If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it. Furthermore, little Dash is destined to become a Lawyer.

So I got Vera.  I’ll mod it soon.  A new spring to add 10 feet on every little foam dart.

I don’t really anything specific to say in this post, so I guess it’ll be a rambly series of thoughts.  As if this was any different from any of my other blog posts.

I’ve been listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a lot more lately than usual.  I think I’m a huge fan of the music in large part because Karen O is so freaking awesome.  She just has a great time on stage, which is something I like to do as a musician.

Any musician willing to just laugh and jump around wildly on a major stage like the Fillmore is a bad-ass in my opinion.

(And this isn’t simply because Karen O is the same racial cocktail as I am and I get a double Yeah Korean Yeah Polish [Yeah] cheering section going on.)

I’ve been listening to “Fever To Tell” specifically, and I think I really like the unpolished sloppy feel of the band.  Nothing is exactly together, and Karen isn’t afraid to scream like a pro.

In other news, I’m really excited to see “Drag Me To Hell,” as Raimi is responsible for my favorite horror film of all time, Evil Dead 2.  So far, I’ve heard that it is fairly faithful to the style and comedy as established in the Evil Dead series, so I’m really really excited.  I’ll update the blog after I’ve seen it.

Nota: I don’t know why I named this blog the way I did, but that little bit from Ice Ice Baby has been stuck in my head for a long time.  It’s weird.  Although, I have an idea why.

Dollhouse got renewed for another season.  Honestly, I’m pretty excited.  I wasn’t crazy about the series at first, but it definitely grew on me, and the last several episodes of the first season were stellar.  One of my favorite quotes about Dollhouse was from a student in my Firefly class who said, “Dollhouse… it’s like… the show is about rape… but it only recently figured out that it’s about rape…”

It’s true though, the show has a lot of really interesting things to say about agency and free will, but I think it only really took off when it accepted that it had these things to say about agency and free will.

I’ve been hanging out with friends a lot over the summer.  I’m pretty happy, you know?  I’ve been really getting to know a few people who I hadn’t spent a whole lot of time with before, and it’s really nice.

As a last summer before major work begins, I’m having a loverly time.

I’ve also discovered that real guitar playing ability is both helpful and hurtful when playing fake guitar on Rock Band, and real drumming ability.  I proudly sat down and played my first ever game of Rockband, and could, relatively early, play expert mode on a few songs.  I proudly rocked through White Wedding and Hungry Like the Wolf.  I did only slightly worse on fake drums. 

It was weird playing Rock band with my real band.  We’re much better as a real band than as a digital one. 

I did decide that I need to teach my drummer some guitar licks so we can legitimately switch around instruments on stage.  That’d be pretty cool, right?

I’m just rambling randomly at this point; I’ll wrap up with an anecdote I suppose.  This is a short one, but it’s one of my favorites.

When I was four years old, my favorite color was purple. 

Purple is a legitimately awesome color for a number of reasons, but my love of purple was from the awesome Ninja Turtle Donatello.  He was clearly the coolest one, and had the best weapon (wtf Leonardo, you had swords, but did you ever use them?  No.  It was a kids show.)

So I loved Donatello, and I love the color purple (the actual color, not the novel.  The novel is good too.)

Because of this, when the time came for little Dash to get a bicycle, little Dash insisted on a shiny purple bike. 

For those who aren’t aware, they don’t make boys bikes in purple, or they didn’t back then. 

I got a purple bike.

One day, while little Dash was riding his awesome purple bike around a tiny cul-de-sac when the older neighborhood boys on their blue and red bicycles began to jeer, “hey, that’s a girls bicycle!”

Little Dash turned to the offending boys and stood his ground.

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m a boy, and this is my bike.”

The older boys paused, following his progression.

“So this is a boy’s bike.”

The older boys, confounded by this logical maelstrom paused.  They took a moment to look at each other before nodding, “Oh.  Ok.”

Little Dash continued riding his awesome purple bike, and the older boys went back to whatever they had been doing.

Little Dash was fucking fierce.

Then again, so is big Dash. 

Revivals and the Take-a-Penny situation. I didn’t set out to write this.

Last week was extremely epic.

Really.

We’re talking full on Odyssey, Iliad, Beowulf epic.  (none of that Aeneid business; no plagiarism here, thank you very much.)

So how do I feel?  I feel really good actually.

I’ve written a handful of new songs in the past two weeks, more than I have in the last four months on account of school and other responsibilities…  The band has a show coming up (info to be posted as soon as it’s completely confirmed).

Forgive me for this next bit.

This post isn’t about me feeling good; it’s about revivals, as indicated by the title.

This is my band coming back from hibernation.  This is Dash the Poet and Songwriter returning from a long hiatus.  This is creativity rearing its happy head, held back over finals, drama, thesis-writing, research, and life.  This is the blatant blend of poetry and prose in block-texted blog form.  This is a Whitmanesque anaphora of biblical style, this is, this is, this is.

I feel good.  This is me feeling good.

Finding formulaic melodies

Written here in patterns on this page

Classic meters here in fives, not threes,

In the Internetsy Bloggy age.

This is me writing a post, not like an essay, not like a term-paper or an in-class-final, but as a college graduate spinning his gears, writing something he just wants to write.  This is me writing about myself in the third person.

This is me deep in thought.  I may or may not have a barbaric yawp in me, you’d really have to come to a Go Lay Down show, but seeing as though I’m in a Whitman sort of mood, I’ll just go on.

This is me unsure of what to type and typing on; this is me, half-breed hybrid, happily hunting for better words, newer words, something expressive and subtle, tactful and complete that carries the meaning of just what I’m trying to declare, explicit explications of everything, expressing the ongoing mission of my brainpan.

This is me wrapping up.

This is me typing out an anecdote.

So I’m at breakfast with my good friend Jeff, and it occurs to me that my chosen meal may or may not leave me with a mouth that smells like garlic and onions (this is me concerned about hygiene).

“Jeffrey,” I begin, “Wanna run down to Santa Fe market with me to grab some gum?”

“Sure.”

“Hold on, I’d like to take a picture of this pig with my cellphone” I express.  Stopping to do exactly that.

(There’s a backstory here; you see, there was a statue of a pig wearing a hat and looking judgmental.  Needless to say, I was a fan.)

So Jeff and I take off for Santa Fe Market, making smalltalk about L4D2 and the exciting sequel to Portal that’s supposed to come out soon.

I was struck by the small and yet difficult choice of gum, but one packet clearly indiciated it’s superiority in terms of breath freshening capabilities, so this was the gum I chose.  I considered calling my friend Sanket, since his expertise on gum has been demonstrated on several occasions, but he’s in India and I had no idea how much that phone call would cost.

I placed the gum on the counter, and paid the woman $1.35.

“Now” I began, scanning the counter and finding a “take-a-penny-leave-a-penny” container.

“When people take a penny, but fail to leave a penny, or take pennies they don’t really need for change…  Do you ever feel judgmental?  Do you ever feel like, you know, that person is just a prick taking a penny?”

She looked at me blankly.

“Because, you know.  It’s take-a-penny-leave-a-penny”…  I said, uncomfortably, “Not, you know… just a place to take pennies.”

“It’s take-a-penny-leave-a-penny” she explained.

“I see.”  I replied.

“Well, thank you!” I said, saluting with the gum I had just purchased.

“That was really uncomfortable” I said to Jeff, as we walked out the door.

“Yeah” he said, “It was.”

I’m constantly interested in the way service professionals deal with me and my random thoughts.  Usually, they react kindly, but occasionally, they want absolutely nothing to do with me.

I asked a guy at Target today whether he ever tried to put all of the purchases together like a puzzle to figure out what the person purchasing them is up to, and he smiled and joked along with me.

I didn’t set out to write this blog entry.  I hadn’t intended to go into the style I did.  But, I’m not troubled by it.  Are you?

What Should I Name Them? Also, adventures in Religionland.

So.

I’ve gone and done it.

I modded my NERF guns.

That’s right. Two NERF Mavericks, modded to allow for swinging out barrels and more power.

I’m faced with a tricky question though. What should I name them?
I’ll need something pretentious enough to sate the graduated English major in me… but quick enough to say [Clytemnestra and Hellen just won't cut it].

I’ll also accept dorky film references.

Note: I’m reserving the name VERA for a BuzzBee Rapid Fire dart gun I plan on buying/modding… and my nerf double-barrel thing is named Ashley.

Ashley J Williams, with his Boomstick.

In other news, I bowled my worst game ever last night.  There’s a disclaimer here that I’m not, in fact, a bowler, nor am I a bowling professional.  But I did bowl my worst game ever, after bowling somewhat decently.

In this I re-earned my bowling nickname, “Captain Fluke.”

Back in the day, when I was just a little kid running around the mean suburban streets of Pinole, I ran with a pretty tough crowd.  We were homeschool kids the lot of us, and one of our favorite spots was Pinole Valley Lanes, a rough and tumble bowling alley.

Not on our team.

When we weren’t being generally dangerous violent ten-year-old miscreants, we were bowling.

The other blood brothers in this bowling-related-death-gang were Professor Turkey, Strike Lass, Captain Striker, and Spare Girl.

Seeing as though I was equal parts awesome and terrible when it came to bowling, and would sometimes bowl very well, and other times very poorly, with little ot no conscious ability to choose which, I received the title “Captain Fluke.”

I don’t know if that counts as an anecdote, really, but just in case it doesn’t, I’ll give a legitimate one.

My death-squad-bowling-hooligan-team and I would often act out little guerrilla improv scenes.  No cameras… we couldn’t really successfully capture our stuff on film, so we did it just for fun.

One stunt involved going into a Christian bookstore and asking how best to convert a friend.

So I entered the local Christian bookstore, cruising around the veggietales dolls and Jesus paintings, before being approached by an employee.

Pretty much

“Can I help you, sir?” she asked, to which I smiled.

“I’m actually looking for some help in converting my friend…”

“Oh!” she perked up, leading me towards the greeting cards section.  “We have a lot on the glory of God over here!” she explained.

“Actually…  Well, I was hoping for something with fear… you know… the fear of the lord?  That’s what got me.” I said, with the same saccharin smile.

“Well, we’ve got a lot with that too” she said, flipping around and heading towards another section.

At this point, the main punchline, for me at least, was to deliver one line, so I prepared, expecting to be asked to leave.

“He’s Jewish… so I’m already taking him to see “‘The Passion.’”

This one, remember?

I waited for some sort of response, the recognition that I was, in fact, full of shit, or something, and she, while still flipping through cards, said simply, “Well, that ought to do it!”  No joking, no laughing, dead serious.

Well that ought to do it

I’ve never been so terrified of such a soft-spoken person in my whole life.

I remember leaving the store and wondering intently if this was how my Christian friends spoke about me when I wasn’t there.

Good times.

This is me, deep in thought

This is me, deep in thought.

I’ve been writing a lot of songs lately.  It’s weird; I go through these little bubble pockets on inspiration.

like this, but with inspiration.

I get hit with this bug, and I just write.

I played with my band for the first time in like half-a-year, and we played some of the new songs, and it was an awesome cathartic moment.  There’s something about expressing everything with a band that goes past just saying stuff…  I wonder if it doesn’t have something to do with the noise level.

This is me feeling at you through a 100watt half-cab, backed up with a full drum kit and a beautiful low end bass.

I don’t know if it’s going through a lot of weird stuff that puts me the writing mood, or whether it’s listening to a bunch of new music…  I’m a little sad that I haven’t written poetry or fiction in a while, but I guess it’s evened out by the musical expression.  It’s a goal of mine to get back intro writing poetry and fiction though; I’m sitting on a few stories, and have a few projects with a few people that I’m very excited to get into print.

I’m not really going for “funny” in this post; I’m kinda sorta just talking.  This might be a mistake.

I promise, the next post will be comedic, regular old snarky Dash will return.

For now, the anecdote is from today.

I recently got a new cellphone, because my old one was on its way to cellphone hell, and I’ve been putting off doing the whole “contact list” switcheroo.  It’s possible just to switch out microSD cards or whatever, but I like to re-update my contact list manually because I have a little ritual/tradition that goes with it.

New cell phone time means that a lot of people from my old contact list don’t make it onto the new list.

Here’s the list of prereqs for getting onto the new contact list:

1.  I like talking to this person.

2.  I have regular contact with this person.

3.  I anticipate needing to call this person for various reasons.

4.  I want this person on my contact list.

It’s pretty easy to decide most of these.

But…  I think the important part for me is deciding which numbers don’t make it over…  It’s a symbolic thing I think, leaving names out… people who I don’t really feel a connection with…  people who aren’t a positive force in my life…

It’s stupid.  Maybe a little childish too.  But it’s meaningful to me.

There’s only one image with snarky caption in this blog post.

Interesting.

More from snarky Dash is a few days, or a week, or whenever I sit down to type another blog post.

What are you… twelve?

I can’t play single player video games anymore.

It’s sad, but it’s true.  I was two seconds from purchasing the new Wolverine game (saw the movie, liked it… better than Terminator: Salvation at least) when it dawned on me that I really just wouldn’t enjoy sitting in my living room playing video games by myself.

I’m a college graduate after all.

It’s not just that though.  I’m supremely depressed by even the thought of just sitting there, joysticks in hand, playing against nobody.  So what’s the alternative?

Not me

I always describe my current feelings on video games with the same metaphor:

You know how people quit smoking, but are occasionally social smokers?  Like…  A cig with a few friends…  That’s like me and video games.

I’ll play halo with a buddy, and maybe some random gamers on xbox live, but beyond that, I just don’t have the motivation.

Maybe I’m getting all growed up.  Like the Rugrats.

The anecdote for this relatively short blog post is something that just happened to me.

I was playing Left 4 Dead with my friend Gino, with the little xbox mic on my head (since people boot you from lobbies if you don’t have a microphone) and I heard what is clearly a small child on Live.

This is sorta a pet peeve of mine… there’ss a video game ratings system designed to keep mature games from tots, and somehow 90% of the people you find playing violent shooters seem to be like twelve years old.  What sort of parents give their twelve year olds games with zombie decapitation?

Right?

So I ask, frustration at it’s highest, “Dude, what are you… twelve?”

and in an adorable voice the reply comes back, “… yes.”

“How did you get this game?” I inquired, actually curious.

“My parents” he said.

“Well” I replied, at a loss.  “You should be thankful”

“I am” the little kid replied.

This completely defused whatever trouble feelings I had, and I couldn’t help but be struck by just how adorable the interchange was.  I think I also appreciated that this twelve year old sounded like a twelve year old.  That is to say, he wasn’t a trash talking toddler, as you so often encounter in internet video games.  You know the ones, little kids, southern accents, mouths like sailors.

This kid threatened to "Pwn" me and "Shoot me in the Motherf*cking Head, Motherf*cker." True story.

But this twelve year old sounded innocent.

I felt great until the twelve year old DESTROYED me shamefully in Left 4 Dead.

In this picture, I'll be playing the part of Zoey

Then I went straight back to being angry.

Nobody said I couldn’t post poetry here

So I might.

In the coming days.

Just a heads up.

50% Nerd, 50% Pretentious, 100% endearing.

My xbox live gamertag is a reference to James Joyce.

Joyce pictured here, upset after being chainsawed in Gears of War 2

My pokemon team is for the most part Lit references… the rest are Whedonverse bits.

trainer card ftw

from the upper left and on:

Angelus, Spike, Hemingway, Joyce, Lancelot, and Jayne.

Why?

I’m sitting here on a Tuesday night watching Dexter re-runs and contemplating my insistence on naming meaningless video game characters and objects are literary figures.

What is this about?  I’m not really sure.  I assume it’s my own attempt at allusion in a digital world.  My facebook statuses: “:will show you fear in a handful of dust,” “:Is Not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be” are balanced equally with “:went back into time” and “:is sleepy.”

I wear chuck taylors with dress casual clothes and gloat that I resemble Chuck; I get my hair cut to a picture of Chris Pine as Captain Kirk (true story), and I strut my stuff quoting Pope and Eliot in day to day conversation…

Found this on my friend Katherine's facebook... from xkcd.

If nobody gets my allusions, why do I make them?

I think I allude for my own enjoyment and entertainment more so than others.  I get off my own own little jokes.  Does that seem right to you?

I was a baseball game, and I made the observation that wearing a straw hat:

like so

at a baseball game

at this location

is an easy way of saying you aren’t too crazy about minorities.

I pitched this joking observation to several people, and none of them laughed, and yet I find the need to post this here.  I think it’s funny.

I was sitting and people watching, as I so often do, and I asked my friend Tim, my people-watching amigo, whether we were assholes.  We agreed that he, myself, and our friend Damascus, are, all three of us, assholes.

I wondered why this didn’t, and still doesn’t, bother me.  I think it’s because I know.

I compared the three of us to another guy we know, who we have nicknamed “Shakespeare Guy.”

Shakespeare guy followed us to our four year university from junior college.  He was absurdly annoying, and just an awful person to have around.  He was disrespectful to a number of awesome teachers, rude to other classmates, and further, just really really really annoying.

This motherfucker once announced to a class of bored people trying to learn Engish composition, that he “often read everything Shakespeare had ever written,” and was “close personal friends of AFI.”  It wasn’t being dorky.  I like dorks, I am one.  It wasn’t being learned and well-read, because secretly, you know he wasn’t.  It wasn’t even pretending to be well-read… he was just a huge douche.  Snappy, snippy, pompous, mean, and all-around-unpleasant.

His favorite film is Dragonheart, and he has the overwhelming desire to tell you about every single thing he has on his mind and a number of things in his pockets.

So he follows the three of us to an undergraduate university, and immediately, I’m dissapointed.  I didn’t know Tim and Damascus knew him too, this is part of the anecdote.

I was hanging with Tim and Damascus one day, and somehow he came up, and the most beautiful thing happened.  I found out that they hated him almost as much as I did.  I found out every other person from our JC also hated this mofo.

Why do we hate him?  He’s an asshole, but we’re assholes too.

It’s because we know.

We’re self-aware.

We’re offensive, and know it, so it’s endearing.

Self-awareness makes it endearing.

It’s very meta.

So, here I am.

So, here I am.

So, here I am

I’m officially graduated.

It’s a weird feeling, but definitely in a good way.

I’ll be starting my post-graduate career in the Fall, so my goal for the next few months is to have a really bad-ass summer.

Here’re a few goals:

Goal One: Modify Nerf Guns.

Pure Unadulterated Awesome

I found out “nerf-modding” is a whole subculture that I didn’t even know existed. http://nerfhaven.com/mods/

Basically, Nerf Modding involves modifying springs, removing regulating pieces, and messing with with insides of nerf guns to make them shoot further and faster.  It might be in immature part of me [which accounts for 98%, roughly], but this sounds like a really kickass time, and I’ll be exploring this over the summer.

Goal Two: Find/own these dvds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night,_Deadly_Night_(film_series)

I want to track down dvd copies of this entire series…  Part Two of Goal Two is hosting several viewing parties.

Goal Three:  Play some video games.

For real; I haven’t sat down and seriously enjoyed a video game in a long freaking time.

By those awesome folks at Penny Arcade.

I’ve left my poor EV training team all alone for the past four months, and honestly, feel pretty guilty about it.  On a side note, I name my teams after pretentious literary figures and characters.  Joyce the Kadabra is one tough mofo.

As far as games are concerned, I’m thinking about the Wolverine game…  I tried a demo, and it seems pretty cool.  I’m considering the new Batman game…  I dunno, any suggestions?

Goal Three:

I want to start doing some open mic nights for stand up comedy.  People who know me are aware that I’ve got a lot of material (mostly ’cause they hear it over and over again) so I decided, why not put some of that material on stage.

Goal Four:  I want to finish reading several novels I started, but was distracted from (by my Honors Thesis), and get fully updated on Buffy Season Eight.  Pretty nerdy, but yeah.

Awesome

Goal Five:  Play some more shows with my band.  I miss playing shows with my band.

Go Lay Down

Goal Six:  Keep up with this blog.

I’m sorta digging it, so yeah.

Closing this up, I guess I’ll wrap it up with another anecdote.  Maybe that’ll become a tradition.

I was walking on campus on a Saturday afternoon.  My theatre group had a performance that day, and I was heading to our tech rehearsal.  I was walking down campus in flyer alley, where student groups pitch performances and fundraisers to sadly suspecting students walking through.

I had about a half-hour before I needed to be at tech, and I caught sight of a guy sitting at a student table with a really pretty guitar.

Blue Tele... such a sexy guitar.

The guy was talking to some random old dude and playing some nice mellow guitar, so I stopped to listen to him play.  There’s an etiquette among guitar players; you don’t ask to play a strangers beautiful guitar, but if you catch a stranger ogling, you’re almost obliged to invite that person to play.

This guy happened to be particularly up on this rule, so he asks me if I want to give the blue beauty a whirl.

While I was standing there, I got some weird looks from folks walking by, which I didn’t really understand, but wasn’t entirely concerned about.

I took the guitar, and it played like a dream.  Eventually I got lost in my own little world.

Eventually, I turned to give him back his guitar, and heard what he was talking about.

This weird-ass was spewing some of the most offensive, crazy, ridiculous conspiracy bull I have ever heard in my entire life.  Not even the standard conspiracy theories, but the legit “Blame the Dalai Lama” stuff that nobody really takes seriously (except for this guy, apparently).  So I lean out to get a look at what his table is offering, and I notice (I had been standing on the side, without seeing just hat this guy was pitching) and I see his table is labeled with the same ridiculous conspiracy business.

For that five minutes that I stood playing that guitar, I was musical accompaniment to the lame college version of Fox Mulder.  Worse than that though, I looked like I was part of his stupid-ass-campaign against whatever the hell he was against.

A beautiful guitar blinded me and put me in a real awkward position.

I gave the guy his guitar back, and headed off.

There’s a moral here.

Don’t just stand by people and play guitar, because they might be crazy idiots.

Especially if those people are hippies.

Don’t fall for Hippie lies… even if those hippies have awesome guitars.

So it’s finally happened. I’ve gone and gotten myself a blog.

This is my first post, so I’ll try to make it special and introductory. Hello. Nice to meet you. I like your hat. Thank you.

Pleasantries aside, I didn’t start this blog for petty conversation; I started it to inflict my rants, raves, and self-described ‘witticisms’ on the internet.

I’ll be talking about one of the dearest things to my heart: D+ to B- range horror films, I’ll be talking about people who bother me, I’ll be reviewing interesting nicknacks, and giving you my general opinion on anything.

So here goes:  First off, let me start this by saying if you haven’t seen the following movie

The best movie ever

You need to rent/watch/fall in love with it right now.

Just a personal opinion.  Best film ever.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKY8_CwHwDw&feature=related]

I haven’t got that much to say this time around other than to recommend this cinematic gem, but I will share a story from a few months back when I went to see CAKE http://www.cakemusic.com live in concert:

I’m standing outside of the Fox Theater in Oakland after hitting up a Cake show (different story, got a last minute call from a friend with an extra Cake ticket tonight… how could I resist?).

So Cake was amazing.

Anyway.

After the show, I’m standing outside of the theater in my black leather jacket (which I got for free by the way… for the record…) and this obese bearded white man turns to me and asks, “Are you a cop?!”

Not how I was dressed

“Uhm… no” I said, confusedly.

“Because you look like a cop” he explained.

“I see,” I replied, nodding, “Well I’m not.”

“Hey,” he said, taking a few sidesteps closer to me.

“Hi,” I responded.

“Do you like Chewing Tobacco?” he asked, whipping out a small container of chewing tobacco.

tobacky

“No, no I don’t”

“Ohh! Have you ever tried it?” he excitedly asked.

“No.”

“It’s awesome!”

“No thanks.”

“Wanna try it for the first time?”

“No thanks”

“Put some hair on your chest!”

Not the look I'm going for

“That’s alright, man.”

I wasn’t bothered at this point; I wanted him to go away because he was obnoxious and drunk, but I didn’t feel overtly annoyed.

“It’ll… energize you!” he promised, and I again shook my head.

“Do you smoke?” he inquired, and I again said, “no.”

“Hmmm…” he thought for a moment, weighing things over in his mind.

“Asian?” he suggested.

Also not how I was dressed

“What?” I asked, blinking. I hadn’t expected to be caught so completely off-guard, but the obese drunk man had succeeded.

“Are you Asian?”

“Yeah,” I replied, nodding over my black and white Bruce Lee t-shirt.

How I was dressed

“I see. You guys don’t like tobacco…”

“I’m just not personally interested.” I explained, and he nodded.

“Asians… don’t like tobacco.”

He looked up at me, and then pointed at himself,

“Ya see, I’m white”

for example

he declared, shocking me less so than he had before, “I love the stuff.”

“I see” I replied, laughing on the inside.

“Oh!” he expressed, pointing at a small cluster of anglo-folks crossing the street against the light, “look, us white folks crossing against the rules!” he exclaimed, rushing to chase after the others.

I thought it was hilarious, but it got me thinking. Do these things stand out to me because I’m more aware of them these days? Or does my awareness somehow draw these events to me?

Mostly just a funny story.

Cake was amazing; they played my favorite song.