Black Friday

As I was browsing the NYTimes this morning, I came across this appalling article:
Walmart Employee Trampled to Death

It makes you wonder what type of world we have bred in America. We are suppose to be the place where virtually limitless freedom and opportunity is available to everyone. We are suppose to be the showcase for a successful capitalist society with a free market that serves as the beating heart for the global economy. We are suppose to be the hands that help pick up the less fortunate and fight the injustice that seems to plague so many places around the world these days.

Instead, in recent times, it seems we are less known for being the land of opportunity and more known for being a place that condones a severely twisted system of values. Among other things, we've created this insane materialistic mindset that is fueled at it's core by intense greed. Our holiday season has already turned into a spectacle which is serving as a center stage showcase for how American culture is using a veil of delusion to suffocate all of us into a sense of euphoric consumptive submission. This greed apparently lead a mob of people to trample a poor minimum wage worker at a retail store just so they could get the cheapest price on the latest "Tickle me Elmo" doll or a shiny new flat screen TV. Is this what capitalism is all about? What good is a society that puts the value of some product above the value of human life?

We may be more sophisticated and live more comfortably than our neanderthal brethren from prehistoric times, but it appears that we haven't evolved quite as far as we like to think.

It's only two days after Thanksgiving and American greed can be found everywhere you look. It seems to be at the core of a deeply flawed society that, on average, has been living far beyond it's means for the last 20+ years.

The question is, are we too far gone to make it right? Have we been so caught up fearfully living inside our narrow minded bubbles of seclusion that we've forgotten how to be honest and caring human beings?

Indie Rock Report: Kid Dakota and The Evening Rig

This weekend I was out at the Uptown Bar catching a few bands on Friday night.  Two bands I highly recommend are:

Kid Dakota (Rock/Indie):

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=2881328

The Evening Rig (Rock/Country/Crunk):

http://www.myspace.com/theeveningrig

Both bands rocked the house, even though the Uptown Bar is a pretty horrible venue for live music.  But if you like good Indie rock, check these guys out live if you can.

Imitosis

I've been rather introspective lately so I thought I'd share some personal thoughts.  

I've been thinking a lot recently about relationships and trying to figure out what makes them work.  After all this thinking, I've come to really no conclusions except one.  This one conclusion is that trying to analyze and understand human behavior will drive you to the brink of insanity and lead you to no conclusions.

In the few longer relationships I've been in throughout the last couple of years, I've come to realize that each of these relationships has followed this odd pattern which resembles the highs and lows of taking a road trip.  But not just a normal road trip... a long, fun, and exciting road trip across the country which somehow ends tragically in a fiery collision between my vehicle and a very large semi truck.  

I've recently been having a set of reoccurring, oddly amusing dreams that deal with this metaphorical road trip.  I can't explain them in full detail, but they go a little something like this...

The excitement begins with the planning of the trip.  I've been waiting for the right opportunity and when it finally presents itself, I seize the moment.  When I first embark on the trip, the excitement builds.  I'm exploring different parts of the country and seeing things through a totally new perspective.  As the road trip goes on, the excitement starts to fade a little, but I'm still left with a tinge of exhilaration.  Because, let's face it, this road trip experience is way better than how things were before the trip.  If I'm feeling tired from driving, every now and again a song comes up on the radio that reenergizes me and brings me back into the moment.  All in all, the trip is going great.  I feel a strong sense of contentment about the trip.  Weeks, then months, go by and I slowly begin to make my way back home.  Just minutes away from my homecoming, Andrew Bird's "Imitosis" comes on the radio.  It's late and I'm driving the final mile before I make it back to my place of residence.  I pull up to a stop light, patiently wait my turn, then the light turns green.  I slowly inch into the intersection and then suddenly I'm blindsided by a semi truck whose driver couldn't make up his mind whether to stop or try and run the red light.  By the time he made a decision, it was too late.  I can feel my car spinning a few times and then roll over.  A few moments go by and suddenly everything goes black.  Then I wake up in my own bed and it's like the road trip never happened.  So I start planning it all over again.

Most of the metaphors in the dream are not lost on me.  But I'm still trying to sift through it all.  For the first time I'm actually tempted to buy one of those dream books that I've always mocked as ridiculous, just to see if I can analyze it on a deeper level.  I guess the moral of the dream is take your time and enjoy the road trip, because pretty much everything ends in a metaphorical "fiery crash".

Happy Sunday :-).