A lot has happened, but I won't be going into that at the moment.

Instead, I'd like to talk about values. Not exactly "moral" values, but "normal" values.

I just spent the night at TT's (seeing a good show with HUMANWINE and Beat Circus, with special guests that were also amazing). I won't tell you about the specific bands, except to say that every one of them was good. Instead, I'll tell you about what happened afterwards.

Me and Zach Katz decided we'd like to have a drink after the show, so we went to Charlie's. However, because we were late (of course), we found we had no recourse but to go to Noir, the bar in the basement of the Charles Hotel that can stay open until 2:00am.

So, we went there. I knew one of the bartenders, and also one of the regulars, so I was OK. But we ended up talking to this enthusiastic girl, who (I thought) was obviously a transsexual, and who I suspect was "working" the bar.

Now, such stuff is par for the course for me, having worked as a bouncer at Jacques'. But it was not so normal for the guy I was with, despite the fact that most of the art fags he's known have done stuff more extreme or oddall than anyone at the bar tonight.

So, we ended up chatting with her, and at the end of the evening we all went our seperate ways. No big deal.

But the guy I was with was sort of freaked out, and I also saw the eyes of the bartender upon me. Now, this is not really any big deal, but he was also bartending the night I ended up talking to a weird black girl at the Cellar, and I did notice some looks. Nothing outrageous, but enough to know that they didn't think I was acting normal.

This brings up my main point. All of this stuff, every nickel and dime of it, is only a big deal because people think there is such a thing as "normal" society. But there isn't. I've seen much more "normal" people doing much freakier things than I have.

What, exactly, is it that people think is normal? Why do they even care? I'm not just talking about easily shocked people, either. The entire underground sex industry depends for its existence on the notion that it is "weird" or "outsider" to the mainstream; if some right-wing religious nut didn't get excited about their sexual acts, then I suspect they wouldn't either.

But when it comes to most things - sex among them - there's no such thing as normal. People want to fuck whoever they want to fuck, and that should really be the end of the story. It certainly doesn't get more interesting after THAT chapter, so you might as well end it there.

Yet, people continue thinking that who (or how) they fuck actually matters to people other than themselves. I personally belive that the anti-sex people and the pro-sex people have this particular attitude in common: they both belive that ones' own sexuality actually makes a difference to somebody besides themselves. Therefore, they can make moral judgements about how other people achive orgasm.

It really is annoying. Expecially when you're just trying to have a harmelss conversation with the tranny (possibly) prostitute siting next to you.

It's not just sex, either. It's racial identity, political affiliation, musical taste, choice of drugs/alcohol, etc.

All of these things are really, really inconsequential. The fact that a woman likes to muffdive should mean as little as the fact that she likes Fugazi. Perhaps she has bad taste (so to speak), but not she's not morally evil.

The fact that we consider any of this evil, or even abnormal, is only because we've been programmed by a media-saturated society to believe a very slight splinter of America is what's considered normal. I don't mean that the media tells us what we should be or feel or do; it tries to do that, but that's not my point. My point is that we form our identities according to what the media feeds us, either by accepting it or reacting against it - which is really the same thing. And by media sources, I include art galleries and rock and roll. The notion that we should get ANY personal values from things that don't immediately effect us is rather alarming. The notion that homosexuality is evil, is no more and no less inconsequential than that we think straightedge is a viable philosophy, or that "noise" has any sort of musical significance.

At the heart of it, it's all just idiots telling us what to do. And usually charging us money to participate.

What do YOU think is "mainstream"? Going to church, or going to a rock show? Fucking your wife in the confines of marriage, or fucking some dude in a highway rest room? Reading Salman Rushdie, or reading Reader's Digest? Listening to Dido, or listening to Lightning Bolt? Watching Survivor, or watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Does anyone believe that these are more than a simple matter of taste?

It's ALL mainstream. Every last bit of it. Each choice you make puts money into the pockets of other people. You're paying for something you don't need, and you're only doing it because advertising (or its underground euphemism, "promotion") has convinced you that you'll be a better person if you do.

Do you actually believe that celbrities are more significant that the dude who sells you cigarettes at the 7/11? Do you think that rock stars are actually more interesting that some homeless dude? Do you actually believe that being an artist is better than being a ditch digger?

Do you think you're morally superior for buying "underground" records, as opposed to records from the Big Four? Are you stupid enough to believe punk rock is better than classic rock? That seeing a show at Great Scott is morally better than seeing a show at Great Woods?

Sucker.

Here's what I'd like you to do: Don't watch movies. Don't watch TV. Don't listen to music. Don't go out to see any bands. Don't go out to bars. Don't go onto the internet. Don't fuck ANYONE.

If you can survive this lifestyle for a month, then MAYBE you might have something intersting to say.

Until then, you're just another media-saturated lemming, stupid enough to believe that his or her opinions of pop-culture ephemera actually make a difference.

You're nothing special. Nothing at all.

You're just another parasite.

The world can survive without YOU. It can't survive without ditch-diggers.