anti-semitism and you

today i wore my red shirt that pretty much says this on it:



















many of you know the shirt.

so anyway, i walk into a bar and sit down next to kendra and some random guy i've never met. chris leans over and points out that the random guy's jaw dropped when he saw my shirt and that he just stared at it a bit when i sat down. we had a laugh about it and drank our drinks.

a few minutes later, after kendra has wandered off somewhere, random guy leans over and leads off with "are you a jew?" he's clearly smashed. i think he's making polite conversation, perhaps searching for ethnic or religious comeraderie or something. but it soon becomes apparent that this is purely accusatory. i explain the shirt and where i got it, and why, and he asks me what it means. so i tell him. he replies with (verbatim); "i thought it said 'i'm a motherfucking jew.'" well, no. it doesn't. not a very nice thing to say. but still, the words of a drunk anti-semite (who isn't mel gibson) carry very little weight. so a polite conversation ensues about jesus and how the jews are apparently responsible for "all the problems in the world." mr. drunk man periodically leans in a little further, questioning me about my beliefs and my ethnicity and taking particular interest in chris proclaiming german heritage. he probably asked me if i'm a jew half a dozen times, and when chris finally tried to end it because he has to get up early tomorrow to catch a plane, mr. drunk man asks "where are you flying, to israel?" well, san diego, but close.

still, the guy was one of those polite incendiary drunks, softspoken despite slurred speech. it was positively cordial. he'd been cut off and the bar owners were keeping an eye on him. we said that he was probably mistaken, said our goodbyes, and went off on our merry way. he seemed more curious than hostile or combative or physically violent; which is good, because we would have torn him to pieces, and i doubt anyone else there would have minded too much.

after spending however many months in israel trying to get the point across that the world isn't as sporadically and spontaneously viciously anti-semitic as people make it out to be, it makes me wonder if some israeli paranoia is justified, or if there really are just too many stupid people in the world to adequately count.

recommended music:
kashmir - ramparts
explosions in the sky - time stops

updates and updates

i just submitted me a job application to the department of homeland security. i feel dirty, yes, but i also feel semi-productive and that i might have a hint of potential.

other than that, i've been winning money [for other people] at poker; or having heated pokemon debates during raging ping pong tournaments (while on the clock); or interspersing cutting-edge motion-sensor zombie shoot-em-ups with archaic NES games from my infancy (while perhaps mildly intoxicated); or hearkening back to pre-pubescence to watch giant general motors robots try to destroy los angeles, jon voight, and john turturro (jesus himself) on the big screen; or spending hours reading about and talking about cars in an inexplicable outbreak of enthusiasm over automotive performance and racing (watched my first full length formula 1 grand prix last week). all in all, an uncharacteristic amount of parenthases and videos like this:



by no means an empty plate, but i still feel somehow just slightly incomplete. probably because of the prominent pacific northwestern absence that i've yet to address. oddly, i'm probably meeting more people now than i have since arriving for a stint in the midwest four years ago. there's actually been quite a decent balance of solitary confinement and social butterflyism. i have only a few true friends here, though, if any. that's of my own design, i know. so, things can get lonely. it's weird, though. it's that sort of loneliness that spurs on an interest in the people around me more than making me feel down. i'm doing ok. hell, even my psychiatrist, in all his demented pharmaceutical wisdom, wants me to officially become the one person in this country who is easing themself off of the antidepressants, one of the last remnants of my true rock-bottom of years past. i just wish i were playing more music.

recommended music:
kashmir - small poem of old friend
explosions in the sky - remember me as a time of day