The Trip Upriver

Another Day, Another Dollar

2009-12-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

The day is almost over, i'm sitting here watching Criminal Minds over my shoulder and for the life of me I can't wish for summer. I like the cold, the need to wear coats and hats and gloves. I feel a thrill looking around at the icy world and thining of how much colder it's gonna get.
So...yeah.

Late nights and fist fights

2009-11-28T19:37:00.000-08:00

Well, word has finally come down the line and I'm off to MEPS again on sunday night. This time, I'll be doing my final eye exam for my medical paperwork; my eyes are so bad (-10.25 and -9.75) that I require an optometrist appointment and medical waiver just so they know I'm not too blind to hold a gun. I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna tell any of them about the scope scar between my eyes that I got back when I was a kid.
The next step after all of this will be them clearing my tattoo waiver, after which I'll have the choice of either swearing in or walking away.
It's been a long time coming, and I'm excited.
The Game. James.

Lou Dobbs on the Daily Show and I'm not listening

2009-11-18T23:20:00.000-08:00

I thought i had mastered the art of diving headlong in to my dreams. When i was in high school, a stage i laugh at my friends for reminiscing over, i believed that i was "diving headlong" in to film and theater. I spent my summers writing epics that bled beyond the four corners of my computer screen, seeping like ink in to the blackness of my mind. Sure, most of them were, at second glance, nothing but exercises...my own Kitty Hawk days if you will, but i believed firmly that i was paving the first few steps on a path that would one day lead me to a Marquee with my name emblazoned in flashing lights, heralding the release of yet another blockbuster. My school days were spent in acting classes, playing lead roles in the plays and touring with the drama troupe.
I got to college and started taking film classes, surrounding myself with the other film nerds and theater gurus...and in the blink of an eye i walked away.
I picked up a guitar, "dove headlong" and now am left gasping on the shore, shipwrecked again by my own overzealous navigation.
I wonder if our dreams are to be trusted. These ships we set sail on, giant crafts of hopes, ideas, ignorance and just a touch of soul, seem unreliable at even the best of times. I have felt the urge, again and again, to cast off any anchor rope i might hold in reserve and tighten my sheets to catch the strongest of breezes, only to be lead again and again in to the gaping maw of the maelstrom.
Ok, dangit, i'm waxing dramatic again and that was not entirely my intent. I'm not trying to say that my dreams and the places they have shipwrecked me are members in my chorusline of regret, or even that i wish to simply walk away from them...truth is, i'm starting to see that Robinson Caruso only became the legend after his ship went down and he had to survive with the sweat of his brow and the strength of his back.
I know this all comes from left field (and with me, that is WAAAAYYYY left, like MARS left field) but i do have a point, or if i don't you might at least see this as my contented SOS. I dreamt, made a heading and capsized. I had to change my plans. I had to find a new way to move, think and even speak.

But I like this island. I like the way the sun burns my eyes. I like the way the native's cannibal fires illuminate the night sky. I like the scars the coral reef gave me on the way in. It's proof of the journey, and at the end of the day that's all that counts.

In the words of Edward Kennedy, "The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die."

Just cause things don't work out the first time around, or even the second or third or fifteenth doesn't mean you should stop building that damn palm tree raft and pushing out in to the crushing surf.

do it. do it.

Bored and Sexy.

2009-11-13T15:45:00.000-08:00

Waiting is a trap. There will
always be reasons to wait. The
truth is, there are only two things
in life, reasons and results, and
reasons simply don't count.
Robert Anthony

I've been waiting for a couple months now for my paperwork and waivers to clear down in San Diego, and in the interum my life here has been falling apart. The economy has flatlined (to put it nicely) and though my part time job at the Teen Lounge in LO helps with food and bus rides, the very real prospect of needing a SOLID full time job for, potentially, the holiday season is seeming every day to be a more and more unreachable goal.
As of yet, I don't even know that the Corps will take me, what with the huge delay in my paperwork. My cousin Sgt. Blaine Bailey, USMC, said that this delay is unprecedented, but that I should keep on my recruiter and if he can't help me, find someone who will.
To clear some things up; I don't have a deathwish. I am not looking to go get blown up in the backwaters of some third world country, nor am I looking to enact some misguided quest for greatness or heroism...I'm simply trying to create a future for myself that I can take pride in. I have huge respect for the Marines I have had the honor to call friends, and it is a fraternity I hope to be able to join in some day soon.
Honor, Courage and Commitment. I'd like to say I can hold myself to these standards. I'd like to be a person my friends and family are proud to know. That's what I hope to accomplish with my life and choices over the next few years.
The Game.

My Phone Just Died

2009-11-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

So, this post has nothing to do with my phone gittin dead, but it's a functional segue, so i'm running with it.
Truth is, i have been reading through a lot of my friend's blogs and a lot of the blogs i link to on this page and am surprised by how much i disagree with some of their assumptions and 'connections', if you will. The ties that are fabricated between religion and politics, or science and faith, are fascinating.
One blog in particular made the assertion that, "Christians, who take the scriptures seriously, are about as happy about an Obama presidency as a pig is a bacon sandwich.(1)" I promptly finished off my Reuben sandwich with bacon from Eastside Deli and put on my thinking boxers.
This assertion bothered me for a few reasons, the most prominent being that the friends of mine who ascribe to the christian faith are associated by default with the writer and his heavy handed quips. This one bad apple is muddying up an issue of politics by claiming that an entire faith is rallying behind their holy book's assumed assertions that President Obama is the beast or his precursor.
No offense, but I remember hearing the fringes of this same conversation when Mr. Clinton got hot and heavy in the oval office. I'm not sure what this means, in fact i'm getting a little too distracted to keep writing.

(1)-The Frontman's Blog, Nov 10 2008 "Should Chiristians Honor Barac Obama"

Something By Bukowski

2009-11-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

a girlfriend came in

built me a bed
scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
scrubbed the walls
vacuumed
cleaned the toilet
the bathtub
scrubbed the bathroom floor
and cut my toenails and
my hair.
then
all on the same day
the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
and the toilet
and the gas man fixed the heater
and the phone man fixed the phone.
now I sit in all this perfection.
it is quiet.
I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.
I felt better when everything was in
disorder.
it will take me some months to get back to normal:
I can't even find a roach to commune with.
I have lost my rythm.
I can't sleep.
I can't eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.

This Is Better Than Watching Queen Of The Damned.

2009-11-04T23:04:00.000-08:00

Well hello, and thanks for checking in on the trip upriver. In all honesty, I had no intent of starting a blog this morning, in fact the general aversion to blogging has been pretty deeply entrenched in my mind for a few years. I only decided to give this all a shot when i began connecting my email accounts and streamlining for my eventual transition in to the military.

I went to MEPS and took my ASVAB a few months ago, but since sending in that paperwork and applying for Tattoo and Eyesight waivers, the Marine Corps have been silent. I talked to my Recruiting NCO, Staff Sergeant Brewer, on monday, but he didn't have a lot to say beyond "They're working on your paperwork." It's not much but it's a start. I'll keep you in the loop.

I'm not one for writing long winded, multi page posts about politics or religion. The Trip Upriver is just a place where I can keep people that care in the know.