Your aim contributes to a cleaner environment

Dear Asshole who peed on the seat,

            Thank you so so much for marking the toilet seat as YOUR territory. I get it, and the message you were trying to convey is much more tangible now that I almost crapped my pants taking the time to clean up your mess. If I may ask, how many gallons of water did you drink today? It’s almost as if a Yeti stormed through this stall, and unleashed 7 weeks worth of urine upon this poor defenseless poop-station. Also, did you per chance eat a forest of asparagus last night? It smells like someone just sautéed a skunk in here. By the way, it was very difficult to keep my face a reasonable distance away from the toilet seat when I was cleaning up your mess.  

 

            You could have taken a load off, and sat down – rocked it female style, which is just so much more leisurely and relaxing by the way – but no, you my unfriendly friend, are the guilty culprit.

            Now that I think about it, I rarely have to pee so terribly bad that I cannot afford the full second of time it takes to lift the toilet seat up. You either have some sort of UTI, in which case I am sorry for your pain, but in any other case, you are in fact an asshole. There has got to be some moment in your bathroom adventure, when you look down at that huge target of a bowl, and say to your self, “Man, I should probably lift that seat up.” AND THEN YOU DON’T! What the hell dude? So yes, I am pissed that you are such a lazy human being that you don't take the initiative. On a different note, the one where you pee on the seat... Seriously, you’ve had a vast array of opportunities to practice your aim – you should be a professional by now at hitting the bull’s-eye. How long have you been peeing? The huge shotgun splatter of piss is a disgrace to men everywhere. To get your pee in that many places in one session, you must have grabbed hold of your gun and Scarface’d your ammunition from left to right.

Well guess what asshole, I’m reloaded – I hope you receive this message.

    -Jackson

P.S. When you step into the bathroom, there are 2 options. Only 2. You either, commit a courtesy crime and leave the seat down. OR. You take your hand, place one finger under the lid of the least dirty section on the lid, and lift. It takes, literally, 1 second. If you are a germ freak, wash your hands after, you’ll be a healthier person if you do anyways.

let us dine with zeus

Grandpa always said, 

“in your mind, 

you can make a heaven out of hell,

 or a hell out of heaven.” 

I’ve been considering my life purpose lately, and what my grandpa told me a hundred years ago, sitting on his lap in the rocking chair. What have I been trying to achieve for the past 4 years of my life? There has been a theme running amidst my time, a very sneeky theme, competent in the art of disguise and deception. A guerilla themed terrorist if you will.  


Sometimes in our lives, we experience a period of in-adequate substandard existence. Or in other words, we get in a rut. It happens, and is totally human, but it still happens. We get in ruts. Shitty ruts, in which we know we are in a rut, because our lives have been better - because we've all, at one point or another, been on top a Mount Kilamajaro sized joybliss mountain. This is how I know, that there is in fact a heaven on Earth. A time when all moments converge together in a spectacular flourishing rhythm of surrealism. Everything flows like a timeless river, currents blossoming with harmony, bending around life's happenings with seamless tranquility. Each instant is unfathomably fucking awesome.


I think life by default, is eternally heaven, a forever mountain top. Yet still, we descend into an occasional valley. Therefor, I think it is a voluntary choice to dismount off this metaphorical peak into a place less much-ier. We deploy these thoughts of insufficiency and know that something isn't right - so we fight, and ninja battle our way up a treacherous highway bushwhacking through life's multiflora rosa to obtain our once held statue of glory. Peaks and valleys my friend. 


What if... What if.. What if we chose to simply not acknowledge the fact this concept of a valley, or rut, or hell, what ever you want to call it, exists. My thought is, in your mind, you can make a heaven out of hell or a hell out of heaven - but what if there is no hell, then there is no other option than heaven.


Have you ever been put in a position where a group of people, possibly children, are looking to your every move for an example of how to lead their own lives? And you get yourself into a situation where everything in life is turning on you, the weather is poor and pouring down, the mentality is abysmal, the food you just fed them sucked - because there was no food, the traffic on the way to your campsite was like trying to be a giant sea turtle navigating through a pool of molasses during an arctic winter. In a time like this, you have two choices. Acknowledge that this moment in time SUCKS, and live in a rutty life chapter and bring your army of brave children along for a sucky suckerson ride. or. there is no option for that. you deflect any droplets of dreadful inspiration pouring down on you, and let it roll off your back, like water on a duck's back. there is no way in hell i will bring these small creatures, living in a constant state of discovery, to a place where they are discovering how bad things can get. 


I would much rather, bring them to a place where they discover.. how everyone around them can be experiencing a slow descent into a valley of hell - and they - they are the ones who choose to be ontop Mount Olympus, above the dark clouds, dinning in the halls of Zeus, dancing around a golden Latte, being fed bushels of grapes by Aphrodite herself. They are the ones choosing to embrace the joy in every moment, no matter its perceived worth. 


pour that into your mouth, please.

-Jackson

Sound and Vision

I guess even morning people have their mornings. And those morning people have their nights as well. Regardless, they’ll say, “I’m having a morning” like they’re stuck in a hell specially customized for their own personal peril — I woke up this morning in SeaWorld. Swimming in it (my sinuses). I am the walrus. It’s morning and I’m having it.

It all started in Detroit, much like that Kiss movie, Henry Ford, and Motown (read: everything important). I stepped off the plane on my way to North Carolina in total silence. The silence started at about 30,000 feet, and it’s been silent ever since. It was nice for a while. I enjoyed it during the first hour of my three hour layover. I enjoyed it on my next flight when I could sit and read Breakfast of Champions without also listening to everyone else’s conversation. I also enjoyed it while I was eating a huge bag of Cheetos, because they were super crunchy. You know what I mean? Yeah. You totally know. Cheetos rule.

I was walking around, making keen observations and staring at everyone in the silence when I realized that I didn’t have headphones in. My ears tricked me into thinking I was wearing headphones. It was just noise I wasn’t hearing (or silence I was hearing. Whoadudechillout). So, naturally, I got all self-conscious about my auditory range. The type of movie totally changed. First, I was walking around like Johnny Depp in Blow. The good part of Blow, where he walks through the airport with Black Betty playing in the background. The definition of style. But after my self-realization/vision/freak out, I sort of felt like Johnny Depp, but this time when he’s in the bar full of dinosaurs in Las Vegas. You know, the hyper-aware-of-all-his-actions Johnny Depp. So, I sat down in corner by the window, wide eyed and white teethed, and melted into my book for the remainder of my stay in Detroit.

“Safety. Obscurity. Just another freak, in the freak kingdom.”

I guess that thing you are taking for granted most is the exact thing that gets taken away, every time. For me: sound. But all I really learned is that I like to hear things. It’s kind of fun though, I tell people that my ears are all clogged with airplane fluids, and then when they say things, sometimes I can just pretend they don’t exist. And, you know, when the world takes away distant sounds, it gives your lots of rad music to listen to. So, here’s a mixtape I made:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7mjg6aui220r02r/SeaWorld.zip

Fuck Detroit,

Riley.

P.S. http://tu.tv/videos/bill-plympton-your-face-short-fi

A Shameless Plug

In case you haven’t already figured it out, I love to rock climb. I do it because I have to. I also do it because I want to. I have to want to and I want to have to. And these days, I tend to do lots of things that are almost rock climbing, but not quite. For instance, I write about it all the time. I show other people how to rock climb. I talk to other people about rock climbing. Sometimes, I even get paid to watch videos of other people rock climbing.

But, after this weekend I’ll be able to actually go climbing again.

“What’s happening this weekend, Riley?”

Funny you should ask, I’ve been organizing this cool thing! In case you haven’t heard, Warren Wilson College just built a totally radical climbing wall in Bryson Gym. This has been years in the making, and I’m super relieved to be almost done thinking about future-climbing-wall. And now that it is about to open, we decided to throw a big party-bash:

The climbing wall GRAND OPENING is happening THIS SATURDAY! It starts at 11. There’ll be a barbecue, climbing competition, crate stacking competition, and open climb with tree crew. 

“Duuuuuuude.”

I know. Dude.

Riley.

Philadelphia, or some feeling like it.

I’ve got this huge stack of books in my room I’ve never read. I bought them before I realized that books have valuable words in them. I don't wake up laughing about alligator dreams, but it’s nice here. The past, present, and future lovers talk about places they would rather be. We mull the distant memories in the same pot as our cider and whiskey. Time drags its heels all around this place, leaving footprints all over our faces. "Tell me all your problems, Time, I will crush them in my mind-vice." And It’s comical how we resist your boot print.

There’s a surprising lack of coffee here, but we’ve all got the things to write (or brood) about. We’ve all got our too-big-world-plans, and most have the discontent to match. But who’s got the monster truck balls to go big or go home?

Sure, Asheville has cars, and streets, and sometimes the parking garages smell like piss. And yeah, that’s gross, but everything will smell like piss if you have nowhere else to piss. And I’ll take the piss and dead fish smells over a home without those feelings of nausea and nostalgia. Piss in the morning is as fond a smell as any, for me at least. What’s missing down south is the whelming feeling of being able to know you can walk to wherever you want, knowing you might not see a single familiar face. That sounds much more distant and cold when I write it down, but I think it is nice to be just a face, or just a fly, wandering to your friends shitty bug-infested apartment, or work, or nowhere.

I’ve never really left another place for a notable amount of time and come back to feel such incessant fondness. Maybe there’s something in the water (wooder) there. Or the cheesesteaks. There must be something in the cheesesteaks. No matter how hard I try, my mind completely surrenders to the crippling nostalgic feeling of Philadelphia in the summer. Or winter. Or any time, really, because this place is about as good as it gets. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Riley.

“You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever going to come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't.”