Communication Breakdown
The old expression that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" can and often is rendered impotent. Case in point, a friend, who I haven't seen or spoken with in over a year has, in so many ways, destroyed, obliterated, exhausted every quality in his personality that once made him such a enigmatic person to be around, converse with, and bond together as a pair. However, traits, previously hinted at, have only been magnified ten-fold over the past year. His acquisition of the very same degree that I recently obtained from another university has become a focal point of emails and, what appears to be, the wedge or final straw that has driven me to a point where, I feel as a person who is free to assert his own choices, opt out of the obligation to spend face-to-face time with this person.
Our communication, something that was declining in efficiency prior to this period, has further deteriorated to a point where emails are answered with the briefest of replies, due to the fact that entire portions of the communications sent were either ignored outright or brushed off with a terse response such as "I'm not into that anymore" thus eliminating any chance of any further comment on the matter. Annoyance on my part due to, what I perceive, perhaps wrongly so, as being intrusive questions regarding my own situation. Prying eyes and incessant questioning are not traits that I regard or suffer gladly. So, I've resorted to the standard "no reply". In other words, I avoid the matters altogether, which, in some ways, fuels it even further. It's really a no win situation. I don't answer, so the questioning continues until nothing is resolved. Hypocrisy, I know.
Today, though, I decided that I would answer the questions with my own brand of harsh response. It may or may not have been the wisest of moves, but the communication has been at a standstill for so long that I presume this won't hurt much. Of course, it might hurt tremendously. I'm at a loss, and we'll see what occurs, but this situation demanded drastic action. Hopefully, something can be salvaged.

My Top Ten Albums of 2003
I figured that since I have the forum I’d post my own top ten albums of 2003.

1. Pearl Jam-Lost Dogs-Most of these songs were recorded before 2003, and consists of collected b-sides and unreleased tracks. These two-discs rival some of their proper albums in terms of song quality.
2. White Stripes-Elephant-I had a hard time choosing Lost Dogs over this incredible album, but my love of Pearl Jam won out. Every song on this album is stellar, and the White Stripes are without a doubt a terrifically talented duo.
3. Radiohead-Hail to the Thief-Any time that two of my favorite bands, Pearl Jam being the other, release albums in the same year, it's hard to determine which one I like more. Radiohead are an incredible band, but this disc, spectacular as it is, isn't Amnesiac.
4. Aphex Twin-26 Mixes for Cash-Another two-disc compilation of previously released material. Aphex Twin, or Richard D. James, puts out a lot of music, some of which is nearly unlistenable, but these tracks are spectacular, especially the radical reworking of David Bowie's "Heroes".
5. Massive Attack-100th Window-This is the first Massive Attack album I got my hands on, and even though it's purportedly not their best (see Blue Lines and Mezzanine), I was really impressed. Haunting stuff.
6. Metallica-St. Anger-A definite return to form for Metallica. I stopped buying their albums after the "Black" album, but St. Anger is the type of album Metallica made before toning things down a bit. Not as good as Master of Puppets, but few albums are.
7. Strokes-Room on Fire-I haven't listened to this enough to know if it's as good as their debut Is this It, but on first impression, it is pretty good.
8. Raveonettes-Chain Gang of Love-One track, "That Great Love Sound," is worth the price of admission. A great album inspired by the bubble-gum fueled tracks of year's past combined with the Jesus and Mary Chain's sonic fuzz.
9. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club-Take Them on Your Own-Rarely am I inspired enough to go out and buy a cd based on one video from MTV, but I saw this band on MTV2, and their single "Stop" just did it for me. I needed to own this album, and it was worth the search.
10. Sonic Youth-Dirty-Deluxe Version-I really would have placed this in the top five, but it is an older album, 1992 to be exact. The album itself isn't Sonic Youth's best (see Daydream Nation or Goo), but the second disc, filled with outtakes and demos includes some of the coolest sounding instrumental tracks from a band devoted to sonic, no pun intended, tracks beyond description.

Bad Vibes, Awful Regret, and the Doctrine of Avoidance
I'm amazed every year at this time that the pendulum of emotions can swing from one extreme to the other with little or no prior notice. Joyous emotion can easily decompose into depression at the drop of a hat, and I'm not sure why that is, or why it only happens at this time of year and not so much at others. I realize the holidays mean a lot to people, and, perhaps, the reason for the double-barreled threat of a cataclysmic mood swing along with the fact that the holidays at this time of year are so crammed together in a span of a little over a month that it's unavoidable that there's going to be some sort of ultimate satisfaction or dissatisfaction, but rarely a mid-level point of contentment.
I have bad vibes during this time of year, and it seems that everything takes on an added emotional charge between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year‘s Day. The notion that humans and animals suffering during this time of year is so repugnant to me that I'm at a loss on how to properly deal with my emotions. I realize that I operate with a certain amount of hypocrisy regarding this issue because at various points on the calendar I’m much more susceptible to wild mood swings that totally pervade my life than others, and I can go about my life in blissful ignorance regarding the suffering of others. I must confess that I am, for the most part, capable of concealing these types of swings. Make no mistake, I’m not implying that I’m on the verge of any sort of breakdown, but what occurs can only be described as isolated incidents of mood swings. Panic attacks, if that’s what they are, seem to proliferate mostly during times of minimum activity. In moments when I flood my mind with all manner of life’s intangibles, I feel at the very lowest ebb of being. My breathing increases dramatically, but it only lasts for less than a minute. For the most part it can be attributed to the usual suspects: financial stability, work, schoolwork, etc. But, and I’m not trying to be overly dramatic, I feel the worst when I just stop and think about life in general. What kinds of joy do I receive from life? What’s going to happen to me in the future? What’s going to happen to me when all my friends leave? It’s basically your standard questioning of existence in this world, this situation, this town, this university, and this community....
At this point, these types of episodes are so common to life that they’ve attained a sort played out characteristic. They’re too common, and no one, even myself, takes them seriously, but they are real. So, without the comfort derived from believing in some sort of higher power, I feel that they have to be dealt with in a manner that’s most likely to resolve the situation. I take little or no comfort in the idea that there’s some sort of greater purpose for each and every occurrence. I do, and here’s where the hypocrisy enters, feel that I have the ability to rationalize the situation to the point that I’m able to maintain complacency with the idea that “everything’s going to be okay”.
Which brings me to the “doctrine of avoidance”. I by no means believe that I’m the originator of a new term, but I’ve been really intrigued by the idea that avoiding an issue in a roundabout manner serves as a way of confronting it head on. I don’t believe this doctrine is truly effective, and I think it does more harm than good in the long run. Obviously, though, I’m a big believer in the ability to avoid the necessity to confront an issue, as the previous paragraphs make abundantly clear. Arguments made are not truly acknowledged in their entirety, and it leads to a dialogue that accomplishes little in terms of presenting a coherent position on an issue. Why individuals subscribe to the “doctrine of avoidance” is beyond me, but I suspect there are definite reasons why they do so, and they do so as a way to avoid any sort of criticism, whether just or not, that might put into perspective the absurdity of the issue being discussed, dissected, or debated. I subscribe to the “doctrine of avoidance” out of a sheer inability to confront issues head on. I know things occur, as I’m sure we all do, that are beyond my control, so I profess an aggressive form of denial that avoids the issues that I’m confronted with. In fact, one can go so far as to argue that I’m already adhering to the doctrine by clearly stating that the issues are “beyond my control,” some of which obviously are not by any stretch of the imagination beyond my control.
This “doctrine of avoidance” seems to be proliferating in this country, and it can be seen operating from the efforts of the current administration to the lowliest of writers here on Blogger. What I don’t like about this doctrine is that it tries mightily to prop up other arguments that avoid the issues that are being raised in an effort to coerce the other side into shifting the argument to best adhere to the strengths of the party being attacked. In other words, the doctrine is adhered to by “cowards” who avoid the fight by skewing the tone to fit their purposes. It’s usually a circular line of logic that never truly addresses the issues at hand, and its proponents often resort to cheap shots that are nowhere near addressing the crux of the points of criticism that might just sting too much to be acknowledged outright.
I realize that this line of logic is rather cumbersome, and it’s rather faulty at points, but that’s where I can’t help but feel that I’m right to some extent about this issue. It can be seen in all manner of forms, and it’s nothing but frustrating to be a part of the argument that eventually deteriorates because one of the members adheres to the doctrine. Comments that are taken out of context that are then used to prop up one’s own stance are seen as a manner of rationalizing one’s own position and validating one’s own way of seeing the world. When the “doctrine of avoidance” becomes one of the dominant voices within discourse, there’s little or no chance that anything can be resolved with arguing the finer points of an issue. So, I’d like to think that there’s a chance that the discourse can evolve into a manner of debate that is adequate for both sides of the issue, but I have a strong suspicion that it won’t ever reach the form that I’d most like for it to. Why? Because as the “doctrine of avoidance” suggests, it’s easier for the parties involved to avoid the issues with little or no consequences and carry on without any sort of regard to whether or not the issues have been resolved. The “doctrine of avoidance” is here, and I believe more and more people are subscribing to it daily.

Reliving an Argument
After planning an angry rebuttal to a response regarding the previous battle waged on this page and on my partner's site that I had not previously read, I decided to scour the internet for some other opinions on the matter. Once I read the following, I decided that nothing more needed to be said on my part regarding the issue of pointless blogs and the piss-poor, self-indulgent diatribes that proliferate on them. I think the author(s) pretty much summarize everything up nicely. I think I fall into the category of the "Self-Important Moron".
Why I Hate Personal Weblogs

A Flawed 500

I find myself conflicted each and every year when it comes to the annual year's end compilations by various periodicals of the "best of" for music, movies, books, etc. However, even before this listing was compiled and released, I was confronted with the decision by Rolling Stone to release their listing of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Now, I enjoy this type of listing because one it's inherently interesting to me to see the best albums, many of which I enjoy and many I've never heard or even desire to listen to, listed together and two because I can use it as a guide to acquire albums by artists I've never been exposed to.
What really irks me, though, is the lack of creativity by the writers of these types of lists and the inevitable backlash that others, including myself, have in regards to this list. It seems to me that there's a marked interest in portraying and sustaining the myth that Rolling Stone came out at a time, the 60s and 70s, when a tremendous amount of influential music was being recorded and released and was on the cutting edge of culture, criticism, and, most of all, hip music. But this type of cause seems to me to lead to a conflict of interests when it comes to assembling a listing of the greatest albums of all time. For example, there are no records recorded in the last twenty years in the top ten. Most, understandably, are from the giants of rock (i.e. the Beatles, Dylan, Rolling Stones) and that's an understandable, maybe necessary conceit. What I don't like about this type of conceit is the fact that it's inevitable and without any real sort of thought and imagination. Perhaps, and I realize this borders on heresy, the Beatles haven't released the most important album, in this case Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, of all time, let alone four of the top ten albums. Granted, without the Beatles there wouldn't be what we traditionally call rock n' roll music to listen to, or at the very least it would be radically different in sound, but maybe not. Also, it's important to concede the fact that without the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, etc. there wouldn't be nearly a fraction of the bands that I feel are not represented accurately on this listing.
I don't expect the writers to go out on a limb and produce a list that's so radical that it includes such recent albums as the White Stripes' Elephant in the top ten, regardless of how good the record it, and it is good. What I would like to see, though, is a list that truly reflects what records someone should have in their collection that they can listen to repeatedly and provide the listener with a broad array of styles, genres, etc. that don't border on the repetitive. In other words, I don't want four of the only ten albums that I should own be from one group, especially when one of the albums, the White Album, isn't all that spectacular. Sure, the Beatles are necessary to include in the list, but I don't think it's necessary to include four of their albums in the top ten. They're a good band, perhaps the greatest ever, but I don't want five, which includes the double-disc White Album, of their discs occupying my top ten.
This leads me to my overall critique of the magazine. What I believe is occurring is that the staff of writers and those who voted on the list itself are living in a delusional state that forces them to assume that there can't possibly be a better group of records than those released in the aforementioned time period. In other words, they're slaves to a system that consecrates things as sacred and beyond reproach. If I can only keep ten albums, four of them aren't going to be Beatles discs because, well, they're the Beatles and they're the greatest band of all time and they deserve to be the main components of any record collection. This is ridiculous. I want and need other types of music in my list. I love rap, techno, punk, alternative, metal, trip-hop, alt-country, country..., and a list with four albums by a pop-rock, because that's what the Beatles were first and foremost, doesn't give me the ability to have that broad representation of genres.

"Oh, that's just Great!"
I couldn't help but notice that now BLOGGER is offering the option of recording audio blogs. Oh, for the love of all that's holy, make it stop! Isn't it bad enough that these blogs exist in print form? Now they want to let these noodleheads read them aloud. I'm at loss for words as to how much I'm disappointed in this development. Wait, if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of the collective intelligence of the country wheezing out completely.