Sorry I missed the party at Lances, everyone. Taylor and I invited her mom and stepdad over for an italian dinner and movie night. Then when they left, it was very late, but she and I watched "The Baxter" with the always hilarious Michael Showalter. I highly recommend this movie, although it felt like a very short movie, I laughed a whole big bunch.
Wednesday night I have a short practice session at the Lodge with Terry, sort of a primer for Thursday's scheduled practice, which leads to Friday night's big Master Mason's degree. It doesn't end there. Saturday morning I am going through the first 4 degrees of the York Rite at Rhea Springs Lodge in Spring City, which I'm completely stoked about.
Wednesday is also my last day at Dominion Box Company. I'm going in Thursday morning for drug tests and all of that bull, so that Friday I can go to orientation at T.C. Thiolon, my new workplace. If all goes well, I'll be up to like $11.60 an hour in less than 3 months, but thats if all goes well. I'd like to muster up the strength to get my certification in HVAC or something, so I can get a reasonable job working with my stepdad. But school scares me (bad experiences anyone?) and I keep avoiding the situation. Hopefully this job will rule and I can get back to writing music and having a better outlook on life in general.
My thoughts on the white hood...
So Friday night I almost fought two guys in Knoxville, but by the grace of God, kept my mouth shut. I'm looking over some interesting books about Masonic art in Borders bookstore, and down the isle from me are two, what I'll call, 'wiggers.' Nothing special about them really, they were just looking for a copy of the Koran (don't ask, don't know) when one of them says "blah blah blah no some people spell it wit'a "K" and not a "Q." The other asks, "Why is that?" Wigger #1 replies, as they walk away from the section, "'Cause they're dumbasses, I guess...(like this guy.)" He said it as he was behind me, but it didn't register what had happened until they were about 10 feet away and, after surveying the area, I found no one else around. At that moment I felt something inside of me turn into fire. I hadn't been this angry in many years. All that I could do was stare at this kid with the face of "I heard you, but you being a kid, WHAT THE?!" He looked back laughing with his buddy, and after noticing me looking at him, stopped smiling and scurried off, probably to sodomize his buddy to 'tha latezt Fitty Cent joint' for all I know.
I went to get Taylor, pointed the guys out, told her what happened, and informed her that if the same guys gave her shit, to come find me. I can take insults, but I was looking for a reasonable reason to get into it with these guys. Giving my wife a hard time would be more than enough reason.
Thats about it, and I'm sorry that story went nowhere, but I had to tell you. I was proud of myself for not fighting with these privileged wankster motherf*ckers, but I was sad at the same time. I feel very strongly about watching innocent white teens suddenly think that they're ghetto, that they're 'hard thugs' and that the rules don't apply to them. The blacks don't have your back. The whites certainly don't have your back. And the only friends you have are the pathetic sons of bitches that use you for your ability to get your mom's Tercel on Friday night's so that you can ride around for 4 hours screaming at girls that wouldn't have your fat ass, blasting your burned copy of Mike Jones' latest cd, and ending the night with a trip to Denny's before retiring to your mom's trailer to play PS2 and talk about the girls you "could've had if you wanted 'em." Kiss my ass. To think that I have pity for you bastards is scary, but I do.
Maybe my beef is with the popularity of ghetto mentality in white suburbia. The fact that shooting at people, getting high, and dressing like a clown from a random sporting event is replacing morality and tasteful lifestyles in the white teenage cliques of America. It just makes me absolutely sick, you know? I see my cousins go from God-fearing church girls with high goals and even higher morale, to jamming the latest thugster album and dressing like strippers. I love them so much, and hey have every right to do what they want, but I still wish I could save them from it. They could be your nieces and cousins and sisters out having sex and singing about ghetto rhetoric with these parasites, you know?
And I'm guilty, I once smoked way too much weed, drank way too much liquor, and customized cars for a hobby. But I knew my limits, and I never crossed them. I didn't live the thug life that rap music represented, and I certainly didn't tell little girls and boys that it would make you cool to do the things I did. Nothing that I did in those days made me a better person, or gave me insight on making my life better. I dropped out of high school, luckily got my G.E.D., and was driven into factory work because if you don't go to college, thats usually what you have to do to survive on your own. Here I am at 23, still putting up with the same shit that I did before, only now I fully understand that the choices I've made were, although educational, very stupid. I wouldn't wish my experiences on anyone, let alone pre-teens. Yet MTV, BET, even VH1, all blatantly promote the idea that if the pop and hip hop scene does it, so should you. I say to Hell with that mentality. Their parents don't get it. They won't help them out. It's up to you now. Turn the channel, turn the radio off, and let these kids know whats right and wrong. Tell them why it's wrong for Paris Hilton to wear a tie for a skirt, why it's wrong for gang violence to be popular and not condemned, why musicians who sing about sex and drugs are singing of personal acts that are not to be idolized or imitated. Do this, if you give a damn at all about a peaceful future, with morals and dogma at the wheel.
Sorry to sound like a preacher, but it's just how I feel, and thankfully I still have that right.
I'm turning off comments. If you want me to know how you feel, I accept emails all day long.