Marathon: Ignore The Overdraft Charges, They're Useless Anyway (6 of 13)

This Marathon song, Gouge 'Em Out, They're Useless Anyway is about what we put into the earth, how we poison it and how incredibly short-sighted that is, given that we're doing damage to the thing that keeps our shaky proposition up, and because the incredible demand for more more more now now now wreaks havoc on this planet that has supported life for eons.

Fair point: I don't know that much about ecology except that it makes sense that we're poisoning the earth by putting exhaust into the atmosphere.

So, like in Home Is Where the Books Are, I'm going to cheat a little bit. There is a deadline hanging over my head, I'm well caffeinated, so I'm going to riff on this idea of my body being the earth and the terrible things I do to myself and my terrible personal upkeep.

Hungry and not thinking straight, I just walked upwards of six blocks to buy a bottled Frappuccino from 7-11, drank it immediately, only to remember that there was CVS a block away from my original destination, that had the same item for cheaper.

The CVS itself is a quarter of a block down from a Dunkin Donuts, one that I've been patronizing more and more, because I go to the destination more and more often to get work done, but ends up being more "being on the internet" time. The work's easy enough that I can get it done in maybe a quarter of the time. I bought two more of the Frappuccinos, I would drink another one when I settle down on the laptop and I squirrel away the third in my bag. I throw in some Honey Nut Chex Mix, to remind me, again, of friends far away.

I had lunch four hours since and in between, nothing to eat.

Our progress is regressing quickly...

I leave the sterile CVS and head back to the campus center, head immediately to the basement, where the student lounge is and I ended up writing the first part of this. With headphones on the entire time. I mean, at least I'm not in my house, but I'm doing the whole reclusive writer thing again. And that shit's old meme (link possibly NSFW, FYI). Did I learn a goddamn thing? It appears not.

Aside from the fact that I'm reminded again, I'm like the human beings myopically poisoning the planet, shoving two caffeinated drinks in my body without something solid to help digest the caffeine, then wondering why an hour later I'm dried out and my stomach is angry with me.

A strange thing, though. There's Starcraft 2 news all over the tubes (speaking of old memes) this week and yes, it's possible to get the beta codes, but I'm not mourning every minute that I'm not playing the game. Years ago, I would have stopped at nothing to get one of those beta codes, but now? I'm zen. I'll buy it early when it comes out. I hope this is growing up. Man, because if it's not, I'm sleeping on Starcraft 2.

Can my computer even run it? I can't tell.

But I need it. Or I think I do. I will need to consume it because it is the sequel to Starcraft and that it is something else to consume and poison my time with.

Wait. Did I just get back to the point of the entry? I think I did. Of the things I could spend my time with, there is a GRE study book to my immediate right, I would spend it on Starcraft 2, a pastime that while not bad, does not have any meaningful positive net effects further down the line. And that's how I'm short-sighted.

That's how I connect to the song, these days, in my bad decisions that do not retain foresight. I'm walking, happily into the poison of my own laziness and if I keep it up, I'll deserve every listless night I spend sunken into it and every day or two it takes to get me out of that rut, paid for with my sweat or with my credit card.

Let this be my memorial to the things I do when I don't pay attention.

Marathon: Home Is Where The Books Are (5 of 13)

Fifth in the Marathon series. Fifth on the record. It's been a long time since Scalped #35, and while I'd say I have something for you all soon, I can't think of anything coming up in the pipeline except number six, which I'm not exactly jumping to write at this very moment.

(Of course this means I will probably find something that tickles the Eleven Names bud soon, but expect nothing.)

Oh. Station identification time. In May, we'll be completely down, as Blogger stops supporting the hardware behind Eleven Names because we're very obtuse in how we update. And, since Zach is in charge of the changeover, well, strike out June as well. Just in case.

Here's to life.

Number five, Home Is Where the Van Is, is about how scattered home is and not feeling comfortable in the suburbs or city, but living the spartan life of a touring artist, in a van. I know the feeling intimately. Well, at least one of those feelings. During my first draft, I jotted down these ideas before heading on a 4 hour trip to see my friend. I woke up once or twice in an antechamber to his house over the last decade and I always woke up feeling safe. Like I was home.

Keep in mind: Most days when I wake up, I don't have that particular safe feeling. I just have that feeling of "Oh, I'm up and I need to do things and the work is never done." It's not an obvious safe feeling so much as I do not expect violence or arguments to befall me as soon as I wake up. My first thought was being in somewhere familiar. My second thought was that I recognized where I was. And the third thought, completing the two was that I was safe. I could not be found by the demons in my life.

That feeling has always been home, where my doubts/fears can't find me.

What's great is that using the description of waking up in a friend's antechamber is that the feeling has happened twice, with two people I love to death. Life is good. But this doesn't mean anything for the place I reside.

Home as Allegheny is a different story. I returned to see Zach Marx and Thomas Carlyle, but Tom was in Pittsburgh, so we'll stick with Allegheny and Zach. I completely spaced on actually getting him to do some Eleven Names content, even if it was just voice and just about comic books and Blackest Night, since that's an easy topic of conversation. Just something, because that feeling of being together as part of a whole or a group towards a common goal is addictive and positive.

Home as Allegheny is different. This year, there is a cipher for an old nemesis of mine, whom among other things, is convinced that the BIble is the inerrant word of God. It's categorically inaccurate, but I didn't say anything. Mostly, home as Allegheny is based around the trinity of Zach, James and somewhere to sleep. (James wasn't around for much of the time I was at Allegheny, so the trinity wasn't entirely complete.) This time, I woke up safe on Zach's couch, then in James' bed (sorry!). Of course, I didn't end up getting that much sleep thanks to drinking and then early plans in the morning both days. Suddenly, I'll sleep when I'm dead carries more weight.

To the extent that I spent time with Zach and the fellow students, it felt immediately familiar and unchallenging, by which I mean nothing to prove. What (if anything) I have to keep up is more coherent and felt looser as opposed to tighter.

It's like playing a song on Rock Band on Hard, rather than Expert, basically. What I mean is that playing the song is less-twitch-and-you'll-miss-based. It allows for a little more expression and theatrics with the guitar controller while allowing you to interact with the other players. In this case, it just means I'm comfortable with the person I made myself into at Allegheny, though within that identity, there's still room for experimentation and ignoring what didn't work back when I was still trying to work and graduate.

Allegheny's more comfortable than it was before, a little bit because I don't have to work, but it only felt like home when I was playing Kings extremely drunk and explaining, loudly, that the point of the game is to facilitate embarrassment. Okay, I didn't use those two words specifically, but I'd been drinking.

Pittsburgh is a different story entirely and almost certainly a focus for later blogs. I am blessed with accomodating exes. Thomas Carslyle and another Tom were far too kind to me, inviting me to go dance, driving me home when I was drunk. As for the song this is attached to, I currently know the feeling of lying to my parents about how I'm doing. "If you see my mom, please don't tell her I don't have a home. Just tell her I'm a lightning bolt."

I guess home is evolution and growth with a sprinkling of safety. And if I'm not growing, or trying new things, then I'm not really home. I'm just waiting for something to happen to me somewhere comfortable.

Home as the United States is another thing. We've got the usual suspects of the conservative movement/Republican Party trying to whip up unfocused, ultranationalist bigotry into just enough of a frenzy that they'll be re-elected without pausing to look at anything. Growing up, there was always partisan sniping, but nothing this bad. I don't recognize this country, sometimes. Some of the liberals, though, are insufferable and callous and I don't want to discount that, but I don't remember anyone showing off loaded weapons to a presidential rally where they disagreed with the president.

Are pictures of Bush and Cheney around Christian images, twisted with Exxon Mobil, KBR or Haliburton equivalent to magic negro tapes and images of watermelon patches outside the White House? The Tea Parties seem to have no problem calling Obama Hitler, which I'm strangely sanguine about. God knows Bush was called that, so while I guess that's now part of the national debate, it means it's another feature of this country I don't recognize. I worry, at least on the outskirts of my mind about false equivalence. On the one hand, Bush threw people in an extra-legal gulag outside of terrestrial jurisdiction, started a war on false pretenses and said that anyone who disagreed with him was unpatriotic. Obama, on the other hand, has trouble closing said prison and wants to keep some of Bush-era wiretaps going. Not exactly the same.

To get bak to the people flinging anti-government rhetoric around now: I remember all those Freep-ers kneeling and kissing George Bush's ring when he was expanding government, throwing people in Guantanamo Bay for the crime of other people's bigotry, so hearing they're up for big social change is something I view with skepticism. I remember all those Freep-ers who were perfectly down with running the moderates out of the party, then wondering aloud what's going on and why the Republican tent is folding in on itself.

I'm okay with debate. I'm okay with getting angry, but the bigotry and disdain for logic is something that I don't recognize. Clinton at least got shit done with Congressional Republicans, but it seems like the posturing has become more important than doing the job. I don't recognize this political culture as home. I recognize it as painfully off-center, like a top long since winding out of a tight orbit. Eventually it's going to crash and somehow, I just don't see the end in sight. I'm convinced this is a rough patch in our political history, magnified with the glass of the first black president.

This as home, man? No. It's something familiar, almost comfortable, but twisted. I understand the contours of the discourse, but something sits wrong. Water and vodka are both clear liquids, but they weigh differently on me. Same idea here. Kenickie as performed by the Pussycat Dolls is what this political climate feels like. And somehow, it doesn't frighten me too much. To tie this back to the song, somehow, the political climate is something I rest in that could explode any minute. I have a frightening amount of comfort sleeping on a mattress filled with gasoline. I just hope I'm not near any lightning bolts.

December Wolves/Marathon: This Is Probably About You (4 of 13)

Fourth in the Marathon series. Fourth on the record. This one and Jolly Roger hit a little too close to home, so I usually ended up skipping them, which was a mistake. The song, Don't Ask If This Is About You, is about the narrator going to a party, looking for a night or two of physical intimacy to get him through a rough period in his life.

Sound familiar?

Additionally, I'm way behind on December Wolves. Again. But, I got a kick in my ass in the form of an email and this came out of it. Number five, based on Home Is Where The Van Is, should be much easier, but then again, I said that about number four and it took me the better part of two months to come up with what's in front of you.

I guess I thought I'd write this about ex-girlfriends. Somehow, getting all of those emotions off my chest again I think would be easier. I have to admit things I've admitted before. But now, I just have to admit I'm an interloper at a college where I'm taking a class. Christ. I'm going to a nominally Catholic school and taking His name in vain there seemed appropriate. I have to admit that my plans aren't coming together quite as nicely as I'd like and I...I've...

I've checked out of college.

So, what am I doing going to the anime organization and thinking about hitting on these girls? I don't know if I've really checked out. I'd like to say I have, but it's not all that clear. I would like my life to be comfortable and one of those ways is college. But I feel skeezy, and even when I contribute something to that club, I still feel like a lecher, like it's their thing and I'm shoehorning myself into it.

I know what I need is a relationship and what I want, which is closer to my grasp, so I believe, is physical contact period. It's what I see in Don't Ask If This Is About You. There's a line, "sorry, I don't mean to be so old and drunk." It sums up perfectly my self-loathing feelings hanging around the kids I don't know watching anime. In short, the creepy old man.

I don't want to get too fatalistic, though. It might confirm a couple popular theories about me, spread by girls I have been linked with. I have nothing to prove to any of them. Not a single sexual partner. I have tried and failed. I have slept alone and I have slept with them. I've been scared of at least one and I've never woke up so refreshed when I opened my eyes and saw another one was still there.

And yes, while I'm coming close to a line, I'll say this: There will be no regurgitating of private, privileged information here. My feelings, though, are fair game. Theirs, less so. Less tellingly, if you want "the stories", you can go look for the entry where I am so paranoid, I see my ex-girlfriend's concern about me and dexterity with navigating gossip as the Russian mercenaries patrolling the newly captured Big Shell in Metal Gear Solid 2.

Shit gets unreal.

But where I'm breaking from the song is this: I'm willing to wait. I'm not taking anyone out I don't want to. There was a year (this one) where I looked for a year of "just getting me by" romantically. It didn't work. I was so fucking stupid. I a) didn't get laid that often and even if I did, b) it just reinforced how much sex and feelings are mixed up for me. I felt like an outsider in the anime group even when I was legitimately trying to be a part of it without the onus of boning.

I wanted someone to hold me to get me through. I was looking for that "just" moment. Maybe I'm being overly critical of myself. It wouldn't be the first time, certainly. But in "looking for someone to touch tonight", I allowed myself to disbelieve what a wise Italian woman told me. I let people down. I don't want to be leant a blanket by anyone I don't want to sleep with for months to come. I'll be alright. I can hold myself.

I have my own parallels. Specifically, Daredevil. He got fed up with corruption in NYC, pushed all his friends away, fought off 100 Yakuza stooges for three minutes until the FBI arrived and then he disappeared. His soon to be wife left him, serving him with an annulment and his life spiraled even further out of control. Black Widow (attractive Russian secret agent lady, redhead) showed up in his house, because her cover got broken and despite the near constant flirting from her, they didn't have sex. Why? He hadn't signed the annulment yet and he didn't ask his girlfriend to marry him under false pretenses.

If you're willing to swallow the pill of monogamy intellectually (which you don't have to), that kind of decision and control takes backbone. If not, well, you've probably stopped reading a while ago. I hope I can face the future with that kind of commitment and resolve. I'll let the future come when I wake up. But for now, no one's holding me when I sleep and the difference between 2009 and now is I'm choosing it this way. Breathe in. Breathe out. Survive. Now, to grit my teeth and make it through the year. Alternatively: Be awesome.

I think I'll choose awesome.

Marathon: Pernicious Parting Gifts (3 of 13)

I finally think I have somewhere to go with this one. I was reading a thread on Facebook that grew out of a bunch of ex-Eleven Names (Thomas, Cathleen) people talking about how, looking back, Disney movies were steeped in some pretty backward and scary thinking. The heroes, looking back, aren't so heroic and have been lionized in a way that obscures what they're doing.

The villains, more and more, start to look like they're the ones being wronged. The princesses have less and less control and are acting in ways that aren't so rebellious. And while I feel mad snarky (can I copyright that phrase?) watching the same people talk about "society" who criticize me listening to punk rock, I feel like..maybe Disney's the one getting the bum rap here.

Maybe we're putting too much on the back of something that's designed to give youngsters a primer on how to act in the culture we've created.

Also, I used the word youngsters. I'm proud of myself.

Then again, this kind of stuff is pernicious precisely because it comes under the radar and because it gets passed off as reasonable and normal. It's only by looking into it that we see what's going on under the surface. And it's that questioning that leads me to track three on the Marathon record, Some Lovely Parting Gifts, a song about all the lies taught as lessons to us, which lead to bad ways of thinking. All the things that taught us to think straight, of which Disney had to be one.




First, I'm not sure what I took from the Disney movies I saw as a child. I was influenced by other things also. I was influenced by books, video games and other movies, I think. So my learning doesn't stop with them. Im also unclear on the idea that kids took anything more from Disney than "other people say these things are good, so do good things," which is a lesson that's significantly larger than Disney.

That said, there's a good chance a number of early Disney movies are trojan horses bringing in other ideas with them that we don't recognize.

All of that says, those are still the tools that taught us to "think" straight. What did we win as a result of playing Disney's game?

And, is it fair or reasonable to ask Disney to create something that's meant to inspire people to do more when they're younger than 14? If, after you saw some Disney programming, did you as a child continue to absorb media? Books? Movies? Games? Did you fling yourself down that path as a result of seeing something there? I can only speak for myself, and while I don't remember Disney movies well, I know I watched a couple and I took a lot from them. Is it because I'm white, male and straight? Possibly? I don't know.

This begs the question: What did you (or I) do after we consumed Disney media? Did seeing Disney media lead you to consume more and more media until you learned things were not as pretty as they seemed? In other words: Did a Disney film or TV show foster a life-long love for things that have expanded your mind? Do they get credit for that? Do they deserve credit (for better or worse) for beyond that? Perhaps not, but that doesn't absolve them of the responsibilitiy to write something that's centered more carefully now. A lot of their now "classic" material was written sixty or seventy years ago so it's long since time to write different stories, more inclusive ones.

We grow, I think, when we're brought face to face with what came before and realized how far it is from what we believed. We change. We see more things. Those are the powerful moments in our lives, I think. It's only when we look into the mirror and realize, with horror the things that lurk behind what we took for granted that we grow.

We learn more sophisticated lessons as we get older. Life gets complicated and messy.

I don't want to say Disney is a necessary evil. But if it wasn't called Disney, it'd be called something else and be close enough to the same thing: Teaching kids the wrong right ways to go about living their lives.



In Some Lovely Parting Gifts, the focus is on the instruction of students and classrooms.

Disney is emblematic of the stains left on our psyches from childhood. They're a cheap tool to help kids make sense of the world around them. These tools leave impressions that looking at the Disney princesses reveal. We learn that the world is vast and frightening. In those moments of realization, we reach out for something. The song itself finds a kid running into a broom closet with words he's supposed memorize. I infer that to mean that he recognizes something is Very Wrong, but can't vocalize quite what it is yet.

Black mortarboard, a wooden ruler, and papers marked with A's The tools that taught me to think straight
In some schools, thinking the right way is done with carrots. In others, it's done with sticks. The A's, for thinking the same way as the teacher are the carrots. The wooden ruler (used in Catholic schools to beat pupils) are the sticks. Disney is a carrot. Cool things happen to people that do "good" actions.

We learn from Disney's instruction how to behave on a basic level. Some of these behavior patterns are unhealthy. Many of the lessons are suspect. But we get rewarded for them all the same. Our reward doesn't come in confetti falling and a game show host, but the rewards come all the same. Sometimes, it's getting into a conversation with someone that you have no affiliation with otherwise. It's a "oh, you watched Disney movies as a kid, too?"

Disney might be one of the grinning showmen in the center of Some Lovely Parting Gifts, the man who'se eyes we ought to watch. Are the eyes twinkling? If they are, do we even know what that means?


Remember when I talked about other things in the culture that surrounds us reinforcing what we've learned from Disney? Marathon has a line about that, too. Letters validate the tests numbers to see who'se the best.

To go pop culture on you: Twilight's a book series where the main character is being stalked by someone who is literally hundreds of years older than her and hangs around a high school. And this is romantic and not worthy of a restraining order and To Catch A Predator. Frankly, I view this is a particularly post-Disney story. If you want a story that justifies this kind of fantastical romance, look at Beauty and the Beast. The Beast is a semi-abusive misanthrope, to use Thomas' words.

The two stories share a basic premise: An innocent woman gets caught in the spell of a potential lover that while perhaps honestly loving her exhibits characteristics that have the potential for violent, non-proportionate response to "things that could make them angry."

Beast's behavior is being smoothed over by larger social forces calling it part of love. While the concern and desire to care for the partner may be authentic, the potential for spousal abuse remains and it's whitewashed.

We grow and we learn. In both cases, (whether it's the Facebook comment tree or Some Lovely Parting Gifts OR re-viewing Twilight or Disney) there's a bit of the horror of realization. I'm not sure I'm horrified. I just knew this before.

Strangely enough, I'm left with an appropriate pithy parting sentence: What's old is new.

Marathon: I Don't Have A D&D Problem (2 of 13)

Here is #2 in the 13 part series. You can listen to I Don't Have A Dancing Problem here. It's been a while since the last one, but life interferes.

I Don't Have A Dancing Problem is the song, and it's a midtempo song that usually picks up for the chorus ("fuck this, I'm going dancing") about doing something you enjoy despite what other people may see, say and think.


This song is about dancing and the thrill of letting go for a couple hours. The closest parallel I have is Dungeons and Dragons.

Both of them are done usually in low-light with some pretense of keeping it quiet, since the disapproving eyes are everywhere, if they knew what you were doing, as if there's better things to do. Much of person to person dancing, as I hear secondhand, is about the improvisation of two people, physically. D&D is also about improvisation, but it's mental. It's all held together by the Dungeon Master, but it's done in concert with the other actors (the other people at the table.)

The similarities...well, there's been days when I've lived for the end of the classes or beginning of the night when I'd get to play, throw dice and inhabit a world of the DM's making. It got to the point where I was doing my character sheet in a blacked out room with the lights off during one of my science classes.


From there, it spiraled. I'd do it in my spare time, between going to punk rock shows, writing for the other websites in my life and eventually it became a central part of my socializing activities. The hook was simple, I and a group of people I knew helped flesh out the DM's imagination and become entwined in the story he (and once, she) wanted to tell.

I began to mark my weekdays not by how close they were to weekends, but their proximity to D&D games. Unlike weekends, which had the unfortunate side effect of happening in a life that I had to put up with every day, the hours which I played D&D were a glorious escape into our rich fantasy lives. It's the fact that this is not a one-person thing, but something shared which makes it special. Yes, I can exist in a fiction, but when it's shared by a group, it makes it more precious.

(Yes, rich fantasy lives. This was last edited a month ago. A ghost in the machine, or memorializing its exorcism? Even I don't know.)

D&D was/is my escape, a covenant with strangers and their personas which may or may not be like the people outside the floor or table. They're both noisy social activities that are hard to coordinate for large groups of people.

"I'm not down with twelve steps unless you're showing me new moves," Aaron sings in the middle of the song, and I agree with him. There's a huge social stigma around D&D and it's one of those things that people have asked "Really really?" and I say yes. For better or for worse, I'm resistant to the view of Dungeons and Dragons as something that is supposed to ruin me. I don't want to get better or do more grownup things, like get drunk in public and hoot around women.

I tried my hardest to tell my parents that if they were going to get magazines at about 1/3rd the cost, I'd like to add Fast Company and GQ to the list and I couldn't do it with a straight face. (I opted for Wired and Mother Jones instead.) I'm not growing out of this.

I don't think I'm going for anyone's idea of a normal life. D&D is a symptom of this decision, but I've been strung up for all my life and now I finally feel relaxed in it. Whatever I make of my life next is my own work, leaving my fingerprint, my way.




















Let's roll the dice.

Marathon: The Numbers Game (1 of 13)

I teased the possibility of a series of blogs inspired by Marathon's self-titled record early last month and finally, I have the first of thirteen installments ready for consumption. I've been wondering how to start off the feature and I drew up a couple weak outlines for things that kind of fit the bill, but didn't really ring as closely to the sound of the first song, "Painting By Numbers" as I wanted it to.

Painting By Numbers is a fast number about the money paid for the war in Iraq, with references to the choices made in our pocketbooks and timepieces. "We hold the purse/we hold the reigns/We can deny these spoiled kids their next allowance/but when they start shoving around/like bullies in a playground/we shake our pockets for more change" is the image that stuck out to me, but I couldn't find something that fit it, until three days ago, when I stumbled upon the story of the USS New York. It's a battleship made out of the metal from the attacked World Trade Center, who'se assignment is "terrorist hunting" duties. A picture of the battleship is below.

My knee jerk reaction was that I was incredibly depressed and only after I wrote out my thoughts as to why elsewhere did the parallel for the feature make sense. So. Below is my perspective on the USS New York and how it fits into Marathon's Painting By Numbers.







1) Battleships were designed for ship to ship combat, but since have become prominent in shelling land targets close to the shore. Seeing as naval terrorism is not really used by Al-Qai'da, except against the USS Cole, but that was while it was docked, I don't see the battleship actually going on terrorist hunting missions except to fire off a cruise missile from thousands of miles away.


2) The U.S. response to the attack on New York (from which the metal comes) was to blast Tora Bora back into the Stone Age and then to invade Iraq, causing massive casualties for innocent Iraqis, thousands of American troops dead and those that are still alive suffering from PTSD or lost limbs. In short, the response was wasteful, expensive and in a direction away from the threat. The people who orchestrated the attack are still at large and the only winner were the gigantic defense firms who, with public funding (because the Rumsfeld-era Department Of Defense contracted out just about everything they could) made tons of money making weapons for Americans to use on Iraqis.

They also made money, get this, from the reconstruction of Iraq, since another part of Haliburton and KBR is in disaster management. Shit went bad, and whenever anything blew up or went wrong, they billed the government for it, cost plus. If you're thinking well, Iraq was a fluke because of mitigating factor X, they were also the groups in charge of reconstructing New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

So. With the tax dollars given to the defense department, Haliburton and KBR made money three times. First on making the weapons (bought with taxpayer money), second on billing for "defective" equipment (bought with taxpayer money) and third on rebuilding what the weapons had blown up (bought with taxpayer money).

Now with more taxpayer money, the metal is being used in a symbolic rebirth. Great.


3) 40+ years after a retiring president (who was also one of only two five-star generals) warned us about the dangers of a military industrial complex, I see this battleship, called the USS New York as the singular feather in the cap of that same complex.

Why? Because pieces of a shared traumatic experience of the country are being melted down and being used to make a ship which will never fulfill its stated purpose, but instead, go around, at taxpayer expense, protecting the seas (something which hasn't been used in warfare and probably isn't used anymore except as a nebulous place to store nuclear weapons on submarines) as a colossal waste of money, which coincidentally makes money for those same profiteers that were invited in by another President.

Instead of being used for something positive and inclusive, the metal is being used for something wasteful, hollow and ultimately putting more money in the pockets of war profiteers at the expense of the people who were affected by the attack. But there's symmetry: Our response to 9/11 was wasteful, expensive and not addressing the threat so it should make sense that the products from that attack are used for something just was wasteful, expensive and wrongheaded.

And this money comes out of our tax dollars. And this money was allowed, after a fashion, by us. We pass the buck off to the government. I know I did. I trusted George W. Bush. But it's not just trusting Bush in 2003 and 2004. It's in not calling my senator, representative or even getting involved in a meaningful anti-war effort.

It doesn't have to be a bake sale for Amnesty International or putting on a mask and going to a protest, but my shame and culpability comes from something easy: it was as simple as not asking myself the most basic question when I can't get to the bottom of a problem: Who profits?

It's in seeing something my government does, not liking it and figuring well, no one's gonna change it (and I'm powerless to change it), so sitting back and watching clips from the Daily Show to keep myself righteously angry when I'm sitting on my couch at home, tired and not wanting to put in the energy to fight something else. It's that assumption.

The call from President Eisenhower, a man who was at the top of the military food chain before becoming the President of the United States was simple: Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Painting By Numbers answers that call. It's sarcastic, humorous and compels, or tries at least, to get the listener to understand that the military fights with our dollars and it's up to us to reign it in by taking nothing for granted (actual quote from that same Eisenhower speech) and using the levers of power and influence we have access to. Ugh. That assumption that I can't change what's going on is part of a self-fulfilling prophecy that odds are, is counted on by the military-industrial complex I say I can't stand.

There's a numbers game and it goes on in the pocketbooks of Congresspeople, and I'm not going to deny that. I'm going to lose that numbers game, always. I acknowledge that, but that's not the only game in town. Maybe there's another citywide organization that's doing something that I can join or add to.

Some people can be bought off, some can't, but the civil rights movement wouldn't have happened if everyone sat at their TVs and waited for the perfect opportunity to present itself. It wasn't all marches on Selma. It was getting together with seven or eight or other people and figuring out how and where to protest effectively between flashpoints.

It's up to us and Painting By Numbers reminds the listener of that drain on their account that they somehow forget about. The reigns are in our hands. We just have to pull back.