James profile picture

James

Everything that rises must converge.

About Me

1. Everything that is happening now is happening because of everything else that has happened already.
2. Everything does not happen for a reason.
"The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why the Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low.
But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well-connected. So it goes.
The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that. , so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:
Oh, boy - they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!
And they thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes.
The visitor from outer space made a gift of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus was really a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.
So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.
And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe, throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!"

My Interests

writing, philosophy, teaching, bullshit, baseball, learning, poker, politics, consciousness, sabermetrics, helping people, relationships, poetry, soccer, driving with the windows down, my family, life, acting, nature, earning a paycheck, hitting the club with a bunch of friends, sunsets, good beats, popping the collar ironically, the beach, you, et cetera

I'd like to meet:

Interesting people -- so long as they don't have extensive drug habits to feed. [/snark]
And your mom. But that's a given.

Music:

Ambience , the greatest band in the world (or at least in Cupertino)

ABBA, A-Ha, AIR, Andre Nickatina, The Arcade Fire, Armin Van Buuren, A Tribe Called Quest, Beastie Boys, Beatles, Bjork, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, Bright Eyes, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Curtis Mayfield, Daft Punk, David Bowie, Death Cab For Cutie, Delfonics, Depeche Mode, Doobie Brothers, Duran Duran, Earth, Wind and Fire, Elvis Costello, Eric Clapton, Faithless, Gnarls Barkley, Gomez, Ice Cube, Jackson Five, James Brown, Jamie Cullum, Jay-Z, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Kanye West, Kraftwerk, Ladytron, LCD Soundsystem, Les Savy Fav, Ludacris, Lyrics Born, Madonna, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Modest Mouse, Moby, Neil Young, Outkast, Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, Pink Floyd, Postal Service, Prince, Radiohead, Rick James, Robbie Williams, Roy Orbison, Rykarda Parasol, Sigur Ros, Smokey Robinson, Snoop Dogg, Stevie Wonder, Talking Heads, Thievery Corporation, The Walkmen, The Who, U2, Wham!, many, many, many more
I alphabetize, because I'm all nerdy like that.

Movies:

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12 Angry Men, A Christmas Story, Ace Ventura, Adaptation, Anchorman, An Inconvenient Truth, Apocalypse Now, Back to the Future, Big Fish, Blade Runner, Borat, Bowling For Columbine, Casino Royale, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Children of Men Die Hard, Dodgeball, Fahrenheit 9/11, Fail Safe, Field of Dreams, Heat, Karate Kid, Lethal Weapon, Matewan, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Office Space, Quiz Show, Rocky I-IV and VI, Rollerball, Scarface, Shawshank Redemption, Star Wars, Syriana, The Fugitive, The Motorcycle Diaries, The Natural, The Thin Blue Line, dozens more that I'm missing

Television:

Oakland A's baseball, 24, Law and Order: Criminal Intent

Books:

The Power of Now, basically any James Baldwin, Ball Four, A Prayer For Owen Meany, The Politics of Liberation, The Bachman Books, Contact, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Our Posthuman Future, 1984, It's Not About the Bike, Don't Think of an Elephant!, Original Self, The Bill James New Historical Baseball Abstract, A Hunger Artist, The Scarlet Letter, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Rules For Radicals, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Slaughterhouse Five, The Lives of Animals, Frankenstein, Hamlet, various literary anthologies, my grandpa's three books
SIX COMPASSIONATE MEDITATIONS FOR GEORGE W. BUSH
by Ken Weisner
I
Consider he was once an innocent boy
so sleepy in his cowboy suit!
Then, too suddenly,
tangled by that cruelest master, history:
its brutal par fives
its smoky limos
and scary private schools.
II
Be humane. Help him cope with his addiction,
the alcoholism. Ask:
what will bring him closer to God and to himself?
The hairshirt of unemployment?
The cleansing purity
of life on the ranch? Visualize this.
III
Or ponder his dyslexia
so long denied! Be honest with yourself:
he needs more time
for Laura to read to him!
IV
Now reflect upon his shame
and forgive him for repressing it.
After all, you're glad it wasn't you
graduating from everywhere, including Yale,
without deserving it
and everybody knew.
V
If you feel anger, this is normal.
Take a cleansing breath.
And as Shakespeare would, be compassionate
to a boy thrust outside himself,
like a puppet on a throne.
VI
So wish him well
wish him revelation.
Meanwhile, in November, lift his hand with God's hand
from the trigger.
Back in Texas, in your mind,
tuck the sweet boy in.


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Heroes:

Fifty-Six Heroes, Influences, or Talismen (in random order)
1. The family (who will take up this one slot).
2. Howard Dean
3. Kanye West
4. Kurt Vonnegut
5. Jackie Robinson
6. Ken Weisner
7. Michael Hicks
8. Betsy James
9. Trish Buttrill
10. Nicky Gonzalez Yuen
11. Beth Grobman
12. Chuck Woolery
13. William Shakespeare
14. David Sedaris
15. Stephen Colbert
16. Jon Stewart
17. Andris Biedrins
18. Carl Sagan
19. Auguste Rodin
20. J.M. Coetzee
21. Thom Yorke
22. Lux Deluxe
23. Simon LeBon
24. Roger Taylor
25. Billy Beane
26. Ben Gibbard
27. Howard Finster
28. Flannery O'Connor
29. James Baldwin
30. Sharon Olds
31. Samuel Akau
32. Franz Kafka
33. Stephen King
34. Johan Santana
35. Pablo Neruda
36. Joe Calzaghe
37. Steve Howland
38. Saul Alinsky
39. Matt Christopher
40. Alfonso Cuaron
41. Abraham Lincoln
42. Bob Dylan
43. George Orwell
44. Bill James
45. George Harrison
46. Bjork
47. Martin Luther King, Jr.
48. Eddie Izzard
49. Jim Carrey
50. Sam Waterston
51. Mahatma Gandhi
52. Atal Bihari Vajpayee
53. Markos Moulitsas
54. Will Ferrell
55. Steve Carell
56. Jim Bouton