Piratevilletown

Philosophical Pirate Chat. No Questions.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Multiple Subject Post

I saw Miami Vice; it rocked me.

The reasons I like some metal bands, the reasons I like some very spiteful and hate filled music, the reasons I don't like christian music, the reasons I like rock, all are confusing.

In the search for what makes me do what I do, and think what I think, I've come to discover I am a man of hidden reasoning in search for my center of gravity. When I started growing out my hair, I always thought it was a funny question for people to ask "Why are you growing out your hair? When will you get it cut?" I don't know why I grew it out, it seemed like a good idea. Is there any other reason to do something? I threw out any number of reasons, entirely to shut people up and keep them guessing. I'm growing it until the Gopher Hockey team loses two games in a row. I'm growing it to commemorate Kurt Cobain. I'm growing it to infiltrate hippie culture and subvert it from the inside. I'm growing it until people stop telling me to get a hair cut. I'm growing it so I look older. None of those reasons are right, but none are wrong, and still all are wrong.

Life experience does not necessarily mean wisdom gained, if you haven't figured that out you need to start learning from your own experiences.

I like hateful music because I am capable of experiencing empathy. I'd suggest that no one reading this post has truly hit rock bottom in life. What does that feel like? Well chances are it feels like: "emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is godliness, and God is empty just like me" (Smashing Pumpkins Zero). Remember the simple fact that everyone is in the same boat. We are all humans trying to live life as best as we can, as best as we know how, with all our might.

Everyone is subjected to the human condition, even the people who are fueled only by remorse and hate. Does that mean you should follow their footsteps? No, everyone makes their own choices. Think for yourself, make your own choice. But don't spit on someone for choosing poorly, especially since we all choose poorly. Feel some pity for the poor bastards who don't know any better. You are not any better than someone else because you make less poor choices than they do. You are not better because you aren't sad, aren't pitiful, are rich, are righteous. You, too, are the scum of the Earth.

Here is a question for you. Why do you wake up in the morning? What gets you out of bed. What is so pressing that you subject yourself to the daily toils of living as a human being. What makes life worth living for you? Imagine that was gone. Imagine you wracked your brain for weeks, months, years on that simple question and still could not figure out why you even wake up every morning. What then? Why keep going? Hope? Spite? Self Pity? Love? Lust? Why?

Why does one care to know what it's like to hit rock bottom? Because "Terrence, This is Stupid Stuff."

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Through Glass

I liked the special effects in this video, it's pretty cool. You'll see what I mean when you watch it.

Stone Sour - Through Glass

Monday, July 24, 2006

Napoleon

My book on Charlemagne was an interesting read, but nothing too intruiging. So I've resumed Les Miserables. The current plan is to finish it by the end of the year, but it's a large book, and I'm a slow reader. Anyway, here's more juicy goodness:

"Napoleon was accustomed to looking intently at war; he never added up figure by figure the tedious sum of details; the figures mattered little to him, provided they gave this total: Victory. Though beginnings might go wrong he was not alarmed, he who believed himself master and possessor of the end; he knew how to wait, believing in himself beyond question, and he treated destiny as an equal. He seemed to say to Fate: You wouldn't dare."

And a few pages later:

"Might it have been possible for Napoleon to win this battle? We answer no. Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No. Because of God.

"For Bonaparte to be conquerer at Waterloo was no longer within the law of the nineteenth century. Another series of acts was under way in which Napoleon had no place. The ill-will of events had long been coming.

"It was time for this titan to fall.

"The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the equilibrium. This individual alone counted for more than the whole of mankind. This plethora of all human vitality concentrated within a single head, the world rising to the brain of one man, would be fatal to civilization if it endured. The moment had come for incorruptible supreme equity to look into it."

-Victor Hugo's Les Miserables

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Tyranny follows the tyrant

"Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form."
-Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables"

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Through Glass

Stone Sour - Through Glass
I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed
Oh God it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like I'm sitting all alone inside your head

How do you feel, that is the question
But I forget, you don't expect an easy answer
When something like a soul becomes initialized
Folded up like paper dolls and little notes
You can't expect a bit of hope
And while you're outside looking in
Describing what you see
Remember what you're staring at is me

'Cause I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed
All I know is that it feels like forever
When no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

How much is real, so much to question
An Epidemic of the mannequins
Contaminating everything
When thought came from the heart
It never did right from the start
Just listen to the noises
(No more sad voices)
Before you tell yourself
It's just a different scene
Remembering is just different from what you've seen

I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed
And all I know is that it feels like forever
When no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

(REFRAIN):
And it's the stars
The stars that shine for you
And it's the stars
The stars that lie to you

I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed
Oh God it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

'Cause I'm looking at you through the glass
Don't know how much time has passed
All I know is that it feels like forever
But no one ever tells you that forever
Feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head

(REFRAIN) [2x]

The stars
The stars that lie

Sunday, July 16, 2006

The Musical Side of Piracy on the Open Sea, Yar!

So anyway (I love starting posts like that), I've decided I feel comfortable enough with my audience to post a kind of song I wrote several months back. I figure that while I practice bass guitar I may as well see if I can write lyrics that would make Kurt Cobain proud.

This song is titled "Life, Love, and Happiness." It still needs a chorus.

The story goes of the rousing of a wyrm,
so horrid that only rumors can confirm.
The whisper of truth is lost in the crowd,
so heed the words that I now sing loud.
(possible variation: So heed these words and I'll sing loud)
[chorus]
The Devil's wings spread by sanctity of vision,
and followed by Hell is the greatest collision.
Beast approaches Man with attempts to accost,
know the battle for our soul should not be lost.
[chorus]
The final words are sown in the fields of fire,
they end a fantasy world reaped by desire.
Whatever it is, I cannot bear the description,
amnesia by pain is the one true prescription.
[chorus]
[obligatory guitar solo]
[chorus]
The fate is still unbeknownst to all that I see,
and only the One can hold the future's key.
So don't lose composure, stock your phlegm,
exchange a toast with an emotionless hem.

The only problem with this song is that it actually rhymes, and most songs don't. They concentrate on similar sounding vowels typically.
Plus it is really wordy, and typically wordy songs suck.
I've got others that are started as well, I might start slowly releasing those to the public as well.

Steady As She Goes

Holy crap. Great freaking song. This blog is turning into almost a sort of musical blog, but that is only because too many people listen to hip-hop instead of rock. Anyway, I'm going to tell you a little story:

There once was this band called the Raconteurs. They made a song called Steady As She Goes. This particular song rocks, so listen to it. The end.

If you navigate their official website, you can listen to the song.
The Raconteurs Official Website

Friday, July 14, 2006

Street Installations

I couldn't sleep, so I checked digg (I don't regularly check it, so when I am antsy and there's nothing to do I can always browse several pages of digg in a single sitting). Anyway, I found this:
Street Installations

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

CD List v2

Scratch that previous list, I need to add Stone Sour to it!
Stone Sour showcases the frontman from Slipknot, Corey Taylor's, excellent voice (which peeps out in Slipknot, but is not fully realized). Speaking of Slipknot, if you have not listened to their 3rd CD, The Subliminal Verse (which I already own), you have not lived. Seriously, it's good.

Anyway, add Stone Sour to the list! Probably at the top.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Pirate Flag

Well, every good pirate has a flag of his own design.
So I wipped this up, enjoy!
Pirate Brandon's Flag

Enjoy!

Thursday, July 06, 2006

The Essence of Existance, in More Ways than you Know

Originally I was going to title this post "Order v. Chaos," but I decided on this one instead. Maybe I'll start titling posts like they are newspaper headlines...

Anyway, Life seems to be mostly about Order vs. Chaos. This idea is nothing new, in fact it's the basest idea on life known to man, to my knowledge. A lot of the ancient mythologies were about gods representing Order who fought monsters representing Chaos. History and creation was thought of as events in the struggle between the idea of Chaos and the idea of Order. At first the universe was chaos, then creation happened and order was created, then there was a falling out and now we are somewhere between order and chaos, slowly marching closer and closer to the Chaos end of the spectrum until finally we reach it in a Ragnarok or Armageddon of some sort.
So right now we are stuck in this struggle between Order and Chaos, which is reflected in our daily lives. John Stuart Mill proposed that governments are in power because we need a structure to rebel against. For me this seems to make sense in that Order is defined by Chaos, and Chaos is defined by Order. So without the order of government, the chaos of freedom is un-imaginable. Foucault, although possibly coming to different conclusions about the nature of government, agrees that humans need both the sense of being governed along with the sense of being free. Humans, by nature, require and seek out a sort of balance between the two.
How does one know for sure that this truly is human nature? How can we look at ourselves and decide that freedom would be meaningless without structure, and that government would be meaningless without rebellion?
One answer, I feel, is the human reproduction of life through art and entertainment. Look at songs and books. They are all based on the building of tension through order and structure, and the subsequent release in a chaotic fashion. Tension and Release. Order and Chaos. Order builds tension in our lives, while we release that through the use of Chaos. That is life as we represent it. That is life.

This is all basic stuff, the question is how does that apply to society today? Politically, what is Democracy besides the attempt at ordering chaos through the use of ordered chaos. No definite structure, but a symphony of chaotic votes and lobbies leading to structured laws and legislature used to govern chaotic individuals. Should we be using chaos to create an order which watches over chaos? Maybe that is exactly the balance Humanity is aiming towards. Or maybe it's the devolution of structure and the creation of a foothold for Chaos to finally overtake Order.

Interesting? I think so.


How about taking an idea I touched on (order defining chaos and vice versa) into other realms. I'd suggest that everything in existance is defined only by it's antonym. Joy is only defined by sadness, warm is only defined by cold, wet is only defined by dry, refreshment is only defined by thirst, and love is only defined by hate. Without both, there is none. Such it is with Order and Chaos as well. Without death, there is no life. And so it goes...

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

VIOLENCE

What's the deal? Why is America so up in arms about it?

I find the idea of flogging criminals in public settings to be a satisfying punishment for certain crimes.

In a related chain of though, I think the problem with gun crimes is not the 2nd amendment. It's not that we need more strict gun control laws, we simply need more strict gun CRIME laws. DON'T punish ALL gun owners universally, that is absolutely the WORST idea ever. PUNISH THE FUCKING CRIMINALS. If you use a gun to mug someone, that is intent to kill and you should be charged with murder. Murder charges should involve public floggings of a very intense nature. They should also involve imprisonment for a long time (longer than what we've got). The problem with society is that we feel the need to justify punishment with the idea that criminals can be re-habilitated. To tell you the truth, prison is the worst idea created by man if you intend to turn criminals into good people. But I shall opine that even if such a criminal turns their back on crime, they still should pay full price for what they did. If they've truly been rehabilitated, they should agree with the punishment they've been given and gladly accept it.

Death penalty. No matter how you put it, I think some people out there deserve to die. The most convincing argument I've heard against death penalty is that some people deserve worse than death. My problem with that is I think there is no penalty that can lesson what atrocities the criminal had committed to deserve capital punishment. That is to say, even though they deserve worse than death, there isn't anything on Earth that can take back the heinous crime they committed. I'd rather have them simply put to death and forgotten about here, while they pay the ultimate price in the afterlife.

To sum it up:
1) bring back floggings
2) Stop punishing gun owners, start punishing gun crimes
3) Kill the vile filth that don't deserve to live.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

We Are Scientists

I don't know if I mentioned this a while ago, but last friday I went to a We Are Scientists concert. It was a freakin' awesome concert, to say the least. Anyway I know most of you probably have not heard a single song by the We Are Scientists, which is a crying shame. There is hope, however, in the fact that they decided to stream their entire album online. Click the link below to listen to the rockin' sockin' We Are Scientists!!

We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor





DO IT!

Saturday, July 01, 2006

CDs

Well, I can't sleep. So I'm going to post a short list of the CDs I am planning to buy. I'm going to try to rank their priority as well, but that mentality usually deteriorates when I want them all equally. Except Wolfmother, I want that one first.

band - album
1) Wolfmother - Wolfmother
2) Hurt - Hurt Vol. 1
3) The Von Bondies - Pawn Shoppe Heart
4) The LID - Like Walking Through Walls
5) White Light Riot - Dark is Light Enough
6) Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
7) Velvet Revolver - Contraband
8) Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil