Buy we still haven't figured out how the bejeezus got in you.

It's a Bronx thing.

Mount Saint Michael Academy, late 70's, you had to be there.

Everybody knows about boys who went to Mount!!

Can you pitch long relief?

We're all hung like donkeys??

The arms not what it once was, but are they in a position to complain? I'll take #12 if it's still available

That wasn't QUITE what I had in mind, but if it makes you happy to live in that pretty dream world....

I thought Larry was the best Stooge, Grandpa was the best Munster, and Mr. Howell was the best castaway. And yes, Peter Pan is still the best peanut butter...as soon as it's allowed back on the shelves.

I love IMDB for its vast amount of useful info. But I cannot tolerate the forums. It is full of the worst kind of immature and stupid people that ever lived in the history of mankind. I cannot find one single thread that does not have some ridiculously unintelligent comment.

Yeah, I gave up on that zoo a while ago. Every board has the same crap.

"WORST MOVIE EVA"
"BEST MOVIE EVA!"
"WHAT ABOUT A REMAKE!!!!"
"ARGGHHHH IJKJGD!"

However, it definitley is nice for info.

Agreed, svsg. I love the trivia and the memorable quotes, but the forums are the absolute worst!! Makes me realize how lucky we are here on this site!!

AND they don't have Fantasy Spelling there, SB!

Not everybody is as C-L-A-S-S-Y as us DS.

I just found the most amazingly beautiful spot on the face of the earth today, while mountain biking.

So in order to understand what it means maybe I should hide out in Da Bronx like Senor Roberto.

He kept telling me we would be grid to grad soon. He kept telling me we would be grid to grad real. I suspect he kept a watch down that well, for he kept telling me he’d be good to say, “We can go now”. Whatever, this was the only chance I was going to get at escaping this escapade for real. What do you think I was going to do? I had two no three no four no five options. The first, to run and hope his gun diddly gun didn’t have some fun; the second, the best if not the worst if not the one in the middle between worst and best, was to stay put and go along with this whole thing; the third, which was certainly not the fourth thing that came to my head – though may well have been the fifth, had I not stopped short of five after deciding to run after the fourth – was to try and grab his gun and kill him first; the fourth was to tell the others about his plans, my intentions, and the way things were going to go down if I didn’t do something; the fifth was perhaps the best option, but I never got to it, because, as the sun was setting pretty soon – soon enough to be grid to grad – I decided on the first option, to run, and run fast. And run fast I did, chasing up and down and back and forth along the grid he had laid out for us to flank, pillage and finally capture as part of his game, as part of his insane game, which had turned very suddenly into something very real, not very friendly at all but rather very deadly. And my run, meandering in and out of this mess, made my heart leap up and down, which, combined with the memories of the heavy throbbing of my loins the night before as my thing lay inside her, his wife, his sister and his wife, caused the sun in all its intensity to beckon me. It beckoned me, for it was surely the last time I’d see it. But her. Again, her, desperate maiden of despair, reaching out to me, telling me things I did not wish to hear, between the rhythmic panting in line with my chest, in line with her breast, as we lay in the sheets of harmony, my hips thrusting away the bruises he’d given her fine ribs, the ribs which arched inward as her back arced upwards, pressing her nipples up into my sternum. But last night is gone, as you know, as you run with me, along the grid, to graduate into freedom once more and away from his grasp. Are you her, or am I you? This infestation of mind-numbing neuroses like little ants crawling through my forehead makes the sweat flood down my cheeks, my nose, my lips and my back – oh, my back, he groaned, taking the whip like a man, even though he was receiving it because he wanted to be a woman. She had helped him, through and through this they had become one. In her absence, he became her. For that was the way things went in times of war. He caught me, fetched me up, whipped me in front of the others, where I lie now, under the moon, the sun, the stars and clouds and sea of air. Frantically searching the night.

I think society, as a whole, is incredibly ignorant, and becoming increasingly ignorant, as it refuses to try to understand that which it does not. Or, maybe it just won't admit that it understands. It just shuts out anything that the whole decides must be rejected.

Communism. Socialism, more so. Communism... What a great idea with great flaws. Socialism... what an even greater idea with fewer flaws. I'm not quite sure what's so horrid about economic equality. What's so scary about socialism? I hate the negative spin people give that word. They just seem stupid and uneducated... Or maybe they just can't assess what they've been taught. I'm to the persuasion that FDR is/was the best American president and economist. How ironic that he happens to be a socialist. The New Deal, in retrospect, is socialism.

I think that those who oppose Communism are just like the leaders of Communist nations. Both are very, very scared of economic equality. It's human nature, I suppose. It's human nature to be greedy, to want money, or status, or what have you. But, again, it's also human nature to want to bend a person's spine until it snaps when you find out they've gone behind your back... And this certainly isn't the right way to go about things, even though it seems to be the current foreign policy of dominance.

To that extent, "terrorists" and "counter-terrorists" are pretty similar too. We're both acting upon basic instinct to crush our opponents and fear. In the middle-east, they've fallen into a trend of a fear of Westernization and maybe even Democracy. In the West, we are being told to fear the Eastern threat, and ultimately fear the lack of Democracy out there. Subsequently, we're both trapped a whirlwind of bad choices and stopping at practically no barriers of right-and-wrong... er... pulling the trigger... just to feel safe.

On a less political note, melancholy and suicide. Melancholy is the most important emotion. Without it, the world is crap. It brings light to the more enjoyable times. The good times. Life in general is not worth living without good, solid depression. I think depression allows us to rationalize... It certainly does me. In fact, I sometimes enjoy being upset or sad, because I know in the big scheme of things, better times will come. Not to say I am a "glass half full" type of guy, I'm far from that. I find myself perpetually pessimistic. I've even come to the personal conclusion that being optimistic will only lead me to greater disappointment. Being pessimistic is probably leading me to a great deal of disappointment, but at least it's controlled. Without sadness, happiness just becomes a blur of bullshit that would be, and rightfully, taken for granted.

And suicide is a healthy conclusion to make of these equally healthy emotion. Maybe not the act of suicide, the thought of suicide. I think that just about every adolescent boy in the history of man, myself included, has spent nights laying in bed pondering about suicide and premature death for long hours. The mentally fit knows it's not worth it, overall, but that's no reason not to think of it. It's worth thinking about, on the basis that it'd bring an end to your mess. It's not worth acting on, on the basis that it'd bring an end to everything else. It's all just a system of checks and balances that the mind needs. For some reason, individually, people can comprehend this, but in masses and social pools, people tend to spit on it and ignore the regularity of this, while they go against what they know is right, at the fear of seeming mentally unfit. And it boils down to fear again. They fear themselves. They fear others. It's a complete social and personal mind-fuck.

It's a basic instinct or emotion. And that's a mind-fuck in itself. People are too afraid to act on basic instinct and emotion. Let's use that whole "love at first sight" notion glorified in art... cinema in particularly. How many Helen Hunt movies are going to bitch and moan about love at first sight? I'm certain love at first sight exists, but no one ever acts on it as that alone. Not like a movie, a romantic comedy, or whatever. People always find bull shit excuses to get to know someone, when they know their own intentions all along. No one will ever be able to go to the doorstep of someone they barely know, and say "I love you". And even if they could, that person would probably assume the other to be a whacko, and turn them down. It all links back to fear. Fear of others. Fear of what one might think. Fear of what one will do. And so on. And it's fucked.

Just some thoughts that've been running through my head as of late, and a few thoughts that've been running through my head for years.

Take a picture!

And show us!

LLC - For an interesting view on Communism, you should read Ayn Rand's We The Living. All about a Russian family immediately after the Revolution and the subsequent changes in government. It was Rand's first book and her philosophy was just beginning to emerge. Although it's fiction, Rand did live in Russia at that time, so much of it is autobiographical. Rand recreated the same characters over and over again in her books, and it's interesting to see Irina as the early version of Dagny Taggart of Atlas Shrugged. However, since this was her first book, Irina is more human, more accessible.

Bog & Mig - I'll try and get back out there this weekend to try and take some pictures of that place for you two (and anyone else interested).




Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out.

I read The Communist Manifesto last year, to try and see if I could pinpoint where they just completely fucked up an essentially good idea. Aside from the obvious being that it's against human nature to find a society in which everyone wants to be homogeneous--that being, someone will hold ambitions to be a leader, and that person will also have ambitions to climb above the rest, negating the purpose of his society--I think communism just took it to extremes. I think socialism could work quite nicely though... Something of more of a common ground between Communism and Capitalism. As mentioned, the New Deal was essentially socialism, and that was probably one of the best (if not the best) economic plan/reform America has seen. I can't imagine how we would have recovered from the depression without it.

Don't know where my head was when I wrote that. Irina was not the main character. The main character is Kira Argounova. I believe Irina was her cousin, just a second-tier character.

As for Socialism, while FDR's programs were inarguably much-needed at the time, my objection to the homogeneous society that you describe is exactly what you mentioned - it denies ambition and success. There are leaders and there are followers - it's human nature. To deny leaders their place in society is a recipe for disaster, IMO.

I know the reality, can't you just let me have my moment?

Which is why my thought is that a common ground should be found between Communism and Capitalism. Pure communism is crap. Complete and total crap. It's designed for the middle class, and the middle class gets completely fucked dry. Capitalism is designed for the upper class, and resultingly, the middle class still gets screwed over.

But, I'd be completely in favor of a socialist economy that still leaves room for ambition to breath. It's no doubt that what we have now is a capitalist market with hints of faint socialism here and there. But I think the balance between government control and private ownership should be a bit more balanced. Environmental concerns obviously need to be met, and regulations need to be enforced a bit more solidly. Programs designed to meet with the unemployed and serve for both state and personal betterment (IE, public works) would drastically improve employment ratios. And then there are matters of out sourcing (among other corporate issues) that just need to be shot down.

The thing that confuses me about outsourcing is that many corporations claim it's needed due to poor economic conditions in America, but if they were to just stop it altogether much of the economy would work itself out and improve. It's just a personal mess dealing with profits.

I think a mixed socialist system (socialist, not Communist) would be able to function quite well while leaving room for ambition. You could still start business, go into business, etcetera; but regulation would be needed to ensure environmental and labor maintenance.

The only problem is, most people will fight socialism to the death without really taking the time to consider the benefits because of the negative view it's been branded for being associated with Communism... Which in itself isn't a bad system, just extremely faulty and notoriously poorly executed, making Communism not even worth another attempt.

I think another problem is that people are convinced that Communism and Socialism are the same thing.

I gotta go to my nephew's graduation party now. Who the fork has a graduation party on a sunday evening?

Cheap bastards.

They should have had it at Spumoni Gardens!

Don't you start!

Why the fuck do I always get bombarded with bug bites whenever I go outside? You think my dry, pale, disgusting flesh would turn the flies away.

Honestly, it's like someone just smeared pigs blood and sex-juice all over my skin and declared it a housing-location for an insect-orgy.