Tuesday, June 28th, 2005

It's not plagiarizing if you quote your source, right? Well anyway i'm willing to risk it because I thought this was especially worth sharing. It's from the Toothpaste For Dinner mailing list; Drew sends emails about once every week or two and they always make me smile - but this exerpt in particular:

i do a good job of avoiding talking about things i don't care for, but let me just throw this last anecdote out there. back when the first new star wars movie came out, a friend of mine who programs computers got some free tickets through his work, so i went with him. i thought it would be an interesting cultural experience.

there were the lines and so forth, but the point of my story is, there was a really tall dude there in the theater dressed like darth vader, and kids who were at the movie were running up to him before the movie started, getting his autograph. the guy who dressed up like darth vader actually got applauded by the people in the theater. i thought that was magnificent, cause i don't think he expected it, but you know he is still talking about that with people today. "they wanted my autograph, dude! they were clapping!"

i got burned out on sci-fi at an early age and never looked back, but i like thinking about the darth vader guy, cause that moment of unexpected accolade is one of my favorite things ever. it is like a kid finding a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk. my dad pointed this out to me years and years ago, even before he helped me score that organ from goodwill at half off. it was originally $25. (senior citizen discount, age 55, yall betta recognize!)

we were driving around at some point in my adolescence, and we were stopped in traffic and some midlife-crisis guy was next to us in a really nice sports car. you know what i mean, the dude with a salt-and-pepper combover, using some kind of dippy german car to wrestle with his mortality. my dad rolled down the window and he yelled to the guy, "hey! hey man, i like your car!" the guy was momentarily startled, but then he smiled broadly. "thanks!" he shouted back.

my dad doesn't even like sports cars, but as we drove on, he told me, "heh heh, that guy's gonna be feeling awesome every time he gets in his car for the next week, just because someone told him it looked good." and it's just like darth vader, he wanted someone to look at him and tell him that he did a good job on something. that's all.

i see news stories whenever these new star wars movies come out and they're always totally backhanded to the people who are waiting in line. anchors on CNN (i gotta watch something on the treadmill, and it is sure as hell not gonna be pimp my ride) were cracking jokes at the star wars people, and i got really sad about it. i mean, do you think people would buy a storm trooper outfit if they had somewhere to go besides a two-week line outside a movie theater?! give me a break. i suppose it's not news that the media are pretty much raging dicks, but i thought it was pretty crappy of them to use the one time these star wars guys will ever get any attention to insult them.

so the next time you're out and about and you see someone who is obviously desperate for attention, why don't you tell them that their deal is pretty cool. it might make them feel all right for a minute, and it will probably cheer you up too. i know that is a cheesy thing to put in my notifylist, but i have been thinking of this for a couple of days, and if anything, it is nice to think that some good came out of my friendless and weird childhood.

take it easy and don't forget about that contest, comrades.

love,
drew

wasn't that charming? :)

Saturday, June 18th, 2005
It�s funny � you�d think that after my first year of university, I�d feel more knowledgeable about the world around me, having spent a year studying economics, anthropology, psychology, political science, French�instead the only thing I�m most acutely aware of at the moment is how very, very much more there is to learn. I feel more ignorant right now than I did in June of 2004, and this realization comes as something of a shock to me�I certainly didn�t anticipate it. It�s humbling, in a way. I feel sort of�small, in the grand scheme of things. I wonder where I�ll be in ten years, whether I�ll simply fall into place in the world of the working class, or if my current starry-eyed ambitions will materialize. At times I don�t even really know what my goals are�things aren�t as cut-and-dry as they once seemed. Then again, I�m not even twenty years old yet. I suppose I have lots of time to at least loosely plot the course of my life. It baffles me, though, that an entire year can pass by so quickly and leave me feeling like the sum of my accomplishments in that time is negative.