More Thoughts.

Well shit. Speak. More thoughts from this dude.

1. Which acoustic guitar riff do you think is better? The intro to Dispatch's "The General" or the intro to Jack Johnson's "Taylor"? Both are total gnar-dog riffs. To the max. 

2. How often do you think about the people you walk by on your way to class? That is, think about the random people you see everyday during your life. The people that you pass once in your life that you'll never see again. What kind of person do you think he or she would be if you actually stopped to meet him or her? What kinds of stories/experiences would you procure from meeting such a person? Would it be worth it?

3. And finally, how do you describe your relationships with others? Are you closed-off and boarded up from the rest of the world, only sharing with those who you feel pass the test of truthfulness after twenty years of knowing one person? Or do you share with others like it's your fucking job? 

   I constantly think about how I portray myself. It's human to be insecure in such a manner. It's a hard thing to relate to someone, and for someone to open him or herself up as well. It takes a lot to trust someone, no matter who he or she may be.

   I'm optimistic. I trust people very easily (as I stated in my last blog entry).  But I think my view of humanity is justified and worth it. Even if some do not believe so at first.

   We've all met shitty people. It's a known fact and this may seem like a tangent from my previous paragraph. But it's senseless to keep such little faith in people. As my last question was posed, why do we shut ourselves off? Why do we keep people out of our situation much like a bouncer keeps an 18-year-old guy like myself out of a club?

   Everyone is insecure and that's for good reason. Everyone has so many flaws that it's not even funny. We all possess negatives in our personality that we come off as shitty people, no matter how hard we try to skew it.

   We need to embrace these flaws. Let people know who you are: for the good and the bad.

   You're denying yourself life if you do not give someone (even a complete stranger) your absolute self. It's never a good thing getting a false-image of someone during the first meeting. It's real shitty, actually.

   Let yourself be free. Let yourself be free of imitation and share yourself with another person. It's alright. 

   I've never believed in shutting yourself off from the world. Maybe it's because I've met enough people who try to continue to do just this, but in the end it's not worth it.

   You never know who you'll meet in life. 

   It's always safe to not let anyone in, to not let a person get close to you. But how do you meet people if you do such a thing?

   I say live and give your life story. Sure, you'll get hurt. And sure, you'll find people who don't agree with your principles. But in the end, you took the risk and you let people have the honest-to-fucking-God image of yourself. And you can't disagree with that. 

   And this is how you find your closest friends. Risk it and let people in. Be ballsy and grow a pair. Who gives a shit? 

   The worst that can happen is you find someone that doesn't respect you, but do you really need that person influencing your life?

   Not at all.

   Be vulnerable and step off the edge. How do you know until you've given someone a shot? 

Thoughts.

Well...balls. That break went quick.

I haven't posted in here for awhile, but I have a few things to write about today to kick off the new year. A few things that I noticed during my break that particularly struck a cord while mind-numbingly staring at the cheap, retail-fashion-lined walls of Express. Well, at least for the four weeks they consistently employed me. 

1. "You're like a rain cloud if it rained mushroom clouds, everybody hit the ground." Ryan Adams is fucking brilliant. 

   I would just leave it at that, but I don't think such an abrupt conclusion would necessarily be enough to suggest how awesome Mr. Adams' music is. 

   First, I would like to thank you, Patrick Kouskouris, for mentioning such golden, musical honey to me in the first place. Your suggestion was MUCH appreciated. 

   I don't think I've been this excited for a new artist in a long time. That's not to say that Ryan Adams is new to the music scene (he's been releasing hit albums since the mid-1990s), but he's definitely a new name to me. 

   What excites me the most about Ryan Adams isn't necessarily his sound--well that's a lie, his sound is fantastic. But it's the way that he has a song for almost any sort of mood. He's versatile, a sort of amorphous figure in alternative rock/country, blues, folk, etc. (he's got way too many genres to qualify for).

   His album Love Is Hell sounds like A Rush of Blood to the Head b-sides, had the lyrics been written entirely by Thom Yorke. He provides melancholy and truth that's so cathartic you can feel depression running down your leg like piss. I want "The Shadowlands" to be played at my funeral.

   His other albums Rock N Roll and Cardinalogy rock your colon out your throat with plenty of steel-nosed guitar. And Easy Tiger is a throwback to what made Adams so popular in the first place: good, ole' fashioned alt-country music. 

   Check him out if you haven't done so already.

2. Has anyone ever noticed that Hugh Hefner is a modern day re-incarnation of F. Scott Fitzgerald?

3. I guess it took for a good friend to cut-up on me enough to make me realize that I don't actually hate Lil Wayne. Rather, I just can't listen to him for more than four of his songs (unless those songs appeared on the Birdman & Lil Wayne album. Or Lil Wayne appears on the track with another artist in general. It gives a nice Weezy dilution).

   So, there you go. I don't actually hate him. His voice and rhythm isn't the most pleasing to me, and I still can't stand how he can go from trying to shove every syllable into one bar to trying to sound like some codeine-induced version of Allen Ginsburg. 

   It's frustrating. 

   So I don't hate him. I just think he's way overrated. 

4. I'm ashamed to be a Big Ten fan. I hope to be so liquored up on Monday night that my beer jacket turns into a beer blanket and coats my eyes from another state-wide tragedy.

5. Finally, I have to disagree with your opinion, Pfef. Ignore my original comment on your blog post yesterday. 

   For those of you who didn't read my roommate's blog yesterday, he wrote on the relationships we keep between ourselves and members of the opposite sex and how he classifies certain types of women. 

   So, Pfef, neesh. 

   Relationships in general--on a romantic or friend level--are difficult. I'm sure everyone can agree with me there.

   Determining how people are going to act, what they're like, or what they essentially mean to you--even upon first meeting--is just as difficult to determine. Women are especially hard to "classify." And I'm sure that everyone can agree with me there.

   It's not possible to determine these "winners." No matter who the woman is, all are too complex to simply group into Pfef's original categories. You never know what a person has been through and you never know how one is going to act in a certain situation.

   I feel that everyone should be assured a certain type of respect. Even a simple "how do you do?" or general amiability works. I've seen women who appear to be perfect have issues and I've seen women who seem bitchy have so much more than the cutting sarcasm that defines them upon first meeting.

   You never know who you're going to meet in life. People are so different from one another. What makes one person tick might not make another tick. You never know who you're going to find yourself making friends with or getting close to. Every person out there has a voice and has something interesting to say. In order to ascertain what that person is about takes respect--that basic, unwavering respect. Sometimes, women (or men) haven't been shown enough of that respect in the past, so they act as if they have none. That's why it's important to give everyone at least one chance, even if for a brief second.

   Now that's not to say that method is perfect; it is definitely not. But it's more truthful than simply cornering women into titles that most certainly do not define them. 

   I've most certainly fucked up relationships and friendships in the past and I've got way too many apologies to deliver. I'm probably way too open of a person for my own good, I trust easily, I'm needy, and I worry from looking into something too much. 

   But I still stick by my method. It lets you determine who you want in your life and who you don't want in your life. And that's how you should group people.

   Give respect in order to get respect. Give respect and you might just get a good friend. Give respect and you might find your future boyfriend or girlfriend. Give respect. Much respeck.

Anyways, I hope that everyone had a great New Year's. For those of you who go to OU, I'll see ya soon.

This Column Is MSN Sports' Sloppy Seconds

I'm not about talking shit. I never have been and I never will be. I personally think that it looks poor upon the person speaking it and it can create hypocrisy if such "shit" ends up backfiring. Nobody likes backfiring shit. It's way too messy.

Well, such is the situation that ex-Dallas Stars' player Sean Avery finds himself in. 

In short, for those who do not know, Sean Avery finds himself without a team and a hefty fine from the NHL for trash-talking Calgary Flames's player Dion Phaneuf when he said that Phaneuf was getting his "sloppy seconds" by dating film starlett, Elisha Cuthbert. By calling a public press conference to throw out such low-ball comments, Avery effectively sealed his fate on the NHL's unemployed list and burned any rickety rope bridges that he still had with anyone in the league. Avery has been known to act-out in the past, and this latest stunt cost him his job.

Was such a press conference sleezy? You bet your balls it was. Should Phaneuf and Cuthbert feel offended by such comments? Yeah. Should Avery lose his job, get mega-fined by the NHL, and have every player, coach, and water boy look at him like a lepper in ancient Jerusalem? No, no, and no.

It's an understatement to say that this entire situation was blown out of whack. It's an understatement to also say that Sean Avery is simply a misunderstood hockey player, but I digress. I feel as if I am a minority here when I say that Avery should not have been fined nor should he have been kicked off his team. Both penalties are preposterous consequences for what I like to refer as "guy talk."

Look, what Avery said was pretty low, but can any guy honestly say that he has not said something publicly to a group of people along those same lines? If you can, then you're either a lying sack of crap or you're not human.

Unless you're dating the Virgin Mary herself, every guy is getting some other guy's sloppy seconds on some girl. It's a harsh and blunt way of stating that someone is receiving sex, a relationship, even a kiss from a girl who has already been with another guy, but it is nothing new to the worlds of relationships and humanity. 

Guys talk this way and I'm sure that many girls have similar conversations with their close girl friends. People, it's normal. Go ahead and explain your escapades or talk lowly about your ex's new d-bag boyfriend. It's alright. 

Jealousy is human. Trash talking is human. Disappointment at failed relationships is human. Perfection is not human and we should not hold people--even celebrities or athletes--to such standards, no matter how big of a twat-waffle he or she sounds. Shit happens, fuck-ups happen. Such is life.

Now I'm going to go get sloppy seconds on someone's quesadilla downstairs. Oops, probably shouldn't have published that.

Ryan Joseph: A Collection

I'm a firm believer in not writing an article--or pretty much anything--without having a substantial amount of your time, energy, emotion, and focus behind the desired product. Strong emotions--whether they are subjective or objective at final print--fuel all writers. I hate having to write on a gas tank half-empty and I hate looking half-assed.

So as such, I have nothing new to write today. Suck it up. 

However, for those of you who read my blog or have just stumbled across my link in my Facebook statuses because you have nothing better to do--you creepers--I have included articles from my senior year of high school published in Dublin Jerome High School's student magazine, The Verve. Included are various "Ryan's Rockin' Records" (I DID NOT choose the ridiculous column name) and other editorials from the '07-'08 school year. 

Love 'em, hate 'em, feel a sort of apathy or ambivalence towards them, I don't give a shit. I'm okay with being umimpressive. I sleep better.

(In order to view each article, click on a picture to enlarge each page)

College Football's Great European Awakening

I love the anarchy that occurs in the BCS year in and year out. It makes me so happy that something so dysfunctional continues to exist--and makes money. There's more drama in a college football season than on an entire season of "The Hills"--and that's saying something. The cries for a playoff in NCAA Division I football (or the "FBS" as it is referred to now) continue to pile-up from every yuppy blogger and hubristic sports journalist to even our own president-elect. The proposal to scrap the current bowl system in favor of an eight team play-off seems simple enough, right? A way to fairly determine college football's rightful champion of champions?

I say to hell with that idea. Let's really light this whole bag of shit on fire. Let's set up college football based on a ten-tiered league designed after my professional sports league of choice, the Barclays English Premier League, professional soccer's best league. 

Instead of using the polls to determine whom our eight team playoff will consist of, let's make instead ten divisions within the FBS of twelve teams. There will be no championships, the only games that matter are the regular season games that each team plays against the eleven other teams in its own division. If you finish in 11th or 12th place, you are relegated (or, in American terms, dropped) to the division below you. The team with the best record at the end of the day wins the championship in the top division. Teams finishing in first and second place in the lower divisions are then promoted to the division above them. The goal is to fight and stay in the top division or to work one's program up to that plateau. 

Scrap the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, SEC, Pac-10, Big 12 and whatever other mid-major conference consists within the current FBS realm. These divisions will be national, giving premier match-ups to the college football fan week in and week out.

For instance, a weekend could include such games in the top division like Georgia-USC, Ohio State-Texas, and Oklahoma-Florida. This is a college football fan's wet dream, the black tar heroin to the college football junkie. Weak non-conference schedules? That bullshit excuse can finally be thrown out.

What about money? What about rivalries? What about the American way of blowing things out of proportion and then making money off it?

I'm sorry to break it to you, folks, but the current system just isn't cutting it. A playoff would not solve anything either. And money can be made just as easily by promoting such high-profile match-ups. Hell, sell advertising rights on the damn jerseys. The NCAA does just about everything else now to blur the line between miserly capitalism and student athletics. 

And who needs a rivalry when you're fighting for survival every week? The drama of a rivalry is injected for each and every game, multiplied by ten.

The Europeans have it right when they design every league after a table system, letting the regular season determine the champion. It rewards the team that plays the best when it matters the most: the regular season.

Book of Chuck

Here's a quick hypertext link binge for all who enjoy basking in what I call the "Book of Chuck."

Does Chuck Klosterman's Opinion Really Matter?

Thom Yorke: Music-Industry Prophet?

A Brief History of the 21st Century

Enjoy.

All of these stories have been written by Chuck Klosterman and have appeared in various issues of Esquire.

Everything In Its Right Place

It's very, very weird how time just seems to fly by. It's a cliché saying, but it's unbelievably true. Just a second ago, it felt like I was just getting down to Athens, and now, within the next three weeks, I'll be leaving for a month and a half to aimlessly and methodically work my life away in my hometown. 

I think in the two months that I've been down here for my freshman quarter in Athens, I have written two papers for a grand total of two and a half pages (and all in Spanish). While I'm not necessarily celebrating my lack of writing on subjects that I'll more than likely forget, I really came into college thinking that I'd develop carpel tunnel by mid-October. As of November 2nd, my right hand is still working.

However, during my blog posts, I think I've spent three-fourths of my writing time listening to Radiohead in order to inspire each and every one of my posts. I don't know why I choose listening to Radiohead over, say, Jay-Z to write these posts (or any writing for that matter), but I feel there is something inherently embedded in Radiohead's work that translates to intellectual writing. It's sort of like Red Bull for the brain.

For most, it's hard to study--albeit write--while listening to music, but Radiohead possess this ethereal ability to tap into the deepest cavities of my writing lobe. Maybe it's the fact that Kid A listens like a concept album about human cloning and materialism, or OK Computer arouses thoughts of our society being completely run by computers. "Fitter, Happier" creeps me the hell out, but I'm sure that was Thom Yorke and co.'s intended idea about living, breathing technology.

For me, the best music isn't necessarily the music that gets you pumped up nor makes you mindlessly want to dance around and watch "The Hills" incessantly; the best music has substance, it inspires thoughts, ideas, and grandeur. Music with a message takes the medium to its desired heights: as a way of communicating ingenious ideas.

Chuck Klosterman has already hit on this, but I wanted to further it. Radiohead possess the aforementioned quality. They sound like an audible George Orwell novel (Hail to the Thief essentially is) and they help me to create my most studious work. 

As the end of "The Tourist" begins to unwind, I think it would be apt to stop. Because when Thom Yorke says, "idiot, slow down, slow down," I probably should.