Pointless Man

Almost any pie is awesome. The one galring exception may be mincemeat, which is roundly terrible, no matter the skill of the baker. Cake is another matter altogether, and don't believe anyone who claims otherwise.

It is hard to manage, hard to work for, and harder to avoid. Large and medium businesses, and government organizations of almost any size are rife with this sometimes necessary evil. So it is worth asking why a free-market capitalist or a libertarian might think government should be diminished if not demolished, but corporations and their ilk should be allowed free reign and expected to work towards the most efficient and common good. Ideals are fine, even when wrongheaded, but they need to be tempered by reality; they need to be held by people who can work within reason and be open to compromise. This is not just true of economics, but all political and social policy. Compromise is the way politics works over time. Even members of the US House of Representatives have to work with people who don't agree with them every now and then. This is something the Bush administration is just waking up to. It is this fact, the very actuality of which often keeps our more dedicated right and l...

I've written somewhat jokingly in other venues of aesthetic evil--a notion put forth in some philosophic circles, in David Bowie's Outside , and in the very notion of a 'clip artist'--something I've been thinking about applying to some extent, albeit in an amoral light, in a story about the disenchantment of a hitman with violence. So the idea that morals and aesthetics can be intertwined in complex ways is nothing new. It is often the case in fiction that evil, good, and the characters which represent them are, perhaps in melodramatic fashion, simplified and distilled to be viewed through a distorted 'less is more' sort of lens. When this is done poorly, we get the stereotypical, lowest-common-denominator sort of product we expect from summer blockbusters and best selling novels sold by the checkout lines of your local supermarket. But it is not out of necissity that such an aesthetic produces lackluster material. One might argue such an approach has result...

I posit, with regard to truth, propositions (which I assume to be synonous with statements, for our purposes) can be assigned the values: -true or false -determinate or inderterminate -undetermined A statement that is determinate is exclusively true or false. An indeterminate statement is neither true nor false. An undetermined statement may or may not be either true or false. It may also be possible for some or all propositions to be necessarily or accidentally underdetermined, such that they can possess all the aforementioned properties (to speak loosely and without reference to metaphysics), at least when treating the set of all possible (rational?) translations or translation schemes (assuming such a set may be actualized at once). The questions, then, are as follows. Can you think of any other possible values with respect to truth which may pertain to propositions? Do you agree with my above position? Any general thoughts? I know a few of you who sometimes peruse this site have an...

As hinted at in the television series of Barbershop --which is surprisingly funny in segments--if you like Coldplay , NoFX does not want to be associated with you , and, in fact, may have called for your death .

The item can be found here , if that's what you want.

Fancies himself an MC , and I'm cool with that. Ever since my boy Alexei got too busy with Blue Scholars , it's pretty much just been Devin who's tipped me to serious music within the super-genre of hip-hop. Now he's going to a Community College, a JC if you will, studying music and electronic production. This has upped his game a bit, and it makes me wish he would update his Soundclick profile a little more often. He plays beats and spits for people who drop by his basement domicile, but he doesn't share too much with the rest of the world. He's exploring music, which is exciting, for me as well as him. I like to watch people go through that creative process where not everything's already settled for them. Our mom complains that his material is too dark, and I gather she also finds it overly abstract. I guess the feel doesn't sit well with her for reasons beyond aesthetics. Not that there's anything to be done for it. Myself, I think this sort of t...

The immediacy of the Internet, along with its great mutability, instills a lack of perspective which results in many creative minds focusing on the ephemeral present without heed to longevity or staying power. What actually is right now , what will be shortly, and what has just transpired have the attention of the web, and rightfully so. Yet the fruits of this approach with what is current can leave one unaffected but a short while later. There is something to be said for the aesthetic of timelessness, the nigh universal, that which stretches beyond the pop-culture moment of who wore what to which award ceremony, what new video game is coming out as an exclusive for some system or other, or even how the President decided to use his State of the Union address last week. There is a way to ballance concern for the newest now with that of the yet to be, but it seems difficult to grasp in most mediums. Indeed, the Internet is really just another area in which this problem arises. 'Dated...

Loosely based on the painting by Tamara de Lempicka, tweaked in photoshop from a sketch done with Copic markers.

To the left are the second and third of a three page sequence preceding the 'ninjas' bit I showed you earlier from 'Death to Pretty Boy Groups'.I haven't quite been happy with what I've been able to do with the scans, especially for the third page, but whatever. I'm just happy to have them available to share at at all. Well, as you can see, PM is pretty amoral in his quest to eradicate evil. That's his goal here, you see. If I could get a fair scan of the first page, you might follow his reasoning, I suppose. In the meanwhile, you can always try to find out how he started this whole endeavor by going here . It will make you a better person, I swear. Every now and then, somebody asks me what I'm trying to accomplish with Pointless Man. This is when I know they don't get it. Well, for few of you who might actually be reading this, and more specifically for the hopefully smaller number amongst you struggling with the themes, values, and philosophy ...

This track is kinda long, and doesn't really do much. It's kind of plodding. More than the other three tunes I popped up on here, this really is just me messing around with something. Could probably stand some vocals, too. Anyway, if you're really bored, you can listen here .

There's something lyrical in the sound of wind and rain rushing through trees and brushing the pavement, like a language unto itself, now striking with furor, now gently persistent, falling off into ambient sounds of the city, an orchestra worthy of Brian Eno.

A kind of loungy ditty cooked up quickly in ze Garage Band program.

At the same time, it sort of moves past you too fast. I need me some excercise, some activity. Might take a walk. Walks are good. Once I get this lethargy out of my system, maybe I'll finally settle down to getting some more of my sketches up online. We'll see.