The other day I got rather high indeed after eating curry with quite a lot of pot in it. While it was an interesting and fun experience, it's definitely not something I can do all that often (especially since the effects lasted about 24 hours, though I have been assured that this is abnormal and due to the strength and that it was my first time). Anyway I wrote a blog entry while high that I left to the discretion of my sobre self whether or not to post. I'm going to, I think, because it's a funny blog and only the most close-minded person could object to oral consumption of pot, especially in a delicious THCurry (that was hilarious at the time).

Subject: texas

Whoa I'm so feeling high I thought of things to say there but I've forgotten them and again damnit oh that's right no oh yes I looked at my blog gleep.blogspot.com And it looked all weird me I mean my writing and I'm sure I will have this experience again when I wake up

We had THCurry and it was very good, he put in extra good so it was good but then he maxed the thc so it was very potent and we each had quite a lot |like a fifth of an ounce| and for a long time it didn't effect me and now it rather has I can see now what happens to people it's like surfing and the people that crash go in the sees of paina nd gony but riding the roughest waves is the funnest so I'm doing it and I don't think I will crash but the others either did or went in the kiddie pool
I could do that but I won't Fugazi not Slightly Stoopid

Ha I thought my water was way back there but it's right next to me Oh man my head is frizzing again, that's cool. I had something I wanted to say here but I've forgotten. Well not that
It's that I went on the trip and am far away from it
If only there was a mind writer

Iand again

I hope you are not alarmed I'm fine and am 'tripping' on purpose but the pot itself has at this point done no harm to me
I mean outside the effects listed on the box I have no side symptoms

I understand some things much better, but this can't broaden your horizons, just move them for know
If you actually broaden them you can have the best of both worlds
no more journey to the other world not mystic visiting God but the proud antinomian living him

I'm much less then I once was I think the major journey the biggest wave has crested
or maybe it's that the music dulled
man Rammstein is boring


Ha this like caves in

telescope to the moon, maybe, but once you see the moon do you need the telescope?

I realise there is a certain risk in putting this online and I shall hand the responsibility to my sobre first but I told ya'll that there is nothing wrong with marijuana especially if not smoked and I should live by that
It's a long motto but that shall do

PS I suspect this will only make sense if you knew which music I was listening to the time but alas

PPS I suspect not even then


-Pi O'Clock

And it didn't end there. The next day I was still pretty high and had to go to German. I got there real early because I had to print something off and I didn't know how long it was going to take me (being high and all). So I sat down and started working on my workbook, and got quite a lot (everything due up to next friday, actually) done. Then my friend Matt came. He later told me we had a conversation that went like this:

"How's it going?"
"it is going quite well to me!!"
"...you're high, aren't you?"
"heehee lil' bit lil' bit"

I managed however to get through class alright. He only called on me once and if I'm pretty sure I got through fine. I then repaired to Samia's place, where I fell into a jolly sleep for several hours.

All in all it was as I said a fun experience, but one that I don't think I'll repeat too often (and not before classes, either). Oh since the high blog entry doesn't actually talk about how it happened much, I'll say that we split the bowl six ways, with two people sharing. Everybody else was effected much faster than me, who wouldn't feel anything for hours. One person did not take well to it at all, and was rather sick. It was just when I put her to sleep (at which point everybody else who'd gotten really high was) that I started feeling it myself. Whooo. However I'd already decided to walk home so I set out.

That was a fascinating walk. First a word from the Good Drugs Guide: "Oral cannabis is a powerful, almost psychedelic experience". With the amount I had it was not almost psychedelic, it was downright hallucinogenic. Sight and hearing were really the affected senses. I began my walk out and resolved to be alright. I'm cool, I thought, I'm just walking down the street, la la la. The street...which is stretched out so far...and repeating...you know those stairs in Mario 64 where no matter how far you go up them, they stay the same? It was like that. The same things repeating on the sides, the same horizon in the distance.

Coupling this monotonous sight was the monotonous sound of my boots. Their normally jolly percussion had become a death-beat that was driving me mad. It was also about this time that I realised that out of the corner of my eye someone had said "What up, Alex?" a few minutes ago. He told me later, "I said hey and you just kept walking, and I thought, yep, he's stoned".

But I was out of it! I wasn't in the real world at all any more it was some trippy alter-Austin! Focus! I told myself, Focus! Right now we're having Student Government elections and one of the parties is named Focus. So just as I commanded my focus a sign popped up:

FOCUS!

Never have I felt so intruded upon as when the world began reading my thoughts back to me. But it did the trick. The street regained somewhat normal proportions, my boot's tempo lost its death-march aspect, and all in all I felt I was soon to be home. In fact I was so cheery about the prospect that I started trying to walk in rhythm which while sobre I have no problem doing: normal step normal step scuff step normal normal scuff etc., with the scuff being the equivalent of two beats. beat beat buhbeat. Except when high this sounded more like beat beat buhBEAT BEATBEATBEATBEAT as boots were stomping so loudly, quickly, and omnidirectionally that I lost all control over my own boots and almost stumbled to the ground.

FOCUS!

A sign reminded me. Beat beat beat beat. No scuffs for me. You can have fun when you get home. Which I eventually did, and went straight to my room, and proceeded to giggle online for several hours, and to write that blog entry.

That was all of course an exercise in creative fiction, any relation to real life events is entirely co-incidental, etc etc
5:33 PM

What do you get when you mix leftist protest techniques and conservative opinions? Assholes squared. And so it was when I was walking through the West Mall (where people accost you with political opinions, bake sales, living options, etc. etc.) and saw a large crowd gathered around one table. The crowd was debating with the table. Ah, I thought, this must be the Conservatives.

Sure enough I saw YCT (Young Conservatives of Texas) and a portly white boy with a crew cut and a shirt that said 'Straight Pride' as I walked by (I make it policy to never debate with people I don't know). And in an instant the arguments they were having flashed through my head:

Conservative Asshole: Why do only gays get to have pride? Why can't I have pride?
Angry Student: You just can't! It's not the same!
CA: Why not?
AS: It just isn't!
CA: Is too!
AS: Isn't!
(repeated ad nauseam, if you aren't there already)

I didn't actually stick around to hear the debate, but from what I've heard of West Mall "discussions" in the past, this is the general level of discourse.

This protest is one of a series of conservative pranks-to-make-a-point. Others have included affirmative action bake sales (black students pay 50 cents, hispanic 75 cents, whites a dollar, etc etc), offering whites-only scholarships, and so on. While I'm glad that Political Correctness has died down enough that this sort of argument can graduate from words quietly and angrily spoken between like-minded friends to an actual debate, it's not a very good argument.

I just read Bomb the Suburbs, a great book by a white hip hopper, and an analogy he makes for white people being this-sort-of-idiot is two bike riders. One bike rider has the wind at his back. He doesn't even notice, all he notices is that he's flying high and gosh this is easy. Then he sees another biker who, unbeknownst to our winded comrade, is biking against the wind. psh, he says, look how slow he is, look how he pants. And when the unlucky biker is more proud of having completed his biking than the lucky one, the lucky one can't help but be peeved.

But, it's not impossible to learn about the wind, if you just pay attention. What our friends in the Straight Pride shirts don't realise is that there is a difference between Straight Pride and Gay Pride, between Black Power and White Power. Simply put, white straight males hold the power, and their collective pride has historically been oppressive (I notice they weren't quite brave enough to try White Power shirts). Blacks, gays, women, and other disenfranchised groups don't hold power, and through their cultural bonding (black power, gay pride, grrrls, etc.) are resisting oppression. And this should be encouraged until true equality is reached (you know, gays allowed to marry, a third of black males not in jail, etc.)

Of course, as a white straight male, I can understand where this might be tiring, even if one is a good little liberal. I remember as a child saying to my parents "I wish I was a minority. I would just be so much more justified". Especially when one adds in the lack of community in suburban America, the idea of a sort of built-in community can be very attractive. The single-digit percent of my high school that was black experienced something most of the kids will never know when they hung out together in the halls.

And it's true. White America does not and hopefully never will have built-in community, because if they do it will be oppressive. To alleviate the need for built-in community the answer seems obvious: to have more real community. More community meetings, more neighbourhood block parties, etc. More parties in general. There are few things that can't be solved with a good party (Anarchism: parties, not parties!). Needless to say, these should be integrated, and in general the way to get rid of the need for built-in communities is removing the oppression. Easier said than done, of course, but people can at least take the simple step of not wearing 'straight pride' shirts.
3:20 PM

I've switched my keyboard back to dvorak and set this as the only setting on my computer. No more qwerty for me! I was however extremely disappointed to learn that Jared Diamond, author of the excellent article "The Curse of Qwerty, never actually took it up. In fact, according to this article on Slate, a number of liberal icons-Paul Krugman, Ralph Nader, Stephen Jay Gould-who extolled dvorak never in fact took it up.

This highlights the central difference between liberals and radicals (real radicals, not Old Left stuffiness). Radical comes from radix, which means the root (this is why 2 is the radical of 4 in math). Radicals try to get to the root of the problem. Rather then just tell other people that they're too stupid to do the right thing (while writing the bloody essay in qwerty), radicals try to get to the real root of the problem, and actually follow through.

Of course the quite valid point could be made that I'm writing this on a computer given to me by my parents, using skills learned largely in rich white schools, etc. etc. And these are quite valid points. To them I would add my continued failure to actually join some sort of radical project (FnB doesn't really count). And yesterday I started to go to Monkeywrench Books, a place to which I have even donated money without ever having gone, and again didn't because it felt weird to go alone. It feels like sight-seeing.

But! I am more radical than I was this time last year. My thought is more developed, I live in a co-op, I am vegetarian. And last year was a more radical year than the year before. Even the best obreros conscientes never thought they were. Is The Anarchist an unattainable ideal? Perhaps. Probably. In this world, at least. What's important is not that I live in a co-op, not that I'm a vegetarian, etc. etc. These are only manifestations of what is important, that I continue to individuate into a healthy person. Which is a lot more important than politics. If everybody would do that there'd be no need for me to be An Anarchist, because there'd be no need for Anarchism, because the world would be healthy enough.

But until then we have the liberals affecting health (and chiding others for their weaknesses - you hate most what you hate in yourself), the conservatives hiding from it, and most people unaware they even might have a disease. But I at least wrote this in dvorak. Now to just learn esperanto...
12:08 PM

I'm twenty!
11:40 AM

I've been thinking a lot about symbols. Humans use symbols for everything. In fact, I think most of the world today is caught up in a different world from the real one, the world of symbols, and that most of their interactions are on the symbolic level.

For instance, France and the headscarf. This is all about symbols. (White) France feels threatened by the Muslims coming in, and want to integrate them, or get rid of them. So they strike out at the most obvious symbol of modern Islam: the headscarf. And in a token fairness measure throw in "large" crosses and skullcaps, but somehow I doubt teachers will be issued rulers to figure out which crosses are large and which are "normal".

The ironic thing about this is that Islam was originally extremely perceptive about symbols. They saw that there was this plane of symbols atop the world that people could get addicted to and live entirely on, and as their concept of God transcended any man-made world, said that no symbol was holy. And in general encouraged people to get away from symbols in general.

Today, however, this is more or less forgotten. Modern Islam has loads of holy symbols which they will fight (sometimes to the death) to protect. Everything from the length of the beards to the clothes one wears is dictated by what is holy and what is not.

So if Islam had not degenerated into the sorry state it's in today, they could shrug off the ban, mutter about persecution (and rightly so!), and keep going to school. But instead they are so attached to their symbols that they will go to great lengths to preserve them. Holy symbols.

To a great extent the vitality of a culture can probably be measured by two things: the dynamicness of their symbols, and the depth to which it is perceived that they are just symbols. Modern Islamic culture fails both tests. American and Western culture in general only fails the second: we have very dynamic symbols, but are constantly confusing them with the real thing (largely because of our advertising, which benefits from and perpetuates this confusion).

The French, for instance, have confused the symbol and the real thing: they want to get rid of Muslims, so they ban what has become the symbol of the Western world for Muslims. I do not think this is wise. Even at immigrant-level jobs Muslims make more money (especially in France) than they could in the Middle East, and aren't about to go back, even if they can't go to school. The more they feel persecuted the more they'll withdraw.

The only way they'll ever really be integrated is when they're co-opted. Which Western companies are already working on. Calvin Klein makes a hijab. L'Oreal also makes headgear. It's the classic pattern of Western integration: take whatever their culture offers, commodify it, then homogenize them.
12:52 PM