Archive: March, 2009

I’m not a big fan of TV.

But Breaking Bad is something extraordinary. It’s the story of Walter White, an intelligent but conformist high school Chemistry teacher in Albuquerque. He’s got a teenage son with cerebral palsy and a second, unexpected baby on the way.

Mr. White collapses while at work. He’s taken to the hospital and learns that he has terminal lung cancer.

He is going to die.

So now Mr. White is confronted with an existential choice: How will he live the last year or so of his life? Will he continue his submissive, conformist lifestyle? Or will he step out into the real world where there are no true boundaries whatsoever?

He steps out. Mr. White starts cooking crystal meth with an accidental partner– an ex-student who is part slacker and part small-time drug dealer. He gets involved in the underworld. He buys a black hat.

Choices in life, however, are not black-and-white. He still retains his old self: his history, his family, his experience. Who he is cannot be pinned down, really. He is a personified version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Mr. White tells himself that he is cooking meth for the money; he needs to provide for his family after he is gone. But there is more to it. It seems like he really wants, for once in his life, to experience the dirt and grime that is reality. He wants to pursue an authentic existence in the real gray world so he “chooses life” just like Ewan McGregor did in Trainspotting; but that dude could look forward to living for decades, while Mr. White’s time is quickly running out.

This is the best thing I’ve seen on TV since The Sopranos. Stephen King says it’s the best-scripted TV show ever.

If you haven’t seen it yet, start with the seven episodes of Season 1. You can get them from iTunes or Amazon. I thought the first episode was a bit cliched. But I hung on and shortly I was seeing the remnants of dead gangster bodies dissolved in acid being flushed down the toilet, and with that my notion of this as cliched “normal” TV got flushed down too.

I like to do some intense cleaning every six months or so.

Clean things up. Decide what is worth keeping and put it in its place. And, most importantly, throw shit away. Or give it away. Or sell it on Craigslist.

Throwing stuff away sometimes comes back to haunt me months later when I realize it would be convenient to have the shit I threw away… but still I am happier to have erred on the side of minimal living. No George-Carlin-style ridiculousness for me.

Reinstalling

I do this when it comes to computers too. Every 6-12 months I must reinstall the fucking operating system, even though I use a relatively crap-free Mac.

Like with the house, the computers must be cleaned up. A fresh start must be made. The old programs that are no longer used must be dispensed with, not to be installed again.

This isn’t for disk space. Nor is the larger scheme of house-and-life cleaning for the freeing up of physical space. Rather, all of this is for mental space.

And As For The Marijuana…

Lately I’ve really come to appreciate this even more. That is because I’ve been smokin’ pot!

Not a lot of pot. I’ve tried it about 10 times. The last 5 or so times I actually got high. The first few times didn’t do it for me.

When I was high I was able to detach from the concepts I had built up in my mind. I could see the conceptual framework of my whole existence like an impartial third-party observer.

I realized that it is unhelpful to be attached (in the Buddhist sense of “attachment”) to this whole conceptual understanding I had built up. The concepts might not accord with reality. Or they might have outlived their usefulness. Either way, they gotta go.

Incidentally, I recommend smoking marijuana to anybody. Get high at least a few times. For me it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever pursued in my life.

Fuck Your Mind With A Chainsaw

That’s what I’m doing right now. “Fuck it with a chainsaw” is my mantra. A spring-cleaning of the concepts in my mind. Search and destroy the preconceptions and outdated notions. Reinstall my mental operating system.

Start anew with things fresh and clean. Just the OS and it runs fucking fast. No fucking mental DivX trialware that you can’t fucking uninstall. And I will add programs– those mental concepts– only as they are needed, and only in their most optimized form, compiled especially for my fucking mental hardware like fucking Gentoo.

A New Porsche Won’t Save You!

The shit will accumulate in your house and on your disk and in your mind no matter what. Much better to consciously and mindfully clean it up than to let it sneak up on you.

I think most people don’t do this and then their whole conceptual understanding of the world eventually becomes too much to bear… and then it crashes down in the form of a “midlife crisis” or mental breakdown.

So why not have a mental breakdown every six months or so– but on your own terms and in a way that you drive with direct, conscious effort??

You Can Try This At Home…

Tell your wife right now that you’re scheduling a mental breakdown for next weekend and you’re gonna get some 420 in the meantime… and that your YOU FUCKING ARE gonna also need about a gallon of PineSol and a fucking mop and a bucket and some rags and a set of OS installation disks.

I recommend you send the kids to a babysitter.

…in the back of the limo on prom nite. How special!

From Porn Pros:

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Pics after the jump…

Fish heads. Fish heads. Eat them up… yum.

No porn in this thang from 1979. It’s along the same lines as Charlie the Unicorn. Via the House of Alt. Enjoy:

“If we are here not to do what you and I wanna to do, and go forever crazy with it, then why the hell are we even here?!! DAAAA!!!”

For last few days I listen to Super Taranta!. Is from Gogol Bordello– that is hottest Gypsy punk band of… ummm…. 2007.

I am little late. Usual case. Trend train already left station. Arrived at fucking destination long ago while I fucking spend time fucking Tijuana whores.

Guys in band are genius. Totally existential. Confronting serious psychological and philosophical issue with smart analytical rational thinking.

And there even song of Grand Unification Theory. Will titillate your inner physics geek!

Is music that help navigate you the absurdities of stupid modern American life… with vodka and marinated herring!. In face of so much existential absurdity, what can possibly ask of art except that it be helpful?

They become with Silversun Pickups one of my favorite band. Check out performance with Postmodern Queen herself from 2007 (just first part of video). And also session on show of clueless David Letterman.

(I think Madonna performance is one best things I’ve seen in year… I remember Andrew Sullivan blog it many many times ago. I never knew who Gypsy dudes were until now, tho’.)

Ya’ know… if Cost Plus World Market sold nude girls among their fine inventory of cheap wine and laminated furniture, they would probably offer a girl like Putu here. She’d come with the pillow for $99. Special price for the recession. Satisfaction guaranteed or you can bring her back for a refund within 30 days– just hang on to your receipt and don’t get any cum stains on the pillow.

These hi-res photos are from Hegre-Art:

More hi-res photos after the jump…