When I drove to Wal-Mart four times a week for all of junior year to work, I would always have the radio on. I’d alternate between the oldies station and The X, Pittsburgh’s local alternative rock station. I’d sing along, get weird looks from other cars watching me, and generally have a good time.

Until last summer my musical tastes hadn’t matured much, I hadn’t discovered a genre that wasn’t introduced to me by my parents. That’s a long time for this normally, but classic rock and old school R and B (Etta James, Aretha Franklin) are quite excellent, and as Matt Farmer would say of almost all classic rock, “File this under awesome!”

Two summers ago my brother brought home a movie he had heard was wild, called Pi. It’s about a brilliant mathematician whose goal is to find a pattern in nature, more specifically the stock market. He eventually goes insane and nearly kills himself. It’s a brilliant movie, with an amazing ambiance. That ambiance is what first took me to search for the songs on the soundtrack on Napster, then still a viable entity. I came up with Aphex Twin.

For the uninitiated, Aphex Twin is a guy from Britain who makes techno. He’s not a DJ, he doesn’t do clubs like the stereotypical techno person would. I downloaded around 15 of his songs at random, not having listened to any of it before, put it on shuffle, and sat back to one of most mind expanding evenings of my life.

Music didn’t sound like this. Music didn’t play with me like this. This wasn’t music. This was something beyond music. It was someone playing with patterns in sound, playing with patterns in rhythm, playing with me. It wasn’t a cardboard cutout of an earlier hit designed to sell records, it was . . . words still fail me to describe it.

Admittedly I don’t move through music extremely fast, it takes me a couple of runs through before I get fully hit with the significance of a track. I bought techno CD’s, downloaded mp3’s, and slowly expanded my archive of techno until, at least in my group of friends, I WAS the source. I didn’t and still don’t like trance very much, it’s too repetitive. Someone told me that Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin were kind of old, and that I wasn’t exactly discovering anything, just finding some oldies.

Today I was walking between declaring my major and trying to get paid for the tutoring I was doing, and I passed a couple of people listening to music in the head phones. I recognized both genres, country and metal. I smiled and pulled out my brand spanking new mp3 player, and brought Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole up to speed. For the next 15 minutes I was in another world.

Rock and pop might be good for a tune, but I trip the fuck out to old school techno.

I was home schooled until 8th grade. My mom taught me math, history and writing while we moved to the multitudes of places that we did. When I walked into Ellenvale middle school I thought I was a normal kid. I was wrong.

Being brought up in a fairly isolated environment, I dealt a lot with my brothers. I have two little brothers, Edwin who is 2 years younger, and Monty who is 6 years younger. When combined, they are quite a team at working to get a rise out of me. The smartest thing that avoided drawn out fights or awkward living situations in our little apartments in Alaska or our houses in the lower 48 was to just roll with the punches. I didn’t think this was weird until I got to Ellenvale. People didn’t roll with it; the insults stuck and caught them at every turn. The first time I heard a serious your mom joke I burst out laughing, even though the person was trying to genuinely insult me (again this was middle school). This general not caring about abuse pattern has followed since.

I heard the other day that they are trying to ban dodge ball in American schools. I shudder to hear this. Abuse is a part of everyday life to me, and you have to learn from it. If I was an only child entering 8th grade from home schooling, I have a feeling I would have gotten really angry much too frequently. The ability to shrug off the arrows of life is a very valuable ability.

Paintball is one of the single most abusive sports I’ve ever played (with the possible exception of padless street hockey). To get a feeling for this I’ll tell of one match that stays in my mind.

It was 4 on 4, the only person I knew was my buddy from high school named Austin, and he was playing on the other team. It was a standard spread of 3 front x 1 back, and I was front and center. Through several lucky shots, my 3 teammates were eliminated, leaving me nearly surrounded by all 4 of them. In the silence after the last one of my men walks out I hear Austin’s lone voice yell, “Let’s bunker him!” To the uninitiated, to bunker someone is to run at their bunker or obstacle they are hiding behind. You run strait at it knowing they probably don’t know you’re there or you are heading towards them, then you lean around the side and shoot them at point blank range until they scream “I’M OUT!” The 4 players who I faced were good, and after I heard Austin yell that comment this big sick feeling crept into me.

I was going to go home with welts all over my body.

This isn’t abuse in the typical sense of the word. I was scared, expecting pain and expecting to lose. Well, if I am going to lose, I might as well do it in style? I got on my knees and made myself comfy. They came from both sides. The BAM BAM BAM BAM rapid fire machine gun sound of paint hitting metal a foot from your head shook my eardrums. Pop out, take a few shots, here the balls in the air coming towards me, pop back in. Repeat. Two men went down. I leaned around the corner as one was running towards me, ready to bunker. It was Austin. One shot clean in the chest, paint splatting on his mask and gun. He’s out. The other guy ran around the side as I spun to catch him. We both shot each other 10 times before the refs whistle caught us. I was dead, I was jittery from being scared shitless, and I was walking on clouds from saving all the respect my team had lost.

Abuse is part of life. I get yelled at at work, bad grades in college, denied jobs, turned down by girls, ignored by friends, and snubbed by my cat. If I took all this personally I would explode. Nietzsche say that which does not kill you makes you stronger. I use abuse not as in child abuse or spousal abuse, which both are wrong, but as the constant conflict you face in any day. Where’s the fun in a day where everything goes your way?

I was putting a book on my shelf today when I knocked another book down. I found this folded piece of paper stuffed in the book, used as a book mark almost 2 years ago. This is the paper:

The pen rests in my hand, my finger twitching. I reach back to scratch my neck, closing my eyes as I rub my dirty hair. I want to write, I want to tell you what I think, I want to let my thoughts flow onto paper like paint, where that can coalesce into something I can begin to understand. Sometimes I tell myself I don’t want you, that you’re mean and treat me poorly. But one smile and I’m yours again. You don’t let me stay free for long, even though you don’t really seem to notice.

I never really cared about his bumbling of his relationship with his girlfriend, I just didn’t want the person so close to me to hold what I wanted so much. It’s puzzling that I would fend of others from that which I dare not touch. But then again this has never been my most successful game.

Daemon – So why haven’t you done anything, Samuel?
Me – I don’t know . . .
Daemon – Wrong! You know, tell me.
Me – Uh, because I’m a pansy?
Daemon – Wrong! Tell me.
Me – I’m shy!
Daemon – You are not shy and you know it. You can treat absolute strangers like they are your best friends!
Me – (stammering) Um, it’s cause I can’t find the best time to say something!
Daemon – Fool! You think about things your friends don’t dream of, you must know that such a time does not exist unless you create it!
Me – It’s cause I don’t want to lose her as a friend!
Daemon – Well, you aren’t exactly chums right now, are you? It would seem that all this talk of keeping her as a friend has made you so uncomfortable around her that you can’t do even that.
Me – (silence)
Daemon – So where do you stand, Samuel?
Me – I . . . I . . . stand nowhere but here . . . by myself . . .

As I look at this scribbled nonsense, I wonder what you would say if you read it. Would you know it was about you? Or would you say “Boy, this poor poor child has too much time on his hands. Sam, go program a loop and let someone else give this creativity thing a shot.” I doubt you’ll ever read this, as most of my ramblings end up where I somehow think this is headed, the trash.

Scenario: Girl is complaining because her guy doesn’t know that she’s mad at him, so she gets madder.

I don’t quite understand what is so difficult here. I know I don’t know what you are thinking, so if you don’t tell me, I’m probably not going to figure it out. You said you were tired of telling me that you were mad at me. Well, I’m tired of you being mad at me!! It doesn’t help to know that you are mad at me; it helps to know how I can make you happy. Tell me what to do; don’t respect my ability to read your mind.

I admit it, I am just a guy. Not a renaissance man who will serenade you with poems and flowers at every turn of the corner. I can’t afford to take you to fancy restaurants every weekend, and frankly I can barely afford Wendy’s every weekend. I forget to call, I forget to visit, and I had a life before I met you that I’d like to continue to lead to a certain extent.

I didn’t see you in your winter hat from across the street, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care and was trying to avoid you. I didn’t see you since Thursday, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to, it doesn’t mean I don’t miss you. If there is one thing that I dislike about women (and there is really so much to like), it is the obsession with being subtle. I may say stupid shit every once and a while, but at least I don’t expect everyone to spend hours poring over what I said to understand some finer detail.

I’ve been going out with you for over a semester, and I really like you. If I just took a mid term and I’m a little dazed, don’t take it as a personal attack if I am unresponsive when we walk a block together. If you find a guy that won’t do the things I do then you should run to him, I want you to be happy. But if you love me as I love you, then please let me fuddle my way through this.

– This is what I wish someone I know would say to his girlfriend. Again, I have no lady I am crooning over, but I am friends with both sides of a couple and I hate seeing the girl getting upset over things the guy doesn’t even know he’s doing.

Scenario: Girl and guy in car on turnpike. Girl is thirsty, a rest stop is coming up.
Girl – thought: (I am thirsty.)
Girl – speech: “Are you thirsty?”
Guy – thought: (Nope.)
Guy – speech: “Nope.”

Couple passes the rest stop

Girl – thought (I can’t believe I had sex with such an asshole!)
Girl – speech “Why did you pass it by? I was thirsty!”
Guy – thought: (But you didn’t say you were thirsty!)
Guy catches himself before he is hit with a purse
Guy – speech: “I’m sorry honey, I’ll stop at the next exit.”

I have always been slightly bitter about good weather. I don’t know where the feeling came from, maybe it has to do with being home schooled or living in Alaska, I don’t really know. But when the sun is out, I am just a little less happy than everyone else.

When the sun is out, the runners take to the track, the tennis players to the courts, the boaters to the lakes, the basketball players to the courts, and so on. But I am none of those.

When the rain comes, and the wind picks up and cuts through your coat like a knife, then everyone is cut down. No one wants to go outside to weather the elements. Instead you are in survival mode, your goal being to stay alive and healthy.

One thing I say a lot is that “There is no such thing as too cold, only insufficient clothing.” I believe that, and I relish the full conditions. I like the windy dreary days much more than the sunny days, because when the conditions get bad, you can tell who you can trust.

I was hiking with a friend in the Grand Tetons. We were at the end of a 20 mile hike, and we had reached the mouth of the canyon we had explored. A storm had chased us down the canyon for hours, and had finally caught up to us. The lighting exploded every minute, and the rain hit our ponchos us hard. We were climbing down a cliff that was so slippery if you took a bad step you could fall over 40 feet to the rocky outcroppings below. I turned around to find my brothers gone, no where to be seen. The thunder echoed down the canyon in a tremendous rumble like the roar of a god. I turned to Justin and smiled, how often do you end up in this situation? He smiled back.

Every day is an adventure. The weather determines how you handle each day. What fun is a bright and sunny day that makes you work to have adventures? In full conditions, when your first thought is survival, just standing still is an exhilarating experience.