G-Rock presents:
The Man, The myth, the Legend!
    In his own words

"The following...is true. And by 'true', I mean, 'false.'  But it's an entertaining false.  And in the end, isn't that the real truth?  The answer... is no."
 
 

Updated 4/30/00
In the Beginning...

    I'm tempted to make this whole thing a gigantic farce. But I suppose that would defeat the purpose of it all. So... to start with, I... am G-Rock .  This is  the obligatory "about me" page. I guess it'll help to flesh out some of the holes about my life that are in my writing.

    Well, as of now, I'm a graduate student in the Journalism MA program at NYU, with a concentration in Cultural Reporting and Criticism.  Exactly what that entails, I'm not sure.  But it's not training me to be a reporter or anything.  I actually quite disdain the news.  It's more of a curriculum to describe people and places.  Anyway, I finish in the Fall of 2000.  Then... who knows.  I'm really in school because I hated work, and I wanted the months of June, July, and August to mean something again.  I worked , from 1998-99, in Washington DC, a city I didn't and don't really like, for a naval contrator setting up video teleconferences for military people. It wasn't fun, but I had so much free time I decided to learn a bit about webpages.  And this is the result. Whoopee.
    I'm also in school so I don't have to start paying off a bunch of loans.  All in all, I'm here for all the right reasons.  I'm living in Brooklyn, NY, with my college pal Jed, and two other people I didn't know.  we live in the area known as Park Slope, a yuppie-ish type of area.  But it's peaceful, sorta pretty, and quiet.  New York gets on my nerves, but at least it's a real city.   But I do miss my car, and I miss being able to see the horizon. You know, that point off in the distance where the ground meets the sky?  can't see that a lot in New York.

    As paltry as this journal is, it's gotten me into considerable trouble now and again.  Sometimes I want to scrap this and start all over again, secretly.  But I can't do this for several reasons:
1) I'm too lazy, and I've invested too much time in this one already.
2) I don't think I could come up with a name for the journal that I like better than the one I have now.
3) I know I couldn't keep my mouth shut and I'd tell my friends about it anyway, so i couldn't talk shit about them.
 
    Anyhow, here're some miscellaneous stats.

 
Born:  Reading, Pennsylvania. (Wyomissing, actually. Same difference).
Height:  6ft
Weight:  152-163. Depends on price of Jelly Krimpets.
Hair: Black
eyes: almond-shaped
Biceps:  at least 10 inches, if you catch me on a good day.
Defensive Weapon: Self Deprecation
Offensive Weapon: Pitiless, intense sarcasm. delicious sense of irony. Sarcastic to the point of sarcastic sarcasm.
Occasional signs of: genius, lightning quick wit, Peter Pan syndrome.
Cursed with: Boyish good-looks, knowing the best way to do things and not having anyone believe you.
Achilles heel:  Achilles heel. Also, debilitatingly lazy. Example, notice how this dramtically ends here...

Well, here's a few other things I think about a lot that need more explanation than one sentence.  It's quite a list of cliches, I know.  But what the hell...

Religion (organized)- No thanks.  You can believe what you want, that's all fine and good by me. I won't tell you differently, or even make fun of you (to your face). Just don't go scattering Bibles or Korans copies of L. Ron Hubbard books all over the place.  And don't tell me you don't believe in evolution or try to convince me that the world was created over 6 days.  I believe in a god.  As Lou Gehrig (supposedly) said ,"... and always say your prayers... just in case."  In sum, I'm vehemently opposed to organized religion, particularly when they (religious types) think they have the answers to the world's ills.  Or tell you how to raise your kids. Or try to tell you what's decent and what's not. Or good or bad.  Or sinful.  Or immoral.  Or that the earth is the center of the Universe.  Or that children can be immaculatly conceived.  Basically, the fact that you have to go to church bothers me. If you truly believe in God, don't you think he (she, it, they, etc.) would know it?  Why would you have to go to church to prove it? And this notion of a humorless God is too much.  I think I can say "to hell with god" and have god know I'm just kidding. "Hey god! Nice universe ya got there!  What the hell were you on when you came up with the platypus?"  Along the same lines, I think this business of sins is  a little overdone. Mainly all this "thou shall not" shit.  I think it'd take a pretty sick and twisted god to design people to act one way, then write up a bunch of rules telling them not to. It's not called human nature for nothing.  Basically, if you ask me, the only real example of a really good use of relgion is when a murderer or other villain finds religion and mellows out, and they only find religion because there's no other infrastructure available that accepts reform so readily and blindly.
As for me, I believe in a god.  I used to think I was agnostic, but I thought who am I kidding. So then I thought I was a Deist, but I'm fairly certain in an egotistical way that whatever god I believe in is the vengelful sort who constantly fucks with me.  Things could get along without him, but he's got nothing better to do than play with his toys.  I believe in an afterlife, because it will all be pretty meaningless without it. Or at least reincarnation. and karma. My biggest evidence of both of these is my present life. And I often hope there's a hell, mainly to help me calm down when faced with assholes and bad drivers.


Politics-  I've lost almost all faith in public officials. The one thing I think I can count on is that they're all self serving people who's main goal of their term of office is to assure that they have another term.  When I hear politicians talk about how much they care about children and schools and taxes and health insurance I either think they're so out of touch they can't possibly know anymore about the concerns of the middle or lower class, or I think "what the hell do they care? They're set."  I know frustartion with politics is a tired subject, but it's bothering me more these days, especially living around DC, where all these wanna be political types run rampant.  Laissez faire is really the only thing I believe in, politics-wise.  I really believe things will work out how they should. All I want from the government is to do things like build schools, defend the country,  staff a police force and armed forces, and occasionally start a war to make sure no one forgets who's running the earth.  I don't even mind paying my taxes. I mean, the money's gotta come from somewhere. Just don't tell me what to believe or what to teach my kids if I have them. Basically, there's a lot of overlap in my disdain with religion and politics. The only comforting thing is that more people seem to agree with me on the politics thing.

People-  People, in general, are idiots.  I have a general disdain for people who identify themselves with a particular group.  here are some groups that I hate and why:
    Punks and other vehement "non-conformists"-  I like the idea behind punk.  Basically, my idea of punk is doing what you want regardless of what others think.  However, most punks I see just want to shock the mainstream and do things just because others don't. Even worse, they tend to disslike or hate something once it becomes popular. If you're truly punk, you're not gonna throw out all your old cd's just because the teeny-bops on MTV start to buy them.  That's always pissed me off.  Everytime I hear someone say "Yeah, I like their old stuff," I wanna punch their teeth in.  And as for people who do things to be different-  Some people even like to describe themselves as "nonconformist."  Puh-leeeease.  "So what do YOU like to do."  "Whatever YOU don't!"  Uh huh...  That's um, pretty cool.  If you're a self-described nonconformist, if you have so little personal identity that you let your actions be determined by the what others do, you're even more of an idiot than the mindless cattle you try so desperately to separate yourself from.

    Arsty-fartsy "intelligentsia"-  Please, just go away. Stop hanging out at coffee houses and open mic nights.  Yes, yes, you're VERY deep.  Your profundity is amazing.  Your art, it connects with me. And your poems, never has such a justification of the invention of language ever been witnessed.  You are deep beyond belief and I have so much to learn from you and you're an incredible talent and blah blah blah blah... *POW!*  My god... if there's one group of people I truly, truly hate, it's pretentious "artists."  They're even worse than the punks.  Punks and whatnot can at least be easily dismissed as just unintellgent dolts.  But the misuse of actual intelligence frustrates me to no end.  It's like, you stand there, and you listen to some joker, possibly quite intelligent, saying how his blotches of paint try to capture the state of human chaos and suffering, and you want to scream "What's wrong with you?!  You're so close... c'mon back to us... c'mon..."  Then again, a lot of these people are idiots as well.  I actually heard someone say "You're just not as deep as me," in all seriousness once. I shoulda killed her on the spot.  Here's one of the Indisputable Rules of the Universe:

Profundity, like nonconformity, CANNOT be self-proclaimed.

If you attempt to do so, all you're really saying is "Look how smart (or different) I THINK I am. So much, in fact, that I'm cooler than you!"
    I really have no use for poetry either. There are a few poets that I do enjoy, but very, very few.  Basically, spare me the babbling imagery and alliteration and onomatapeia and just say what you fucking mean!   I think Robert Frost, from what very little I've read, was a pretty straight forward kinda guy. He'd say what he meant. Sometimes you'd have to see the irony, and some vivid imagery here and there, but he did it really well.  Basically, the scene in Animal House where John Belushi smashes the guitar of the "I gave my love a cherry..." guy sums it all up.  I've never seen that whole movie, by the way.

Miscellaneous groups-
    Ugly girls who think they're attractive, just by their association with a particular group, such as a sorority.  They have attitude and they don't deserve to have it.  They think they're "the shit", and they do it so well everyone starts believeing it and you just have to accept it. You just want to throttle them and say "Who the hell do you think you are!?!"  I can understand if a really, truly attractive girl has a bithcy attitude. In fact, I expect it.  But an ugly girl with an attitude is just gonna spawn more ugly girls with attitudes. It needs to be stopped.
    The groups the aforementioned girls are associated with. Obviously, for generating such behavior.  You've seen them.  They sit in bars in fashionable clothes and/or dirty white baseball hats and do things like hold up plastic cups and scream "Wooooo!"


How everything has a catch-  Another Indisputable Rule of the Universe. Obviously, by no means an original thought, if such a thing even exists.  But my example is nature.  Here's one thing that you'd think would be on your side. It's natural, it's as old as the universe, it can be pretty and exciting and breathtaking, etc. But it can be annoying and downright terrifying.  What's nicer than a nice picnic scene on a sunny day in the middle of  a field, a basket full of goodies, your sweety-pie looking all cute, maybe your dog running around in the field. Of course, within minutes, you're swarmed by flies, ants and other non-flying creatures all over you, and your dog just brought back a dead mouse he killed in the field.
    Another thing that really bothers me about nature, is that there's really no place in the United States that you can live where nature can't wreak it's horrible havoc on you on a large scale.  Northeast?  Debilitatin cold and deadly snow and ice storms.  Southeast? Hurricanes, floods, sharks.  West Coast?  Earthquakes galore.  The Great Plains?  Tornados, tornados, tornados, with nothing in the way to stop them.  Even the northwest- Volcanos.  God, what is this shit? It's such a large country, but everwhere you go, nature is right there. If there were a weather controlling device, I'd slaughter countless millions to get my hands on it...

My own personal deficiencies-  Besides being lazy, much of my behavior could best be described as "half-assed."  if something looks too hard to try, I most likely won't try it.
    Also, as much as I hate to admit it, I often think I'm smarter than I am.  Well, i sometimes think that.  But just with certain things.  HTML, for instance.  I have remedial skills, but try to over-extend myself.  I have a bad tendency to start things from Step 2 or 3, often believing that Step 1 is for the idiots of the world. And often, I'm right. But sometimes, that gets me in trouble. Usually, though, it just makes my life a little harder, because I'm then forced to customize a rather simple learning process to fit my idiotic ways.  Basically, I often don't do things the right way because I don't think i need to. I gotta do something about that.
   Another fear of mine is that some day I will best be described as "wasted potential."  The cliched belief of being able to do anything if you put your mind to it really applies to me I think. But I fear I'll never really put that to the test.  So far, the only thing I'm sure of is that you can't really do anything if you don't put your mind to it.

Lastly, I just want to say, to cover my ass, that it's not my intention to offend anyone with anything I write here.. So if you find anything offensive, oh well, thanks for stopping by. But if you know me at all, you'd know that I'm far too much of a gutless coward to really say anything offensive directly too someone.  Plus, I really try to find the humor in most things, even things seemingly without humor. Everything can be funny in some regard I think. Well, almost. Even fonts can be funny, as evidenced by this "Comic Sans MS" font.   I just don't like to take things too seriously.  In sum, nothing I write is really all that offensive or controversial, and if you think it is, then you've got problems, buddy.  So there.
 
Daily Aggravations and Regrets main