Calling this a bad case of 'nerves' would be an understatement. I am scared out of my wits for no good reason. I cannot fuck this up, and I'm so afraid that that's exactly what I'm going to do. If I had any experience with, or knew how my body would react to Xanex, I might go looking for some to squash my stupid social anxiety issues before what I have to do tonight.
Wait. I just realized I do have one experience. I don't think it was Xanex, I think it was Valium. I must have been about 19, when a friend of mine gave me one of them suggesting that it would cause me to turn into a melty pile of butter, which sounded nice, so I ate it. I never did feel melty, or really any different. But two hours later, I calmly decided to drive over to the house of a girl I had been spending a lot of time with, and explain to her that our friendship was over because all she ever wanted to do was talk about herself, even in situations where I was the one who really needed an ear. It all made sense in my head. I had been resolving to stop landing myself in co-dependent friendships, being taken advantage of by those 'all take and no give' kind of people, etc.
Really not proud of this. It might have been true that she was self-absorbed and taking advantage of me. It might have been a lesson she really needed to learn in life. But was it my job to decide those things? Am I in any way qualified to be judge and jury? Was it kind of me to show up unannounced and tell her she sucked as a friend? No. Was it irrational and irresponsible for me to have taken a strange narcotic and then gotten in a car? Was it bizarre that I could have chosen to do anything at that moment, and settled on using my temporary state of drug-induced courage and confidence to go shit on another person? Yes.
I believe I have just talked myself out of anti-anxiety meds as a solution for my current problem. Apologies for the detour.
Tonight, I am going to show up to a local fight promotion here in Austin and give my name to some people with the magic list. I'll then receive a press pass that will allow me access to everything behind the scenes, and wander around trying to talk to fighters, coaches, EMT's, promoters, or anyone else remotely related to the fight game, in hopes of having a conversation I can then make into a story for Fightland. Which is a subsidiary of VICE Media. Which is... all I've ever aspired to be a part of.
If I was Lauren Taylor, this would be easy. That girl has never met a stranger. I've always struggled to keep up with her in social situations. She has never been able to sit still as long as I've known her. Traffic makes her happy, because it means she's in a place with tons of people, and to her that is ideal. How weird is that.
Once, before I had really fallen for MMA and still didn't know much about the sport, she brought me as her guest to the AFC in Anchorage (that's Alaska Fighting Championship for those who don't know, and LT is the women's 145 champ). I more or less followed her around, trying to remember names, feeling really awkward and trying not to show it. I had just gotten into this rhythm with her that night, when she said, "Hey, that's Donald Cerrone. Let's go introduce ourselves."
I had no fucking idea who Donald Cerrone was. All I knew, was that he was a dude walking around by himself wearing a cowboy hat and boots, in Anchorage, Alaska. So, for lack of anything else to say, I made fun of his hat. I was good-natured about it, and it was the easiest introduction I'd made with anyone that night. I picked up from the talk between the two of them that he was a fighter, and that he must have been from out of town, but past that I was clueless. Wasn't until much later that I was informed that Donald Cerrone is one of the top ten MMA lightweight fighters on the planet, and that the promoter had brought him up as a guest. I would have been unable to speak, had I known. Lauren ambled over to him, stuck her hand out, and had a conversation like any other she'd have with a friend. I would give a lot for half of her social comfort level. Or... her balls, to be more direct.
But I don't have them. I'm trying to remind myself that this won't be a big deal. Over the last few years, I've been backstage with all kinds of fighters. I've made conversation like it was nothing with one of the top fight teams on the planet at Jackson's MMA. The answer is to just pretend that it's all normal to you, even though it absolutely isn't. Every time I get to sit in on practice, watch and listen while someone gets their hands wrapped, fetch some water or a coach or some gloves someone forgot in the car, I act like it's normal. But to me it isn't. See, I'm actually cheating. I've never been in the cage. I haven't earned my stripes with these people. Yet somehow, because I do my best to be a good friend, I get to share in an experience with them that most others will only ever glimpse pieces of from the stadium seating.
And tonight, I don't have a buffer. I'm in Austin, not Anchorage. I don't know any of these fighters. Lauren isn't here to charge boldly into the middle of conversations as my super out-going counterpart. I have to do it all myself, and come away with something worth writing about, because if I fuck this up, or disappoint the editor... if it's lame, or been done, or no one will talk to me and I come away empty handed... it will mean a failure at the single most amazing opportunity I have ever been handed.
I sure wish I could stop thinking about it like that. Self-fulfilling prophecy, setting myself up to fail, all of that shit I have to avoid. It's just another fight night, and these are just a bunch more fighters, and fuck if they haven't so far in my experience proven to be one of the coolest groups of people on earth. By and large, anyway. Even more than that, I'm in Austin. There is an unspoken social code among people in this town; don't be a dick. If you aren't friendly, genuine and warm, you aren't welcome. If that isn't how you acted in whatever town you came from, you better learn fast if you want to fit in here. This is the best possible introductory foreign scenario into which I could pitch myself headfirst. I'm a pretty cool girl, and I have always magically made strangers feel comfortable talking to me. Time to give this whole 'fake it until you make it' philosophy a real try.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
A Twitter beef with Report-A-Pedo
Twitter is awesome and also terrible. There is no way to form a complete argument in 140 characters. And I should probably have known better than to attempt it, but I did, and now it's out there. This argument of mine... skeletal and undeveloped and open for rampant misinterpretation. So, let me back up.
Anonymous has a chapter dedicated to pedophiles. Or rather, the act of ruining their lives and/or sending them to jail. Sounds like something pretty much everyone can get behind. So far, I've supported everything in which Anonymous has elected to intervene. And obviously, I am not sympathetic to, or supportive of people who choose to abuse children, however, one of the groups most recent actions concerns me. When I tried to cram this concern into 140 characters, what I got was a response that more or less made it sound like I was defending child molesters which... well that is totally unfair and really sucks.
They hacked into a man's computer and found... basically a whole shit load of child porn. He's already been arrested (as far as I can gather from Anonymous' document), but has been released from custody until his trial date. So, Anonymous gathered pretty much all this guys major data, and made it public on the internet. Their reasoning being, that everyone needs to be keeping an eye on this man in case he assaults a child leading up to his sentencing. But, so far as I can tell, there is nothing to show that he has ever actually abused a child in real life. Or at least, that was not presented by Anonymous with his information.
The document contains his name, social security number, address, email, all his social media stuff, his job, credit history, etc. And... so what, right? This guy is the scum of the earth. Fuck him. I do understand how that's an easy conclusion to come to. But I am not convinced it was the right one.
Maybe people will show up and wait outside his house to follow him wherever he goes and make sure it's no where near kids. Maybe people will call his house hour after hour to make sure he is securely at home. But if these things don't happen... how does the publication of all his information keep any children safe?
What if he's never actually harmed a child? The legal system had already discovered his online activities and is in the process of handling it as our laws deem appropriate. It is against the law to possess child pornography, he broke the law, and the law is dealing with him. His reputation will be ruined, he'll have felony charges against him for life. So what did Anonymous accomplish here? To humiliate this person further in front of the entire world, and make him a target for identity thieves? Ok, that's fine. I am not claiming to feel bad for the guy. But if this is their course of action every time they discover someone in possession of illegal materials, I think the results they're seeking aren't the right ones. I don't see how that helps.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has a section on Pedophilia. That means that it is recognized as a mental disorder, albeit it one for which no known cure exists. It also means that for reasons we don't fully understand, sometimes people have inclinations towards children the same way some people have inclinations toward other odd, gross or unacceptable things. It is just as bizarre a thought to me that someone could be attracted to animals, yet those people do exist. Just as pedophiles exist, and always have. Given that this is true, we have a few options.
We can arrest them when they do harm to a child, throw them in jail and leave them there, but by then the damage is done. Or we can try to spot the ones who may be headed down that road before they've done any harm and deal with it preemptively. That may mean locking them in a secure facility like Coalinga in California, which is basically a giant state prison for sex offenders. It could mean sending proof of the possession of pornography to the police and seeing the case through to prosecution. Or, it could mean that perhaps you could first send a message to the potential child abuser, to try and solicit help with the bigger problem.
You could make it clear that the jig is up. Maybe it could list resources or places to seek help. It could inform the person that they are being watched and are expected to stop acquiring or sharing the pornography or suffer the consequences, which could then include publication of all personal information. It could even demand that said person turn themselves in and/or work with the police to track down the source of the media. Why not use the knowledge you got through hacking to blackmail an offender into being a part of a bigger solution? I'm not able to state for certain what the appropriate course should always be, but I do think there are better ways to handle the situation than the way this one was handled.
My fear here is this; if we're just outing people who have maybe so far managed to find ways to deal with those urges alone and without actually raping any kids, if we do this without warning them or giving them a chance to do right, are we saying to potential predators that it's better to keep your secret off the internet because Anonymous might expose you? That doesn't stop a pedophile from being what he is, and it may even drive them back out into the real world with real kids if they can't seek to hide in the virtual one.
We do need Anonymous, but we need them to track down the people who are actually committing the crimes of abusing children or filming it. I am not trying to say that I don't think possession of child pornography should be punished... but if you're a person who has stuck to a computer screen in an effort not to harm a child in real life, I also think that should be taken into consideration by the makers of vigilante justice. Perhaps those people can be tapped to help tackle the bigger problem.
Remember that scene in Casino Royale, where M is pissed at Bond for shooting the bombmaker before he could be used to lead the British Secret Service to the larger criminal organization to whom he had been contracted? I feel like that's a fair comparison to make. Would you rather throw the book at one man doing minimal harm, or bring down an entire network that regularly violates our youth?
Anonymous has a chapter dedicated to pedophiles. Or rather, the act of ruining their lives and/or sending them to jail. Sounds like something pretty much everyone can get behind. So far, I've supported everything in which Anonymous has elected to intervene. And obviously, I am not sympathetic to, or supportive of people who choose to abuse children, however, one of the groups most recent actions concerns me. When I tried to cram this concern into 140 characters, what I got was a response that more or less made it sound like I was defending child molesters which... well that is totally unfair and really sucks.
They hacked into a man's computer and found... basically a whole shit load of child porn. He's already been arrested (as far as I can gather from Anonymous' document), but has been released from custody until his trial date. So, Anonymous gathered pretty much all this guys major data, and made it public on the internet. Their reasoning being, that everyone needs to be keeping an eye on this man in case he assaults a child leading up to his sentencing. But, so far as I can tell, there is nothing to show that he has ever actually abused a child in real life. Or at least, that was not presented by Anonymous with his information.
The document contains his name, social security number, address, email, all his social media stuff, his job, credit history, etc. And... so what, right? This guy is the scum of the earth. Fuck him. I do understand how that's an easy conclusion to come to. But I am not convinced it was the right one.
Maybe people will show up and wait outside his house to follow him wherever he goes and make sure it's no where near kids. Maybe people will call his house hour after hour to make sure he is securely at home. But if these things don't happen... how does the publication of all his information keep any children safe?
What if he's never actually harmed a child? The legal system had already discovered his online activities and is in the process of handling it as our laws deem appropriate. It is against the law to possess child pornography, he broke the law, and the law is dealing with him. His reputation will be ruined, he'll have felony charges against him for life. So what did Anonymous accomplish here? To humiliate this person further in front of the entire world, and make him a target for identity thieves? Ok, that's fine. I am not claiming to feel bad for the guy. But if this is their course of action every time they discover someone in possession of illegal materials, I think the results they're seeking aren't the right ones. I don't see how that helps.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has a section on Pedophilia. That means that it is recognized as a mental disorder, albeit it one for which no known cure exists. It also means that for reasons we don't fully understand, sometimes people have inclinations towards children the same way some people have inclinations toward other odd, gross or unacceptable things. It is just as bizarre a thought to me that someone could be attracted to animals, yet those people do exist. Just as pedophiles exist, and always have. Given that this is true, we have a few options.
We can arrest them when they do harm to a child, throw them in jail and leave them there, but by then the damage is done. Or we can try to spot the ones who may be headed down that road before they've done any harm and deal with it preemptively. That may mean locking them in a secure facility like Coalinga in California, which is basically a giant state prison for sex offenders. It could mean sending proof of the possession of pornography to the police and seeing the case through to prosecution. Or, it could mean that perhaps you could first send a message to the potential child abuser, to try and solicit help with the bigger problem.
You could make it clear that the jig is up. Maybe it could list resources or places to seek help. It could inform the person that they are being watched and are expected to stop acquiring or sharing the pornography or suffer the consequences, which could then include publication of all personal information. It could even demand that said person turn themselves in and/or work with the police to track down the source of the media. Why not use the knowledge you got through hacking to blackmail an offender into being a part of a bigger solution? I'm not able to state for certain what the appropriate course should always be, but I do think there are better ways to handle the situation than the way this one was handled.
My fear here is this; if we're just outing people who have maybe so far managed to find ways to deal with those urges alone and without actually raping any kids, if we do this without warning them or giving them a chance to do right, are we saying to potential predators that it's better to keep your secret off the internet because Anonymous might expose you? That doesn't stop a pedophile from being what he is, and it may even drive them back out into the real world with real kids if they can't seek to hide in the virtual one.
We do need Anonymous, but we need them to track down the people who are actually committing the crimes of abusing children or filming it. I am not trying to say that I don't think possession of child pornography should be punished... but if you're a person who has stuck to a computer screen in an effort not to harm a child in real life, I also think that should be taken into consideration by the makers of vigilante justice. Perhaps those people can be tapped to help tackle the bigger problem.
Remember that scene in Casino Royale, where M is pissed at Bond for shooting the bombmaker before he could be used to lead the British Secret Service to the larger criminal organization to whom he had been contracted? I feel like that's a fair comparison to make. Would you rather throw the book at one man doing minimal harm, or bring down an entire network that regularly violates our youth?
Friday, January 4, 2013
Writers block. Bane of my existence.
I can't write. Again. I don't know why this happens, but it drives me crazy. Often enough, I am already packing sufficient crazy without having writers block, which essentially robs me of the most therapeutic outlet I have in life.
Three months ago, when something happened to me, the story started forming in my head almost immediately and by the time I got to somewhere I could type it out, it would just sort of... spill from me like too many shots of tequila. And similarly, I'd feel a million times better afterward.
Now, when I try to think out how I would tell a story... I get a feeling more similar to the one I get when I think about how I need to do the dishes. And it isn't for lack of material either. I meet new people and have weird experiences left and right since I've been in Austin.
I spent some time down at my dad's parent's farm over Christmas. Land that's been in my family since the late 1800's, in a small town where my ancestors settled right before Texas became a state in the U.S. One of them built their house out of the remains of the local Baptist church after the Indians came through and burnt half the settlement to the ground. My dad's dad is 86 years old with a fake hip and doesn't look or act a day older than he did when last I'd seen him 15 years ago. Instead, within a few months of getting the new hip, he was replacing the roof on the barn in the old pasture. It is an insane experience to be around him, and to hear him tell stories about the Korean War and about being a kid in the 1930's, in that slow Texas gentlemans drawl that is unlike any other accent I've encountered. There are so many things I want to write down about their lives while he is still so clear and lucid and strong. I just can't seem to do it.
Or what about Joe Rogan and that whole... difficult-to-categorize evening. The man was my idol, my teacher. I got to meet him. But more than that, I got to hang out with him and his entourage until 2:00am when the bars shut down, at their private after-party. I hung out with Brian Redban, Duncan Trussell, Alex Jones and Aubrey Marcus. I met some of my other favorite guests from his podcast, I had some of the weirdest conversations I've had in years, I made friends with a porn star and only found out late into the evening that that was her umm... profession. It was both everything I'd hoped for and also destroyed the pedestal I held Joe on, all at once. I have SO much to say about that experience. Only... I can't find the words.
I am an even more rabid MMA fan than I was when I met Greg Jackson and the very high profile students at his gym last fall. I watch some form of fight stuff every day. I haven't missed a UFC in... almost a full year. There is almost no way to know them all, but I am trying. I want to know where they came from, what drives them to punish themselves for the sport, which ones are freaks of nature, which ones could have been chess prodigies but chose combat instead. I want to chime in on the never ending argument between people who claim that fighting is barbaric and all it's fans are bloodlust craving animals and those of us... that know better. I could write about this stuff forever. For a living, if someone would pay me. Or at least, maybe I could have before I fell into this creativity-devoid ditch.
I stare stupidly at my keyboard, and wait for the right adjective to characterize a place or a person or a situation to just come rolling out of my fingertips like it used to... and nothing happens. I try to recall the passion I felt about an experience while it was happening, and I feel bored. It could be because Josh is gone... but I wrote like a fiend when he was in Kentucky for 3 months last winter. It could be that I'm not as tuned into the cyber world as I once was because I'm focusing on staying busy and making friends here, but that's never stopped me before. What I'm really afraid of, what I fear every time this happens to me, is that I only had that firey drive to voice my opinions when I was young enough to think they'd make a difference in the world. Or in other words, that I'm getting old. And complacent.
My last resort, my last hope, is something that really helped me tune into the muse this time last year. I need to find some weed. There was a time that I wanted nothing more to do with my evenings than to take one tiny puff of a joint, turn on a lecture or a podcast with an actual smart person, and spend the next 4 hours taking notes and opening browser windows for every little bit of information into which I wanted to dig further. Somehow, right in that window between stoned and sober, with only a tiny stream of THC chasing it's way through my neural pathways, all the cogs and gears in my brain started to move in synchronicity.
It makes me a little nervous to admit that on the internet, being as how it's open and available to potential bosses, family members, etc. But it's true, and I made a promise to write the truth in this blog, as I see it. So there it is. It helps those of us with creative juices to tap into that unseen layer of the atmosphere where art and ideas are born. And hopefully it helps a cranky and frustrated almost 30 year old broad to find the way back to her stories. Because... let's face it, I wrote this because you have to write to get better at writing, and practice will only help, but it sucks.
I'm going to hit the 'publish' button anyway.
Three months ago, when something happened to me, the story started forming in my head almost immediately and by the time I got to somewhere I could type it out, it would just sort of... spill from me like too many shots of tequila. And similarly, I'd feel a million times better afterward.
Now, when I try to think out how I would tell a story... I get a feeling more similar to the one I get when I think about how I need to do the dishes. And it isn't for lack of material either. I meet new people and have weird experiences left and right since I've been in Austin.
I spent some time down at my dad's parent's farm over Christmas. Land that's been in my family since the late 1800's, in a small town where my ancestors settled right before Texas became a state in the U.S. One of them built their house out of the remains of the local Baptist church after the Indians came through and burnt half the settlement to the ground. My dad's dad is 86 years old with a fake hip and doesn't look or act a day older than he did when last I'd seen him 15 years ago. Instead, within a few months of getting the new hip, he was replacing the roof on the barn in the old pasture. It is an insane experience to be around him, and to hear him tell stories about the Korean War and about being a kid in the 1930's, in that slow Texas gentlemans drawl that is unlike any other accent I've encountered. There are so many things I want to write down about their lives while he is still so clear and lucid and strong. I just can't seem to do it.
Or what about Joe Rogan and that whole... difficult-to-categorize evening. The man was my idol, my teacher. I got to meet him. But more than that, I got to hang out with him and his entourage until 2:00am when the bars shut down, at their private after-party. I hung out with Brian Redban, Duncan Trussell, Alex Jones and Aubrey Marcus. I met some of my other favorite guests from his podcast, I had some of the weirdest conversations I've had in years, I made friends with a porn star and only found out late into the evening that that was her umm... profession. It was both everything I'd hoped for and also destroyed the pedestal I held Joe on, all at once. I have SO much to say about that experience. Only... I can't find the words.
I am an even more rabid MMA fan than I was when I met Greg Jackson and the very high profile students at his gym last fall. I watch some form of fight stuff every day. I haven't missed a UFC in... almost a full year. There is almost no way to know them all, but I am trying. I want to know where they came from, what drives them to punish themselves for the sport, which ones are freaks of nature, which ones could have been chess prodigies but chose combat instead. I want to chime in on the never ending argument between people who claim that fighting is barbaric and all it's fans are bloodlust craving animals and those of us... that know better. I could write about this stuff forever. For a living, if someone would pay me. Or at least, maybe I could have before I fell into this creativity-devoid ditch.
I stare stupidly at my keyboard, and wait for the right adjective to characterize a place or a person or a situation to just come rolling out of my fingertips like it used to... and nothing happens. I try to recall the passion I felt about an experience while it was happening, and I feel bored. It could be because Josh is gone... but I wrote like a fiend when he was in Kentucky for 3 months last winter. It could be that I'm not as tuned into the cyber world as I once was because I'm focusing on staying busy and making friends here, but that's never stopped me before. What I'm really afraid of, what I fear every time this happens to me, is that I only had that firey drive to voice my opinions when I was young enough to think they'd make a difference in the world. Or in other words, that I'm getting old. And complacent.
My last resort, my last hope, is something that really helped me tune into the muse this time last year. I need to find some weed. There was a time that I wanted nothing more to do with my evenings than to take one tiny puff of a joint, turn on a lecture or a podcast with an actual smart person, and spend the next 4 hours taking notes and opening browser windows for every little bit of information into which I wanted to dig further. Somehow, right in that window between stoned and sober, with only a tiny stream of THC chasing it's way through my neural pathways, all the cogs and gears in my brain started to move in synchronicity.
It makes me a little nervous to admit that on the internet, being as how it's open and available to potential bosses, family members, etc. But it's true, and I made a promise to write the truth in this blog, as I see it. So there it is. It helps those of us with creative juices to tap into that unseen layer of the atmosphere where art and ideas are born. And hopefully it helps a cranky and frustrated almost 30 year old broad to find the way back to her stories. Because... let's face it, I wrote this because you have to write to get better at writing, and practice will only help, but it sucks.
I'm going to hit the 'publish' button anyway.
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