Department of Redundancy Dept.

thoughts of Lance Armstrong...and the composition of mankind's heroes and gods...lance, in many circles, is viewed as both. The winning of the seven tours...cancer...rock star girlfriend...texan. All add up to the closest we've seen to an honest to goodness HERO...and now he's gone.

i was there for the last five tours so I've been around and I KNOW that the athletic accomplishments of lance will not been apporached for a long, long time to come...and just like all of the TRUE greats...rode off into the sunset with all of the hacks aruging if he's still not the man to beat...the great thing about American sport is that it's one of the last places one can go and strike it rich because they can hit harder, run faster, or win bike races...which means the next lance is out there right now...sweating,practicing...i can't wait.

we'll see....

okay here's how this thing works...

you sign up for one of the offers...(I did the $6.95 Computer Professor deal, after I receive the cd-rom's I have to cancel) and then I refer 5 friends to do it too and get an ipod..

if you don't have an ebay account you can sign up and bid once to complete your deal too...

anybody wanna try and get a free ipod...try this

email me reddirtred@msn.com and let me know...

"I had to leave my life in Dallas
that town will always be you
in every crowd, on every corner,
every face I'd see you
so with nothing more than a tank of gas
I drove away without looking back
and I guess that's how I got where I am
going anywhere as fast as I can..."
--Lee Ann Womack

I sometimes wonder why the cool, damp idea of fall...

makes my mind wonder.

Today my advice is: don't personify your baggage...

We all have baggage. We all want to bleat out to the world and cry, "Great, tremulous woe unto me."

We all want to feel we now can draw strength from our troubles and become better people because of past misfortune and in the same breath cast a thin veneer of self-importance over it.

We all want to think that in some way our troubles were more troublebling...our problems more problematic than others...

but you know what?

they weren't and they're not.

shame on you and shame on me.

life is hard so get a helmet...and we all could use a big dose of humility...

keep that in mind.

I was driving this evening and came across some great 80's song....Pet Shop Boys...A-Ha...Mike and the Mechanic's....I don't remember which one but you have the idea.

As I drove, I did somthing that immediately I wondered about. I turned it up.

I've been thinking...and I want you to as well....why do we like those songs? I mean sure it may be music that never tires...still fresh and cutting edge...whatever....

What I mean is, I think that sometimes we add nostagila to our like of a song or band or genre. I mean I was listenting to a song that was a cool and now, hip...on the charts at a time when older kids I knew were exactly what I wanted to be...older.

Those are songs that are a part of the soundtrack of their lives and to some extent a part of mine...but, at a time when all I wanted was to be a part of them.

So...now that I am older...and those songs come on the radio I want to turn it up and let it be a part of my life's soundtrack....

but it doesn't....
it just makes me older.

who sometimes is wound a little tight...

and sometimes has little patience with people...

and sometimes takes hints or suggestions a tinge off of their intent...

and I don't want to bring something up if he already knows about it
because I can hear him as I type this saying:

"you think I didn't know about that...shit...dude...I knew about that..."

so...having said that....

matt...the link on your main page for the webcam is broke.

rant.

One thing I have noticed is that there are no shortage of people who blog and use it as a place to rant.

no problem.

it's what it's for...

hell...free therapy for some...

but the self-importance that comes in the bundled up package of e-soapboxing can reek of 3 day old fish....or is that guests....fuck Mark Twain(see how I did that....for most, the reference to the Mark Twain quote about Fish and houseguests smelling after 3 days is a lost one...or so the self-important writer would like to believe).

Anyway....saying it loudly or using ALL CAPS, i guess, does not make it right...

neither does using big words.

so keep that in mind

another thing that bothers me while I todder the slippery corner of my own box of soap for one further, brief moment....is people who use fractions when talking about their age...23 and "5/8"...

cmon...jerkoff...speak in whole years like the grown-ups do...

whatever.

Keroauc derived the "American" haiku....it's the same as a traditional haiku; its three lines, it's short, it's beauty is derived by painting a complete picture or conveying a thick, rich emotion in a disciplined, syllabic way. The difference in an "American" haiku and a traditional haiku is that, Keroauc's creation pays no heed to syllablic counts.

how american..."3 lines is good enough...fuck it...."

Then I'm thinking about haiku's....and read a really good one by a friend of mine...and his is the same as one of Keroauc's....I mean not the same, verbatium....but the same as writing,"Roses are crimson"...and passing that off as an original thought...

now.

I know my friend didn't read Keroauc's and re-write his own...I doubt he's even read or heard Keroauc's...but it poses the question(half-heartedly): "Does plagerism have to be intentional to be plagerism?"...I say: yes, it does.

but.

at the same time I will always think of Jack's every time I read my friend's...and the thought will always be:"it's just like Keroauc's..."and not give my friend's poem the credit it does deserve...

so...hmmm...that kinda sucks.

"useless,useless
  rain!
  pounding into the ocean"
-Jack Keroauc
"American Haikus"