Before Sex month goes away, here's a final music video post. Lykke Li is raw, sexy, and addresses it all head on with some pretty damn straight-forward lyrics and jarring visuals in this video:
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The One That Got Away (and the Worms Ate into his Brain)
If you're a romantic at heart put your hands in the air! If you've had a major crush on someone put your hands in the air! If you've built that person up way too much in your head that you've become so uncomfortable and insecure around them that you sabotage yourself from any successful or rational relationship with that person put your hands in the air!
Because I'm an expert on overthinking and overthinking to the point that I lose touch with reality, I figured I'd go into the great self-deprecating head trap that is the one-way relationship. To define simply, this is a relationship you have with someone else, except that someone else is completely in your head. The person in your head could be made up, or, more often than not, this person is based on a real live person you know of or even interact with on regular basis. But the main distinction of this one-way relationship is that no matter how real this person in your head seems to you, at the end of the day, they will simply be a figure of your imagination.
This kind of relationship is inevitable and basically essential to all types of relationships in that you simply cannot possibly be interacting with another person for every waking second of the day, so when you both are separate from each other you need an image of this person to occupy your mind and keep in tact everything you know about them. This can be said about really anything you interact with and then maintain an idea of in your head, even your own face, since you (presumably) aren't able to constantly see what you look like.
Maintaining accurate versions of these images and ideas in your head that are as close to their real-life counterparts as possible is essential in not letting the images take over how you think or act with regard to them, especially when it comes to your image of another person (I have a feeling this bridges on a lot of Kant's(?) philosophy of the legitimacy of any "reality" we hold in our head versus the reality we can never see objectively in real life, but that's for another post). However, maintaining an accurate image of another person, an entity so varied and subject to fluctuation, is incredibly hard, so often times the best image is actually one that leaves a little room for unpredictability, as frustrating as that is.
The problem is that once you commit more to the image in your head than the one in reality you lose your hold on reality, as nice and wonderful as this may be. See below from Taxi Driver:
Once you lift up an image of a person beyond all faults and all basic aspects of humanity to the point of divinity, well, you're going to have a hard time coming to terms with the actual real life version of that person, and an even harder time communicating on the same level with them. This sort of holy praise is dictated eloquently through this scene from The 40 Year Old Virgin:
So if you never even make that move toward the real-life version of your fantasy crush, you run the risk of much deeper and darker consequences. To continue the string of references I have going, see below for a quote from Ferris Bueller's Day Off in which Ferris describes Cameron's romantic prospects for the future - for those who don't know, Cameron is Ferris's goofy best friend, worried about all the rules Ferris breaks, who keeps to himself, and is far less socially inclined than Ferris, but a much deeper character than the cannot-possibly-do-harm Ferris.
"Cameron has never been in love - at least, nobody's ever been in love with him. If things don't change for him, he's gonna marry the first girl he lays, and she's gonna treat him like shit, because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind as the end-all, be-all of human existence. She won't respect him, 'cause you can't respect somebody who kisses your ass. It just doesn't work."
The alternative to these extremes, and probably a more realistic scenario of the one-way relationship, is the murky and gray mix of the one-way-heavy two-way relationship where any real dialogue and connection you achieve with the person or crush of interest is hampered and even distorted by what's going on in your own head. Lot of jargon for a simple outcome. You're overthinking everything. Talk to her, ask her how she feels, and go from there.
I had this exact situation when I thought I had found the end-all, be-all of girls in high school and went head over heels into my own head trap of a crush on a girl. I spent more time thinking about all the cool things about her than actually talking to her and hanging out with her. When I eventually did go with her to the homecoming dance (what really sparked off the one-way relationship), it set me off, and I had one of the best nights of my life, finally breaking through my shell and connecting with someone who seemed to, oh god don't make me say it, "get me".
That wasn't the problem. The problem was that afterward when I played the usual aftermath games of "when should I call?", "how does she feel about the night, about me?", "what the hell is the next move to make?", I didn't ever really get past those games and into actually taking the next step and trying something, putting myself out there with the chance of failing. Instead, I hesitated and wondered and waited, until eventually it was awkward out of my own nervousness, and whatever connection I had with the real version of the girl evaporated, and all that was left was my distorted and tortured nebulous image in my head of her and me failing repeatedly. If you never get out of that self-fulfilling prophecy you will spiral down and only dig yourself deeper. It took me a long time to let go of my mind's image of her so that all that's left is a faded memory with a lot of room for error and unpredicatability, which is only erased when I actually talk to her. Because in reality, in spite of all my head trips and traps, I don't really know her that well. She's a great girl by all means, but I never actually got to know her; I was too busy letting it all get into my head.
And so I leave you with Beck, a troubled, head-trapped Jim Carrey, and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:
Because I'm an expert on overthinking and overthinking to the point that I lose touch with reality, I figured I'd go into the great self-deprecating head trap that is the one-way relationship. To define simply, this is a relationship you have with someone else, except that someone else is completely in your head. The person in your head could be made up, or, more often than not, this person is based on a real live person you know of or even interact with on regular basis. But the main distinction of this one-way relationship is that no matter how real this person in your head seems to you, at the end of the day, they will simply be a figure of your imagination.
This kind of relationship is inevitable and basically essential to all types of relationships in that you simply cannot possibly be interacting with another person for every waking second of the day, so when you both are separate from each other you need an image of this person to occupy your mind and keep in tact everything you know about them. This can be said about really anything you interact with and then maintain an idea of in your head, even your own face, since you (presumably) aren't able to constantly see what you look like.
Maintaining accurate versions of these images and ideas in your head that are as close to their real-life counterparts as possible is essential in not letting the images take over how you think or act with regard to them, especially when it comes to your image of another person (I have a feeling this bridges on a lot of Kant's(?) philosophy of the legitimacy of any "reality" we hold in our head versus the reality we can never see objectively in real life, but that's for another post). However, maintaining an accurate image of another person, an entity so varied and subject to fluctuation, is incredibly hard, so often times the best image is actually one that leaves a little room for unpredictability, as frustrating as that is.
The problem is that once you commit more to the image in your head than the one in reality you lose your hold on reality, as nice and wonderful as this may be. See below from Taxi Driver:
Once you lift up an image of a person beyond all faults and all basic aspects of humanity to the point of divinity, well, you're going to have a hard time coming to terms with the actual real life version of that person, and an even harder time communicating on the same level with them. This sort of holy praise is dictated eloquently through this scene from The 40 Year Old Virgin:
So if you never even make that move toward the real-life version of your fantasy crush, you run the risk of much deeper and darker consequences. To continue the string of references I have going, see below for a quote from Ferris Bueller's Day Off in which Ferris describes Cameron's romantic prospects for the future - for those who don't know, Cameron is Ferris's goofy best friend, worried about all the rules Ferris breaks, who keeps to himself, and is far less socially inclined than Ferris, but a much deeper character than the cannot-possibly-do-harm Ferris.
"Cameron has never been in love - at least, nobody's ever been in love with him. If things don't change for him, he's gonna marry the first girl he lays, and she's gonna treat him like shit, because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind as the end-all, be-all of human existence. She won't respect him, 'cause you can't respect somebody who kisses your ass. It just doesn't work."
The alternative to these extremes, and probably a more realistic scenario of the one-way relationship, is the murky and gray mix of the one-way-heavy two-way relationship where any real dialogue and connection you achieve with the person or crush of interest is hampered and even distorted by what's going on in your own head. Lot of jargon for a simple outcome. You're overthinking everything. Talk to her, ask her how she feels, and go from there.
I had this exact situation when I thought I had found the end-all, be-all of girls in high school and went head over heels into my own head trap of a crush on a girl. I spent more time thinking about all the cool things about her than actually talking to her and hanging out with her. When I eventually did go with her to the homecoming dance (what really sparked off the one-way relationship), it set me off, and I had one of the best nights of my life, finally breaking through my shell and connecting with someone who seemed to, oh god don't make me say it, "get me".
That wasn't the problem. The problem was that afterward when I played the usual aftermath games of "when should I call?", "how does she feel about the night, about me?", "what the hell is the next move to make?", I didn't ever really get past those games and into actually taking the next step and trying something, putting myself out there with the chance of failing. Instead, I hesitated and wondered and waited, until eventually it was awkward out of my own nervousness, and whatever connection I had with the real version of the girl evaporated, and all that was left was my distorted and tortured nebulous image in my head of her and me failing repeatedly. If you never get out of that self-fulfilling prophecy you will spiral down and only dig yourself deeper. It took me a long time to let go of my mind's image of her so that all that's left is a faded memory with a lot of room for error and unpredicatability, which is only erased when I actually talk to her. Because in reality, in spite of all my head trips and traps, I don't really know her that well. She's a great girl by all means, but I never actually got to know her; I was too busy letting it all get into my head.
And so I leave you with Beck, a troubled, head-trapped Jim Carrey, and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The End of the World - And Beyond
Victim: Caucasian female, 19 years of age. Location: Main bathroom floor. Cause of Death: Multiple stab wounds. Notes: Signs of a struggle, defensive wounds on the hands of the victim, possible signs of rape.
The year was 1999, and the suburban Chicago town of Saint Charles was rocked by the story of a young woman who was raped and murdered by her mother's boyfriend. There was mourning, and a community outcry over how this could happen in their town, to one of their children. The victim had been a popular girl when in high school, and was on break from University when her life was tragically ended. Many were in shock, and emotions ran high. But, while to most it was an impersonal tragedy, horrifying no doubt, it was different to me. The victim, Caroline, had been my girlfriend of near two years when she died.
It's hard to describe the feeling when I first was told what had happened. It was summer, and I was in a decidedly teenage summer frame of mind. Then the phone call happened. It was Caroline's mother, and she was barely audible. I knew something was wrong right away, but nothing could have prepared me for the news I was about to receive. I remember all the strength in my body leaving me, in a rush, except for the hand holding the phone. I felt like I was outside myself, the shock was so intense that it literally shut me down. I don't know how long I sat on the floor before my mother found me and asked what happened. The very second I heard her voice, it all came rushing in like an avalanche. It was the most intense pain I have ever felt, inside my chest, inside my head. I felt like a flaming boulder had just crushed me, I was helpless and just started to scream. I screamed myself hoarse, and then I just wept silently on the floor.
I couldn't move, I didn't care. My life was over. The woman I loved, my first love, my first lover, was gone and I would never get to hear her laugh, touch her skin, taste her on my lips ever again. It was overwhelming, the sheer finality of it all. There was never going to be a chance to pass her on the street by chance again, never a chance to say goodbye. The weeks that followed are like a dream to me now, barely remembered. I went to her funeral, and even managed to say a few words, although they were short and bitter. I woke up every morning wondering why even bother, feeling there was nothing out there for me. I became more mechanical day by day, emotionless and closed off. I didn't spend time with friends and family who no doubt were growing more and more concerned about me. I just didn't care about anything anymore. I began to spend more and more time thinking about suicide. I was so low, so down in darkness I couldn't see a light anywhere to guide me. I literally hated having to be awake every day and in pain.
Luckily, I never pulled the metaphorical trigger on those thoughts, and instead, found something to guide me. Anger. It may sound like a negative thing, but anger is closely tied to passion, and I found something to move me. My pure, unfiltered hatred for the piece of shit coward who did this to Caroline, and to me. I was not going to let a rapist murdering bastard end my life, too. So, I got angry, and I got motivated to move on, so I could one day see him die in prison. Not the most constructive life plan, but it was the initial kick in the pants I needed to live again. I hit the next school year with a vigor I never had, earning a perfect GPA, getting accepted into Purdue University's Engineering school, and having the best season of my career playing football. I was pissed off and not going to succumb to despair, because I had to live, I had to keep living for Caroline and not let her death end me, too.
Life has not been easy since then, if life ever was easy. I still carry the psychological scars with me from those days, reliving the pain on occasion and knowing the weakness that lurks in the corners of my soul. I still have trouble opening up to new people, and even writing this blog has been the most I've talked about those days to any group of strangers of any size. I guess if I have any advice to offer others, it would be that you can't let pain and tragedy rule your life. Time does heal (but not completely), and the only way things won't get better is if you let it end you. Also, appreciate every minute you have with your loved ones, because life is fleeting and you truly do not know what you have until it's taken from you.
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Other Side Continued
So read the post below first before this one:
I had a terrible summer- didn't find any girls to hang out with, worked constantly and made tons of money and thought I would buy a motorcycle- not because I thought it would attract girls, but because I liked going fast. Summer ended and I came back to school with the mindset of meeting girls and hopefully getting a new girlfriend. My motorcycle assisted me in meeting a girl at Food Lion. She was pretty and we got to talking in the baby formula aisle and found out we had some classes together.
I got her number and started sitting next to her in class- over a few weeks we began to hang outside of class and it only became a matter of time before she asked me to come over for some drinks. I got a bottle of wine- thinking I really liked this girl- and we drank. I remember killing a bottle of wine, while she drank numerous 4 locos and starting to dance or something. We fell and I instantly started kissing her. Things escalated quickly and at this point I start to black in and out. I remember going into her bedroom and just taking off her clothes- I can tell you I wasn't thinking- didnt have protection (birth control is against the Roman Catholic Catechism- but sex is okay.....) Then I remember bits and pieces of drunken sex with a girl I barely knew, didn't know her sexual history.
I awoke to her spooning me and being all giddy.. I was horrified. I was unprepared to deal with what had happened- and for God's sake I wasn't over Candace yet! Or thats what I told myself. So not wanting to "hit it and quit it" I tried to date this girl. But after a few weeks, the feelings just were not there- even though the sex was. I told myself it was because she texted me constantly, because I wasnt attracted to her, because I wasnt ready- but really this girl was an extremely nice person who probably would have treated me well- whatever the reason I ended it. I ended it but still wanted to have sex- definition of dicking a girl over. She was crushed, she cried to me on the phone and it really did pain me to have this happen, but I also didnt think it was fair for her- which is what all dicks tell themselves. Sometimes she would drunk text me and ask me if she could crash at my place- and I took that as she wanted to have sex- so months after it "ended" we still hooked up. We kept in contact a little, we were cordial to each other- but senior year I felt so bad I asked her to lunch and profusely apologized for what I did- I never wanted someone to feel like I felt after Candace. She cried again and asked my why I did the things I did- and what she did to push me away, it was hard.
Another time, I went to europe with a friend after college and met a Chinese girl who annoyed the crap out of me. BUT I knew that she liked me and that I could "get some" if I wanted. Still I told myself I wasnt over Candace- I wasnt ready to move on and I just wanted to hook-up. Luckily, in Paris- where we met her- I didnt get drunk and was able to reason that this was a bad idea. HOWEVER, we ran into her in some other part of France, and this time alcohol was involved. She was in our hostel room and when everyone went to sleep (after a full night of drinking at the bar) I whispered to her that I was "cold" and wanted to know if I could come down into her bed. After she said yes, I pounced and just started making out- probably an 85% chance it was a drunken sloppy kiss. I kept going further and further with her, but decided I didnt want to have sex- but i mean i was in Europe! I wanted a random hookup with no strings attached and thought I deserved to have that experience. She didn't feel the same way and thought I really liked her and tried to be affectionate with me the next morning and I basically just brushed her aside and left the country. She facebook messaged my friend asking why I was acting like this and did I like her. I was a huge jerk. So after a few weeks passed, I facebook messaged her apologizing and wishing her the best- not like that would fix how she felt.
Anyways, I guess I'm just saying that I've been in a few places where it is easy to look out for #1 and get what you want and get out- but for me it never was ultimately what I wanted. I wanted what I had always wanted. To find someone who cared about me - someone who thought I was special- and even if some people dick you over in the process of finding that person have faith that it will happen and take every dick as a learning experience. haha... Know what you deserve and dont accept anything less.
So i wrote this at two different times so i apologize if it is a little disjointed.
The Other Side
There have been a lot of posts recently about being "the one dicked over"- no pun intended and sorry to put it so crudely. Those are completely warranted posts and I can say that I have felt that way more times that once. However, I can also say I have been the dick who hasn't always had the most noble of intentions....also more than once.
Those who know me know that I am a "nice guy." Since that is vague, I'll define it as: I really don't have bad intentions and I try to do the right thing in all situations. But me being a nice guy hadn't really landed much early success in the dating world. So, to tell this story I will have to start in the beginning...
My first kiss was a girl named Jacque Christy in 6th grade.... Pssh not that far back....
I was a make-out virgin my senior year of high school until prom night. I was seeing a girl named Kaylon Parker socially and I grew some nads and asked her to the big dance. I was/am extremely shy with girls I don't know very well and tend to open up a bit more after lots of hang-out time. Kaylon and I hadn't reached that point yet, but I was excited she said 'yes.' One night we went to go see a movie and I was in the process of dropping her off at her house- walking her to the door - - and if youre a shy 17 year-old you dread this because this means she expects you to kiss her, but what if you mess up or she really didnt want you to, or you do and its weird because you pull back too soon...what if her parents are by the door etc etc... So our lips meet and she informs me that prom night is where we are going to "catch up" to her other friends in the physical department.
Fast forward to prom - - I did get to make out with her...after 6 other guys did. But I was too nice- scratch that- too young/shocked/and stupid to leave. After that I went to college thinking that girls would hurt me- so I avoided them. I didn't go to one single party freshman year. I isolated myself in my room with a few of my hallmates and devoted my time to videogames and other things I have since forgotten.
Sophomore year I became an RA and made some quality friends who pulled me out of my isolation and made me do things with them. I met a few of their friends who were girls and one thought I was cute. Naturally, I pursued her and was patient- because she was in a complicated relationship with her ex-boyfriend. Being a nice guy who easily forgets being dicked over I had a long talk with this girl and said I understand how hard this must be to like me and him and have such peculiar feelings- which led her to "like me more." We left for Christmas break with her telling me that she chose me over her ex and when we get back from break we would date.
Low and behold she got back with her ex over break and ignored me for 1 month.
I came back to school in January in decent spirits, but still a bit broken up about it- ashamed I was 19 and hadn't been close to having a real "steady" girlfriend. I reaaaaaally wanted one- probably because I wanted to feel like I was special to someone- like I was wanted. Met another one of my residents friends named Candace Smith. I instantly thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen- and then immediately became bummed out because I knew she wouldn't go for me. Chance would have it she would go for me and I got what I wanted- a girlfriend.
We spent the rest of that school year going on dates, walking around campus, watching movies, kissing and getting more physical. She actually told me she loved me about a month before I said it back. WOW- I thought. This is the girl I'm going to marry. That was my mindset. I thought there was nothing more pure than love and that I had found my special someone. Candace and I had sex when I was 20 years old and that solidified it for me- because I was under the impression that I would only have sex with one person- after marriage- Since this happened before marriage I became even more attached.
The relationship was so good for me, I was blinded by the light- Looking back she was such a huge bitch to me and I treated her like she was the only girl in the world. So as you've guessed our relationship ended with her telling me I was needy, girly, brought the bitch out of her, unattractive, and a few other things I have since forgotten. Oh yea, we dated for 1 year and a week. I was absolutely crushed. I mean extremely depressed. I kept my door closed, skipped class for a week- I lost weight and I only watched Scrubs- which is now one of my favorite shows.
So after that relationship, after putting so much in and having so much hope- and after being "tainted" because I had sex with a girl before marriage (so I thought at the time)- I decided I would go out and 'hook-up.....'
I know the above seems a little unrelated to dicking girls over (in the bad way)- also I hate reading such long posts so Im splitting this up to finish.
Friday, June 24, 2011
The Movie Always Ends With Me Crying On The Docks
I'm 26 years old and I have never had a boyfriend.
Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed of and wanted to fall in love. I come from a big family with lots of children and I always pictured myself married with at least 4. And even though time passed me by and I never had a teenage romance or even ones in college that materialized into anything (I graduated a virgin despite having dated a couple of guys casually there was only one I considered sleeping with and he handily screwed that up) I never gave up hope. I just kept telling myself I hadn't met the right person, or maybe I just needed to put myself out there more or I had a lot of growing up to do...just anything to explain why no one had picked me.
Pick me. That's all I really wanted I realized. And as the years continued to roll by I started wondering if there wasn't anything wrong with me? I'd been so supremely confident all of my life that I was amazing, even in my uglier teenage phases (I'd love to burn all of those pictures from back then now) and after a while I started to doubt myself and think perhaps I wasn't amazing. Why didn't men want me for their girlfriend?
I can honestly say I am a smart, goofy, nerdy straight forward, honest and kind person. My main flaws are probably that I'm pretty blunt and opinionated at times but that factors into my honesty. I'm not close minded, I love to try new things and I have a lot of spirit and spunk. I don't think I'm perfect by any means but I'm pretty damn awesome. And I would say I'm moderately attractive anyway. I have seen people less attractive than I am in relationships. I have friends who are complete bitches who have boyfriends, the simpering type but nonetheless they are loved.
I see all of this and wonder, why NOT me? After one disastrous half romance after the other I thought perhaps it was simply the men I was attracting? Most of them looked at me as a conquest or proof that they could have me I was told by other men who were their friends. People saw me as intimidating and the only men brave enough to approach me were lotharios. So finally I decided well I simply would have to approach someone myself if they weren't getting the signals. Maybe I needed to be more proactive in the choosing.
And so I did. After hanging out with various people I met someone who I developed a crush on. And I do not crush easily. This was the first time I'd felt this way about someone in 3 years. It got to the point where I couldn't even go where he was going to be unless I looked absolutely amazing. I would come home and lay in my bed with the stupidest grin on my face and imagine where we would go and what we would do...if only he would ask me for my phone number? And he seemed at least mildly interested but I was terrified of being rejected. I'd never asked a guy for his phone number before. And he was of a different racial background. What if he didn't like women of my racial background? The doubts swirled in me and weighed me down but finally I got brave enough and I did it.
And he asked me on a date. And we went out. Week after week on one enchanting date after the next. I was scared to really get into it because I was like this never happens to me. Ever. I never get to be happy. Surely he'll tell me he has a girlfriend, or he's actually gay, or he finally got his vision corrected and he thought I was someone else. All of my doubts were based on the past disasters. I was WAITING for a disaster to come and ruin this but after a whole month it didn't and one night we had so much fun together he stayed the night and we didn't even have sex we spent a lot of it talking and just laying in bed and half the morning in bed and all he could talk about is how he felt so incredibly lucky to even just be in the bed with someone as beautiful as I was. And he stayed there staring at me, playing in my hair, laying on my legs talking about how beautiful they were...I felt so wonderful to even be fussed over and he didn't let go of my hands until the last second he walked out of the door and he got far enough away that he was no longer in my reach.
Then I decided it was okay to have feelings. And I did. And a couple weeks later we agreed to only be dating each other and we consumated the relationship. And then it all went down hill from there.
I'm really not sure why. I'll never be sure I guess. I tried to figure out what was going on or what happened. We did go out a couple of times after that and he seemed perfectly fine on the dates, even more enamored but the times in between were strained with silence. The text messages about how wonderful I was stopped. My feelings were slowly getting crushed but I refused to play games, become petty or hate him. I told him I wanted to talk more. He seemed enthusiastic. So I called him and he would always answer but he seemed pretty uncomfortable on the phone. As things began to deteoriate I asked if we could maybe meet up face to face (my intentions were to ask if he wanted to continue seeing me but I framed the invitation as a date). He said sure and he would call me back and tell me when. He never did call me back and after that he acted like he practically didn't know me when he would see me. Finally I realized my efforts were pointless. I was trying to save something that the other person wasn't interested in. And I couldn't figure out why.
I felt like an idiot. Why did I even believe this was going to turn into something? Because he seemed like he was falling for me? I rented the Little Mermaid recently. It was my favorite movie as a girl. I'd ask my dad to rent it every time he went to the video store no matter what happened to be out. The last time I watched it my friend made fun of me because I cried, but now a days I always get really sad at the part where Ariel gets left on the docks crying while Prince Eric sails away with Ursula to get married. I know Ariel will get Eric in the end, but for me I feel like the movie ALWAYS stops there. That's the end.
I wasn't in love with this boy but I really felt like I showed him the very best of me and he just left without any explanation. He just checked out. And I was such a fool to believe anything good could happen to me romantically. I almost felt like once things started going well I should have taken off in the other direction because good things don't happen to me in love. They just...don't.
Lastly I lost respect for him. I just feel like at the age we're at people should be able to express why they don't want to see you anymore. I never did anything negative to him nor did I do anything to not deserve a respectful bowing out. I was always honest with him and I really stepped up and out in this situation only to be left wondering why I wasn't good enough?
Deep down inside I know I haven't lost faith that I'll ever fall in love but it's hard to find reasons to justify why it will happen anymore. And some people don't ever fall in love or get married. I don't want to be one of those people. I can't even look to getting married yet. All I want is to have one wonderful relationship in my lifetime. That's it. I'll never be sure why that's so much to ask for someone like me who is really a great person when so many other people experience it all the time sometimes a couple of relationships a year.
One time where it doesn't end with me crying on the docks with the sun about to set on the 3rd day. Is that truly so much to ask?
The Big Reveal
This month’s topic has been a peculiarly torturing one for me, to be perfectly frank here. I’ve found myself at a loss, again and again, as to what I could/should/would/am able to share in such a public sphere with regards to my own sexual experiences. The notion of making myself so exposed, so open about the one thing I shroud ever so carefully in secrecy, unnerved me to the point of sickness. This perplexed me… why was I so scared to write this month? I decided tonight that instead of creating another short story, or writing a windy lecture steeped in academia (pretty unsexy, really), I would scrap all ideas and drafts and instead speak honestly and openly about that which has frightened me the most when attempting to write for this month’s theme, and has thus far kept me from doing so. (This post will read like a journal entry, so if you aren't interested, stop here). And, without further ado, here it is: I am scared of sex.
Before I get into that heavy and declarative thesis statement above, I’ll first mention my views regarding the purpose of sex in life. As many of you know (and by many I mean Edward?), I have a completely debilitating fear of death. My mortal phobia has crippled me in various ways since childhood, morphing from hysteria to anxiety to obsession. I’m quite sure everyone fears death as a concept at some points in their lives, but I’ve taken it to such great lengths in terms of compulsive thoughts—at one point the fear became so severe that I was unable to get out of bed or speak for two weeks and was sedated in order to quiet my addled mind. After making it through the very worst of my worries, I made it a point to find purpose in my life; purpose that was so fulfilling and life-affirming it could outweigh my fears of death and make life seem worthwhile. I vehemently sought this out, hoping to find an epic holy grail, a reason to believe in existence. What I found, through all of my own meandering queries, was initially underwhelming and seemed far too simple to be the great absolute for which I was searching. In essence, I found that, for me, finding meaningful relationships and personal connections had the best potential to free my soul from its constant state of turmoil. The next step in this seemingly simple plan for self-improvement meant actually finding relationships that felt meaningful to me. My life has been spent doing a half-assed job investing my time and energy into friendships and romantic endeavors that proved shallow, fleeting, exciting, and unimportant. I’ve chased down one flight of fancy after another, traveling to different countries, cities, schools, distracting myself from the fact that I’d been unable to maintain any semblance of a friendship or relationship for the past ten years, blaming my lack of closeness with others on my wild and deviant nature. This perpetual fire under my ass (that beckons for me to move, run, change) has burned out enough in the past year to allow room in my life for true connections with other human beings. It’s been illuminating for me to realize what adult peers can offer you on an emotional level. Really.
However, soon after realizing that establishing friendships and romantic relationships was the key to squashing out my fears of death, I came to see that there is something undeniable involved in this equation: sex. Sex is an unavoidable, ever-present, crucial component to having fulfilling adult relationships. Sex is the antidote to death, in many ways—it is a moment of respite, of connection so personal and deep and true that you can momentarily release all fears which burden you. Sex is such a tangible, pleasurable, exclusive act that two (or more) people can make and share and have and own and know, together, that it belongs to them and is in that way pure immortality. The discovery of this excited and comforted me in ways that I’d yet to experience—I finally felt that I had found the very holy grail for which I’d so desperately been seeking. (And the man in sky called down, “Ah ah, not so fast, Bethany Dawson.”) One little caveat (there’s always one, right?) to this beautiful and therapeutic knowledge I’d acquired: as it turns out, I am mortified of physical intimacy. That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy being sexual, or have a lack of sex drive. For those who know me well, I’m extremely open about my sexual dalliances (Bisexuality ftw!) and fantasies. Yet, this brazen behavior and bawdy bedroom speak is all a grand deflection mechanism. Here it is, kids: nothing frightens me more than the idea of true and intense intimacy. My sexual experiences with men, thus far, have been complicated to say the very least. Though I certainly won’t use this post as a reason to air out all of my dirty laundry, I will say this much: sex has not been a loving (or hell, even good) experience for me. I’ve used sexuality to obtain certain things (I can still assert that all sex is a form of prostitution, so don’t even get me started), but never to become truly vulnerable and connected to another human being. I’ve felt more connected to someone by holding their hand than I have during sex. My fears are wildly based in delusions, carry no real truth, but feel real as all hell to me. It’s not so much the act of sex itself that frightens me, but rather the complete and utter vulnerability involved in it. Having experienced various forms of abuse in my life, and spending my childhood/teenage years being overweight, I’ve developed a strange and psychotic sense of disgust and dysmorphia with my own flesh that makes being naked in front of someone (both literally and metaphorically) seem like an impossibility. It has nothing to do with physique, but rather it feels as though I’m giving to them the last part of myself that I have control over, that if I allow myself to become that vulnerable on such an intimate level, the rest of my walls will come crashing in around me. To me, sex equates to a loss of control, and I need control over my body more than oxygen. As time goes on, however, and various areas of my life develop more stability (and I’m able to have control over my circumstances), I become more willing to ease the reigns of resistance and give in to deeply intimate (and not just random) carnal pleasure (though my insecurities will surely not release their hold on me without a good fight).
The cat’s out of the bag now, I guess. Moving on, then. So, sex, it seems, is an antidote to death. Then what is the antidote for sex, when it becomes too heavily relied and dwelled upon? My own personal answer here would be romance. And please just wait--before anyone jumps on me for this, and aggressively lambastes me for placing emphasis on something as sappy as “romance,” hear me out. When I say romance is the antidote to sex, I don’t mean they’re mutually exclusive, first off. Secondly, when I talk about romance, I’m not talking about flowers and chocolate and date nights and compliments. That’s shmultz, and that’s not real. It’s an invention of attachment used to perpetuate ideals of status and materialism as tools of love. When I say romance, what I really mean is, connection: connection to someone in ways that does not involve any sort of physicality. Intellectual connection, emotional connection, spiritual connection, etc… listening to a song and thinking about your lover, reading a good book and knowing that your significant other “would just love this line!”, having an inside joke that seems nonsensical to anyone else, but makes you laugh until you cry. These little moments are just as important as the sexual acts themselves, or else, it’s just sex (which, as my personal track record will show, can be more depressing than celibacy).
Wrapping things up here (congratulations, by the way, to anyone brave or stupid enough to have made it this far into the post), romance is the antidote to sex which is the antidote to death. Or, that’s how I feel at least. My fears of death will undoubtedly be lessened by engaging in meaningful sex, and my fears of sex will (god willing) be lessened by experiencing romance (connection). It’s been terrifyingly therapeutic for me to be forced to write about this, and I hope others feel more willing to share their own fears and insecurities regarding this month’s topic—as I said before, sex isn’t always a purely positive aspect of life… and the bad things about it need to be talked about here just as much as the good. I mean, this blog is for airing out our demons, right?..... Right?
The Great Expedition
Not sure how the girls went about it all, but at least for the guys, finding out about sex, the one thing that brought us into our very own existence, seemed like trying to uncover some giant government conspiracy. We did all our research behind closed doors, like Noir detectives tying the clues together to try and figure out what the hell was going on. Kids would keep watch and then come to huddle around some catalogue or random advertisement you'd found scrounging through the classifieds, or maybe even a page ripped violently from a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and you'd all just bark incoherently as electric pulses shot across the synapses in your brains. Well something like that.
But it really wasn't until you finally got that full frontal visual, a blunt, fleshy 2x4 of sex to the face. And at whatever stage in your pubescent rage, it was like stumbling upon fucking crack, and instantly you learn the meaning of having a drive that puts any feelings you had about wanting ice cream, chocolate, or to become a ninja to shame.
Discovering porn was basically the introduction to the siren's song; to feasting your eyes on what Indiana and Marion closed theirs to in order to keep from melting like gluttonous, boiling Nazis. So good and so bad. And then combine the timing with this discovery with the advent of the goddamn World Wide Web; that's just plain overkill. Hey kids! Have ya heard about sex? Did you know there's this free and unrestricted portal to as much and more than you could ever possibly take into your fricken head? Well here ya go! Call me when you've got enough viruses to shut down the town's dial up connection.
Then finally whenever the adults try to "introduce" kids to sex, no matter how open and cool adults try or want to be in talking to their kids about it, they inevitably end up hopelessly awkward and anything but cool. It says a lot about what it means to have a sex organ and a brain at the same time. Sex ain't shit for animals; you want a piece? You fight, you dance, you sing, you give everything that your genetics and carbon gave you in an effort to get some. Humans also fight, dance, and sing for some sort of sexual goal, but they do it all just beneath the facade of being a civilized, manicured Person instead of an animal. That's where the brain starts to get in the way, and the games, the meanings behind actions and words and body language all get tangled up in some convoluted mess of shit. This is the part where puberty turns nightmarish; the fact that looking at sex does not translate into real life sex is a sobering realization for a teenage boy. Instead, sex becomes a weapon, a curse, a weight, and through it all the tortured final goal of adolescence.
I remember how much I hated it when American Pie came out (1999 - what was that, 7th grade?) because all of the sudden there was this streamlined, Hollywood testament that you have to lose your virginity by the end of high school. I was always behind in knowing the terms for various forms of sex and was probably guiltier than the next about jacking off, plus I was shy, I mumbled, had braces, had crazy acne, and my voice sounded like I caught a football in the neck; basically, I felt utterly inadequate about my sexuality, and fucking Jason Biggs, the suddenly grown-up kid from Rookie of the Year, Stifler, and some slicked-back-hair ass were all taunting me via Josh's big screen tv (where we watched all films containing any degree of nudity) that I was going to die of humiliation because I wasn't even close to being on track for their great, horn-dog goal.
Luckily, I smartened up at least a little bit during high school to stop hating myself so much. But shyness being what it was, I continued to fear that even though I knew how to smile and flirt, at least a little, I didn't know jack about making a move. And that was what it was all about it, or at least it seemed that way. I think that's where this ingrained holy grail of confidence comes from, the fact that guys have to be confident enough to make that move. But for some time, I stayed dismally attached to the fear that if I made a move she'd pull away and the great misfortune of rejection would rain down on me until I drowned, or something melodramatic like that. I did manage small successes and romanticized each one with all my imagination, even though I knew shit like Kingsbridge was going down all around me, and I generally just tried not to think about it. I didn't even talk to that many of my friends about sex, or at least when I did, I generally held back or was scared to reveal my true ignorance on the one subject that mattered as a teenager.
Eventually I was out of high school and still a virgin, although not with the some extreme shame I'd imagined back in '99. There was just plenty of frustration and angst and disappointment in that aspect of my life to leave behind, so I was happy to get on with it all. In college I proceeded to basically befriend and become the boyfriend of the first girl I liked. I thought it was somehow (and it sickens me to say it) noble or something that amidst all the banging and drugs and sleaze put on display those first few months at college that I was going for the hard stuff. A full on relationship! The hell was I thinking? Anywho, she had had sex before so the pressure was on me. We did it not all that long after we'd gotten together, and it was rather anti-climatic; though I'm not sure what I was expecting (maybe to run out into the dorm hallway and give Biggs and Stifler high fives? Those bastards). Again, the brain and the penis aren't exactly well-acquainted. The one thing I do remember was that when I left her dorm for breakfast, I gave the old Asian lady, Fu, who swiped my meal card a devious smile to let her be the first to know that I got lucky for the first time in my life. She didn't seem all that impressed.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
LINK TO: 10 Completely Random, Completely Accurate Songs About...
Sydney started drafting this post earlier in the month and thanks to Blogger's odd setup of publishing in the order that the drafts began, the post published way back in the queue on 6/7/11. So read her post by clicking this link:
10 Completely Random, Completely Accurate Songs About...
Hooray for music posts!
10 Completely Random, Completely Accurate Songs About...
Hooray for music posts!
The Lust of the Soul
I'm sorry I haven't been able to write about anything more interesting this month, but I'm not exactly Don Juan and I have a hard time writing about things that don't feel like they come from myself, if you know what I mean. So with this post I hope to try to summarize my own particular views on this month's topic. Because of the vastness of the topic and my own lack of planning, this post will probably be pretty scatterbrained and stream of consciousness. So bear with me, please. Also, I can't help but display my own particular brand of neuroses, so I do not pretend to write for everyone, but only from what I know from my own experience.
The key thing I want to tackle in this post, and what I've discussed briefly elsewhere, is the dynamic of strength and weakness, of power, that forms the basis of sexual relationships and the sex drive itself in humans. Of course sex feels great (most of the time) physically, but I want to tackle some of the deeper psychological insecurities and needs that come along with this unrelenting push to copulate before death. This sounds a bit cliched (and out-of-date) to say, but from what I've seen, sex and (fear of) death are the two strongest drives in our lives. The urge for creative output is also there, but I do not think it is as strong as these two. And any sense of "love" is mostly brought back to sexuality, or at least familial love, which is rooted in sexual relations. Perhaps there are some other ones I'm missing, and I'd be curious to see what others have to say. Because sex plays such a strong role in our consciousnesses, there are a host of issues that attach themselves to this ineffable need. I can only write about these issues from how I experience them in myself and others, because this is not a detailed study, but I will do my best.
No matter the transcendent nature of love (I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle that one at this point of my life), it must be admitted that a large part of the dynamics of sexual relationships are based on a cat-and-mouse game of strengths and weaknesses, of attractiveness and social skills and non-verbal signals. There is the notion that there is one person out there for us, and that we will one day meet them, but I think this is a romantic fantasy that even the most sappy among us don't really believe in. In a world approaching seven billion people, it seems pretty impossible that there is only one other person for us out there. It is more likely that there are a bunch of people (what size this group is, I do not know) out there who could mesh perfectly well with our own personalities. I feel like there is a sense of competition when it comes to relationships. We always want someone who is better-looking, richer, has a better job, better personality, etc. This is where the insecurity and the dynamics of strength and weakness come into play first. No matter how much we wish to talk about the beauty of our inner natures, sexual attractiveness plays a very large role in everyday life. It starts at a very young age, and if you feel that you were unattractive at a young age, it will affect your life somehow (in a multitude of ways that I cannot begin to summarize here). The same goes if you felt you were attractive. These factors all carry into adulthood. I see sexual attractiveness and competition as the root of so many things in life. Wanting a good job, dressing nicely, working out, having expensive possessions, eating at the right restaurants--the list is endless. There may be other purposes for many of these things, but at their base, I see sexual competition. It's always there, lurking under the surface sometimes, sometimes splashing over the top of the rim.
It is this constant quest to better oneself--to always appear attractive to the opposite (or same) sex--that fuels a large part of our lives. It also creates insecurity and a sense of masking who we truly are. Even when one is not single and is in a relationship, I feel that the dynamics of strength and weakness are present. Men and women are always trying to gain the upper hand, to not have their hearts broken. If on the other hand you are too satisfied and do not try anymore, complacency leads to loss of sexual attraction that can hurt the relationship. You always have to be on your game, and at least in my own relationships there was always a seesaw sense of one person being in power, being strong, while the other one is the needy, the weak one. This probably is not a very healthy view--and I do not view it as the ideal--but I do think that it is fairly common. The weak person always tries to deny their neediness, but it always comes out. The strong person acts disinterested (usually because they actually are disinterested, but I guess sometimes not), exudes confidence with members of the opposite (or same) sex, and very rarely is the footing equal in relationships. Of course that is ideal, but it's an almost impossible tightrope to walk. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have a very hard time in a relationship not longing for things I cannot have. I wonder if this ever goes away. I guess that is the hard part about relationships. You really have to put the work in, and I think ultimately being faithful and loving is a lot of work, but I believe it is worthwhile in the long run, and I look with envy on those who can make it work. Props to you guys.
Now, when you are single, the dynamics of sex are much more visible. I don't have much experience in the dating world, so I'm sure someone who does could write a whole lot more about these things, but I will do my best. What I find interesting (and depressing?) is the idea of people having "leagues" in which they can date. For instance, a lot of guys will say or think (if they are trying to be too confident to say it), "That girl is out of my league." We can only date people within our own sphere of perceived attractiveness. Most girls I know will say, "I don't think any guys are out of my league" or something similar--I've never heard girls phrase this the same way as guys. Do they actually believe this? Does a "plain" girl really think she can get an ideal guy? I'm not sure. They will have to answer this. Maybe woman really do have more confidence in terms of landing a guy, but certainly they fall into equal insecurity and uncertainty when it comes to keeping a guy. As I've stated elsewhere (and many times), the common narrative I see at play is this: guy is attracted to girl; guy goes after girl; guy grows attached to the girl and becomes needy; eventually they sleep together; indefinite amount of time passes (sometimes this is after only one fuck); girl gets increasingly attached to a guy; guy grows disinterested and bored; couple breaks up; sometimes the guy grows desperate for what he's lost and wants her back; girl may or may not go through an extended cycle of getting back together and breaking up with guy. There are many variations to this, of course, and this is highly simplified (oh noez, Edward can't write a blog post expressing all points of view at once!), but I think it's fair to say that men grow attached faster, and with women it takes a certain amount of time to grow attached. I wonder why this is.
But anyways, there is always a sense of wanting to date a person who is "better." If you're a guy, more often than not, this means she is sexually attractive or at least has a personality that you somehow deem attractive. I'm not sure what exactly women look for the most in men...surely it varies. And it does for men of course, too. I'm just trying to say that there is some kind of competition going on (both with ourselves and with others)--we want the best we can get. We also want to be the best we can be to impress those we are going after. I do think this leads to a sense of masking our true feelings a lot. Guys are constantly told that the one thing girls look for in a guy is confidence. So we deny how we really feel to put on an air of confidence. This denial is different for every guy, and some probably fail at this altogether, but I think as a guy there is a strong pressure to be confident. I'm not denying the importance of this, since it's probably good to be confident in all areas of your life, not just romantically, but at the same time, there is this sense of hiding, of denying, what we really are to put on a front to get someone else in bed. Take that as you will. It's all part of the game. And as much as we try to romanticize the idea of love, it really is a big game. I wrote about this earlier on the blog, but I really like Lennon's lyric in the Beatles song "I'm a Loser": "She was a girl in a million, my friend/I should have known she would win in the end," because it has that cynical reality to it that it is a game of winning or losing. I would say I'm a pretty big romantic at heart, but I also have that sense of melancholic longing for a world that doesn't really exist. And that world is a world where none of the insecurities and strengths and weaknesses and fears I discussed above don't actually exist. But they do. And that's life.
What does any of this mean? I guess nothing much really. I just want to point out that what we see in the media, what we boast about to our friends, the mask we put on--that isn't our inner subjective reality. There is a lot of fear there, a lot of doubt, and a lot of...awkwardness? Men obsess over their penis size to a degree I'm sure most would never let onto. Women of course worry about their bodies too. We all worry about our sexual performance. We fear that girls are faking their orgasms, that we are not as good a lover as her ex, that our dicks aren't as big. We worry that our partner is thinking about someone else in bed with us. Even if we don't do all these things all the time, we have some little seeds of this poison in our veins. Few things cause quite the amount of mental expenditure and irrationality as sex and its various facets. The only reason I can think of why that is is that the biological necessity of it creates such a strong impulse inside of us that it overtakes almost all other thoughts (beside basic ones like life or death) in importance. And as much as we all try to act like we are above its basic banalities, I think it's fair to say that most of us are not.
--Edward
The key thing I want to tackle in this post, and what I've discussed briefly elsewhere, is the dynamic of strength and weakness, of power, that forms the basis of sexual relationships and the sex drive itself in humans. Of course sex feels great (most of the time) physically, but I want to tackle some of the deeper psychological insecurities and needs that come along with this unrelenting push to copulate before death. This sounds a bit cliched (and out-of-date) to say, but from what I've seen, sex and (fear of) death are the two strongest drives in our lives. The urge for creative output is also there, but I do not think it is as strong as these two. And any sense of "love" is mostly brought back to sexuality, or at least familial love, which is rooted in sexual relations. Perhaps there are some other ones I'm missing, and I'd be curious to see what others have to say. Because sex plays such a strong role in our consciousnesses, there are a host of issues that attach themselves to this ineffable need. I can only write about these issues from how I experience them in myself and others, because this is not a detailed study, but I will do my best.
No matter the transcendent nature of love (I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle that one at this point of my life), it must be admitted that a large part of the dynamics of sexual relationships are based on a cat-and-mouse game of strengths and weaknesses, of attractiveness and social skills and non-verbal signals. There is the notion that there is one person out there for us, and that we will one day meet them, but I think this is a romantic fantasy that even the most sappy among us don't really believe in. In a world approaching seven billion people, it seems pretty impossible that there is only one other person for us out there. It is more likely that there are a bunch of people (what size this group is, I do not know) out there who could mesh perfectly well with our own personalities. I feel like there is a sense of competition when it comes to relationships. We always want someone who is better-looking, richer, has a better job, better personality, etc. This is where the insecurity and the dynamics of strength and weakness come into play first. No matter how much we wish to talk about the beauty of our inner natures, sexual attractiveness plays a very large role in everyday life. It starts at a very young age, and if you feel that you were unattractive at a young age, it will affect your life somehow (in a multitude of ways that I cannot begin to summarize here). The same goes if you felt you were attractive. These factors all carry into adulthood. I see sexual attractiveness and competition as the root of so many things in life. Wanting a good job, dressing nicely, working out, having expensive possessions, eating at the right restaurants--the list is endless. There may be other purposes for many of these things, but at their base, I see sexual competition. It's always there, lurking under the surface sometimes, sometimes splashing over the top of the rim.
It is this constant quest to better oneself--to always appear attractive to the opposite (or same) sex--that fuels a large part of our lives. It also creates insecurity and a sense of masking who we truly are. Even when one is not single and is in a relationship, I feel that the dynamics of strength and weakness are present. Men and women are always trying to gain the upper hand, to not have their hearts broken. If on the other hand you are too satisfied and do not try anymore, complacency leads to loss of sexual attraction that can hurt the relationship. You always have to be on your game, and at least in my own relationships there was always a seesaw sense of one person being in power, being strong, while the other one is the needy, the weak one. This probably is not a very healthy view--and I do not view it as the ideal--but I do think that it is fairly common. The weak person always tries to deny their neediness, but it always comes out. The strong person acts disinterested (usually because they actually are disinterested, but I guess sometimes not), exudes confidence with members of the opposite (or same) sex, and very rarely is the footing equal in relationships. Of course that is ideal, but it's an almost impossible tightrope to walk. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have a very hard time in a relationship not longing for things I cannot have. I wonder if this ever goes away. I guess that is the hard part about relationships. You really have to put the work in, and I think ultimately being faithful and loving is a lot of work, but I believe it is worthwhile in the long run, and I look with envy on those who can make it work. Props to you guys.
Now, when you are single, the dynamics of sex are much more visible. I don't have much experience in the dating world, so I'm sure someone who does could write a whole lot more about these things, but I will do my best. What I find interesting (and depressing?) is the idea of people having "leagues" in which they can date. For instance, a lot of guys will say or think (if they are trying to be too confident to say it), "That girl is out of my league." We can only date people within our own sphere of perceived attractiveness. Most girls I know will say, "I don't think any guys are out of my league" or something similar--I've never heard girls phrase this the same way as guys. Do they actually believe this? Does a "plain" girl really think she can get an ideal guy? I'm not sure. They will have to answer this. Maybe woman really do have more confidence in terms of landing a guy, but certainly they fall into equal insecurity and uncertainty when it comes to keeping a guy. As I've stated elsewhere (and many times), the common narrative I see at play is this: guy is attracted to girl; guy goes after girl; guy grows attached to the girl and becomes needy; eventually they sleep together; indefinite amount of time passes (sometimes this is after only one fuck); girl gets increasingly attached to a guy; guy grows disinterested and bored; couple breaks up; sometimes the guy grows desperate for what he's lost and wants her back; girl may or may not go through an extended cycle of getting back together and breaking up with guy. There are many variations to this, of course, and this is highly simplified (oh noez, Edward can't write a blog post expressing all points of view at once!), but I think it's fair to say that men grow attached faster, and with women it takes a certain amount of time to grow attached. I wonder why this is.
But anyways, there is always a sense of wanting to date a person who is "better." If you're a guy, more often than not, this means she is sexually attractive or at least has a personality that you somehow deem attractive. I'm not sure what exactly women look for the most in men...surely it varies. And it does for men of course, too. I'm just trying to say that there is some kind of competition going on (both with ourselves and with others)--we want the best we can get. We also want to be the best we can be to impress those we are going after. I do think this leads to a sense of masking our true feelings a lot. Guys are constantly told that the one thing girls look for in a guy is confidence. So we deny how we really feel to put on an air of confidence. This denial is different for every guy, and some probably fail at this altogether, but I think as a guy there is a strong pressure to be confident. I'm not denying the importance of this, since it's probably good to be confident in all areas of your life, not just romantically, but at the same time, there is this sense of hiding, of denying, what we really are to put on a front to get someone else in bed. Take that as you will. It's all part of the game. And as much as we try to romanticize the idea of love, it really is a big game. I wrote about this earlier on the blog, but I really like Lennon's lyric in the Beatles song "I'm a Loser": "She was a girl in a million, my friend/I should have known she would win in the end," because it has that cynical reality to it that it is a game of winning or losing. I would say I'm a pretty big romantic at heart, but I also have that sense of melancholic longing for a world that doesn't really exist. And that world is a world where none of the insecurities and strengths and weaknesses and fears I discussed above don't actually exist. But they do. And that's life.
What does any of this mean? I guess nothing much really. I just want to point out that what we see in the media, what we boast about to our friends, the mask we put on--that isn't our inner subjective reality. There is a lot of fear there, a lot of doubt, and a lot of...awkwardness? Men obsess over their penis size to a degree I'm sure most would never let onto. Women of course worry about their bodies too. We all worry about our sexual performance. We fear that girls are faking their orgasms, that we are not as good a lover as her ex, that our dicks aren't as big. We worry that our partner is thinking about someone else in bed with us. Even if we don't do all these things all the time, we have some little seeds of this poison in our veins. Few things cause quite the amount of mental expenditure and irrationality as sex and its various facets. The only reason I can think of why that is is that the biological necessity of it creates such a strong impulse inside of us that it overtakes almost all other thoughts (beside basic ones like life or death) in importance. And as much as we all try to act like we are above its basic banalities, I think it's fair to say that most of us are not.
--Edward
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
31 Flavors
So, this month of sex has been pretty vanilla, I think. Before we get off the topic, I wanted to share some words of wisdom: Dan Savage.
No, this is not a cute nickname; this is a very successful sex and/or relationship advice columnist/podcaster/has-a-new-show-on-MTV-called-Savage-U. (Don't worry about that sentence.) Dan is very savvy and sassy, but what really sets him apart from your dime-a-dozen Ask-Amys (Amies?) is his support for what, in this country certainly, are perceived as non-traditional relationships. Polyamory, non-missionary sex (sometimes with people you're not in love with!), kinks and non-heterosexual relationships, but also sacrificing for a relation that is worth it (what he calls, "the price of admission"), baggage and forgiveness.
Dan is hilarious, so he's great to read/listen to/watch (I assume, the show hasn't aired yet) just for kicks, but he's also really on point. One of the most poignent things about Dan's thoughts is that a relationship is a relationship, whoever's involved, whatever they're into. As long as all parties are aware and on board with the terms of their relationship (monogamous, open, age-play-incorporating), and everyone is getting what they want, IT'S ALL GOOD.
He also has coined one of my favorite phrases: DTMFA, or Dump The Mother Fucker Already.
Check it out, but not if you're scared of the gays, because then you'll probably freak out.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=8742121
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
[IMDb] Mr. Pascal Goes to U Street
Mr. Pascal Goes to U Street (2011)
369 min - Drama - 16 June 2011 (USA)
5.4/10
Users: (37,353 votes) 204 reviews | Critics: 53 reviews
A naive man is compelled to fill a vacancy in his heart for dancing on U Street. His plans promptly collide with internal and cultural ambiguity, but he doesn't back down.
Director:
Writers:
Sidney Buchman (screenplay), Lewis R. Foster (story), and 1 more credit »
Stars:
Top 250 #102 | Won Oscar. Another 2 wins & 10 nominations See more awards »
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Storyline
Naive and idealistic David Pascal, leader of the Boy Rangers, is appointed on a lark to partake in the viewing of the Yeasayer Orchestra in Washington. He is reunited with the state's senior senator--presidential hopeful and childhood hero, Senator Joseph Laskee. He departs from the concert hall and in his explorations on U Street, however, Pascal discovers many of the shortcomings of cultural grindings as his earnest goal of a free-form dance catharsis leads to a conflict in the middle of a downpour when Mr. Pascal reveals his undershirt of a "I <3 NY" T-shirt and is criticized by DC natives.In an effort to break free from the harsh voices of the street, he asks a man in limbo on a street corner whether he should venture to the Velvet Lounge or DC9. The drifter remarks that both are excellent, but that one should not evaluate one for too long standing too close, for then one will be perceived to be a creep.
Though dancing he does, it is the vague apparitions of friendly strangers he meets that impact him, like a young, overweight woman out on her own dancetharsis of the night, or a kindly homeless gentleman in search of a Heineken highboy, which Mr. Pascal grants him. He encounters a number of bartenders, some thankless and too cool, some thoughtful and reasonable (regarding his NY T-shirt), and one black and beautiful mother of two, divorced and estranged from New York itself.
As closing time approaches and cops flood the gutters to scoop out the remains of those lost with battery-less cell phones, Mr. Pascal finds himself in the amiable company of gay men at his final stop at DC9, but has to be wary of the tall one who comes on strong with suspiciously intimate knowledge of Pascal's hometown and then offerings of weed back at his apartment. Needing a cab, Pascal begrudgingly splits one with the tall man as far as the stranger's place, upon which Mr. Pascal pleads for safe passage back to his own home, to which the tall man responds by angrily slamming the car door sounding a dull thud into the lonely night air.
Winding out the morning on the long journey home, Mr. Pascal halts the cab on a moronic whim and decides to walk the rest of the way out of Washington back across the terrifying and pedestrian-life-threatening Roosevelt bridge back to his bed; with a brief stop for an Egg-McMuffin and a frozen strawberry lemonade, long gone from U Street.
Written by James Yu
Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis
Taglines:
Bromance, melodrama, semi-laughter and heartbreak ... created out of the very heart and soil of America ... by a great director and cast! See more »Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||||||||||
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Did You Know?
Trivia
Mr. Pascal is based on a real person who between the years of 2010 and 2011 wandered home from DC to VA a number of times, always choosing the worst possible route across the Roosevelt Bridge all except for the one time a cop drove him back over the Key Bridge. See more »Goofs
Revealing mistakes: When Pascal arrives in Washington on the train, he's seen walking towards the exit with a porter behind him carrying his bags. The next shot shows the same porter coming into the station carrying someone else's bags. See more »Quotes
David Pascal: I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn't have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.See more »
Soundtracks
"Ambling Alp" (2010) (uncredited) Music by Yeasayer. Played during the opening credits and often in the score See more »Friday, June 17, 2011
Future Sex: What Happens When Gender Becomes Fluid?
Seemingly every day, new and impressive technology is unleashed on an eager public. We've gone from desktop PC's to laptops to smart phones to tablets in less than two decades, and the pace is quickening. Already, the technology to give people heads-up displays (HUDs) implanted directly into their eyes is being developed, and the human brain is being mapped more and more intricately. Soon, we will reach a point in our history where we will consciously impose evolution on ourselves via technology. Humans will become part biological and part non-biological, and these non-biological aspects will allow us to do things never even considered before. Things like self-repairing bodies than can literally live forever, brains that can upload and download data from machines and other people at near instantaneous speeds, and the ability to leave our physical body behind and become beings of energy that can travel great distances and return via the future versions of our wireless networks. Leaving our bodies behind for indefinite time periods, or even choosing to download ourselves into a new body (an avatar for lack of a better term), poses an interesting question; will gender become fluid?
Before you dismiss the idea, consider the following: gender is entirely based on hormones inside our biological bodies. You identify yourself as female or male solely because your body tells you it's so, but even today we have people who are unsure of gender based on confusing biological signals. Now, imagine you are able, from an early age, to leave your body for extended periods of time, leaving all the hormones and biological signals behind. Add to that downloading yourself into different avatars, which may or may not resemble your biological body in any way, and suddenly gender becomes closer to a choice than a definition. When you enter a world-wide network as a being without a body, suddenly all things that define a gender are stripped away.
Physical characteristics don't matter, or even exist. There are no chemicals running through you to give you impulse to feel one way or another. You exist are pure thought and information, devoid of anything but consciousness. Now gender is merely a thought, a concept. And humans have proven time and time again that concepts are meant to be bent and rebuilt to suit our needs. So, as you spend more and more time without a body, what will define you as man or woman other than your own notion? And, what happens when you decide to see how the other side lives? When it's not only possible, but normal for a born-man to upload himself into a "female" avatar and live that way, what becomes of the notion of gender? It becomes fluid, and in my opinion it becomes the one of the most important shifts in in thought in human history. It will become a paradigm shift that is not only difficult to imagine now, but will change how we even define humanity as a whole.
The future is coming, and it will mean the change of everything we know to be fact. Scientists call it "The Singularity", the event in which things change so rapidly it is almost impossible to see beyond it. And while most people view the evolution of technology in purely technological ways, it will impact all aspects of human society, including sociology. It's hard to say what will change in what way, but the possibilities are endless to be sure. The only thing we can expect is the unexpected, and the very way we think will always be changing.
**Note: This blog is based on theoretical technology that, while has not been invented yet (obviously), is not outside the realm of possibility based on the current path of fields like nanotechnology, biotechnology, and computer sciences. So, please treat this as the thought experiment it is meant to be and not gospel truth to be refuted.
The Wrong Kind of Sex
I'm sure most of us have had at least one sexual experience that we regret, for whatever reason. Maybe it was a one night stand, maybe it was just bad, maybe it was with somebody you shouldn't have. Either way we have all had those ones we regret, I know I have had my fair share. Sure I can go over the couple of one night stands that left me empty and wondering "why the fuck would I do that?" the next day. However, those are easier to get over than my biggest regret, which I'm going to go into right now.
Let me first give you some perspective. I had been romantically involved with a girl that I had fallen completely in love with. However, this "relationship" started just mere weeks after her relationship with her ex boyfriend of four years had ended. So because of this, and the fact that she had never gotten over him, our relationship had become quite rocky and full of drama. I know my friends and family can attest to this.
So about a year after I met her, she had gotten back with her ex while telling me the whole time that she wasn't and that she wanted to be with me. When I found out she was actually with him, I was furious to say the least. So with the advice of my friends and family, I gave her a "shit or get off the pot" kind of ultimatum and said she had until this day to break it off with him or I was gone from her life forever. Then when this day finally rolled around she told me that she needed more time and needless to say I was heartbroken. I felt worthless because even after giving the girl I love everything, she still rejected me and it wasn't enough. So a couple of friends came over and I proceeded to try and drink all the pain away. Which doesn't ever work by the way. Now the rest of this night is a blur. I remember at one point Ryan telling me to "forget the girl I was pinning over and just get with the girl that was there." This sounds harmless until you learn that the girl who was there was one of her best friends. So in this low point of my life I made a terrible mistake and had "the wrong kind of sex." Looking back I'm not sure why I did it. Maybe it was because of how I was feeling. Maybe it was because of the rejection I felt from the girl I really wanted so I would accept anybody who would have me.
Now the next day I was in a crisis as I didn't know what to do. On one hand I felt awful because I still loved her and it was her friend, on the other I felt like I didn't owe her anything because she was with somebody else. So I asked my mom for advice, and she told me that "sometimes it's better not to hurt somebody to get rid of your own guilt" so I decided to try and forget about it and never tell anybody about it. Hoping that maybe if I had forgotten that it would be like it never happened.
Things only proceeded to get worse. One because she had finally decided to end it with her ex and move forward with me and two because my best friend Ryan, had started dating her friend. Thankfully I had pretty much forgotten about what happened that night. So more time went on and things with the girl were stressful as she still wasn't over her ex, so she had really done some terrible things to me in the process of getting over him. Ryan had broken up with the friend after a few months.
Finally as things started to get better between me and the girl, I find out that she had sex with her ex. I was furious and in rage. I didn't know what to do. Once again after giving her everything she had thrown it all away like it was meaningless. So I was back to where I was before, feeling hopeless and worthless. And one night I was drinking alone, doing the same stupid thing I had done before to deal with my pain, and her friend texted me because she just found out what happened. She asked if I was doing okay and I said no, and she asked if I wanted some company. I said sure. Which was a terrible mistake because once again I had the "wrong kind of sex."
So then the girl finally was showing me she was sorry for everything and we started finally having a healthy relationship. So I didn't want to mess that up with what was a meaningless sexual encounter to me, just like all those other one night stands I had before. But of course as it always does the truth came out. The backlash from my actions has been severe. Both with her and with Ryan who I told just yesterday.
I fully understand why they are so upset. I haven't felt so disgusted with myself in my entire life. I feel like when I think about what happened it was a different person that I can't even relate to. I did something that I never thought I would. My sister, who I am very close to asked me, "why didn't you tell me?" The truth is that I was embarrassed and ashamed. I usually do everything I can to do the right thing whenever possible, especially when it comes to being honest. I don't know how I got so lost with this one, I'm still trying to figure that one out. I am not at all trying to rationalize my actions. What I did was terrible, and even worse I wasn't honest with the two people this effected most. Those two people are two of the most important people in my life and I hurt them both. For that I am sorry, and I hope that one day they can both forgive me.
Ryan, I'm very sorry for not being honest with you when I always talk about being that way. Yes I fucked up on this one and even with all of our stupid issues I will always consider you one of my best friends.
Becca, I'm so sorry for ruining your friendship and hurting you so much, especially since I promised you I would be the person who wouldn't ever hurt you. Hopefully you can give me a chance to prove to you that I won't ever hurt you like this again. I love you so much.
That's pretty much it. Sex isn't something to be taken lightly and your actions have consequences, I hope you can learn from my mistakes.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
How My Loser-Complex Is Preventing Me From Finding Love
*Guest essay by Francisca:
I’m in my mid-twenties, I’m plain, I can be awkward, I’m kind of introverted although in the right circumstances I can be outgoing, I sometimes speak before I think, I’m constantly trying to lose weight although I don’t really need it, I never buy any new clothes since I think everything looks terrible on me, I try to eat healthy but still have slip-ups, I try to maintain a good physique, I’m a natural loner … you follow? So far I sound like the typical slightly insecure young city woman. But there’s more of course.
I recently lost my job, I’m doing terribly at school, I have a very difficult time getting new friends and maintaining the few precious ones I still have, my relationship with my family is not great at all and I have no love life to speak of – like none at all.
Basically I’m failing in every single aspect of life. There is no place where I’m ahead of the game. I feel like a loser. Yeah you’re right… I am a loser.
Now some of you are probably going to tell me how I shouldn’t feel that way and how I’m trapped in a vicious circle, in which I’m self-enhancing this loser- image of myself and so on. But honestly the facts of my life speak volumes. So far I’ve accomplished nothing in my life, nobody is proud of me and nobody cares.
So let’s get this insincere ‘oh-it-can’t-all-be-that-bad’ BS out of the way. I’m not looking for your phony reassurances. Those comments often seem to come from people who are loved-up and happy with their circumstances. In any case I’m not confirming myself as a loser, just to have you people try to dissuade me from that conviction.
One of the consequences of being a loser is that I’m afraid to embark on a love-life, because I have nothing to offer.
If I had been beautiful, it probably would be a lot easier. Then I could at least contribute to the relationship with my amazing looks. But alas, I’m not beautiful. Not witty, not smart(er), not likeable, not cute – just plain, plain, plain. When I meet new people I try to tell as little as possible about me and try to divert the attention to them, out of sheer fear that they may quickly discover how little I have to offer of anything. How bizarrely un-interesting I am. How boring I am. How unworthy I am of their time.
I’ve never been on a date, but I can just imagine how one-sided that performance would be. I would let him do all the talking and find creative ways to not talk about me.
Who am I kidding? I would not go on a date in the first place – if there is anything I know then it’s that as soon as people know how little of value I have to offer, they decide to ditch me. The few friends I still have are around because I somehow convinced them that I’m more than what I really am.
It would kill me to fall in love and know that I have nothing to give. Even worse, that the person who’s the object of my desire will discover what a loser I am and just have that look in his eyes, that attitude, that body language of pity. I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
Therefore the few times I’ve actually taken a liking to someone the solution has so far been to avoid them altogether. Trust me, it’s not their loss at all. Anybody else but me would be much better for these fantastic guys.
I cannot love anybody since I have nothing to give at all. There is nothing I can think of that would be of value to him. I cannot love anybody because I don’t love myself, however clichéd that may sound. I don’t even really like myself, so how can anybody else like me.
I’m such a loser and I know my way out of it, but just seem so incapable of doing it and the doing is everything.
I have no idea where this essay is heading… Guess I wanted to explain how justified feelings of inadequacy can lead to a non existing love-life. I really want to rise above and become less of a loser, but it’s incredibly hard. Don’t get me wrong; I yearn with every fiber of my body to be loved, but it’s impossible when I barely care about myself.
If you have some way of finishing off this blog entry, then please be my guest. Or something.
--Francisca
I’m in my mid-twenties, I’m plain, I can be awkward, I’m kind of introverted although in the right circumstances I can be outgoing, I sometimes speak before I think, I’m constantly trying to lose weight although I don’t really need it, I never buy any new clothes since I think everything looks terrible on me, I try to eat healthy but still have slip-ups, I try to maintain a good physique, I’m a natural loner … you follow? So far I sound like the typical slightly insecure young city woman. But there’s more of course.
I recently lost my job, I’m doing terribly at school, I have a very difficult time getting new friends and maintaining the few precious ones I still have, my relationship with my family is not great at all and I have no love life to speak of – like none at all.
Basically I’m failing in every single aspect of life. There is no place where I’m ahead of the game. I feel like a loser. Yeah you’re right… I am a loser.
Now some of you are probably going to tell me how I shouldn’t feel that way and how I’m trapped in a vicious circle, in which I’m self-enhancing this loser- image of myself and so on. But honestly the facts of my life speak volumes. So far I’ve accomplished nothing in my life, nobody is proud of me and nobody cares.
So let’s get this insincere ‘oh-it-can’t-all-be-that-bad’ BS out of the way. I’m not looking for your phony reassurances. Those comments often seem to come from people who are loved-up and happy with their circumstances. In any case I’m not confirming myself as a loser, just to have you people try to dissuade me from that conviction.
One of the consequences of being a loser is that I’m afraid to embark on a love-life, because I have nothing to offer.
If I had been beautiful, it probably would be a lot easier. Then I could at least contribute to the relationship with my amazing looks. But alas, I’m not beautiful. Not witty, not smart(er), not likeable, not cute – just plain, plain, plain. When I meet new people I try to tell as little as possible about me and try to divert the attention to them, out of sheer fear that they may quickly discover how little I have to offer of anything. How bizarrely un-interesting I am. How boring I am. How unworthy I am of their time.
I’ve never been on a date, but I can just imagine how one-sided that performance would be. I would let him do all the talking and find creative ways to not talk about me.
Who am I kidding? I would not go on a date in the first place – if there is anything I know then it’s that as soon as people know how little of value I have to offer, they decide to ditch me. The few friends I still have are around because I somehow convinced them that I’m more than what I really am.
It would kill me to fall in love and know that I have nothing to give. Even worse, that the person who’s the object of my desire will discover what a loser I am and just have that look in his eyes, that attitude, that body language of pity. I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
Therefore the few times I’ve actually taken a liking to someone the solution has so far been to avoid them altogether. Trust me, it’s not their loss at all. Anybody else but me would be much better for these fantastic guys.
I cannot love anybody since I have nothing to give at all. There is nothing I can think of that would be of value to him. I cannot love anybody because I don’t love myself, however clichéd that may sound. I don’t even really like myself, so how can anybody else like me.
I’m such a loser and I know my way out of it, but just seem so incapable of doing it and the doing is everything.
I have no idea where this essay is heading… Guess I wanted to explain how justified feelings of inadequacy can lead to a non existing love-life. I really want to rise above and become less of a loser, but it’s incredibly hard. Don’t get me wrong; I yearn with every fiber of my body to be loved, but it’s impossible when I barely care about myself.
If you have some way of finishing off this blog entry, then please be my guest. Or something.
--Francisca
The Top 100 Rock Guitar Solos of All Time--39-30
39.) "Brothers in Arms" (Dire Straits)
I absolutely adore this song. What brilliant, soul-tugging, fucking tasteful guitar-playing in here. My God. I don't think there has ever been mournful guitar. This song literally leaves me speechless.
38.) "Surfing with the Alien" (Joe Satriani)
Satch's signature song, the title track off his second record, is a descendant of the adrenaline rush of early rock and roll like Chuck Berry and surf-rock songs like "Misirlou." Indeed, I have often heard this song described as "Chuck Berry on steroids." It's bursting at the seams with boyish energy and enthusiasm for the thrill of making music, the high you get from being completely in the zone, wrapped up in a cocoon from the outside world and its banal distractions. I love that the title precisely describes the contrast/harmony of the early, innocent rock feel and the alien, jaw-dropping virtuosity of Joe's playing. Being as this is the first song on the album, that first solo at one minute in hits you like a ton of bricks with its pick-tapping and lightning-fast yet fluid licks (Joe differentiates himself from other '80s shredders by his focus on legato technique instead of tremelo-picked scales, which gives his solos the more organic, fluid sound of a wind instrument, instead of the picked, staccato feel that shredders borrow from piano and violin virtuosos like Paganini--see right heeyuh). The second solo is just pure joy--it truly is Chuck Berry at hyperspeed. My favorite part is the first lick, which just sounds amazing and preternatural. There are so many Berry-esque double stops in this solo, given unique flair through Joe's use of the whammy bar. Joe had such a gift for phrasing in his solos that gave them a sort of pop hook that was missing in other guitarists' repertoires at the time.
37.) "Black Star" (Yngwie Malmsteen)
Without a doubt Yngwie's greatest piece and his signature tune (although not his greatest solo), this is one of the only things I've heard by him I would describe as "beautiful." It has a very unique tone to it--let me try to think of the right words to describe it (and I don't mean guitar tone, but the feel of the song). The best I can think of is a sense of loss, of the ruin of the high culture of the West, Europe's fall from grace and America's brutish ascension to power. It has an elegiac power. Perhaps this is reading a little too deep in Malmsteen, a man who lacks somewhat in the intelligence department, but more than makes up for it in the ego department. But Yngwie's devotion to the Baroque masters, as well as the late-19th century virtuosos like the above-mentioned Paganini, lend this song an air of classical sensibility. This is one of the few times Malmsteen's speed passages actually seem to fit some sort of melodic, song-based purpose. A beautiful song.
36.) "Ladies Nite in Buffalo" (David Lee Roth)
It took me a while to really grasp the full impact of this solo, which resides in perhaps David Lee Roth's greatest solo song. Steve Vai's guitar work adorns the entire song, adding impossibly laid-back rhythm parts and jazzy fills throughout. But the solo is a true piece of work, a miniature yet perfectly complete work of art in itself. It is perhaps Vai's most perfectly structured solo, his equivalent of Joe Satriani's "Crushing Day." It is amazing to hear the difference between Vai's raw solos on Flexable and the polished perfection of this solo on Eat 'Em and Smile just two years later in '86. But I suppose this isn't surprising when you remember that Vai, above all other guitarists, prided himself on being a true musical virtuoso, not able only just to play fast, but to be able to conquer any style of music and composition that he put his mind to. This is like an exquisite gem waiting for the right light to shine on it to reveal its complexity and clarity.
35.) "Whole Lotta Love" (Led Zeppelin)
This is the most masculine, the most virile of all rock songs. This doesn't exude sexiness so much as it just smells of sex. This is not about trying to seduce a woman through lies and niceties, not about love--it's about lusting after and the act of fucking itself. Jimmy nails his best guitar tone ever on that solo. Nothing has ever been fatter--not even Eddie Van Halen's "brown sound." Technically sloppy, just like Page was notorious for, the solo is nevertheless is absolutely, balls-out cum-on-her-face. Very few solos have suited the song better than this one. And what's even better than the solo is the riff, one of rock's very finest. This has got to be my favorite Led Zep song, and perhaps the greatest hard rock song of all time. This is what Van Halen aspired to with a song like "Hot for Teacher," but utterly failed at in delivering the pure goods that this one shoots in your face.
34.) "White Room" (Cream)
Everyone and their mom has heard this song on repeat since birth, but it doesn't stop it from being a great one. I love the gradual build-up of Clapton's wah guitar throughout the song as it progresses, fatalistically, towards that final, orgiastic burst of Clapton's soloing that closes "White Room." "Crossroads" is usually billed as Clapton's great solo in Cream, but I prefer the melodic hooks of this one, as Clapton uses the wah pedal to its full effect in imitating the human voice.
33.) "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (The Beatles)
Clapton pops up again in this spot, and again we can see his capacity for playing some of the most melodic licks of all time, here countering the bell-like purity of Harrison's voice with phrases of such real emotion that they truly do give you the impression that Clapton's guitar is crying at the beauty and loss in the world. His excellent vibrato is of course a large part of this effect, but it is his breathtaking sense of musical composition that creates such fine musical phrases that they can actually hold their own against one of the Beatles' very best songs. I have never heard Clapton's work with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, so my opinion is not very valid, but for my money, this song has Clapton's best soloing.
32.) "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
Jimi's guitar playing on here has such raw, unpolished force, a sense of expression like he was overflowing with musical energy yet incapable of channeling it, so he opened up his heart and let the force of his own creative sun burst from his fingertips. His playing truly was some of the most original of any guitar player--I can't think of anything that sounds like this, before or after him. He really just fucking goes for it on his best songs. His use of guitar effects was pioneering, but he did it in such a way that they suited the song--even more than that, they suited his musical persona, bringing an otherworldly quality that is uncanny, because it reminds us of something we've forgotten. His songs are so raw and powerful that they shatter our musical (mis)perceptions and allow us to look and hear the world anew, after our soul has been torn down to its most primitive form by Hendrix's caveman/prophet guitar-playing.
31.) "Binge and Grab" (Buckethead)
I've said this a lot of times, I know, but this is truly a case of the solo coming out of absolutely nowhere to kick your ass for being such a pussy. The song begins with such a simple, catchy riff, riding it out for all its worth. Seems pretty bland, amirite? The solo even starts relatively tamely, which is just great, because you are left unprepared for how Buckethead is going to rip your flesh from your bones with his sheer technique and his wonderful energy and perhaps even naivete. How else could you contrast such carefree, innocent licks with such soul-devastating shred and blues-excelsior licks? This one is all feeling for me. Best not to try to over-intellectualize it, because I don't think that is his intention.
30.) "Is There Love in Space" (Joe Satriani)
An absolutely gorgeous song, "Is There Love in Space" has a kind of mature, understated beauty lacking in Satriani's earlier ballads (other than "Rubina"). By this point in his career, Satriani has matured into a less-is-more approach (well, sometimes he has). That means we are missing the resplendent power of Surfing with the Alien's finest songs, but it also means we have the raw emotion of a solo like this one. When I say the word "raw," I think of my description of Hendrix above. A solo like this one is like some kind of Hendrixian beast that has been refined through Joe's vast chops, able to express the feeling of Jimi's creative energy through the prism of Satriani's technique (this is oversimplified, since I don't think anyone has been able to channel Hendrix's wild energy with any great success). But nevertheless, I feel that this solo is Hendrix-inspired, through its impressionistic use of effects and tone to conjure a feel, a mood. The tone is just so overpowering in its contrast to the beauty of the verses, I just can't help being swept away by it into space and the great vault above us, a world Joe seemed eternally drawn to.
--Edward
I absolutely adore this song. What brilliant, soul-tugging, fucking tasteful guitar-playing in here. My God. I don't think there has ever been mournful guitar. This song literally leaves me speechless.
38.) "Surfing with the Alien" (Joe Satriani)
Satch's signature song, the title track off his second record, is a descendant of the adrenaline rush of early rock and roll like Chuck Berry and surf-rock songs like "Misirlou." Indeed, I have often heard this song described as "Chuck Berry on steroids." It's bursting at the seams with boyish energy and enthusiasm for the thrill of making music, the high you get from being completely in the zone, wrapped up in a cocoon from the outside world and its banal distractions. I love that the title precisely describes the contrast/harmony of the early, innocent rock feel and the alien, jaw-dropping virtuosity of Joe's playing. Being as this is the first song on the album, that first solo at one minute in hits you like a ton of bricks with its pick-tapping and lightning-fast yet fluid licks (Joe differentiates himself from other '80s shredders by his focus on legato technique instead of tremelo-picked scales, which gives his solos the more organic, fluid sound of a wind instrument, instead of the picked, staccato feel that shredders borrow from piano and violin virtuosos like Paganini--see right heeyuh). The second solo is just pure joy--it truly is Chuck Berry at hyperspeed. My favorite part is the first lick, which just sounds amazing and preternatural. There are so many Berry-esque double stops in this solo, given unique flair through Joe's use of the whammy bar. Joe had such a gift for phrasing in his solos that gave them a sort of pop hook that was missing in other guitarists' repertoires at the time.
37.) "Black Star" (Yngwie Malmsteen)
Without a doubt Yngwie's greatest piece and his signature tune (although not his greatest solo), this is one of the only things I've heard by him I would describe as "beautiful." It has a very unique tone to it--let me try to think of the right words to describe it (and I don't mean guitar tone, but the feel of the song). The best I can think of is a sense of loss, of the ruin of the high culture of the West, Europe's fall from grace and America's brutish ascension to power. It has an elegiac power. Perhaps this is reading a little too deep in Malmsteen, a man who lacks somewhat in the intelligence department, but more than makes up for it in the ego department. But Yngwie's devotion to the Baroque masters, as well as the late-19th century virtuosos like the above-mentioned Paganini, lend this song an air of classical sensibility. This is one of the few times Malmsteen's speed passages actually seem to fit some sort of melodic, song-based purpose. A beautiful song.
36.) "Ladies Nite in Buffalo" (David Lee Roth)
It took me a while to really grasp the full impact of this solo, which resides in perhaps David Lee Roth's greatest solo song. Steve Vai's guitar work adorns the entire song, adding impossibly laid-back rhythm parts and jazzy fills throughout. But the solo is a true piece of work, a miniature yet perfectly complete work of art in itself. It is perhaps Vai's most perfectly structured solo, his equivalent of Joe Satriani's "Crushing Day." It is amazing to hear the difference between Vai's raw solos on Flexable and the polished perfection of this solo on Eat 'Em and Smile just two years later in '86. But I suppose this isn't surprising when you remember that Vai, above all other guitarists, prided himself on being a true musical virtuoso, not able only just to play fast, but to be able to conquer any style of music and composition that he put his mind to. This is like an exquisite gem waiting for the right light to shine on it to reveal its complexity and clarity.
35.) "Whole Lotta Love" (Led Zeppelin)
This is the most masculine, the most virile of all rock songs. This doesn't exude sexiness so much as it just smells of sex. This is not about trying to seduce a woman through lies and niceties, not about love--it's about lusting after and the act of fucking itself. Jimmy nails his best guitar tone ever on that solo. Nothing has ever been fatter--not even Eddie Van Halen's "brown sound." Technically sloppy, just like Page was notorious for, the solo is nevertheless is absolutely, balls-out cum-on-her-face. Very few solos have suited the song better than this one. And what's even better than the solo is the riff, one of rock's very finest. This has got to be my favorite Led Zep song, and perhaps the greatest hard rock song of all time. This is what Van Halen aspired to with a song like "Hot for Teacher," but utterly failed at in delivering the pure goods that this one shoots in your face.
34.) "White Room" (Cream)
Everyone and their mom has heard this song on repeat since birth, but it doesn't stop it from being a great one. I love the gradual build-up of Clapton's wah guitar throughout the song as it progresses, fatalistically, towards that final, orgiastic burst of Clapton's soloing that closes "White Room." "Crossroads" is usually billed as Clapton's great solo in Cream, but I prefer the melodic hooks of this one, as Clapton uses the wah pedal to its full effect in imitating the human voice.
33.) "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (The Beatles)
Clapton pops up again in this spot, and again we can see his capacity for playing some of the most melodic licks of all time, here countering the bell-like purity of Harrison's voice with phrases of such real emotion that they truly do give you the impression that Clapton's guitar is crying at the beauty and loss in the world. His excellent vibrato is of course a large part of this effect, but it is his breathtaking sense of musical composition that creates such fine musical phrases that they can actually hold their own against one of the Beatles' very best songs. I have never heard Clapton's work with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, so my opinion is not very valid, but for my money, this song has Clapton's best soloing.
32.) "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
Jimi's guitar playing on here has such raw, unpolished force, a sense of expression like he was overflowing with musical energy yet incapable of channeling it, so he opened up his heart and let the force of his own creative sun burst from his fingertips. His playing truly was some of the most original of any guitar player--I can't think of anything that sounds like this, before or after him. He really just fucking goes for it on his best songs. His use of guitar effects was pioneering, but he did it in such a way that they suited the song--even more than that, they suited his musical persona, bringing an otherworldly quality that is uncanny, because it reminds us of something we've forgotten. His songs are so raw and powerful that they shatter our musical (mis)perceptions and allow us to look and hear the world anew, after our soul has been torn down to its most primitive form by Hendrix's caveman/prophet guitar-playing.
31.) "Binge and Grab" (Buckethead)
I've said this a lot of times, I know, but this is truly a case of the solo coming out of absolutely nowhere to kick your ass for being such a pussy. The song begins with such a simple, catchy riff, riding it out for all its worth. Seems pretty bland, amirite? The solo even starts relatively tamely, which is just great, because you are left unprepared for how Buckethead is going to rip your flesh from your bones with his sheer technique and his wonderful energy and perhaps even naivete. How else could you contrast such carefree, innocent licks with such soul-devastating shred and blues-excelsior licks? This one is all feeling for me. Best not to try to over-intellectualize it, because I don't think that is his intention.
30.) "Is There Love in Space" (Joe Satriani)
An absolutely gorgeous song, "Is There Love in Space" has a kind of mature, understated beauty lacking in Satriani's earlier ballads (other than "Rubina"). By this point in his career, Satriani has matured into a less-is-more approach (well, sometimes he has). That means we are missing the resplendent power of Surfing with the Alien's finest songs, but it also means we have the raw emotion of a solo like this one. When I say the word "raw," I think of my description of Hendrix above. A solo like this one is like some kind of Hendrixian beast that has been refined through Joe's vast chops, able to express the feeling of Jimi's creative energy through the prism of Satriani's technique (this is oversimplified, since I don't think anyone has been able to channel Hendrix's wild energy with any great success). But nevertheless, I feel that this solo is Hendrix-inspired, through its impressionistic use of effects and tone to conjure a feel, a mood. The tone is just so overpowering in its contrast to the beauty of the verses, I just can't help being swept away by it into space and the great vault above us, a world Joe seemed eternally drawn to.
--Edward
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