A Welcome Home

Rock n' Roll McDonald's

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:05:00 +0000

I've become a grumpy old man who abhors both fun and pleasure, and I DO apologize in advance for this, but I'm going to grouse here for a couple of minutes.

I'm sitting here at the McDonald's at the intersection of Libadiye and Bulgurlu avenues. As I sit here, fruitlessly feuding with TTNET wifi (think about the difficult days of ATT at Starbucks, then square it), my chest is vibrating from the bass of some Friday night at the "no cameras allowed" club trance music. Even if you're not American, you can still let your inner freak out: The lyrics are in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.

And since I'm a something of a linguist, I can wholly assert that the sum total of the lyrics in said music in every language amounts to this: "I want to commence the acts of intercourse with you in the way of an animal, here in this precise location, without even the slightest moment's hesitation."

Here's the thing: In the States, even at those rush week SAE frat parties, no matter how explicitly Curtis Jackson could twist the English language, people seemed to be able to take things indoors before they got beyond the need for Parental Guidance. But here, in the center of this conservative neighborhood, the commands of the foreigners chanting to this computer cadence appear to be working. With great success.

Two couples (in their early twenties and old enough to know of some more relaxing places) are, to put it mildly, giving action to their primal desires.

I'm not talking about a kiss that lingers just long enough to brush the boundaries of appropriate behavior. They're full on cleaning each other's faces, pushing to the point of asphyxiation, hiding hands from here to hereafter. I'VE BEEN HERE FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES AND THEY HAVE YET TO STOP.

Until next time…

###

UPDATE:
After roughly half an hour, the four people left.

…Only to return five minutes later with coffee and man their previous stations. Then get impatient and move to the Playplace. NOW I know why my mom always told me they were too dirty to play in. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mom.

Let me know in the comments if I should come back here every afternoon and live-tweet the action in REEL3DHD!

Moving Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 04:53:00 +0000

I've been suspended in agony for days now. Even in spite of my jet lag I was losing sleep last night.

Because today is moving day.

We're going to be in a great spot- we'll be able to see the ferries crossing to and from Europe through our window- but first we have to get all of our stuff there.

And what, you ask, does that entail?

DRIVING a fifteen passenger van full of our stuff from here to there. Through 11.5 kilometers of randomly turning, two-way suddenly one-way, stop and go, honk or hit traffic. Drivers routinely stop their cars in the roadway, throw open their doors, punch other drivers in the face, then angrily (merrily?) continue on their way. And if anything goes wrong… what recourse do I have? I've got a foreign license, I'm not sure if I'm insured, any cops will want to believe all the stuff is illegally obtained:

"Dirty foreigner, where did you get all these foreign language books?"
"I swear, officer, I brought them from the States!"
"So did you declare them or are they ILLEGALLY IMPORTED?!?"

Wish me luck!

Jet Lag

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 04:23:00 +0000

Jet lag can be an expensive proposition.

It's 4 AM, and the heater is already running. It's been running nearly around the clock, since we forgot to turn it off before our 15 hour slumber the night before last.

Not to mention that I haven't given the lights their usual overnight rest.

I got about a page and a half of sleep last night. Bethany was trying to help me sleep by reading to me; I drifted off for a minute and woke more awake than I had been for the entirety of the previous day.

I just hope this means there's still some hope for me to one day permanently shed the need for sleep.

Something I made

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:30:00 +0000

I gave Bethany a gift in honor of our dating for six months.

It's oak with a Chardonnay colored stain.

Good Ideas Led Astray

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:20:00 +0000

Today, Joe Biden announced plans to expand America's rail network. I'm REALLY excited-- there seems like no better way to both see the country AND travel than to take a train.

I was stoked all day, even being distracted by this great idea when teaching class until I realized that the new trains will still be part of Amtrak.

Yes indeed, Amtrak, the only transportation provider than can make the 80 mile trip to San Diego take eight hours, will be in charge of America's own "bullet trains". So basically these trains could go 700 miles and hour and STILL be two hours late.

On an oddly related note, Jimmy Fallon is on Late Night right now. He's about three months in, and this is about the third time I've tuned in. Let me tell you, it is a perfect storm of awful. Not only has the quality of his guests taken a cliff dive (from Justin Timberlake, Robert DeNiro, and Van Morrison on his premiere episode to LOST's Michael Emerson, some college QB, and an R&B singer who should have thought twice before ditching the pitch correction) but his apparently abysmal reception have left his producers scrambling for ways to improve the show.

Well, maybe they picked worse guests to make Jimmy seem cooler (I mean, I would never stand on the same side of the room as DeNiro), but they also told him to be even MORE of a suck-up. Does he know that he's the only one giggling like a girl when Ben tells how he realized he was the leader of the Others? Ugh.

Moral of the story: High speed trains and "Late Night" = good ideas (cf. Europe and Conan). Amtrak and Jimmy Fallon? Maybe Jimmy could start taking the train to work (and we could get a series of moderately funny hosts).

Victory.

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:26:00 +0000

As the members of the Electoral College gather at statehouses across America today, I would like to call attention to a prediction I made on this blog about the election. On election day, I posted the prediction of electoral votes that I had created on October 22nd.

I called the race in favor of Obama 365-173.

The final result: 365-173.

My prediction was not entirely perfect, however, as I flipped Missouri and Indiana BUT I did call Omaha's electoral vote splitting off from the rest of Nebraska's electorate.

Now, I have a feeling that after today's vote the tally will change; McCain is almost guaranteed to have at least one faithless elector (to all the faithless- vote Ron Paul!!!).

But at the end of the day, what is really important is that I was the only one in America who called it so close (take that, genius boy!).

(source for final tally: Bloomberg.com)

Prediction

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:47:00 +0000

The preceding is my predicted electoral map, created last week, which gives Obama the edge 365-173. (Nebraska has 1 vote going to Obama there).

Additionally, I am predicting Proposition 8 in California to lose 58-32 (due to the fact that it will be a Constitutional Amendment, it can carry a majority but not be ratified).

anecdotal update

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:07:00 +0000

Three brief anecdotes:

Emergency services in the States (particularly California) always complain about the lack of respect afforded them by the public. Well, Beijing is an entirely different story: an ambulance with sirens wailing barely made it past our hotel as we crossed the street this morning, stuck behind a customary logjam of buses at their stops, taxis picking up passengers, and other motorists doing their best to get around them. I felt bad for whoever the ambulance was going to pick up.

But you can't blame other drivers entirely, for only moments later, the ambulance came whizzing up the street the other direction after hitting a U-turn down the way... all the yielding in the world can't help when the driver doesn't know where he's going.

At lunch, I managed to get my first vegetables since being here. I realized KFC serves sides of corn, so I went to supplement my all-grease temporary Chinese diet. Lacking the picture menus that were there just two days ago, a helpful Chinese woman offered to translate my order for those behind the counter. I began to wonder, however, when I was told I would still have to pay three yuan for my order whether or not I got the ice cream with it (?!?). My suspicions were confirmed when I was handed an empty cone. (After a little further explanation, I was able to get a hunk of corn on the cob...)

I've finally found a situation in which rain can be a positive (if not preferable) circumstance- it's raining here again today, which has several desirous effects:

lower temperature
lower humidity
less smoggy skies in coming days

Now, you are all quite aware how the monsoons of the Oregon rain forest have made me hate basically any type of precipitation, so please don't accuse me of hypocrisy. In Oregon, rain only leads to rain, rain, and more rain (and green, but that doesn't do me any good, either). Here, rain presents the only chance to glimpse the sun, and that's the most important goal anyway, eh?

For dinner, we're heading to a Russian restaurant! Been craving Russian for AGES.

Hard Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:45:00 +0000

Today was the first sunny day since we've been here in Beijing. It was also the first day that I noticed hard shadows accentuating the architecture of the building that houses our rented office.

Our hotel is chock-full of English speakers, and it's clear that most of them are not here primarily as spectators. To keep it purposefully vague (for now), they're here for reasons similar to ours-- at least, our end goal is similar. The providential connections made even in our housing within the body are astounding.

For instance (and as a necessary aside), I met a man traveling with an intellectual group who also happens to be personally associated with a prominent clinic in the States. I mentioned briefly my (poor) experiences with chiropractors and orthopedists, and after hearing my story he gave me a real diagnosis (with prognosis) on the spot for my injury which occurred nearly four years ago. This diagnosis was far and away the best news I have received since getting notice that I was in the first place being scouted for football, for now I can begin to break what has become a veritable cage for all areas of my life. And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street!

At lunch, we dined with the manager of the business that has so generously and hospitably played host for us. This entity is primarily focused upon business, and while they must naturally remain mindful of their fiscal standing, their endeavor is to bring (quality) Christian materials to this land. For instance, during these Games they are responsible for the translation and printing of a great many informational pieces distributed by international groups in the Village and throughout the city; another massive project they've undertaken is to translate the Awana program for this society.

One can speak of missionaries who devote themselves to those things we pragmatically deem as 'ministry,' and I can judge that group neither individually nor as a whole. At the same time, one can look at organizations similar to our humble host and see that this business, which operates entirely within the law, within the secular and convoluted framework established by the hand of man, has been placed here so that when the sun blazes it will cast a hard shadow and not fade away like the mist of man.

A strange thing

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:46:00 +0000

A strange thing transcribed while I was holed up over the weekend. It would seem that the Chinese workers in the shopping complex beneath our office building have been replaced by other Chinese with perfect English. Since we have had the chance to be here for several days and therefore come to recognize many members of every staff, it seems in many cases that this is not simply a few of the same crew members who have extra shifts, but an entirely different front end staff brought into the McDonald's, the Pizza Hut, the coffee shop... and even the taxi drivers are miles better at English than last week (though that's more a result of exposure).

But it's great, because the Chinese are helping me with Chinese (I can sufficiently order my English Breakfast tea for caffeination) while I can help explain why we English speakers call "hoong cha" (red tea) black (we reference the leaves while the Chinese reference the water).

One world, one dream indeed.

opening ceremonies

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:25:00 +0000

I know it's been about two days since the opening ceremonies, but illness has prevented me from posting until now, and the following events have been the most singular experience thus far.

Friday evening, I was tasked with traveling via mass transit across town to purchase a particular cable from Beijing's brand new Apple Store. Those of you who know me will understand that exploring a foreign locale is one my absolute favorite things in life, and the language "barrier" only serves to add to the excitement.

The trip across town was uneventful. After reaching the closest stop, I took a quick taxi ride the last 3/4 mile to the center (I would have walked had I not been in a hurry). Inside the cab, however, I noticed this:

Since then, I've noticed at least four such microphones placed into taxis. Saying as little as possible, I jumped out and made for the center, which has apparently just been finished and is filled with stores allowed "just for the Olympics" (a phrase we're hearing quite often these days).

This mannequin occurs in a great many iterations around Beijing. There's one in McDonald's that's bigger than I am; this body alone stands over 20 feet tall.

The Apple store, opened last week. In spite of the fact that it features an identical guaranteed-to-make-you trip translucent staircase as the store in New York, this location blows 5th Avenue out of the water. Downstairs was a Fossil shop featuring only the most fashionable of watches at bargain basement deals. I picked one up; if any of you want the hippest watch on earth send me some money and I'll get you a something that would cost 3 times as much in the states. Seriously.

And this is where things really got interesting, though decidedly less pictorial. Leaving the center, city traffic had dramatically subsided (this was about 6.45pm, just over an hour before the ceremony). Walking to the subway station, I could not help but notice the spike in police, military, and paramilitary presence. There were two police cars on every corner and three police officers in each, as well as military at every large building and on all bridges. I hopped in the subway and rode back to the hotel without incident, then began to watch TV (and work some more). One channel appeared to be little more than every main traffic camera in the city, which clearly showed that only taxis, buses, and military vehicles remained on Beijing's streets. As the opening ceremonies began, the smog outside my window lit up with fireworks that were lit all around the city. Apparently NBC wasn't informed, because Chinese CCTV had an exclusive helicopter shot of the fireworks lighting all the way from the Bird's Nest through the Temple of Heaven and Tienanmen Square to the Forbidden City. This led into what we all now know as the most incredible opening ceremony ever staged.

The massive police force has more or less subsided, though traffic remains lower than the days immediately preceding the Olympics. In summation, if you want a job that allows for multitudinous hours of people watching, sign up for the Chinese military. To an outsider, many of the precautions seem slightly exaggerated yet entirely understandable. China is a nation with many real and legitimate threats against its security both within and without of its borders, and with over 40 heads of state in one city one can allow for a certain amount of zeal in pursuing safety. What strikes me as odd is the perennial phrase "just for the Olympics." More on that in an upcoming post. I'll also post photos from the sight-seeing day on a slow news day.

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:21:00 +0000

Hello, Everybody!

We made it here safely. Despite being literally the last one to receive my bags, customs seemed simpler even than entering Ireland.

Our plane was chock full of athletes on the trek over. Serena Williams pushed me out of the way to grab her luggage at the baggage claim.

Today we'll be seeing the sights: the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, and the
Temple of Heaven. I'm sure tomorrow's post will bring many more pictures, but I'll post this one. Remember the promise to eliminate smog completely by the Olympics?

I'll never complain about LA again.

bull in a china shop

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:16:00 +0000

Yep, I'm going to China. Ordinarily I dislike posting personal feeling things in an outright and explicit manner on this here blog, but after a friend suggested it I realized that this just may be among the only unfiltered perspectives on the Olypmics in Beijing.

Beijing which is open.

So open they're holding our equipment at customs. Here's hoping that the Chinese officials have the courtesy to pass our meager shipment of one sound board, three microphones, a computer and several miscellaneous items pass through in their recent affliction of (dare I steal a communist phrase) glasnost.

Several friends came over this evening for an evening of socializing, replete with Hold 'Em. Elijah was kind enough to give me a pictorial history of Dylan.

I've stuffed my bag with 48 Nature Valley granola bars-- as much as I'd like to turn this venture into an opportunity for a no-calorie diet, the rumored menu of octopi and other sundry seafoods would quickly become a negative calorie diet. So just to be safe I've three weeks worth of American safety net.

In about three hours I'll be leaving my new home in Fullerton for the great expanse of Eastern Asia that is China. I still haven't determined how long my flight will endure, due to time zone complications, but it'll be long.

And here's hoping there isn't any stress among the leadership on our team of two.

test

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:10:00 +0000

testing the new feeds once again...

A Brief Memorandum on Existence

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Sat, 03 May 2008 07:57:00 +0000

One of the things I truly pride myself on is being a good narcissist. I may not be a leader of any one field in art nor science, but I daresay that I put to shame even the total of their achievements to shame in terms of my ability to be proud of the vast extensions in human understanding I have blessed the world with.

—I create, forming portraits of characters that are either pieces of myself or pieces of other people improved to be more like the way they should be in real life. You could almost say that the body of my literature is a sort of self-help book written specifically for you, dear reader.

—The determining factor between yesterday’s pulp and today’s classics is the collective thoughts of a wide sieve of critics, who point out the merit or lack thereof ascribed to a given work. While this process takes many decades and careful analysis by a variety of persons representing a spectrum of perspectives, I like to think that in twenty years my ideas about cinema will have taken full possession of our collective taste. Imagine a world in which people talk about the director of Indiana Jones and people are totally like, “yeah, that guy Spill-what?” and history lessons teach of Tina Fey who became President for being both the funniest and hottest woman in America. Pessimists take heed—our future is indeed bright, for I live and breathe and think.

—Sometimes people say that having children is the ultimate act of narcissism, creating a living being who essentially a shared copy of yourself and one other person, but I think there’s absolutely nothing prideful in simple procreation. In fact, a woman who carries another man’s child ought to be considered a hero after my example catches on. I am going to forego natural biology entirely, choosing instead to insert my mitochondrial DNA in its entirety into a neutral donor egg and having these test tube babies brought to gestation in thoroughly controlled laboratory environment. In fact, the best plan Barack Obama could put into his platform would be to quadruple resources devoted to this type of research and diverting every course of study into helping me to this end, so that within three generations 38 percent of the Earth’s population will be Bradley clones. You see, tomorrow really is a better day.

In summation, if you just skimmed this little memorandum, you basically committed the equivalent to smoking an entire dime bag of cannabis before every class in your high school education, and will probably wind up with a non-functional brain returning to the penitentiary for the third time just like every other common drug-dealer, thief, and felon.
Or you could save yourself one big lifetime of pain and suffering and go back and re read—carefully—this vital communiqué.

Pat yourself on the back for 45 seconds well spent. I can’t begin to express the tremendous honor you have in reading each electron that makes up even a fraction of each letter that I have here deigned to inscribe.

5.2.08

Quitting LATE Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:30:00 +0000

And now, a word from the esteemed Joshua F. Stricker:

To the Friends of LATE, uncomfortable acquaintances, and apathetic invitees wondering why you’re getting this message,

Greetings.

My name is Josh, I host LATE, and the publicity reps are allowing me to write the reminder. So before we go any further:

LATE Series Finale
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2008
Time: 8:00pm - 9:00pm for taping.
Doors Open at 7:30. Pre-taping entertainment starts when doors open.
Location: Warren Studio One
Other: I’m told there will be cake.

I want to mention that as I sit down to do this I am cranked up on Rift Valley blend. I’m also researching British Colonialism, the theory and practice. What better time to write than this.

As you may or may not have heard, this Thursday night LATE will be put to death. Now that you’ve heard, you’re culpable. You should at least give it a proper farewell. It’s common decency really.

LATE has been running for 5 seasons, and I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of what can now be called the final two. Some people have been asking why we are canceling the show. The truth is we’re not canceling the show because it’s not sponsored, and it’s on the internet. You can’t really cancel something like that. We are simply quitting. In the future please ask, “Why are you quitting?”

In the beginning, LATE was created by a student and run by students, and it remains that way. It is written, produced, directed, edited, publicized, gripped, and lighted by students who pretend to have free time. Now those students are looking at each other and saying alright, it’s time to move on. It’s not that we don’t want to do the show or that we feel we are unable to do it well. To the contrary, I’ve witnessed incredible talent, especially from the new underclassmen. These are fantastic people to work with, but it’s time for other projects. LATE has been around for 5 seasons, and in amateur showbiz years that’s about 43. We don’t intend to overstay our welcome. We certainly don’t want LATE to get washed up, make a lot of poor choices, and become a late night infomercial hawking products that exist solely for the “as seen on TV” demographic. That’s an ugly future.

So this Thursday night we plan to burn bright, and I think we’ll all witness the triumph of the human spirit. It is after all really about us, the people of LATE. I take that to mean anyone who ever worked on the show, knows someone who worked on the show, attended a taping, watched online, looked at an advertisement on campus, or accidentally walked into the studio while looking for a bathroom on McNally. This night is for us.

I recognize there are a lot of other things going on this Thursday night. There are at least two other things I’d like to do almost as much as the show. But this is the final LATE, and I would really like as many of us to be there as possible. The bigger the crowd the more energetic things get and the more fun we’ll have. There is plenty to get excited about. It’s going to be a celebration of the past, present, and hypothesized future. Elijah and I have been working on sketches that can really have no other place than on this finale. We’ll also welcome Venus Infers to the show, a band that has more hipster power in their promo pictures than I’ve managed in my entire life.

That’s it. I have no gripping elegy or ode to the finale. Maybe we can pat ourselves on the back Thursday night. I’ll try to say some really self-aggrandizing stuff. So come hang out, and celebrate 43 years of LATE. I’ll probably revisit some of this in the monolog, word for word. It’ll be like a sing along.

Thanks for all the support through the years. You guys make it worthwhile, and I hope we can all connect through the show one more time.

Godspeed,
Joshua Stricker

Let It Die

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:06:00 +0000

Dear Foo Fighters:

Please, just let it die.

Nothing makes me change the radio station like you.

To prove I'm not too harsh, I'll give you another chance when you write a song with more than ten words.

Sincerely,

Bradley
Clarke

A Time to Stretch the Boundary

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:01:00 +0000

From a speech given before the Wellesley Speech Society on March 29, 2008

Boyhood is the ultimate fraternity, a rite of passage all men hold in common. While this time period is individually experienced in nearly infinite permutations, with each future man dealing with his own unique set of struggles and opportunities, I am convinced that among the foundational features of boyhood is exploration.
Nearly every boy seizes upon and perhaps even creates opportunity to explore; to stretch the boundaries of his knowledge, familiarity, strength, will, being, and so forth. Take, for instance, the boy who rides his bike two houses beyond his parents’ boundary. When next he sets out upon his trusty steed, his mother reminds him of the limit, to which he replies that his sphere of influence has grown. Thus a boy begins by exploring a neighborhood and continues with exploring his city.
Look at Huckleberry Finn, the closest thing we of this holy fraternity hold as a sacred text. Tom and Huck set out along the mighty Mississippi River in search of adventure and fortune, plotting their course along what was then the greatest frontier known to modern man. These first among boys stopped at nothing to further the bounds of their own world over the course of their golden summer, much to the benefit of all who have had the privilege to follow.
My own childhood was filled with exploration. Living in a narrow valley, my brothers and I would dedicate ourselves on a warm afternoon to finding a new place or to understanding a known place even better. After half a decade of life in the country, we had expanded our own frontier from the small plot comprised of our house and yard to territory within a four-mile radius—the size of many large city centers in today’s world.
As I have put but a very little distance between myself and my boyhood, I have come to realize that this innate bent upon exploration in boys turns into something greater in men: conquest. Just as a boy seeks to explore the territory around him, a mark of the man is that he makes that territory a part of his dominion, whether it be physical land or the realm of business, of politics, or of society.
Over the course of years, a man will take on much weight outside of himself in the form of fiscal and familial responsibilities. The time of his childhood exploration then becomes ever more critical, for under this weight a man can no longer afford to expand his boundaries, he must tend to the land that is already his. Thus it is that the boy determines the measure of the man; a man can conquer only as much as his early shadow has long ago explored.

absurdity pays a visit to washington

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:51:00 +0000

The following comes from this article that appeared today on washingtonpost.com:

"The Senate today... overwhelmingly approved the $151 billion shot in the arm to the U.S. economy... The legislation would provide $600 payments for individuals... In all, the tax checks will cost the Treasury $105.7 billion, all of it added to the budget deficit."

It's obviously an election year when something this idiotic gets through both houses of Congress in just over a week. My instant poll of the two guys sitting on either side of me shows that 100% of Americans strongly disapprove of this measure.

But it's OK. I'm going to Ireland over Spring Break, and I need some extra travel cash, and I'm sure their economy will appreciate some of Uncle Sam's chump change. Or maybe I'll just get rid of some of my bad credit. Or save it. Or put it towards OPEC's major export. But... I probably won't spend it.

Movement I from the poem "10.4.05"

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 19:17:00 +0000

I. The Impenetrable Veil

What is behind those eyes?
What is behind those eyes is veiled by dark velour curtains coated with a shimmer of dew.
What is behind those eyes is at least as impenetrable as the stars and surely far more luminous.
What is behind those eyes is a mystery.

Where does mystery lead me?
Mystery bids me explore.
Mystery causes me to move.
Mystery steals my rest.
Mystery drives me ever onward and forward.
K paccbety

her face is the harmony that had ever eluded the symphony;
her voice the melody that moves the mind beyond the realm of eternity.

Will the dawn’s light ever smile upon me?
Will I be allowed a moment in the presence of this musical enigma?
Will this mystery ever allow itself to be discovered?

10.4.05

Sasha at the Edge of a Precipice

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:17:00 +0000

"Sasha at the Edge of a Precipice"
April 2003
Kodak Color Process B & W
exposure unrecorded
12th century castle, Zacarpattia Oblast, Ukraine

illegal immigration

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:04:00 +0000

guys, come on. illegal immigration isn't about people stealing jobs from "hard-working" americans.

it's not about people "breaking the law--" law enforcement's perennial policy is to get enough
arrests (against criminals of any sort) to stay out of the hot seat.

why am i against illegal immigration? it's inhumane.

my friend eugenio worked at the china one buffet in corvallis, OR. the employers would pay them minimum wage and then demand that the employees return half of their wages in tax.

farm workers in oregon routinely work 14 hour days during the harvest (a period of several weeks with not days off) without seeing a dime of the (already employer-beneficial) state-mandated overtime.

illegal immigration is simply an excuse for business to abuse labor- practice a form of slavery, really- that we should have passed about 100 years ago.

but this wouldn't be a popular political argument, so no one will ever take the most common sense or humane approach.

an 'official' endorsement

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:47:00 +0000

Perhaps you heard about Pat Robertson—Conservative Evangelical endorses potential President of 9/11.

Perhaps you heard that Ron Paul had the largest single-day fundraiser EVER. Or maybe you only heard about Rudy.

Well, Modern Machiavelli’s handlers may be pulling the media pretty hard, and the media may not be fighting them, but here’s hoping that the only honest candidate in the primary races manages- through some odd chance of fate and Providence- to garner the nomination in ’08.

note: I take back what I said about Paul as the only honest candidate. I forgot about Kucinich, who despite his lunacy is at least very genuine about it.

at the altar of the olympians

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 03:06:00 +0000

What say you, oh Homer?
Is the Orator speaking from his well-worn grave?

For once there was an age
when the deeds of man spanned the heavens
and the works of women won them immortality
when a strong man would crush an empire
and a pure love would shatter that strength.

But this time has long since passed
centuries have left us with a dormant strain
stories—written in languages long dead.
The oldest of men remember them but vaguely as dreams.

What, then, am I to do when
in this, the dusk of Man
I am suddenly met by a society of legend?
These days have brought me near
the offspring of the gods;

The venerable Son of Apollo
Who brings truth, healing, and plague.

The twin daughters of the goddess Athena
whose wisdom and prophecy guide man, nation, legend.

The humorous son of Hermes
who tells stories with the truth of a double-edged sword.

The purest daughter of Aphrodite
winged sprite whose youth and light heart rejuvenate the weary.

A Legion of the Sky—those whose subtle burning will not fade.
a Legion in strength and stature, though not in number.

The sum of this Beauty overwhelms me.

But where does that leave me?

Am I Icarus, venturing too close to the sun?
Or Prometheus, seizing a spark of life
only to be cast into judgment?

Oh, Author of Eternal Legend
I thank you for the grace of beauty you have given me,
but too much good leads me to worry

Let not this harmony decay
nor allow me to descend into irony.
I am not yet worthy of these blessings.
But as I stand in my sodden state I beg
Take these not away from me
teach me to be a man of legend
worthy to share the ground with those
that you have placed surrounding me.

Opening Predictions...

noreply@blogger.com (Bradley Clarke) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:16:00 +0000

The only Republican ticket that stands a chance is Thompson-Gingrich. These men are far enough away from the party to revitalize the base, while Thompson's attitude may appeal to voters. And then Gingrich's first name is newt. I'm betting they'll pick Giuliani-Thompson, only to get trounced by voters who are sick of being forced into fear by our leaders.

Silver bullet for the D's: Obama-Richardson. Provided they can capture the interest of their own party in the primary, they would have an unstoppable draw on independents and minorities that would produce the first electoral mandate since 1988. Cosmopolitan, midwestern (black) Senator with NRA-endorsed, southwestern (hispanic) governor takes urban and rural areas, drawing all minorities out in droves while maintaining (expanding?) the democratic base.

Unfortunately, if Obama's popularity with the youth doesn't save the day, middle-aged dems with a proven penchant for self-destruction will flock to Ms. Clinton, resulting in yet another gag-me-with-a-spoon race to see who's least repulsive.