Mission Statement: Taylor Swift

 I have decided to pursue a new venture this year: explore media I have otherwise ignored. It's easy to get snobbish when you prefer to only listen to the music you have curated for yourself. "Wow, this song is incredible! It's too bad nobody else listens to this. I guess that means I have taste," I think to myself after listening to a song by a band that has been popular for fifty years now. They are currently 115th in the topmost listened-to artist in the world on Spotify, and I can safely say that the song I have listened to is in fact one that many people have already heard at least once in their life. I have decided to forgo the pretentious ego that is infesting my mind and choose an artist that I know everyone has heard of. She is also the same artist that I declared a long time ago that I would never allow my ears to come in contact with any of her albums. This musician is Taylor Swift, Grammy-award-winning, best-selling, most-iconic, and considered the greatest female artist in the 2010s. She is now part of my 2021 project which consists of listening to every single one of her albums. Now, I do not mean that I will merely yell at my Google Home to play "Red" at low volume while I watch a nature documentary on Netflix. I will digest each of her albums thoroughly, to the point that I know all the lyrics to each song and create a review of it right here in this blog. I will also choose my favorite song from the album of the week and create a cover of it to my liking. The reasons for this change in my musical taste include: to humble me; to find beauty in songs that are far from my taste; to disallow myself to ignore someone's passion; to promote the philosophy that every song deserves to be heard. If I hope to spread this message to all then it is best for me to become its first follower. That is my mission statement. Now, it is time to queue up "Taylor Swift" by Taylor Swift.

Jokes of October 21, 2020

Don't you just hate those people who walk around without even bothering to see where they're going? I especially despise the ones who wear those dark sunglasses and carry around a weird stick with them.

I love the transition from Fall to Winter. I get the see all the leaves change from green to red and orange then gently fall off the tree branch, leaving it bare. It also makes it easier to chuck rocks at those birds who keep using the top of my car as their personal toilet.

The Commission of Political Debates has stated that for some portions of the final debate, they will be muting the mics of both President Donald Trump and ex-Vice President Joe Biden. When asked which portions will they be muting, they replied "don't worry, it'll only be the first ninety-minutes".

Out of Convenience

 Meaning: it is quite late and I told myself that I needed to make a blog post today. Unfortunately, I did not allow myself enough time to do so. 

Here we are.

I'm just going to focused on writing something more humorous and light-hearted. Is it to break some sort of mold I've covered myself in? It could be. The other posts of these blogs are pretty philosophical and when they are not, they're usually personal. This time I will do something different. Let's call it "stream of conscious". All the Joyce fans rejoice! I'm stealing a technique OUT OF CONVENIENCE. I did just watched a documentary on Anwar Congo called "The Act of Killing". Although you would think that writing something simple and sweet would be impossible after that, luckily, I had a pleasant experience that contrasts the documentary that followed after this event. Here is that experience.

I'm at the point in my life where I'm attempting to meditate. It's not the worst decision a person could make (I think murder might be the top contender), however, it felt very embarrassing in the beginning.  Who did I think I was, Maharishi? I felt more like Mike Myers in the Love Guru. However, even though I was having a bit of an identity crisis, I persisted in my Headspace...for about two weeks. That was how long the free trial was. After that, I went over to Calm...for about another week. Although it was only a mere seven days, I will say that it indeed changed my perspective on uncertainty. Tamara, the woman who tells me to wiggle my toes after ten minutes of breathing, explained that embracing uncertainty was the key to embracing life. Today, that mindset was put to a test. I booked an hour in the music studio that my college had. I already had a song in the works, yet, that was not the main purpose of getting some studio time. I wanted to examine their wears; what equipment they had for me to fool around with; how much experimentation can implement. None of this, however, was achieved. Instead, I was put into a room with a bearded man (his beard went past his mask by the way) who had a bit of glossiness to his eyes.  For the sake of anonymity, we shall call him Cody. Cody had some obvious experience in the field of music production. When I say that, I mean that he was able to name the various software I could fiddle around with. "Do you just want to make a new beat?" He zipped his chair around to make eye contact with me. "Yeah, that sounds alright." I sat down in the chair next to him, unsure of what to say next. I wasn't really much of a "producer". For about an hour, I allowed him to figure out what sounds we could use. I merely provided a couple of melodies and enthusiasm. A quick tip in music production: those two elements are all you really need to make a good song (or at least one you enjoy). We laughed, we got up from our chairs, we said "oh, that's good" whenever we did something cool. We had fun. Although all I wanted to do when I first got there was sit down in solitude, I realized that going along with whatever came my way was the best choice I could've made. I was anxious at first, of course. I'm not a fan of spontaneity, only when I had planned it the night before. Yet, I was reminded of the phrase "embrace uncertainty". After the session was over, he told me that he actually had a good time which I guess was something he was not used to. I concurred with him, attempted to communicate a smile, and went on my way, wondering what I was going to write for my blog post. All I have to say now is thank god for convenience and uncertainty.

Jokes of September 29

exclusively presented on September 30th

One thing I realized is you can't substitute vanilla for vanilla chapstick. It really ruins your girlfriend's birthday cake.

Everyone nowadays just plugs in their headphones to ignore people. I prefer the old-fashion approach of yelling "LEAVE ME ALONE".

Kissing in the rain may help you get to home base but kissing during a hurricane will definitely guarantee it. I don't remember if they allow you to share hospital beds though.

What's Going On Outside My Window?

All I wanted to do was take a nap 

but it seems like there's too much going on. 

I just wish I knew what it was.

How Many Calories Are in a Caesar Salad Chicken Wrap?

    My chest slammed against the floor. Three. I was only able to do three push-ups. I could barely lift myself again even with the extra support from my knees. I had to do one more. At least one. My chest slammed against the floor once more. The carpet was soft against my face, cradling it like a mother would after their six-year-old child scraped their knees on the concrete. I was weak. I was pathetic. I was fat and deficient in testosterone. Although I was twice as old, I still cried like I was six that day. Why did I need to be strong? Why did I need to be able to do ten push-ups? Was it because my brother could do twenty? Was it because my dad grabbed my biceps tightly and exclaimed that I needed to work-out more? Was it because even though the tortoise eventually beat the hare in the story, I knew that I could never beat my brother in those impromptu push-up contests that my father would set up? I hated those silly moral tales that tried to teach you how the weak would eventually triumph over the strong. In every single one of those stories, the hero would always find an exploit or use some sort of cleverness, but tell me, how do you outsmart a push-up?     

    What I hate most about children is their need to constantly compete with each other. What made them worse, however, was that the only venue that they could compete in was physicality. The number of times that I had a red stinging mark on my face from losing a slap contest, was made fun of from kids high above for being too weak to climb a tree, or was pinned down by a person older than me (usually my brother) was amazingly astounding. Note: being chubby was always the reason why these things happened. Kids always wanted to prove who was stronger than the other. It’s not like they could compete in anything that required some sort of wit (you’ll never see a Norse-style lyrical battle on your local school playground). They needed something more practical and accessible. That’s not to say I was like a young Don Rickles, spouting out rapid insults like a sprinkler, but at least I might have had a better shot.

    Yet, from the ages of twelve to fifteen, my physique never improved. Of course, I fantasized about it. In my dreams, the plaque said the Statue of Ruben, not the Statue of David. My brother, however, continued to surpass me in every way. While I was fishing through YouTube videos titled “How to Get a Six-Pack in Six Weeks” and forcing my throat to swallow kale smoothies, my brother gained twice the muscle mass after he came back from his Marine Corp training. It didn’t seem like any number of push-ups I did would ever change this dynamic. There were scribbles in every journal entry saying “this is the time that I’m going to lose weight and be happy!” As if those two things went hand-in-hand, but in my adolescent mind, it was the only thing that mattered.

    In the summer of 2016, however, I assembled a treadmill in my room that had once belonged to my mother who had a similar far-reaching goal to mine. Although its smell of sweat from those who failed their goals intimidated me, I had gotten it into my head that if I never stepped on it then I might as well start shoving Krispy Kreme donuts into my mouth and jump into a coffin at the age of twenty-nine. The daunting treadmill growled as its track started moving slowly. “Well, here I go. I’m going to finally get skinny” I repeated as the droplets of sweat began to trickle from my forehead. Five minutes had passed before I felt like my legs were walking through quicksand. It wasn’t that I was out-of-shape, in fact, it was something that always plagued my weight-loss attempts: I was bored. Working out just wasn’t fun and because of this, your legs just couldn’t get up after ten steps. The frustration kicked in as my walking resembled that of a midnight drunk. “Why can’t you do this? Would you rather keep eating and sleeping instead of trying to get skinny?” It didn’t matter. I was still bored. No matter how many times I pumped my hands up after playing the Rocky theme song or how many people from the Biggest Loser I compared myself to, I groaned with every step. This frustration grew as I began switching to more “healthier” food alternatives: regular milk to soy milk, white bread to wheat bread. Instead of having vibrant juices and drinks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I started to chug down bland, tasteless water. Anything that wasn’t water was these chunky, sewage-green liquids that made me consider cutting out the middleman and just eating the soil. I gagged the first day I started, and I continued to gag up to the final day. It was insufferable until one day my mom said, after seeing me try on a new shirt she got me from Target, “wow, you’ve gotten really thin!” I smiled with ecstasy. I dashed back into the bathroom. I’ve done it. The Holy Grail was finally in my hands. However, I stopped smiling when the mirror saw my body without a shirt on. I still had some rolls, these muscles weren’t tight, the skin on my belly was loose and fatty. I grabbed my love-handles and sighed.

         “You don’t need to lose more. You should be proud! I have a couple of kids who have similar weight problems, maybe you could give them some advice.” my doctor advised me after showing me my progress on a graph that had too many lines to keep up with. I smiled at him in his pale, white office and frowned as he left to grab a few more documents. How could I be proud of these pathetic rolls of fat? Didn’t he realize that I was still overweight? Wasn’t “hey, you look great” just a remark that signified that I should keep losing more? Were all my exes just giving me pity as they tried to convince me that I had a great body? I continued to lose hours out of my days because I kept looking at nutritional labels in Sprouts. “That’s too many calories” echoed every time I saw a number over one hundred. That reminds me, I probably should’ve only eaten one over-easy egg instead of two. An over-easy egg has about a hundred calories. If I keep eating like that then I might as well start shoving Krispy-

    I’m always one step away from rebounding. I’m always one step away from being that fat, weak, and pathetic kid that could never keep up with everyone else. I’m always one step away from my dad grabbing my biceps and telling me that I need to do more push-ups. I know a lot of people envy my “willpower” but it’s easy to refuse every meal when you’re repeatedly telling yourself that your pants are already too tight. I don’t feel proud of this mindset even when my mom begs me to reveal my secrets so she can stop doing juice cleanses. Unfortunately, I can’t tell her to force her legs to walk on the treadmill because it’s lost within the clutter in our musty shed. Whenever I do feel good about myself, it’s never when my dad tells me that I’m strong and fit, but when he prances around about how I’m going to walk the red carpet for winning an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. This isn’t to say that I’m not happy that I finally managed to lose twenty pounds. I’m glad that I was able to pull through even when the voice in my head would make me salivate at the sight of a crispy strudel with vanilla ice cream. However, what’s the use of all this progress if my mind only sees in the mirror the fat kid who couldn’t do ten push-ups? I wonder how often after the race did the tortoise yell at his reflection because he knew he was still too slow. I’m not sure but I know he would have been able to enjoy a chicken Caesar salad wrap even though it’s got four hundred calories and twelve grams of fats.

Jokes of September 15

Do not eat the crickets at Petsmart. They are not free samples.

I enjoy going to open houses, but I must say, it's much more thrilling going into closed houses. I find that they feel more lived-in.

Before coins, people used to just flip themselves. You did not want to land on heads.

Old Dog

An old dog snores on

the warm, smooth wooden floor. Its

closed eyes and wet nose

twitch, as its legs run with youth

inside a large field of dreams.

Improving

     “Wouldn’t it be convenient if everything that I wanted to be good at was something I was already proficient in?” This was what I asked myself after I had thrown my pen across my dorm out of frustration. The cause: I was attempting to write a long personal essay for my Creative Nonfiction class. I often launch items far distances in my room, mainly because I always try to engage in some sort of creative pursuit. After failing at whatever artistic task I designated for that day (and also after I express my anger on inanimate objects), I find myself utterly disappointed in my lack of "talent". I want to be great, exceptional, or at the very least half-way decent. This depressing feeling is always amplified whenever I compare myself to my creative exemplars' works, which include: the powerful production tracks from a Tyler, the Creator album; the subtleties of cinema language in every scene of a Martin Scorsese movie; the carefully constructed sentences of a Fitzgerald novel; even the pin-precision hand movements of magician David Blaine. I always open my mouth in amazement as if I was observing aliens displaying a piece of technology unbeknownst to man. I attribute their talents as destiny. They were gifted with God’s graces, allowing their progress to flow at an exponential rate while I struggle much more than I was allowed to be.

    I sat back in my creaky wooden chair, contemplating what I was already good at. That way, I could be on the path that I always meant to be on. I know I wasn’t always good at making music, nor was I good at writing scripts. I’m terrible at drawing and I couldn’t shoot a hoop to save my life. I struggle over the complex grammar structures of both Japanese and Spanish (the latter being more embarrassing when considering my birth country of Honduras). The list soon began to dwindle as I went through every art form, every sports game, every craft, and every hobby. I was devoided of any talents that required an ounce of creativity or skill. Maybe I could go with something that you didn’t have to come up with ideas for. I always was good at walking. I can walk perfectly. Well, I do walk quite slow. I’m still decent at walking though, but it wasn’t something I was always good at. I had to crawl first and even that took months to achieve. I'm that great at talking neither. I stumble, misuse, and forget various words and sentences. Even in my younger years, I babbled and used “-ed” instead of the proper conjugation. I couldn’t even tell the difference between a sheep and a dog, so I wasn’t actually always great at thinking. No baby is great anything. Well, other than improving on things. Babies always manage to get a little better every day at something. I was reminded of that when my two-year-old sister discovered how to avoid dripping apple sauce from her mouth whenever she got spoon-fed. She used to be extremely messy at eating for most of her two-year life, dropping bits of food onto the floor or spitting them out when she was unsure about the taste. Now, she’s basically an expert, gifted at consuming! Yet, soon she will find more things she needs to improve on. I mean, she can’t even write a single letter. She’s going to have to type paragraphs for her essays eventually. That will get easier for her. She’ll improve slowly over time as she has done with other skills because getting better at things is natural. For now, I will pick up my pen from the floor and continue on with my work.

Think Like the People of the Future

    I recently read an article from Henry David Thoreau titled "Slavery in Massachusetts". The entire passage merely explains Thoreau’s views on slavery and how individuals should be worried about the contradiction it presents to the Constitution. My first reaction to his statements, and various other ones in his book "Walden", is the progressive nature of his beliefs. Most of us are taught that people were unaware of how evil enslaving others was. It was a stain on our nation’s history, but now we know better. The collective mind of Americans finally learned that purchasing people as if they were cattle was probably not the most ethical of practices we could have done. However, the past is the past. Correct? then why is Thoreau’s thinking less of the “past” and more of the “present”? How could an individual, who spent the majority of his life within a country that legalized the law of slavery have such modern beliefs? Perhaps, it is the location that he resided in. Massachusetts did abolish slavery in 1783, and Thoreau’s lifespan stretched from 1817 to 1862. However, how did the people of Massachusetts in the 1700s come to realize the atrocities of slavery? Was it from the lack of slaves that they needed compared to the south? Not at all. Being the first colony in America, the state was actually the center of the slave trade. If it wasn’t the absence of slavery or the absence of the need for slavery, then how did the former capital of the practice come to abolish it by the end of the 18th century?

    It seems as though its residents, such as those like Thoreau, realized the dehumanizing nature of enslavement. Through consideration of their fellow man, they understood that all of America needed to be free in order to be just. If people of the past can emulate the people of the present in terms of morals, then how should we as modern humans relate ourselves to the people of the future? It seems as though we cannot forgive our prejudices behind the veil of ignorance no longer.

    With this in mind, I have been re-evaluating my stance on one of my favorite comedy series: "Arrested Development". Created and written by Mitchell Hurwitz, the ensemble comedy guides us through the lives of the dysfunctional Bluth family. Never seeming to get out of their terrible situations, the family attempts to stick together, even though the combination of them all seems to just bring out the worst in each of the Bluths. Although it is my fourth time watching the first three seasons again, I still seem to laugh at the same cues that were constructed by the cast and crew. However, I found myself feeling uncomfortable at some of the jokes that were a bit, let’s say, offensive. Should I excuse the virulent racist Lucille or the sexual offender G.O.B. as just being a product of its time? It would be easier if the show did not try to signal me to sympathize with the characters with sad music after one of them suffered embarrassment. Yet, Mitchell Hurwitz was the one who wrote these characters, perhaps, it is he who is a product of his time. However, if Thoreau can be modern in his thinking then so can Hurwitz be in his writing. At what standard can we hold people accountable for their prejudices before we can forgive them and attribute their views as being blissfully ignorant? How should I, the viewer who use to laugh at each and every one of these "past-its-prime" jokes, see myself?

    It seems as though understanding our prejudices and how much we can forgive ourselves for them is still unclear. Would Thoreau, who advocated for the abolishment of slavery, be seen marching during the Civil Rights movement? Most definitely. Just as those who raise the Nazi flag today would have been Nazis themselves in 1930s Germany, we of the 21st century can no longer excuse our modern thinking by merely stating that it is simply a product of the time. For that reason alone, I will not completely unburden myself as someone who was born in a different generation to excuse my prejudices. Moving forward, I will try to peer over the wall and adopt the morals of the people of the future because I now know that my current views do not and should not just be a reflection of my time period.