corners of suburban sprawl

I thought about waiting to post these, but I figured I'd just get it over with. First time I've tried this sort of thing, clearly need a lot of improvement. I shot these around my town and edited them on Picasa. Summer-y and bleak kinda??

 I was listening to "Sprawl I" by Arcade Fire (plus more of the album The Suburbs) and "Radio" by Lana Del Rey while I was taking these. So there's that to go with the pictures.

   Thanks so much for reading/looking!

all hail the daily show

News is important, right? It gets info out there to people quicker than ever before. Hell, there's even 24 hour news channels for all the news you could ever possibly want. But what about fake news? 

One of my favorite shows ever to exist is the one and only The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I don't usually watch actual news except for ABC World News (praise heavens Diane is leaving), given that I don't have cable, I wake up normally at 9, way past news programs, and I think they're full of propaganda shit. The Daily Show definitely backs that opinion up. 

Usually every night, I'll lay in bed and watch the latest episode on HuluPlus. I've learned a lot and laughed even more. If there's one thing in comedy to capitalize on, the government is a premier choice. 

If you aren't familiar with the show, I'll tell you how it goes down (if you're interested they have full episodes on Hulu and Comedy Central's website). The show opens and Jon makes fun of what ever is in the news. And a lot of the time, he just makes fun of the news itself. Like with CNN's Malaysian Airline coverage. And Fox's "Santa's just white". And already media predictions of the 2016 presidential race. And countless other times. Anyway, the show goes on. Jew jokes and Arby's jokes ensue. Then they have "correspondent(s)" on. Sometimes they're interviewed "on assignment" (aka in front of a green screen). Other times they interview real people. Or they even go out of the country. Then there's a famous person Jon interviews, whether it's a political dude or dudette, actors, comedians, or authors. Then at the very end of the show, they have the "Moment of Zen" which is a short little clip of news reporters/congressmen/literally anyone saying super dumb things. 

The Daily Show
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My favorite Moment of Zen in a while. 

They've said before that the show isn't an educational news program, like a lot of news reporters claim it to be. (People get all pissed off because Jon Stewart can say anything he wants and then back off and say "It's comedy!". Because that's what it is. But apparently nat'l news stations don't like that.)

I don't think it's techincally educational, because you do have to know what's going on in the news to get the jokes, and a lot of the times the back stories on congressmen and what not (so many Mitch McConnell and John Kerry jokes that fly right past me). But I think it inspires people, young people to be exact, to learn about what's going on in the world. Because it's a lot more fun making jokes at people when shit is clearly crazy and lopsided. And it's more fun getting your news from an "anchor" who swears and calls people out without worring about being politically correct. Plus it's funner to actually understand the jokes and makes you feel smart when you do.

(While I'm writing this, there's this guy riding his lawnmower down the sidewalk it's so freakin funny oh my god)

Plus, many of the interviews and reports are actually super informative and eye opening. Like, I never knew how fucking dumb and ridiculous political leaders and the things they work for are. Check out this interview with Samantha Bee about right-wingers against vaccines and climate change. Three cheers for America! Gooooaaalll!

The Daily Show
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skip to 4:30 for the message unless you have a strong hate for rush limbaugh

This is the unedited version, one of my favorite interviews

But a lot of parts are very meaningful and well put together, all while keeping an intelligent comedic feeling in it. Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary, said that OBOMBa's interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show was "Probably the most substantive, challenging interview Barack Obama had in the election year." This completely SLAYS me because, like, IT'S A FCKIN COMEDY SHOW. STEP IT UP ACTUAL NEWS CHANNELS. (Here's the 2 parts to the interview [x] [x].) Other very well done interviews. Malala Yousafzai. And above that one, a recent clip about the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Pretty cool if you ask me.

(Lawnmower guy just rode back up the sidewalk im floooored)

The Daily Show
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But the original point of this post was from Wednesday night's show. The segment was about 55 colleges under investigation for mishandling sexual harassment cases regarding their students. This didn't particularly shock me, but the Jessica Williams (plus Jordan Klepper, BUT JESSICA) completely FCKIN NAILED IT. And still was hilarious. But it's more chillingly funny because of how real and true what she says is. "So you're tellin' me that women just spend their whole day navigating an obstacle course of sexual menace?" "Yeah." "Seriously?" "Seriously." It perfectly displays the differences between men's and women's ways of thinking of sexual harassment. And especially how much men are oblivious to the fact, only showing up shrugging their shoulders saying, "Not alllllll men..." Perfectly on point.

As Jon Stewart would say, America: Shit Just Got Real Edition.

hear hear, case 1: art v. doubt

Lately, I haven't done anything along the lines of creativity. All I've done for the past few months is eat and reblog stuff on tumblr. Last night I had a sort of epiphany, well more existential crisis than epiphany, about what I'm doing with my summer/life. I miraculously stayed up until 5AM and basically decided that I need to step up my game. I reorganized my iPod (because that's the other thing, in addition to tumblr and food, that I only use) and deleted a bunch of stuff that's just cluttering up my personal space. I needed a clear head before I could plan for what I was going to do next, so I watched Tavi Gevinson's Ideas at the House talk. 

Every time I read Rookie articles or about Tavi's/literally any cool young person's life/art, I immediately get that feeling of regret about never dong anything and a sort of aspiration to contribute to art and my environment. In the talk, she discussed fangirling, ideas about authenticity and originality (or lack thereof), and how those things affect your art. She mentioned how she was diagnosed with depression and right after she was diagnosed she felt validated to be, like, this tortured artist and could make all this sad art and what have you. I always knew how dumb that was, but that hasn't stopped me from feeling the same way. For a while, I was stuck in a funk (ytown) and it actually made me feel special and empowered, as long as I kept the sadness and torturedness to an all time max. I've written about this before and since then gotten over it, but hearing it all over again was refreshing and even a wake up call to me, kind of like, "Hey, you're all okay in there. You can come out and have fun now." Because the truth is, I haven't felt the creative authority to be able to do so (well that, and laziness lol). 

Tavi also brought up a TEDxTalk by Emma Simmons-Araya called Pressure, Power, Punk Rock.  Emma, a singer in the punk band "The Potential Lunatics", talked about how being intimidated by all the other art in the world so much that it cripples you in fear of not living up to standards set by others, leading you to pressure yourself so much that you can't and don't want to create anything. She said how she would write songs, then stop at the chorus, reread what she wrote, then throw away the whole song. Stopping, observing, self-doubting, and destroying. A continuous cycle. She realized this process and decided to, instead, kill her idols: the people who are causing you to put pressure on yourself, all the rock stars and great artists and photographers and writers that you aspire to be. Humanize them and realize that you're just like them: artists. Empowering yourself by harnessing the power of that fear and self-doubt and thrusting it into your art, rather than thrusting your art into the garbage.

I go through with the "Stop, Doubt, Destroy" cycle on a way too regular basis. I'll start drawing or writing something and then observe it, decide it's "bad", and then scratch out everything. 

Another thing that reminds me of that talk is Neil Gaiman's "Make Good Art" commencement speech. He makes a point of saying that mistakes are crucial and learning points, especially in art. He says, " I hope you'll make mistakes. If you're making mistakes, it means you're out there doing something. And the mistakes in themselves can be useful. I once misspelled Caroline, in a letter, transposing the A and the O, and I thought, 'Coraline looks like a real name...' And remember that whatever discipline you are in, whether you are a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a designer, whatever you do you have one thing that's unique. You have the ability to make art." Every time I read that line, it always has the same, huge impact on me. Mistakes are art. I can make art. You can make art. Even if you, by your or someone else's standards, aren't original, it's your own art. That's what makes it unique, no matter how derivative.

He goes on to say, "While you are at it, make your art. Do the stuff that only you can do. The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that's not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we've sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can." This part was never as influential to me until now. I never have thought that I could be "truly" creative because I could never come up with my own ideas. Everything I've thought of has been thought before and made before. But, as Gaiman points out, the thing that hasn't been there before is you. Then I came across this quote by Patrick Stump," "Focus on the craft. Study the greats. Try and understand how and why they made the writing choices they did. Learn how to write a song like so and so. Then, when you've done that, write a song like yourself. Learn to color within the lines before going outside them." I always thought it was bad or unproductive to be inauthentic and unoriginal, but like he says, you have to start somewhere. 

For a while now, I've wanted to start getting into photography. I never knew how to go about it or what to start with, since it's so broad and you need lots of talent to get the right effect. A while back I did actually start, but I did the same Stop, Doubt, Destroy cycle. Until today, after reading and watching all those things last night, I went around my town and took some photos. Last week, I started writing poetry and posting it on poetfreak.com. I revamped my blog. I restarted my diary. I'm beginning to break the cycle.

the bad beginning

Today's June 24th and I'm a few weeks into summer vacation. It's hot and muggy as Satan's ass crack, and I'm home alone. It's gonna be like this for a while. Because of that, I thought I would revamp my blog, but I wanted to start fresh. I was only 4 posts into the other one, so it's probably for the best (not deleting the other one however). This blog is, as of now, just going to a complication of everything that I like and want to share/talk about, and possibly some things I create. I'm still a newbie and I'm planning on doing lots of growing and changing throughout this process.

actual picture of me writing this

Here's a list of places you can find me on interweb, check em out if you please: 

• tumblr
• twitter
• weak instagram
• poetfreak
• 8tracks

                       Bye for now,
                                 Rachel