Video of the week

I will try to keep this going. 

Check back for more videos that I like and want to share with you, friend.

Here are a few to make up for the past couple of weeks.

My favorite Christmas Song

(And it always tends to be the most pertinent.)

Dean Martin’s The Christmas Blues

The jingle bells are jingling
The streets are white with snow
The happy crowds are mingling
But there’s no one that I know

I’m sure that you’ll forgive me
If I don’t enthuse
I guess I’ve got the Christmas blues

I’ve done my window shopping
There’s not a store I’ve missed
But what’s the use of stopping
When there’s no one on your list
You’ll know the way I’m feeling
When you love and you lose
I guess I’ve got the Christmas blues

When somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Christmas is a joy of joy
But friends when you’re lonely
You’ll find that it’s only
A thing for little girls and little boys

May all your days be merry
Your seasons full of cheer
But ’til it’s January
I’ll just go and disappear
Oh Santa may have brought you some stars for your shoes
But Santa only brought me the blues
Those brightly packaged tinsel covered Christmas blues

Oh Santa may have brought you some stars for your shoes
But Santa only brought me the blues
Those brightly packaged tinsel covered Christmas blues

Ramblin’s

So I think I missed the deadlines for applying to any sort of Gender Studies program.  So I will continue with my MFA apps and I guess conduct some independent research into Gender Studies.  Which will probably actually be better since I can learn the information I want to learn instead of having to go through a 4 year program.

Some big life questions I have had lately concern several things.  Our society/media promotes a ME attitude.  This causes most people to become concerned with only themselves and not the community (whether it be neighborhood, city, state, country, or world).  We live in a country where our dreams are somewhat attainable given the right oppertunities and what not.  So following your dreams can be seen as a by-product of our society/medias portrayal  of this ME attitude.  Which makes following your dreams sort of bad or egotistical.  I would also argue that someone who donates thier time and/or money to charity often talks about the great feeling they get, or how it makes them feel good to help people out or they get happy seeing other people happy.  Is that not also egotistical?  Doing something to make yourself happy?

Where is the line drawn?  Is it okay to follow your dreams if you are just simply aware of the pitfalls of our society/media?  Should you invest everything you have for your community without regard to your own personal goals/feelings/motivations?  How can one be expected to live a life if it seems that almost everything we do is egocentric?  Is there really anything wrong with doing what one can do to be happy or just simply survive?  Whether it be working, education, making money, helping others, etc…  

Example: Our society is consumerist based.  Most everything media based promotes this as well as convience.  So, if you go out Christmas shopping to buy gifts for others to make them happy and subsequently you happy because they are happy, you are giving in.  Really?  Is it really that bad to be a consumer?  I mean you really need even the most basic things to survive such as food.  Are you a shitty person for going to Schnucks when you could go to Wild Oates, Whole Foods, or Trader Joes?  Even those are corporations interested in consumerism.  So whats the difference?

All of this was promted by the latest Ad Busters magazine.  I really do understand the power consumers have.  Where you spend your money does affect the market.  But is it really THAT important?

I think this is sort of the essence with what I have been struggling with lately.  I am compassionate toward others and their struggles and feel a genuine urge to help others but it runs contradictary to my own goals.  Am I a bad person for following my dreams and doing what I need to do to achieve them?  I don’t want to give into our societies demands and the sterotypes that our media promotes but at the same time I am trying to live my life and be happy as well as make my friends and family happy.

Changing majors

So my cursory investigations into masculinity and male identity have turned up very little information.  So much so that it has made me very passionate about delving into the topic, teaching it, writing about it and trying to get the word out as much as possible about it.

So I am switching majors.  From Studio Art to Gender Studies.  It doesn’t mean I will stop making art, quite the opposite in fact.  I cannot stop the flood of ideas I have for art projects.  But I feel very strongly that the topic of masculinity isn’t discussed or is “controversial” and that there should be more information out there for men and kids who are/were like me and searching for thier own identity.

I have a cause and am determined to become its champion!

This probably means another 10 years of college.  I want to get my PhD in the field as well as get my MFA. 

Yikes!

Thirty something

So I guess I have been in this wierd mood of deeply thinking about my life, getting older, what I want, what I want to do, grad school, moving to another city, relationship(s), and trying to figure out who I am.  Which is a whole other deeper issue that I think will probably span the rest of my life so I will not talk about it.

I don’t have a problem with getting/being “older”.  I actually am looking forward to aging.  I have always felt like people treat me like a little kid or some inexpierenced young person (in some respects I am) so physically being older I think would force people to take me more seriously.  It hasn’t happened yet.  A few girls have actually said (they say jokingly but I think otherwise) that I am now a man or a man doesn’t become a man until he reaches 30.  On a side note: I wonder what would have happened had I taken a stand for men and they way they were generalising us?  They way they presented the issue made me think they would chastise me so I didn’t say anything.  But this is a deeper issue and one that I will leave to explore with me work.  I don’t really have a point, I guess, other than the fact that I just feel like I cannot be taken seriously, ever.

Another concern is this sense of responsibility for the financial security of my future.  A sense of bettering my life, finacially.  I can’t live the rest of my life month to month.  I’m happy regardless, I just can’t buy a lot of shit.  Not that I feel I need to cave to our consumerist society but because I want to be able to buy the stuff I want to buy and be able to afford to be able to shower my frineds with gifts.  Not to mention getting out of debt, which grad school isn’t going to help at all, being able to buy a house someday and all that hoo-ha. 

Its interesting how much my priorities have changed since I have turned 30.  This weekend was a glaring example of that.  Friday night was a big party night and I stayed out until like 4 am.  I got 4 hours of sleep then worked Saturday as well as went out Saturday night also andstayed out until 2 am.  Then had every intention of going to another friends party on Sunday night but I just crashed.  And this morning I wanted to get to work at 8am so I had to get up super early and am still tired.  I just can’t party all weekend anymore.  And I think I am okay with that.  As much as I like being out with my friends having a good time I also just rather they come over and we hang out and drink for free at my place or someone elses.  But even that doesn’t happen anymore.  Everyone is wrapped up in their lives doing their own thing. 

Hmmm.  I guess its a sort of nostalgia I have for the way things were.  Its interesting.  Because I have been thinking a lot about my obsession with the ’30’s, ’40’s, and ’50’s, christmas, tradition(s), manhood, and now my early 20s.  I have this longing for “the way things were” but not really.  I mean as romantic as the ’50’s seem to me, there was also a lot of bad shit going down back then.   Same with Christmas.  I haven’t seen a “White Christmas” in I can’t even remember when.  And our family is so unpleasant that it kinda takes the joy out of it and I realize there is a reason I don’t really associate with these people on a regular basis.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but come on, everyone can be a jerk sometimes.  Maybe its all this that makes me long for “better times”.  Maybe its that I don’t have someone, a lady friend, to share it all with and create our own, new traditions with.  I don’t know.

I do feel I need to figure out how I am going to get everything I want in life.  I feel like I need to come up with some sort of scheme to get it.  Ugh.  Too much to ponder…

Jessica B. + Novaks party pics

Growing older and the holiday season ramblings (taken from an email I just wrote)

On getting older: 

There is nothing wrong with not talking to people and doing your own thing at all.  Actually, its what happens when you get older and gain more and more responsibilities or in other-words start living your life.  Its something that I have had a really hard time accepting especially now that a lot of my friends are getting married and having children.  We just get wrapped up in our own lives and our priorities change.  Sure its fun to go out and hang out with friends and drink and party but now its like once a week.  Its not feasible to do it 3+ times a week.  Its growing up I guess.  No one wants to do it but it happens and either you accept it or you end up being that old creepy person out at the hipster bar. 

On the holiday season:As far as the holiday season.  I have met more and more girls that dislike the holiday season.  From what I can gather its because they have a distaste for the way our consumerist society and media have marketed the hell out of it and made it unappealing so that those who refute it become cynics in regard to the holidays.  However, for me at least (and at the expense of sounding cheesey), it really is all about the spirit of the holidays.  Spending time and giving with loved ones, family, and friends.  Personally, I have a deep nostalgia for tradition which is why I really like the season.  But its more about spending time with family and friends for me and giving presents and enjoying the joy that they have.  It’s a choice, I think.  I just don’t let all the media hype for any holiday bother me really, unless its really obnoxious, in your face.  But stores dressing up their windows and hanging decorations has been going on for generations, so nothing has changed that much except for billboards and television.

Third Annual Christmas Cocktail Party 2006

Scenes from the evenings festivities.

Enjoy!

 

The Setting.

Jessica, Ben and Matt enjoying some cocktails!

 

Party goers!

More party goers!

 

A lounging holiday!

 

Mary, John P., Jabari, Jon S., and Annie in the kitchen.

Mixologist!?

 

Our evenings host serving up drinks!

 

Annie, justin, Matt, and some girl whos name I can’t remember!

 

The host.

Kelly, Leah, and Dave.

The host!

Kelly and Joe.

First snow/ice

So it iced and snowed yesterday and this morning and at the expense of sounding lame, it was so beautiful.

When I woke up I was so happy and excited.  I only wish it would stay around for the rest of the month.  (stupid global warming!)

It definetly has me even more in the xmas spirit!