Yay me. On the heels of finishing off the first draft of a short film screenplay, I have come up with an idea for a longer form screenplay and actually written the treatment for it. I also wrote the key character sketches, and plan on beginning work soon. Hopefully, this will also provide an opportunity for me to learn Vi better, as well as Linux (at least the file manipulation parts.) Due to intense paranoia, I will tell no one who doesn't know my phone number about the films, but suffice to say, those I trust have thought well about them. Good thing I surround myself with people who are not afraid to hurt my feelings (and good thing I am so out of touch with my feelings that any subsequent assaults and/or homicides will appear totally random.)

Hopefully I will soon find some wealthy individual who wants to fund my ideas for films and be able to produce these works according to my artistic vision. Or someone who wants to buy a finished script for a feature and pay me outrageous amounts for it.

So I finally decided to get out of my caffeinated hole and see some of the highly-touted nightlife in Austin. As a preface to this post, yes, one of the bands I saw is fronted by a friend of mine; however I tend to view seeing a friend's band playing as a trepidatious event at least, for fear that the band will suck, and I will have to lie to a friend or hurt their feelings. So.
I went out to Flamingo Cantina to see several bands: Of Normandy, La La Land, Our Black Love Song, and Dynah. Unlike every poster artist in town, I list bands in the order they play.

Of Normandy was typical small-show opener material. They consist of keyboards, vocals, guitar, bass, and drum machine. They appear to be attempting some kind of melodic rock type thing, and while they were inoffensive, they were also completely uninteresting. My comment to the bartender was "new new wave strikes again." They sounded like Flock of Seagulls without the emphasis on the vocals, and no interesting hair to take my mind off of their repetitive song structure. Add to all that the fact that the drum machine and guitars drowned out almost all the other instruments, except for the highest keyboard notes, and they made for a less than enthusiasism-building experience.

I was disappointed by La La Land; I saw them several months ago playing with Nice Day For Sailing, and they were quite enjoyable then. However, this time they were plagued by problems with their drum machine, and they ended up playing only a few songs. Unlike the previous show, their sound guy was less than competent, and the songs they did play ended up being muddy and indistinct. However, they will hopefully fix whatever's broken and come back strong.

So now I come to the highlight of the evening, the blend of goth rock and glam that is Our Black Love Song. I've known Jason Farmer, the lead singer for quite some time, and he never struck me as the type to front a band, but there he was, bigger than life and putting the other front men of the night to shame. Added to his awesome stage presence was a frighteningly good backing band whose sound was textured and powerful. All together, OBLS was the set of the night. They played for a too-short hour, and rocked the place the entire time. The music is like a blend of Bauhaus, early Cure, and Joy Division, lots of fun for those of us who like a little darkness in our music. It is rare for me to find a local band that so seamlessly matches good music with good stage presence, it is much more common to see a good band that doesn't know what to do other than stand there and play, or a group of dancers who happen to have instruments or microphones at hand on stage. OBLS managed to combine the two perfectly.

Last up was Dynah, who in my opinion epitomizes the phrase "all style, no substance." They looked pretty, they played competently, and the vocals were near-professional level. Unfortunately, they had little or nothing to say, other than "we're just like the Strokes!" There is nothing wrong with this, except that if I had wanted to see the Strokes, I would have bought a ticket to their show last week.

It occurs to me that if anyone who does not already know me is reading this, they probably have no basis to judge my statements other than the statements' inherent merit. Of course, now that I've put it that way, it occurs to me that I don't care if you know anything at all about me.

Never mind.

I was talking to my roommate today, and he mentioned that he is working on getting an art show together, comprised of the salvagable bits of the work he did in London and Key West, most of which was lost when his bag was stolen in Florida. He mentioned that his creativity has been stunted by his lingering depression over the loss of a huge amount of his work, and his desire to get it back rather than move on. It got me to thinking about the baggage that I carry around. Then, I read my friend's blog (the first entry, no less) and she mentioned the fracturing of personality that occurs when we think about decisions in the past. I realized that it is vitally important to let things go, when the usual mode of activity for us humans is to let these things fester and boil inside of us. So my project for the next couple of weeks will be to let these things go, by writing about them here. If you know me, don't hold this against me. Or I'll have to hurt you.

I've been thinking a bit about the push for deregulation of, well, just about everything, and while I tend to intuitively dismiss it as a bad idea, there certainly seem to be plenty of people who think it makes sense.

Now, just for a minute, let's think about the traditional example of efficiency in Fascist Italy: the trains running on time. Punctuality in public transit is a worthy goal, I'm sure anyone who has ever come close to losing a job because the bus or the train was running late can agree with that. In a fascist dictatorship, this goal may take some time to achieve, but the general method would be to threaten those in charge of the trains with torture and/or execution until someone makes it work.

In a regulation-free capitalist economy, the ideal way for it to work would be that there would be several train companies; assuming no collusion on their part, the market would decide how much punctuality was worth to people, rewarding the companies that made it a priority. There are a number of problems, even with this oversimplified example. First, trains run on tracks, which occupy a given space. The construction and maintenance of these tracks involves a huge capital investment, something most people would not be able to come up with. Whoever took the time to construct the tracks would likely be unwilling to share them, so any other companies wanting to get into the train game would be looking at a similar investment, or renting space on the existing tracks. Assuming the original builder would allow rental, it still constitutes an artificial increase in the operating costs of the non-track-owners' railroads. The second problem I have already alluded to, the possible collusion between railroad operators. Something most people in America and Western Europe take for granted is governmental intervention in cases of price fixing schemes. However, a truly deregulated economy would not allow such intervention. Which brings us to our third concern, which is the fact that in a capitalist system, capital tends to self-gravitate. That is to say that money makes money, usually in the form of investment returns, whether in a stock market or otherwise. This tends to lead to a monopolization of markets by a small number of people or corporations; as conglomerations of capital increase in size, they will tend to merge with other like-sized conglomerations. This leads to the inevitable formation of monopolies that dominate a given aspect of the market. Because the market we are hypothesizing is not subject to regulation, the government would be unable to stop the predatory, anti-competitive practices that monopolies traditionally engage in.

Just a few thoughts.

In a discussion recently about California's three strikes law, the suggestion was brought up that DWI/DUI repeat offenders should be subjected to a similar punishment, with permanent license revocation being the punishment for the second offense. Now, DWI is a really bad thing, I can't emphasize that too much. But there are a lot of other bad driving practices that have not been demonized the way that DWI has, such as speeding up at yellow lights, speeding in general, running stop signs, making illegal turns, general agressive driving, etc. My suggestion is that any driving practice that causes danger to others be punished like DWI, and if it becomes a habit, a driver's license be revoked (semi)permanently.

This solves a number of problems that are associated with the American car culture. First of all, people will start driving a lot more safely when they see that yes, they can in fact lose their license if they drive like an asshole. Second, when people start losing the ability to drive, solutions will start being sought out for how to build a society without assuming that people will drive. As a stalwart user of public transit and human-powered conveyance, I think these solutions should be getting funded now, but maybe some rich assholes who are just too in love with their ridiculously powerful SUVs and luxury cars will have more say than I do, when they can't drive anymore.

Ahh, spring, when all your winter sins come back to haunt you. I've lived in this city for five years, and it never fails that the season of new growth is also the season of disintegration. I think it has to do with the fact that people are more concerned with enduring winter than they are with minor hiccups in their life during the cold months. However, when it starts warming up, all bets are off, and the piper comes to collect.

Sean just moved into a new place, citing miserable living conditions at his old place. He moved in with Roland, and has yet to pay the rent he promised when he moved in a couple of weeks ago. Now, Roland is thinking about kicking Sean out, because hey, he needs the rent and bills paid, and the delay on the money cost Roland his planned trip to New Orleans for St. Patrick's day. Sean spends every night out drinking with his other friends, and isn't working much; it turns out that he moved out of his old place because he owed his old roommate three or four months back rent. Sad thing is, the rest of us are starting to wonder what the hell else Sean has lied about, and who he really is.

It's not just my circle of friends, either. One of our regulars at the shop gave an ex-boyfriend the money for a laptop, because the ex works at a used laptop store. Now, the guy won't return her calls or emails, and the laptop has yet to materialize. I fail to understand why people try to mix business and pleasure like that. I'm reminded of the numerous people I've seen who end a relationship only to get sucked back in by some stupid crap.

Oh well, I guess it's human nature. Fuck it.

I saw Mathias yesterday. It's been several months, and before that it was at least a year. He's really degenerated over the years. When I first met him, he was a smart, funny kid with something of a mean streak and hubris befitting a Shakespearean tragedy.

While it didn't happen in a single day, it did happen, or rather is still happening. I remember the day I found out he had been kicked out of his favorite hangout, because someone commented on his needle tracks and said that using heroin was stupid. Mathias responded by attempting to punch the guy who made the comment, a former bouncer. He had started using H several months before, and had lost several friends when he shot up his best friend's girlfriend and then slept with her.

He moved to Oklahoma a while after that, and I hoped that I would never have to see him again. He got busted on possesion with intent to distribute (heroin again,) and was released on bond.

He immediately ran back to town, despite owing countless people money. He tried to get a friend fired from his job, and several days later asked the same friend if he knew anyone who would pay for sex. When I saw him yesterday, he looked scabby and worn, like any other homeless kid who's been chasing the dragon for a while. He was also puking in the gutter, junk sick and lost. Part of me wants to try to help, and another part of me reminds me of all the pain and anguish Mathias has visited on those who let him get too close. Still another part of me says that he deserves whatever he gets, and the sooner he pisses the wrong people off, the better for the rest of us.

Ahh, schadenfreude. Maybe it's just because I'm reading Filth, by Irvine Welsh, but I've found myself reflecting on notable human trainwrecks I've seen, and giggling sadistically to myself the last few days. A "friend" of mine recently went through a series of heartbreaks-his business went under, he found out that his (much younger) wife had cheated on him with his business partner, and she subsequently left him to live with her parents. Why I find all of this funny is the absurdity of how much has happened to him in a relatively short period of time, and his total unwillingness to understand his role in all of this. Add to that the fact that his alternative to finding a job has been to sell off all of his possessions, while continuing to pursue women who are much too young. There is something comic about watching a man repeat the same mistakes over and over while hearing his complaints about how bad his life is. Tragicomic, I suppose.

Then there's the case of a kid who I was never really friends with, whose rapid decline has been a not-even-guilty pleasure for me, especially as I see people who trusted him realize that his life is and has been without worth. He started out as just a cocky liar who played the guitar and did drugs and took whatever he could get from whoever let him in. Then came the beginning heroin use, and the inevitable slide into full-on junky wastedness. Watching him deal with periodic junk sickness has been amusing, to say the least.

Maybe this makes me a bad person, but who the hell cares? It's fun.

The BBC website has reported on yet another incident of violence in the Gaza strip. This one happens to have started with the Israeli army attacking Palestinian camps, in response to a Palestinian suicide bombing. The Middle East has been a powder keg for as long as most of us have been alive, and the situation does not seem to be any closer to a resolution now than it was when Israel was first made a nation-state. The question that arises is, is there a possibility for resolution, or will the conflict in Israel/Palestine continue until there is no one left on one (or both) sides? Despite the efforts of various leaders, there has not been any lasting peace made. In addition, both sides have, as often as not, been used as pawns of the powers that be to further their own interests in the region. What needs to happen to resolve this problem?