"Yo dog, you got my shit?" (I'll have a double cheeseburger)

"Yeah son, how you like this? It's one dollar." (Okay, that'll be one dollar)

"Thanks, Ronald, you have the best burgers." (Thank you!)

No problem son, take it easy, yo. (You're welcome! Have a nice day!)



Food is addictive. In this article from Slate, Dr. Wang (yeah) explains the paralells between food we eat today and cocaine. As far fetched and fantastical that Slate is,  what Wang is saying is almost disturbingly true. There are enough problems with the things that Americans eat on a daily basis already- the fact that it's a bunch of empty calories, high fat/ sugar/ cholesterol, and combine this with the stagnant lifestyle that many of these people live, having the food be addictive is not another thing that needs to be added to the mix.

One of the most interesting parallels between cocaine and food to me was the following:

"The rats in the study that were fed these unhealthy foods developed a tolerance to the pleasure it gave them and had to consume more and more to experience the same level of satisfaction"


People have a tolerance to food pleasure? That blows my mind. I get that we have tolerances to almost everything, but the amount of pleasure from food shouldn't be something that requires a tolerance.

But in a capitalistic society, this is a genius plan, make anything addictive, legal, and easy to obtain and you're rich.

Cigarettes, for instance, are an incredibly addictive, legal and easy to obtain substance, and they are used by millions of Americans daily. And like junk food, they're awful for you.

Another point that Wang addresses is that "We make our food very similar to cocaine now." What he means by this statement is that food is highly concentrated, and we use the "good stuff" parts of food now. He uses the example of corn, where hundreds of years ago, people ate corn, but now they eat high fructose corn syrup. Just like how hundreds of years ago, people chewed the leaves of the cocaine plants, where now the chemical ingredients are extracted out into cocaine. 


I wonder how long it will be until people start freebasing their cheeseburgers or injecting their french fries.

My dream wife is wanted for drug trafficking.

Apparently.

If you're looking at the 50 most beautiful women in the world, chances are that at least five of them come from Colombia. They breed them well in that country.

Along with beauty, Colombia is infamous for it's cocaine.

And now, the two have been mixed. The first paragraph in the article reads:


Wanted: A Colombian woman with long hair, thick lips and honey-colored eyes, 30 years old, with surgically enhanced breasts and a redone nose. She likes Spiderman and recites the poetry of Pablo Neruda
.
To be honest, this sounds like an ad that I would put out looking for a soul mate. But the catch here is that this woman, Angie Valencia, is wanted for cocaine smuggling. This is a price I'm willing to pay. Beauty is an advantage in many situations of life, whether it is getting out of speeding tickets, having a bigger variety of dates, and being able to smuggle drugs and have no one suspect a thing. 


I really hope that this woman, who is currently believed to be hiding out in Argentina- the home to lots more beautiful women, shakes off the bounty hunters looking for her. She was using her good looks to manipulate men, which is totally fine with me. Sex is a gift given to us by God himself, and if women want to use it to their advantage, more power to them. Men do it to, and although less effective, it is a way of getting things, and if some people have to be taken advantage of (just to be clear, I don't mean 'taken advantage of' in the rape way, I mean it more in the way that when presented with a sexy female, lots of men will throw away their priorities and let themselves believe that if they do what this woman wants, than they might get what they want) than so be it.

Angie, if you're reading this, you can totally hide out in my apartment till the heat dies down. I know how GTA works, so I assume real life Colombian police are the same.

I had a really hard time with this one.

I couldn't think of the best or worst book I've ever read. I have my favorite books that I always keep in mind by default, but for one, many of them are kind of cliche` and I just didn't want to write about them, and two, I don't know if my favorite book I've every read constitutes as the best book I've ever read. But since this is an assignment, I chose The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

Also, since I haven't done anything like it yet, this will be sort of my homage to Mr. Salinger.

I read this book in ninth grade, as a recommendation from my English teacher of the time, Mrs. Garcia. She's observed my reading habits and deducted that The Catcher in the Rye would be a book I'd enjoy. I did.

I remember the day I read it. It was a Thursday in November when I went home with her copy of the book. It was like the one pictured to the right, but it was the same picture just zoomed out a little bit. The book was truly a piece of history, and just feeling it in my hands allowed me to feel everything the book had experiences, and I was about to be one of the lives that if changed. 

I walked home from school in high school, it was maybe a fifteen minute walk, but that day it took only seven, I was extremely eager to read this novel that I had heard so much about in my other books. I got home, sat on my bed and started reading. 

Since then, I've read the book at least twenty times, and I still enjoy it every time, but I can't quite point out why, but it is truly a moving book.

Around seven that night, I ate dinner with my family, I remember this day even down to those details, we had steak and potatoes,  and my dad let me drink a beer that night. He sometimes gave me different beers because he said it would help me enjoy the notes and details of his cooking more. 

After dinner, I went back to my room and read more. When I finished the book, I felt changed. I never really knew why, but over the years, I've come to realize that I could relate to Holden, and although the book didn't really teach me anything, I gave me insight into how much about the world I don't know, and seemed to change my life to some degree. I have become a totally different person since then, and although it may just have been because of the time of my life it was and I was going to change anyways, I credit most of it to The Catcher in the Rye, and that's why I think it's the best book I've ever read.

I own five copies of this book, and I read it every Christmas (partially because that's when the book takes place, partially because I just like to). I plan on giving a copy to my child when he/[hopefully not a]she is old enough, in hopes that it will aid them in growing up the way it aided me.

R.I.P J.D. Salinger 1919-2010

This is a hand grenade.

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"Dude, what the fuck is that for?" Julia took a quick drag of her cigarette and stared at the .35 in my hands that I was loading.

"Just in case."

"Just in case what?" She was yelling at me, "it's not like we want to kill him or anything, why are you bringing that?"

"Just in case Julia. I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it." I made sure the safety was on, stuck the barrel in my belt and six bullets in my back pocket, it was all I had left.

It was my grandfathers Colt Diamondback, he gave it to me on my eighteenth birthday, that was five years ago. I used to carry it everywhere, most of the time not loaded, but I liked having it concealed, seeing where I could take it without being caught, it was a sort of thrill for me. I've only shot it six times, five shots were at other people, one of them was straight up into the air to scare the shit out of some guys that owed me money.

I killed the five people I shot.

"Ted you bring it everywhere, they won't have guns, I know this."

"But there will be nine of them and only two of us,"

"But-" she interrupted,

"And since you've hurt your hip," I interrupted, "I don't want to take any chances of you having to run."

"I still don't think you'll need it." She slid the revolver around to the side of my pants, and covered it with the tail of my flannel shirt. "This is nothing, we'll be fine." She put her hands around my face, a Camel Light still burning between her fingers and kissed me. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

We got in my car and drove to bar where we were meeting a guy who worked at a pharmacy that replaced Oxycontin with placebo pills he made himself and sold the shit he stole. We were buying 100 80mg pills, at fifty a piece. Julia kept the cash in her purse, in those drug dealer stacks, four stacks of 100 100 dollar bills.

When we walked into the bar, we saw him there, sitting in a booth drinking a Gin Gibson. He was sitting alone, but I easily noticed the entourage of Incredible Hulks located a few booths behind him. When Julia and I got close to him, he snapped, and one of his goons walked over with a Halloween candy bag. When he stood up, I quickly saw the twinkle of his gun creep out from behind his leather jacket and attached to his belt. He walked over, set the bag it on the table and walked off.

"Take a seat," He motioned to Julia and me, and we sat in the booth, directly across from him.

I never read TMZ

Really just because I don't care about celebrities.

Take Tiger Woods for instance, who really cares that he cheated on his wife except for his wife. For real. Every time I turn on the television or pick up a newspaper or even just go to a news stand to pick up a pack of cigarettes, I'm always hearing about this motherfucker. Give it a rest media, he's a celebrity, so naturally everyone's going to want to get into his bed. What's bigger, in my opinion, is the face that his wife didn't know.

With technology today, and the way that women are, she would have suspected something a long time ago, like the times when Tiger is coming home from "a golf game" at four in the morning. Uh, Ms Woods, golf is a fair weather game, so no one is playing it after eight o'clock. Not even Tiger Woods.

So I say this to the media of the world, or at least Atlanta, please stop telling me about Tiger Woods, because frankly I don't give a damn.

Interpretation of a road. (because it's really just a road)

in Ali Hembree's blog, she critiques the following photo:

Where Ali interprets the picture as a road, going straight, than in all sorts of different directions, than straightening out again, I see the picture as a straight road, with the line just painted weirdly.

In life, there is a road, it's only one road, as depicted in the picture, but some people, in this case the 'people' is the person who made the piece of art, interpret it in different ways. As most road painters choose to paint straight, double yellow lines on a road for safety, he chooses to say that the road is open to his interpretation.

So, even when there is something as concrete and [quite literally] set in stone as a paved road, we can choose to see it how we want, and interpret it as we like.

Invisible people

I chose this man, probably because I can relate to him the most.

Michael from InvisiblePeople.tv on Vimeo.

Not saying that I was ever homeless for years, but I have been on the streets from time to time, and playing guitar on the street is usually the only way to make money when you don't have a place to shower for a job, or an address to get a check sent to.

I totally sympathized with Michael when it came to the issue of cops, after ten is probably one of the best times to play music on the street- many people are leaving bars and are much more likely to hand over a ten or a twenty than the change in their pocket, and it's just a low blow for the cops to give a homeless man a ticket. They know that it is difficult for someone to pay a sixty dollar ticket when they might be making forty dollars a day, but they do it anyways.

I wouldn't say that homeless people are any less invisible than others, they might need more help and it's harder for them to achieve, but especially in a crowded city, you never know what's going on in the life of the guy next to you on a bus, or the guy sitting on a bench reading a paper might be a CEO on his lunch break or it could be a homeless person. It's not that they are more invisible than anyone else, but people don't want to concern themselves with everyone they might encounter on the streets, either we don't have the time, or we don't want to face that kind of reality, but that's just how it is.

I know we don't have to do this over spring break, but it's good for me.

Saturday

Did some substances with friends, went and played baseball until it got cold, then we all went and watched a battle of the bands that a friend of ours was in. Went back to my friends place and felt the meaning to 40oz of freedom.

Sunday

Drove back to lawrenceville, it's really not an exciting town. It's about the equivalent of somewhere in the East Atlanta Village, just more people over 40. Went to the coffee shop where all my friends used to hang out, and as it turns out, still do.

Monday

My buddy picked me up and we went back to the coffee shop. After a while of realizing how nice of a day it was, we went to the park and played football. For a few hours. I haven't done that in years, but it was nice. Later we went back to the coffee shop and I ran into an old girlfriend of mine, Ashlan, and we started to catch up. I think we're going on a date tonight, but I don't know if I'll want to.

Later, we went to visit my buddy Michael when he got off work. Funny story about that; Adam's car was there, a cop ran his tags and had to speak to Adam. As it turns out, someone with the same first and last name, birthday, and similar address is wanted for all kinds of murders, stabbings and all other sorts of good stuff. They just had different birthdays.

Today

I got my job back at an old photo studio I used to work at. I'm just waiting to leave to go.

And maybe later today I'll give Ashlan a call.

Adios,

Davey Jones

Friday op/eds

Finding it totally relevant, I chose to write about this video, found at utne.com:

Procrastination from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

It's all about procrastination. Substitute coffee for tea, and exclude the fire escape plan (note to self: construct a fire escape plan) and I have done each one of those things instead of doing work that I should have been doing. Some more than others, like drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, getting drunk and re-arranging my workspace (which can turn out weird the next day if you were doing it fairly drunk), and there are many more not even on that list that I have done. It's just something that I assume lots of people do, especially college students. I've seen my friends do so many other things instead of homework, it is almost an epidemic.

For example:

My friend Adam had a take-home exam, and because of procrastination, it was due the night after. But instead of getting it done, he spent the whole day trying to find other things to do. And being a fellow procrastinator, I was happy to assist in someone else's procrastination. We went out for lunch, went to a park and played catch, went to a bar and had a few drinks and then went to the movies, the whole time weighing the consequences and benefits of doing his exam, or going on to do whatever else it was that we wanted to do.

Like now, I was going to do research on my essay for English 1102 before I went out to the bar tonight, but I realized it would be better to write in my blog. And the time it took to read Miller's blog, other blogs I follow, find a website to find an article from, to find the article, to watch the video and think about what I was going to write, and finally, to drink a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, organize my workspace and write this blog was all time I could have spent researching. But no, now it's nearly eleven, all my friends are at the bar and I'm about to leave. I'll research tomorrow.

-Davey Jones

Spring Break 2009

Deciding not to go to Panama City Beach, or Miami, or anything else that all the cool kids did last year, me and my friends loaded up my car with fishing poles, guitars, a tent, and about 15 jugs of bottom shelf wine and headed to the north Ga mountians. It was about a three hour drive, about an hour of it was composed of me driving at about ten miles and hour, alternating between first and second gear up what was the steepest dirt/mud road i've ever seen.

Once we got there, we set up the tent, gathered firewood, caught a bunch of fished, and just kicked it for three days in the middle of the woods. It was probably the best spring break that could have been achieved for less than one hundred bucks.

The campsite we were at was virtually untouched by man, except for a booth with a clipboard and a wall of mailbox like things. Campers are supposed to sign up and say where they camped and for how long, and put money in the box corresponding to the location of the campsite they were at, but me and my friends being the people we are wrote a note that read something like this:

"Dear wilderness, thank you for letting us stay here, we picked up all of our trash, put out our fires and left it as it was when we got here. Sorry for the bits of broken glass that we couldn't pick up, and for the loud drunken singing in the middle of the night. Also, we're sorry for breaking your "no alcohol on premises" rule, but we were responsible. Unfortunately, we have no money, but someday we promise to return and spend time with you.

Signed,

Allen G.
Jack K.
Charlie B.
Scott F.
The girls that tagged along.

P.S. The underwear flag was there when we got here. We promise."

It was a great experience.

How to write a bad article

Make it an advertisement in disguise.

This article is totally just an ad for the website quotewizard.com in somewhat of a disguise. It's got the luring title, aimed at letting people know "hey, we're here to help YOU, read this shit, and then go to this website that's giving us money to nonchalantly slip in a mention!!!" But it was completely obvious to me.

Had the article been titled "SAVE MONEY WITH QUOTEWIZARD.COM" it'd be a different story, because it would simple advertising article, and i'd be much happier.

This article reminded me of the time that i interned with my aunt at her studio, evil twin productions in L.A. She told me all sorts of stories regarding the business, and ways that people get into it. How sometimes, musicians will not know anything about music, but have some trait or quality that a big company can relate to a population and market the hell out of it. Like hanna montanna. Then there are the others who try all their life, and might get one big break, and a tiny little bit of money, or more likely, people will work extremely hard their whole night, and never even get that break.

it might have been unrelated to the article, but it's what I felt.