BrodyBlog

In my imagination, I'm lying in the sand on my side with the ocean in my eyes while the waves lap the sand, endlessly--with a smile.

My first affair with the drug, crime ridden city was in March--when I plan on returning this coming year--in a small, one bedroom studio apartment nestled between old houses and the smell of the sea. I could walk to the beach, and in the summertime needed only a small fan, and only for a few days at that.

I didn't have much; I have never been one to collect much, and everything I own an need can fit within two suitcases. There were wooden steps that led past petunias and everything else that grows in the fertile irrigated, California sun.

The first night I was there, I'd been able to get pot on the strand (anyone who's spent any time in Oceanside knows the spot I'm talking about) but had no pipe and no lighter. I carefully emptied a cigarette out and filled it with the world-renowned California Green and used the stove to light it.

I sat, alone, against the wall an surveyed the barren room before my eyes. On the left was a small kitchen suitable for sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and, of course, ramen noodles, and in the same room was a carpeted box with no clear distinction on where a bed might be placed, framed on the right by vertical blinds and a sliding glass door that was both a window and a door to the small patio.

I set up my air mattress an duct taped the new leak (it would always deflate by morning, no matter how many times I patched it) and hung my clothes in the closet along the narrow corridor that led to the small bathroom, of which there's nothing worth mentioning here.

I spent no time there, usually eating near downtown or at Angelo's, and left into the night to explore the streets of the town.

The strand ran for about a mile an a half until you reached the park, a perfect set of swings looking toward the sea, from there on it was private, but most nights I walked alone, and was never once spoken to, and only saw anyone else there a handful of times.

But my favorite place to spend hours and hours and hours was at the very end of the pier--some say the it's the longest wooden one in all of California--looking out to the east. Water going on eternally, waves black with the night were more often felt an heard than seen, splashing against the beams supporting the structure.

Every inch of visible wood was engraved by someone with something about anything, and I read it all. The cops kept a steady troll along the strand, usually being lenient about fires burning past 11:00, depending on the look of the group from the street, and if a drink was involved.

I knew few people in Oceanside, but in a town halfway between here and there (Los Angeles and San Diego), people mixed like a candy dish, and it was never hard to join a group talking shit around the fire in the light of the moon.

When the cops were near the round of the bend, a bottle of malt liqour or some other type of booze was passed around--from right to left--and the same went for any joints abound. The skateboarders hung out near the outdoor amphitheater, and the gangs had their spots as well.

The United States Marines Corps keeps the city alive and patches the wounds of drugs, crime, and immigration by keeping the world's largest marine base on the northern border of the city, and sending thousands of buzz cut, sunburnt and awestruck twenty-somethings from Middle America into a surfing town that grew from nothing into something.

That something is a city I visit everyday; closing my eyes and thinking back to the 5, waiting for me to return.

And so I've decided that the clock will now tick away, a little over three months, and I've got to do my best to get myself ready. I've got the proper medication to do everything right, but the ruined credit to get everything wrong--but this is America, and I can't bed my dreams beneath the ground, not yet.

If I come with a few hundred dollars in my pocket, or a few thousand in a bank account, I'm going back to Oceanside, back to where the start is: back to where my heart is.

Posted by Brody at 07:38 AM | Permalink

NEW YORK - Comcast, one of the largest internet service providers in the United States, has become the target of bloggers, Associated Press reporters, and possibly the FCC. In a brief filed earlier this month, consumer advocacy groups (www.savetheinternet.com) and other legal experts officially presented the FCC (the United States' agency governing most forms of electronic communication) with a complaint stating that restricting access to legal video, audio, and other electronic data is illegal, amounting to fraudulent censorship of content--similar to technology used by the Chinese government to control access to information.

Comcast and its partner/subsidiaries Time-Warner Communications and RoadRunner have denied that such actions have taken place--some websites claim to have obtained an internal memo directing employees not to discuss the issue with subscribers who call in and inquire about why torrent programs, sites, and other file-sharing programs have suddenly stopped working.

After an interruption to my internet service today, and upon finding that several of my regular--and legal--torrent applications failed to connect, I contacted my internet service provider, which happens to be--you guessed it--Comcast/Timewarner.

My call was escalated several times, until I reached the "top tier" of technical support. After repeatedly admitting to limiting access to LEGAL torrent networks, she finally referred me to corporate headquarters.

I am currently in the process of terminating my service agreement with Time-Warner Cable.

Posted by Brody at 12:48 AM | Permalink

NATURE has many organisms that, by trait of design or evolution, employ the art of deception to survive and perpetuate their species. Consider that camouflage, one of the most widespread adaptations in the Animal Kingdom, is found in animal life on every continent on Earth.

Examples include animals with particular fur patterns, insects with the ability to change color to adapt to surroundings, and viruses and microscopic organisms that have the ability to thwart immune defense systems.

It is therefore most logical to assume that the most dangerous animal—Man—would as such posses the most dangerous camouflage: The Art of Deception. Humans have the ability to create fallacy; telling lies where there might have been truth, and can do so deliberately.

The Rule of Law and most religious doctrines deplore lying or deception. In the United States, for example, it is a serious crime to lie under oath in a Court of Law and truthfulness holds similar standards in every day life.

But as we transition from rural and agrarian lifestyles into complex societies with singular governments ruling millions, if not billions, of people and our cities (with populations numbering in the tens of millions) grow more dense, humans, like other animals, retain many primitive brain functions that may not serve as desired in a complex society in which one depends on another for survival.

But what seems beneficial to the community may not be beneficial to the individual, or even a group of individuals, such as the plight of the Jewish during Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in Nazi Germany during World War II.

While the country’s government, in it’s maintenance of order through the Rule of Law, had begun the systematic extraction and genocide of millions of Jewish across Europe claimed to be doing so in benefit, those whose lives (or livelihood) were threatened would have most certainly attempted to deceive the government—or lie—about their identity in hopes of survival.

In this case, lies and deception would be considered by most to be right.

But what is right? And what is wrong? Here we leave the boundaries of Science and enter the confines of morality, which knows no standard definition and is merely a particular system of values and principals held by a specific society.

These “moral values” are based largely in religious context, and vary within one country, territory, and even city or township. They are taught to children in the home and through organized education later in life. Essentially, it is a system of control; a framework and schematic that prevents pure chaos and anarchy by ingraining a moral compass that lives within the human psyche. When wrong is done, discomfort, sorrow, or grief is felt, and the opposite occurs for acts of righteousness.

But this system is flawed—the problem is choice.

A person operating a vehicle may choose at any time to disobey traffic signals. A student may choose to falsify documents, such as homework or grade reports. A person can end life with suicide.

Whether such things are right or wrong is speculated by the society itself, but because there is merely an ordinance in a government code does not prevent one from making a choice that will result in an outcome that will benefit the individual over the society.

Consider again the time and place of the Nazi Party in World War II era Germany. Because a society or government body decides that the taking of human life and freedom is beneficial to the society but not to the individual, does that make murder right? Does it make choosing to lie or deceive wrong? The problem again is choice, as each society consists of individual members, each with a unique identity, each must make a choice about a course of action.

This becomes a paradox, because it is absurd to think that both choices may be right, and both choices may be wrong, but under the Rule of Law, beyond the confines of morality, it is so.

Now we can surmise that there is no right or wrong, but only actions taken by an individual, or group of individuals, to preserve one’s life (or livelihood). Is a prostitute who engages in sex for money to feed her children because of delay or lack of groceries provided by the society in times of hardship doing wrong? Or are failed social and economic policies wrong for failing to provide for the welfare of all citizens who abide by its laws?

Enter the Art of Deception, a highly evolved and highly methodical, logical, and calculated means of diverting suspicion from enemies or perhaps even society in general. A group of students that develop an elaborate, silent communication system to cheat on examinations may be defying the principles of morality in their society, but does this make them wrong? Or does it simply illustrate the adaptation of Man to his surroundings; a sane man in an insane world?

Think on these things…

Posted by Brody at 11:51 PM | Permalink