Dear Josh

I had this dream last night undoubtedly spurred on by my imminent visit to Japan.

Tim and an unknown person, and I were sitting at a window booth in a McDonalds. I swear it was the one on Portsmouth Blvd., just before the bridge over the Elizabeth. Anyways we were waiting for Josh to arrive. We'd bought copious amounts of french fries and some type of ice cream dessert ( as a kid I used to dip my fries into milkshakes religiously). It seems we were meeting to go on some sort of outing because my camera was an important element in the story and the "meal" had a fleeting feel to it. It was the SLR that I had just sold on ebay, but there it was without its lens. It seems I had taken it off for some reason. When you arrived you immediately asked why I had placed the camera in my pile of fries which I couldn't answer. I thought it was no big deal. However, you matter-of-factly stated that the lens plate (which looked like the exposure mirror) needed to be replaced now due to contact with the oils.

After this episode we all asked in unison when we had last met together. I think someone answered "Paul's wedding." Obviously this isn't the case, but I woke up immediately, with my niece's early morning crying as stimulus and felt this question linger into the waking life. Well, honestly I can't remember when we three last met together, let alone for a solid week. I'm truly looking forward to it. And I'll be bringing a digital camera so don't spout off about lens plates, okay Josh?

Conan O'Brien's Actual Items

I couldn't have said it better.

Bear Butte

Last summer I had the pleasure to read a dual biograpahy of the lives of Crazy Horse and Custer. The book, Crazy Horse and Custer : The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors by Stephen E. Ambrose very clearly depicts the lives and cultures of these two men. Much to his credit he demystifies the great cloud of smoke and awe that has followed these men and their deeds since the Battle of the Little Bighorn. After reading this dual biography I was left with a dinstinct and realistic view of the context that produced such contact between these American cultures.

Important to my journal here I would like to highlight the personal freedom within the Sioux culture written about in great length by Ambrose. In America now and perhaps since the spirit of '76, the ideals of freedom and liberty have been as valuable as an endless mine of gems for politicians, citizens, and diplomats to use and exploit for infinite agendas. However, in a culture that speaks so much about freedom I find that we know little of it and show even less in our collective actions. Currently, our discourse is inundated with talk of our innate freedom at risk. But, how much do we allow ourselves and others to deviate from norms and customs? How much do we dream?

Marginal cultures in America, to me, represent the courageous dreamers. The reason they are fringe cultures is because of a rational fear of violent reaction or ridicule from those toeing the popular line. This brand of reaction exhibits a need to push these members of society back into line, thus reflecting the woes and pain of looking to others to learn of yourself.
How does this represent freedom? Or, indeed, even a basic respect of humanity and individual potential?


In Sioux culture on the plains, Crazy Horse and his people allowed each other to dream. Children were allowed to choose what they were destined to be and to do. Critically, they were allowed this choice despite family legacy, afffiliation, or trend. Thus, your choice of purpose was an organic, personal development permitted to grow and expand. His culture did not pursuade Crazy Horse to take on the warrior role, nor did he suffer implicit pressures from society to do so. He chose to be himself for the sake of personal strength and integrity, rather than fame, wealth, or posterity.

In Sioux culture this freedom extended to allow homosexuality and beyond. So when we speak of American freedom I now reference the plains instead of Yorktown or Concord. For we as Americans still can't allow people to live by the ideals of our Constituition.

Lay Siege to the Infidels!

Projectiles used throughout history: beehives, decapitated heads, dead animals, burning tar, unsuccessful diplomats, and spies.

I recently caught a PBS special on the Trebuchet and I thought it deserved a little more air time.

As powerful and destructive as the trebuchets were, their attendants spent most of their time within longbow range which sort of negated their detached bomb-from-a-safe-distance-approach so readily used by today's "modern" warfare.


Of course the first trebuchets are attributed to the Chinese. I am pretty sure Europe would be a mass of third world nations without borrowing the innovations and domesticated animals and plants from the East and Middle East. For more on this subject please read an excellent theory proposed on the geographic formula that allowed Europe to lead colonialism and globalism, titled Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

To end this short, but completely incorporated mix, I'd like to offer that Cortes was the last recorded person to employ the trebuchet in combat, due to gunpowder shortages in his siege of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. The most interesting point of fact here is that the trebuchet lobbed the projectile up instead of forward and the rock or tar or dead pig, or combination thereof landed on the bloody thing, destroying it and causing much laughter, I suppose.

Perhaps, the Aztecs thought up some witty cut-downs for the gold-crazed Spaniards after this display of modern stupidity.
Maybe they lobbed more effective insults like:

"If you'd quit making smoke and loud noises, perhaps we could show you where we keep our crazy people."
"I think I saw the bearded one kiss his four-legged girlfriend"
"That's not all they did last night!"
"And his pudgy friend watched!"