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"One thing I don't understand is how it is possible that I have an infection and the treatment for that infection makes me wish for death. When discussing this with a friend who works in the medical field, he reminded me that, "most medications act as a poison in your body." Ridiculous. I can understand this if toxins are being pumped into your body to, I don't know, kill cancer or attempt to regulate the reproduction of the HIV virus but for a bladder infection?! I just don't understand.

This brought my mind to a memory of a conversation with the technical theatre teacher at College of the Canyons. I was teching a "production" called Holiday Voices and while I was waiting for intermission to douse the cast in plastic glittery snow we were discussing the side-effects that drug companies choose to annouce in their commercials. Anal-leakage came up pretty quickly seeing as that "side-effect" would make me NEVER EVER CONSUME THAT PRODUCT. What possible enhancement could be provided by this drug that would over-shadow the embarassment of anal-leakage?

I guess if I'd carefully read the side-effects before I began chowing on these freaking pills I'd have hesitated to swallow them, but now they're ruining my favorite thing to do on this planet. Eat. I love food more than I love posessions or people. Food may be my God. After all, if it weren't for food, I wouldn't exsist. Think about that. No, think about that for a bit longer. Yeah. Food is awesome and when I see it or smell it I want to boof. That makes me sad and when I'm sad I don't laugh and isn't laughter the best medicine of all?" -Virginia

So I watched this movie called "Little Man" by some of the Wayans brothers. I don't know if all of them worked on it or maybe just a couple. I don't know how well their family gets along. Anyway, this little man poses as a baby to get some jewel or something. He wants money, just like everybody else. Oh, I think he was in prison. So, this little man uses his baby abilities, meaning his ability to look and act like a baby, to breastfeed and commit a lot of other tit related evil. Essentially, he rapes and assaults women. He actually convinces a woman to let him sleep with her and then fucks her while she sleeps. Also, he fucked her soon after her husband was done with her. I know this movie was supposed to be funny, and parts of it were. But, am I supposed to laugh at sexual assault? How do you think these poor women would feel if they found out this baby was a mature, adult, ex-con. That really creeps me out. I don't know what sexual assault is like. I don't think I could ever rape a woman. I can't see how you could even get it up. It makes me sick. Maybe its time to feel what rape is really like. I don't know how a woman could rape a man, though I'm sure it has happened. If any ladies want to show me what that would be like, I would allow it. I'm ready to take one for the team, the man team. Other men should be willing to do this as well. It would give us some much-needed perspective. Oh, I don't want to know what it's like to be raped by a man. I'll pass on that thank you very much. But, who am I kidding? No woman in her right mind would just be like, "Yeah, I'll rape a guy, that sounds fun." But a man would be like, "Yeah, I'll rape a guy, that sounds fun," assuming he's gay or in prison or in the military. A man, the right man, would have fun raping me, unless I have a hugely inflated ego, which is a possibility. Meaning I for some reason believe that I am rape-able in the first place. A man might get off on shattering that ego regardless if I am rape-able or not. But, a woman would require that I get to know her. She would want to "feel it out" first before she jumps right into the raping. Maybe she could just knock me out after feeding me some Viagra. Does that work? I don't necessarily need to be awake while I am raped. I'm still getting laid, right? You are never going to remember your best sex anyway. If it was really good, you are in the midst of having way too much fun to form any memories. There is way too much chemical interference in the brain. You will never forget your worst sex, however. Like the time I pretended to cum just to get it over with.

--Gunther Carlsbad, your Senior Misanthrope Correspondent.
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i've been thinking a lot about how to go about with the general task of being a good person and an artist in the world, and trying to foster some kind of net positive change in the long run. i've traveled around the us now for some years, talking to people of all sorts that i could run across, mostly bums and bohemians to be sure, but still trying to take it all in, and come up with some sort of median perspective that these people can share. i'm interested in what unites us. the things we need as human organisms that are central and basic. i'm thinking about creating spaces - people need spaces to meet and do things, to talk and dream together and plan, and what i've witness across the board is a wholesale scaling back of public space, with greater restrictions on what you can and cannot do there. there is an implied threat, that you cannot violate the city's idea of what a public space is for, backed up by an armed guard. i group this phenomena with a larger trend that i like to refer to as "the war on difference."

think about it. you have all these streets, all these sidewalks, and squares, leading to homes and shops, jobs and venues of entertainment. but that mall just can't float in space. it needs the public places to be valuable. all the businesses need all of that space in which travel from here to there is designated, but it would seem that more and more, travel is all those spaces can be utilized for. meanwhile parks have signs that prohibit rallies and gatherings without permits. well, what if a bunch of free individuals want to get together in a public place, and sit down and have a big picnic and give away food to bums, and not disturb anyone? how could you stop them from doing that? well you probably run into health codes, and ordinances of where you can sit and for what reasons, and if there's any central leadership or some kind of organization promoting it you've got someone to come down on it. all you can do is be moving from point a to point b. if you can just sit down, and take in all the people running around, maybe watch a guy do a magic trick, or listen to some folk musician play his guts out, or witness any kind of public spectacle that is a demonstration of free expression, you are essentially threatening the surrounding businesses, the movie theaters who would have entranced you for a couple hours at 10 bucks a pop. the shoe store that you could have lost yourself browsing through. the restaurants who would prefer you to not just buy some fruit and sit down and eat with your friends on a bench. all of these interests have some kind of sway on the city government who makes the rules about what you can do where, and if you're not contributing to the local economy you're taking away from it. the police will enforce these rules like they have nothing better to do. nevermind the cultural value of people doing these things, enriching peoples' lives, that doesn't have an economic metric to calculate and therefore doesn't really exist. i have some ideas. i want to create tiny happenings, a movement of small scale spectacles that are simple enough to intuitively understand, at a size that the common passerby can participate in. i want to focus on things like food and water, and expression and entertainment, things that grab people on a visceral level that transcends aesthetic and culture and gets down to humanity at its core, the social animal. gatherings for anyone. flash mobs and art pranks, surreal and practical, all the same. a potluck in the park, initiated over myspace messages and sms txt's and email and hand bill flyers. a giant cardboard box fort on the campus. a "peanuts" style free psychology booth. a mass masturbation march on the white house. anything that people can get behind without arguing over causes - causes have divided us. i want to be fun, and spontaneous. i want to smile and compliment a stranger who looks sullen. i want to leave every person that i meet a little more motivated than before, and of course i want to be a bit more motivated by them as well. i view each transaction in society as a challenge - an opportunity to rise to the occasion of being an authentic human being. i think we owe it to ourselves and our future as a species. will you go out into your day with your head down, complying with the routine motions of your predefined spaces that you inhabit? walking into the super market, not upsetting anyone, filing in line to the check out point - all possibilities narrowed down to a predictable range - no better than a piece of some grand machine that only services you in an incidental manner? or will you demand more from your experience of humanity and society, and ask for just a little more each day out of your necessary interactions with the rest of the world? i hope that you encounter a place some day, that will encourage something like the latter to stir within you, and that you will have the audacity to scream, or speak your mind, or debate and question, or fall in love. i hope you take that trip to an unknown place. when you feel like you've arrived, you'll be in good company. there are more authentic living breathing free people in the world than we might give credit. good luck.