I am so Distracted

Several weeks ago I promised more frequent updates, more comics, more everything; but that simply hasn't happened. Since my last entry 'til now we've only had one write-up, and it was by Hoss (thanks, btw), which, because of its political nature, is sure to've chased away whatever conservative fans I may've had (not a big deal).

Folks, it's obvious by now that my track record for this kind of work, at best, lasts one month before dropping off sharply, then fading away, only to be revived some time later when I've gained some inspiration. For that, I apologize. It's annoying and a little disappointing. I know. It's how I feel all the time seeing "WORK ON COMICS" on my to-do list every day to end up never doing anything. Worst of all, this time around my urgency to create has been towards other projects unrelated to this site. So it's not for lack of ideas - it's a lack of effort.

Tax cut entry

The Republican party is retarded.

Anyway, all this talk about the Bush-era tax cuts are boiling my blood. Obama and his administration don't support them, but are forced to because fucking Rep congressmen keep saying no to cutting taxes for just tax brackets below $250,000. Their reasoning: raising taxes for everyone is the worst thing to do in a failing economy. But no one is talking about raising taxes on everybody, JUST ON THE RICH. Where the hell's the problem in that?

Holiday

Updates!

Hey folks! Al, here. You might be wondering: "Where are the new comics?" Well, I'm here to answer: I'm working on it. Also, don't forget, the obligatory list of excuses for the lack of posts:

-The weather got really messed up around here lately, meaning I was either glued to my chair from hours of heavy sweating or I was bucketing up the house from all the rain leakage. Either way I was moist.

The Breakup, Part 7

The original features me without boxers, but that would make even less sense than what I got here.

Also I didn't know how to end it so I just ripped off Naruto.

Iraqi Photo Exhibit

So I figure I'd surprise everyone with a blog post! Now granted the following post is probably not going to be as funny or entertaining as Alex's comics, but I figure I can contribute to the blog by writing something occasionally, especially if something interesting comes up.

So on campus for approximately the past week, there has been a photo exhibit of an ex-Marine who was deployed to Iraq, sometime between the age of 17-20. The exhibit consists of a set of 3-4 posterboards with enlarged photos attached to them. To give some idea, some of the images include:

- a blind Iraqi child

- 3 women walking to school with backpacks of cartoon characters

- soldier holding a letter from his girlfriend

- soldier putting on his helmet

- an Iraqi youth amputee in a wheelchair

Obviously, listing the images and actually viewing the images are two different things. Looking at some of these images really draw you in and invade your personal physical, mental, and emotional space. Poignant images like the Iraqi amputee especially force you to have an emotional response.

I happened to stumble onto this exhibition for the second time, coincidentally when the photographer and soldier himself was there to provide commentary and answer questions. Besides just talking about the images and what they represented, he brought up two issues you don't see everyday: a need to share the pains and suffering of the world with others and also the idea that society defines what people should be like through products, advertisement, and propaganda. He also said that society promotes the witholding and denial of emotions, especially the painful ones.

Another thing that struck me was his tone and frankness. Amidst what I'd consider the epitome of USC, fraternities and the culture of "hi, how it's going," his words and thoughts all appeared incredibly real and authentic. Despite the fact that he spoke and used words like a clearly educated person, there was no sense of pretentiousness. He even threw in some curse words for good measure. You could really hear the passion when he spoke on his ideas of societal determination and denial of emotion. It was not masked by fancy language or anything of the sort. For someone unsure of what future career to do or even the future in general, it was really refreshing to hear a voice almost untouched by the constricting pressures of "popular careers," parents, and the like. It inspires me to find something I am passionate about, whether hobby, study, work-related, or otherwise. I also aspire to take his influence and speak openly and without fear.

The Breakup, Part 6

UH OH!

Fox Ruins the Day

-I'm seriously gonna get Fox back. I don't even care if he was right or not - I'll find out in the end - but the fact that he would so carelessly RUIN something I love for his OWN ENJOYMENT makes my blood boil. I will have my vengeance.

-This all happened, by the way. This entire conversation.

-They say writing is one of the loneliest activities. It's true. But doing comics doesn't have to be lonely. However, none of the A-men are particularly good in any phase of cartoon-making. So I'm alone here. Doing all this. It ain't easy. But rest assured, I haven't quit on this thing yet. I can't. I'll never quit you, baby.

...but I will take lots of breaks.

-Hopefully will be back on track this week with the updates. But don't get your hopes up.

The Breakup, Part 5

Just some background info, the song on the phone is Wake's favorite song and it comes straight from hell itself.

The Breakup, Part 4

Bear with me, the jokes will come soon!

The Wish

Just a quick little one for the occasion. Back to the main storyline next time.

The Breakup, Part 3

UH OH!

The Breakup, Part 2

Plenty worse my friends. Plenty.

The Breakup, Part 1

Shipping is expensive, man.

An Indecent Time, Part 6

Was it all a dream?

No.

An Indecent Time, Part 5

I tried drawing a toilet full of nasty old shit but it didn't work. Sorry.

An Indecent Time, Part 4

Fox is so frustrating.

An Indecent Time, Part 3

As you can see, Fox has absolutely NO shame.

An Indecent Time, Part 2

Ralphs is right next door from their apartment.

An Indecent Time, Part 1

Poor Vic can't blind Alison Brie 'cause of Fox.

For this week

For a day a week me, Fox, Hoss, and sometimes Vic have been playing some basketball - usually practicing our shooting; sometimes doing a few pickup games. It's fun. Other than those days I've been spending time by myself. Just reading. Sometimes writing. Got bit by some ants a few days ago. I'm so itchy.

Anyway, after today's shootaround I thought it'd be nice to do a thing to increase our meet-up frequency without the cost or deteriorating health. The idea, formulated by me and Hoss in the presence of a reluctant Fox, goes like this: for an hour a day we can meet-up and just jog. Or ball. Or do some p90x or other such nonsense. There ya go - free activity, good for our health, and costs nothing. Why not do it all the dang time?

But that's just an idea I'm floating around. Whether or not anyone wants to do it - that's up to ya'll. But it's my job to force Fox to run and we shall be running! Hopefully.

Other than that - this upcoming Sunday we'll be meeting up for some kind of adventure before a nice meal at Big Mama's.

Then on Friday I'll be driving Fox and Chrissy to the Anime Convention. If anyone wants to come along, just hop right in! YEAHHHH!!!

That's it for now.
-----------------------------------------




-I'm only going to the Anime Convention 'cause I like to look at freaks. That's all.
-Yes, Fox will try to get pictures with a whole lot of girls 'cause he's a pervvy freak.
-Next next week I'll be in my apartment cleaning out and heading to the nearby beach. Come on over if ya'll want and have some fun on a semi-private beach!
-I'm thinking about doing another comedy set at a club sometime in July. Dunno if that'll happen since I don't know any good amateur comedy clubs around here. But if I find one then I may or may not participate!
-Man our stamina was so bad we had to change our game of 21 to 5. So embarrassing.
-Can't wait to get Fox on the trail we gonna look so stupid.

Lakers Victory

Al Yen, here, congratulating the Lakers (and you goddamned soulless Laker fans) on their victory over my beloved Celtics. I just cleaned myself up after sitting in the shower for awhile, sobbing uncontrollably. Now I'm at my desk downing a bag of Warheads. Defeat tastes so very bitter. Bitter, and now increasingly sour. Then sweet after awhile. Mmm, good candy.

Anyway, I hope a couple of retard fans die tonight. That'd cheer me right the hell up.

What I Learned

I promised I’d punch something up for ya’ll to read. For the past few days I’ve been trying to avoid it. Perhaps I feared the finality of it; perhaps I was too lazy; perhaps I’ve been busy; but perhaps, most likely, I’ve just been incredibly lazy. But I gave my word and I’m only as good as my word (and I’d like to think I’m damn good). So, I’m here, delivering to you, I guess, my version of a “graduation speech”, which is more like a summation of the things I’ve learned in college rather than a fancy motivational oratory (I’ll try to insert some inspiring stuff nonetheless).

As long as ya’ll know I’m writing this with extreme reluctance, then we can continue with the ordeal with mutually low expectations.

When I came into the system, I was optimistic. I was expecting to move seamlessly into an intellectual environment – something like the atmosphere I get from high school’s NHS group rather than high school’s street-trash “gangsta” group. Maybe my relative weirdness would get wider acceptance. I was walking cocky, chest puffed up and dick uncomfortably hard at how awesome me and this new situation would be. After all, I left high school *this* close to destroying its institutional credibility. In terms of lame-ass high school terrorism, I and my gang were top-dog.

Then I met the people going to university with me.

Imagine things from my perspective: I’m this cerebral guy with enough formidable social skills to run for office if I wanted to. So I go in, campaigning for the presidency of Sexmerica when I realize my majority constituency wasn’t intellectuals, or adults, or even really people. I got a huge collection of assholes and frat fags and phonies and retarded kids. Instead of working my way to the top within them (as I planned), I get disillusioned with the whole damned thing and decide to work my way without them.

Oh lemme get this out there before I continue: I was so ready to fit in. I did the drinking parties. I did the wild nights and the crazy bullshit. But I grew the hell up before I got too entrenched. I want everyone to know that I don’t drink, never will again (as per the rule “I am only as good as my word”), and anyone who does for the sole reason of getting drunk is, in my eyes, retarded. I usually respect all people but when I’m in the presence of booze fumes I easily go into contemptuous mode. More on that another time – just know my hate is strong.

Anyway, my plan to “do without” didn’t work. My whole life view was skewed by this massive disillusionment. Initially, I wanted to help people. Pull them from the rut. Then I wondered, why the hell should I? I hate these people, and the people I don’t hate – the people I like, do well without me. Screw them.

I turn inwards. I become so self-interested, my benign narcissism exploded into all-out nightly self-love-ins. I was absolutely obsessed with being better than everyone else. For a time I was locked in constant competition between me and the phonies and my A-men and my own mortality. And for a time I was the goddamned best. I directed my studies to understanding people and society in toto, and I’ve more or less succeeded in what I sought to do. It created a terrible cycle, though; for the more I learned, the more my general hatreds were justified in academia.

But then, a strange thing happened. The more I learned, the more I understood the truth. I learned that the stage and the producers; the writer and the director; the ticketholders and the critics, had tremendous control and influence over the players of the production than the players would admit. The actors would strut that stage and play their parts as written and that’d be all. My point isn’t how actors do so little and get so much glory. I’m trying to tell ya’ll that the roles the players play don’t go beyond what their roles are, however hard they struggle, they are trapped hopelessly within the confines of their part; they existed so long as the play tells them to exist.

What I’m getting at is this – these people I hate because of their “retardedness” can’t be helped. Everyone is largely the product of what the system and their environment shapes them to be; tells them to be. A lot will persevere in the face of all this, believing they’re “special” and exempt from the all-encompassing influence of the panopticon known as “society”; “culture”; “economy”; “media”; “peers”; etc. But they aren’t. The majority of them just aren’t. Those that are special usually joins the behind-the-curtain powers and abandon their retarded onstage brethren. The rest stay deluded in their own uniqueness, doomed to banality, never seeing the hands that control the strings of their life. These are the people I no longer hate; they are the people I pity.

It’s not to say I’m so damn special and know everything. I don’t. And that’s the thing I’ve learned after becoming a student of people and society; the holder of degrees in anthropology, politics, law, conflict, international studies, economics, and sociology:

People are retarded, and they can’t help it. Society is made by people. Retarded people. Society is retarded. “Life” exists within the delicate balance of society and nature, the retarded versus the real, and our retardedness has dominated the real so far. Our “life”, thus, is separated by the necessary – our connection with nature (the real), and the superfluous obligatory – our connection with society (the retarded). Our retardedness has messed up the real so freaking bad that we can’t ever go back without the retardedness falling apart (the theme of all apocalypse movies). So we don’t pay no mind to nature. But how about other people? That is real, isn’t it?

Well, we replace the necessaries of the real with a false “necessary” of the retarded. Things that go to support fellow living, like generosity of resources and time, is completely retarded unless you’re getting compensated for it. We put in that retarded qualifier. Stupidity is selflessness in our retarded-as-hell life. Meanwhile, My’s barely-subtle, incredibly ridiculous “PRAY FOR ME BECAUSE I’M SO BUSY SUCCEEDING” messages of self-pleasuring retardedness actually gets people praying for her!

Our retarded society (made up of people, who are retarded) makes us compete against each other endlessly in a mad dash for King of Retard Hill. But how many of the regular retards actually become “King Retard”? A handful, every few generations. The powerful ‘tards do what they can to gain and keep power, which means keeping the non-powerful retards down. Those powerful retards sell the rest of the retards retarded ideas to keep them busy amongst each other and not against the powerful retards. For even powerful retards know that retards are scary when they’re united in a retard-force. Meanwhile the powerful retards play their retarded games forever until the end.

While they're at it, we’re left to occupy our time in an endless, retarded struggle amongst ourselves. It’s why I hate so many people for so many reasons, because they are just unfathomably stupid. It’s why I work so damned hard to be better than everyone. It’s because I am, also, so hopelessly stupid. But now, after four years of peering into the heart of darkness, I understand my hatred. I hate not these people, but their inability to overcome their retardedness. I hate either their incapability to see their own faults and obstacles, or their refusal to overcome their obstacles, or the structure that fights to keep them down. I hate any and all of that because I hate it when it happens to me. And that’s natural. That’s real. The suffering of others is my suffering. I ain’t forgetting that, no matter how many retarded distractions and ideology gets thrown my way.

After four years of living; four years of added wisdom to pad my intellect, I can choose to assimilate into the powerfully retarded – now that I have the ability to – and be lost in it forever, to be cemented upon the rainbow-colored dumbass walls of the selfish-asshole tower high above Retard Hill. Or, I can settle in my place, a player powerless in his own fate upon the stage of life. Or, I can do both. I aim to make my way up this social ladder with the appearance of a heartless, selfish, power-hungry retard, but with the heart and spirit of the people I left behind, remembering my success came to the detriment of them and my continued triumphs will always be in a triumph against them, not because I want to but because this stupid ass system makes it so. And so I will make my fight to the top not to fit in amongst the ruthless retards, but to change the system so that everyone I passed can get their day in the sun, atop the hill.

And the reason why I can do what I aim to do: knowing that this society thing is all made up of people. People are retarded. Thus, society exists as some manifest of the retarded masses wills that continues on despite the death of the retards. We live in a world built by really stupid people and we have a chance to contribute to that stupid structure. But ya’ll must remember – it’s a damned flimsy thing, a construction formed in the imagination of a buncha morons. There’s loads you can do if only you can get over the mental limitations other retards put on you, and the blocks you put on yourself.

You just gotta be smart.

Weeeeee're Graduated!

Hey hey hey!

Yep, you know what this means.

Here's my third try at jump-starting this dead old thing. The goal again is to provide anyone reading a post a link into the minds of individual A-men members, and for A-men members to spill any stupid old thought/activities onto this page.

Anyway, stick around for as long as you deem appropriate and I (and hopefully everyone else) will keep on pumping out material for ya'll to drool over. Maybe along the line we'll think of some kinda theme or topic we can stick to. That way it'll be less random and more fun.

Also, I'm shopping around for better websites to do this thing in. If I don't find any then I guess we'll just stick with this.

Now onto other stuff:



-Recently I got a call from Hoss that went something like this -

Hoss: Hey Alex.
Al: Heeeey what's banging dawg?
H: Sup nigga!
A: Yeeeaaaaaahhhhh!!!
H: Hey I need your advice.
A: My advice? What for?
H: Just for this thing.
A: Okay.
H: Should I stick to the original name or "Tase-Mart".
A: What? Tase-Mart?
H: Yeah Tase-Mart.
A: You mean like a taser mart?
H: Yeah.
A: Hell yeah Tase-Mart! I'd shop at a Tase-Mart. For sure.
H: All right. That's good. I'll work with that then.
A: Tase-Mart all the time!
H: Okay that's all.
A: 'kay.


-A few nights ago me, Chrissy, Fox, Hoss, Vic, and Alison met up with beloved Virg, Lisa, and Liezl for a late-night sip o' boba, on the occasion of our collective graduations and 'cause Virg was in town. Naomi got outta work late and wanted to meet up but we were gonna split off for the night, Virg's crew heading over to Mimi's place for a pop-in, Alison to a party, and my A-men to a Walmart for a stroll and conversation, like old times. Naomi heard about our plans and wisely chose to go with Virg's group.

But then, it was getting late, and Naomi didn't have enough time and energy. She called me on accident to cancel her meet-up and it went something like this.

Al: Hey
Naomi: Al? Oh sorry, I accidentally dialed your number. I was trying to call Virg. Keeps happening.
A: Oh no problem, no problem.
N: Hey so are you guys serious about going to Walmart?
A: Of course we're serious we're on our way.
N: What the heck is wrong with you??
A: What?
N: You guys should be doing something cool not going to a stupid Walmart at midnight.
A: What's wrong with a Walmart it's fun.
N: Are you serious there's lots wrong with it. You should be doing cool things like getting boba or something.
A: But we did that already.
N: Well do something else cool.
A: We're going to a Walmart I think that's cool. Walk around 'til midnight like a buncha morons. Fun.
N: Oh I don't understand. Hey next time you do something cool call me.
A: Sure sure, next time we're not going to a Walmart or something you're in.
N: Alright

I dunno I thought that trip to Walmart was fun.



-Hey you know, when I think about it the gang's a pretty broad collective of now certified smart people. In physical sciences we got Hoss in physics, then Fox in engineering. In bio we got Chrissy in neuroscience and Vic in bio ecology and Alison in the health sciences. In the social sciences we got Tom on politics and econ, Chrissy on psychology, Wake in econ and I guess Chinese cultural stuff, and me with my millions of social science nonsense (anthro, politics, law, conflict studies, international studies, sociology). Humanities and arts me and Vic and Hoss cover that well enough (mostly me). That's like a full thing right there.

If we wanted to we could probably turn this place into a really smart blog about all sorts of things happening in academia and stuff.

But probably not, I'm not so sure the others care too much about reading any more articles. Guess we'll stick to jokes and crazy theories.



-More next time!