This is my little area to write and release. It's my theraputic ventalation space. I think it would be nobler to go through life without judging everything I come in contact with, but let's be reasonable. It's human nature to formulate opinions -- especially negative ones -- about stuff. If you had no opinions, no pet peeves, nothing that set you off, you could easily be replaced with cardboard. I don't want to be replaced. 3.10.98 I posted Passing Beauty yesterday on a poetry newsgroup and have already gotten one response. It was from someone who generally hates love poems, but liked mine. They saw depth and insight instead of the common mushy banter. This got me thinking about the state of poetry today. This is a touchy subject this early in my career, but here I go anyway. I hope I can do my part to bring some respect and integrity back into an art that is riddled with melodramatic saps who think emotional prose in the shape of a column is poetry. Every crybaby with a broken heart and a pen deems themselves a poet and, frankly, makes me embarassed sometimes to say that I am a poet, myself. For any good poet, there are dozens who dice sentences vertically and think themselves deep and creative. I am not, in any way, shape, or form, telling people not to write. Nor am I saying that I am a great poet and all others are phonies. At best, I am at the bottom of a long list of good poets. What I am saying is that writers should strive to write better, not just more. More importantly, if your nametag says "Poet," make sure you write some poetry. Otherwise, change your title to writer or author. I know this will piss some people off, but those people take life too seriously (besides, this area is called "Angry" for a reason). If you don't stir things up, it takes longer for them to change. 4.19.98 This country is assinine for not legalizing marijuana. Actually, this country is assinine for its overwhelming population of hypocrites, but that would make for an unending commentary. Our founding fathers grew it and smoked it. There are countless uses for hemp. It does NOT lead to other drug use/abuse. Its use doesn't cause people to be violent as beer so often does. It's already used by a large percentage of Americans. It would piss off cigarette companies. Legalization would lessen prison crowding (to make room for real criminals). It is a multimillion dollar industry. I could go on and on, but sadly, this is all common knowlege. I say "sadly" because though this is common knowlege, it remains ignored for no better reason than the fact that marijuana is socially taboo. Hopefully, as we continue to evolve, we can overcome this as a nation. Other social taboos we could stand to accept: masturbation (you do it), Religion is a crock, men can wear women's clothes (women wear men's), gay marriages, abortion, euthanasia, et cetera. Basically, people need to remove the stick from their asses. If you don't agree with something, don't do it. There's no reason to keep everyone else from doing it. If you didn't like rollercoasters, you wouldn't make them illegal, you just don't ride them. Let's stop thinking the popular thoughts, and start doing what's right. 5.X.99 What the hell is wrong with you? Think about that for a second, because no matter who you are, you probably deserve that. Having said that, I'll specify the demographic to whom I am actually speaking (this time). You silly little web-head kiddies across the land that make your contribution to society's mental hamster wheel in the form of a journal on-line. A friend of mine once wrote a beautiful piece on why most web journals suck more than a Hoover Vacuum, so I'll spare you his reasons (all of which I agree with) and deal you my particular reason, or at least, the reason that has me so fired up that I'm writing more than two sentences here. *breath* More than once, I've come across an on-line journal that requires a password to access. Maybe I'm the @sshole, but this strikes me as being blatantly daft. The rationale behind putting details and opinions of a personal nature on the World Wide Goddamned Web and not wanting the whole world to have access to that escapes me. If you have a select few that you want to expose your ideas to, use friggin' e-mail. Don't advertise your soul as being on display and then check my ID at the door. All that says to me is that you are bringing your Junior High way of life to the internet by promoting cliques on-line. Don't misinterperet this as jealousy. At the end of the day, I don't care one way or the other about being accepted by pretentious e-trash. What's getting my proverbial goat here is the way people, when given too much free time and not enough purpose, will always find new and sadder ways of masking their mediocrity with assinine whistles and bells. Moral of the story: More sanity, less vanity. More quality content, less crappy cams. Zen baby, or some shit like it.