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this weekend totally blew my mind.
in every possible way.
absolutely and completely.

new orleans, post-katrina/flood, has got to be the most obvious,
blatant, offensive, indisputable example of this country’s neglect
of human rights since… slavery.
honestly, the photos i had seen. the articles i had read….
nothing articulated to me how fucked over
and ignored that city has been.
and the government KNOWS this and yet, 2 years later….
new orleans is NO safer than it was pre-katrina. in fact, it’s LESS safe.
no amount of political spin/propaganda can dispute these facts.
the same type of ineffective levees that buckled and left that
city under water are still there. some even more ineffective
and compromised now than they were before the flood.

it is SO hard for people to fathom this.
SO hard for people to look outside themselves.
fuck, i completely understand.
i am probably one of the worst offenders of
self absorbed act and thought.

but it’s time… it’s far past the time actually,
for human beings to be accountable
for the shit that happens in their communities, their country….
and the shit that their elected officials ALLOW to happen.
i mean, there was a fucking BATHTUB RING on these houses!…
80% of the city was SUBMERGED for WEEKS!….
entire neighborhoods were WASHED AWAY!…
these words are empty at articulating it… truly.
no amount of !!! and capital letters will do the job.
to think that people in the lower 9th ward went to
bed on the night of august 28th, and woke up to 100mph
of water, 18 feet high, washing them and their houses off their foundations.
all because the army corp of engineers, THE GOVERNMENT
ignored facts and built ineffective levees and pumps…
it’s just criminal. cut and dried.
this was not a natural disaster. this was never a natural disaster
this was a human error. this is a class issue. a poverty issue.
and this was completely avoidable.
and the grossest part, for sure, is not that it happened,
but that 2 years later, absolutely NOTHING
has been done to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

ugh..
now i’m preaching.

if i were a reader of this, i would have stopped
reading about 2 paragraphs ago and
thought, ‘damn matt… where’s the funny shit’?
‘where are the dick jokes?’
and look… there’s plenty of good shit that
happened this weekend. plenty of amazing musical
moments and personal moments and hilarious moments
that i want to share… and plenty of things i want to
tell you about how you can do to get involved. and help…
but i’m on a roll…
just trying to process and articulate all this shit…

how long until i forget what i saw.
how long until all this momentum i feel
surging through me, to be a part of the world around me,
dissipates and is replaced by everyday.
replaced by promotions for this new record.
replaced by me resuming my inexhaustible
search for attention and acceptance?
fuck. this was injustice. plain and simple.

how long until injustice for me goes back
to being bumped from a flight?
or overcharged on my cell phone bill?
that’s just what happens, right?
it’s really important… essential actually,
that it doesn’t happen this time.
i’m awake.
and i will try, with all my might, to not go back to sleep.

i think it’s a good travel omen that
i saw alan thicke in the united terminal at LAX today.
not that i need a good travel omen. but just in case.
i mean, has there ever been a better song of love and acceptance
than the theme song for “different stokes?”

or “the facts of life”?!! shit…
he’s like 30 minute televisions answer to the dali lama.
so many pearls of wisdom. and thread together in
such tasty theme song sound bites.

“well the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum
what might be right for you, may not be right for some…”

“you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both
and there you have the facts of life”

and what a renaissance man! the theme songs, the acting….
i bet he dances too. and crochets…
fuck, he’s probably a ninja.
you go, alan. you go.

on another note:
apparently, i have been flying united a lot lately.
i know this because this is the 4th time i’ve
watched ‘catch and release’ in so many weeks.
and let me tell you, 4 times is 4 times to many.

sure, i’ve been too lazy to plug in and listen to the dialogue.
but i figure i get the main story points,
without having to ever really commit.
it’s kind of a metaphor for my life, actually…. but anyway…
i’m sure i’m missing some of the nuances of the movie,
but come on, it’s jennifer garner!
from what i’ve been able to gather, she had someone die, her husband?
much crying and drama ensues. she finds out he had a girlfriend?
another wife? with a kid… more crying. some hi-jinx. then acceptance.
just like alan thicke sings about…
in the end, she is nursed back to health
by her goin’ nowhere fast-male posse.
which consists of kevin smith (who OD’s and is revived),
a guy who looks like my friend matt torrey and the pimp
from ‘the girl next door’… whom she eventually falls in love with.
ah, the strength of friendship. and the renewing power of budding love.
it warms me. truly does.

i really hope that i don’t get ‘the bridge to terabethia’ again on the flight home.
even though i can’t tell WHAT’S going on in that movie,
it makes me cry like a little bitch the other 4 times i’ve seen it.

oh yeah, saw spoon play last night.
they were sort of light on connection with the audience,
but maybe that’s the way the hipsters like it.
so, not much to watch, but still a very good time.
after this journal, i’m thinking maybe they should
start projecting jennifer garner and drew barrymore
movies on the wall behind them during their show, and be the soundtrack.
that would actually totally rule…
my in-flight experience broken open and taken to it’s creative apex!
it would be like, an ADD person’s dream.
a short attention span super concert.
back in the grunge era, i saw neurosis in seattle.
they had footage of concentration camps and
bull dozing bodies projected behind them.
but they’re really angry. and they wear a lot of black.
my idea would be more upbeat. less danzig, more wiggles.
maybe i should pitch it to alan thicke’s people?
i’d totally go to that show!
‘fact’s of life’ reruns, and alan singing
the theme songs that made him famous.

i have now rambled too much…

next stop, new orleans.

so….
first off, i saw spiderman 3 last night.
and it ate a big bag of river rock sized shit pebbles.
yuck! terrible!
i can’t believe they actually spent money on that movie
without ever reading the script.
it was like everybody involved lost a bet or something…
the only redeeming part for me was how hot
ron howard’s daughter was.
i think her name is magic. or perfect. or hurricane or something…
ugh, she was devastatingly foxy.
i have no idea if she can act or not. but she did make me want
to kick myself in the balls over and over.
is that acting?
oh ron howard’s daughter, you wicked temptress…
how you slay me. AND you save me from awful musical/dance
numbers that happen in my superhero movies.

next up…
i think i have a man crush on ‘the dog whisperer’.
please tell me you’ve seen his show?
he’s totally the dr. phil of dogs. it’s crazy!
i know. i know.
but i think it’s his quiet power. his iron cool, that intrigue me.
he just NEVER gets flustered! and he never gets stuck
for an answer, no matter how complex the canine dilemma
put in front of him.
plus, he’s latin.
and i’m pretty sure that in some other dimension, i too am latin.
so… like attracts like.
sure, there have been man crushes in the past.
benicio del toro, johnny depp, johnny knoxville….
but those were more like: ‘i want to BE them.’
this one’s more like: ‘i just want to sit in a room and listen to

him talk and be soothed.’
imagine if he and ron howard’s daughter cross pollinated?!
holy shit, that would be nutty!
i don’t know how the world would stand a chance.
that would be like an atom bomb of perfect baby-ness!

finally, on a food note:
i was thinking about this recently…
if there was a contest for which type of cheese was the best cheese,
i think goat should win, hands down. no debate.
on apples, crackers, in omelets, on hamburgers, in salads.
it just doesn’t get any more perfect than goat cheese.
am i right? so creamy!
in fact, i’d go so far as to say that if the dog whisperer and
ron howard’s daughter ever did find themselves “with child,”
i would lobby hard that he or she be named ‘goat cheese’,
cause in my mind, that baby would occupy, like, the same place
in human greatness as goat cheese does in cheese greatness.
ah!, could you imagine…

then maybe chris martin’s kid, ‘apple’ could become friends
with ‘goat cheese’… cause that, my friends, is destiny.