I’m just me.

here we go...

...mike b

Another Boring Story

Whenever I begin to daydream about how awesome I am that I thought of something original, I read the same thing in a book or hear it in a song. It makes me wonder how we think, and how everyone is on the same track, and believe everyone may have identical brains, but the way they perceive information and react to what is said changes the way one sees the world.
The past week I have been daydreaming about writing an extraordinary piece, where I tell a story through song. An entire novel, played through music and sung. The speed and tempo will match how the listener should feel while listening to the story. (This is the part that I feel is different.) but the story was going to tell the story about how a teenager growing up in a safe place, surrounded by hatred and confusion, and based off of what he is living through: world, economy, religion, relationships. It was going to be autobiography of sorts. America, Missoula, me: World, center of world, main character. Like a country western story based in Middles ages but exposed in modern politics and world issues.
I have wanted to read a book by Kurt Vonnegut, called Slaughterhouse 5, because apparently it’s a classic and need to read it. I went to Barnes and Noble to pick it up. There I saw another book by Vonnegut, Slapstick, which is the name of one of my favorite bands. I pick it up by impulse. I drive home and sit down to start it, and read the prologue. I never read the prologue. It begins, “This is the closest I have ever come to writing an autobiography.” It’s funny how such a coincidence can come at a crucial time. They seem to happen when I am the most scatter brained. I take them to heart. I freaked out (which I have done a lot lately) it has been a crazy summer already. Days seem to flow along a certain path and I forget I am even living. I simply live, forget about people, realize that I’m ignoring people or being rude. Brain dead. And in this dead brain, I think. I’ve read a lot and listened to a lot of music. I want to write, but never accomplish anything. Friends are secondary and only come when I want them around. Dreams are more fun. Letting my mind run free and see where it takes me, and forget what I was thinking about. It makes the day go quicker, that’s for sure.
I feel like whenever I finally realize something, everybody realizes it too. This brings me back to the idea where peoples’ brains are identical. We’re on a race to see who can think of stuff the fastest. At least that is the way I’ve been living. I want to start a country punk band. The next day I hear a band who plays the same kind of music I want to play. Bummer. I want to ride a single speed bike, hey look, there’s my bike. These are just a few stupid examples that are stuck in my mind. Brains are crazy machines.



bye,


...mike b