Layers of an Asshole

5.8.2017

Bit of a depressive rant today. Strap in.

Most of the relationships in my life are at least somewhat superficial. I wonder if everyone feels like this? I feel as though even the closest people to me know very little of substance. I occasionally reveal bits of my soul, usually through jokes, but I hardly use language to express key parts of myself. Parts I despise, yet desperately want someone to acknowledge.

Which is ridiculous, because I constantly push the people away who get too close.

I push people away that I fear can alter who I am. I don’t like being affected by another human being, which is why my trust lies with a select few. I don’t want anyone to have the power to rip out my heart and shit in the cavity where it came from. I am afraid of being powerless at the hands of another. I’ve been there in the past and I’ve completely pulled back. I’ve hardened. Become jaded. Very few have that ability now.

That sounds a tad dramatic, yeah? Well... it's not gonna get any better today.

I’m not entirely convinced I should be loved.

I’ve been so fucking introspective all my life that it’s caused me to know exactly who I am. Who I am is not the character I reveal to the world. I, am the narrator within my skull that knows all of my positive and negative attributes. I know my hopes, dreams, fears, my regrets, secrets and my demons. And I am 100 percent honest with myself. The version of me that you get is, in some way, a liar. And I most likely think you’re a liar too.

“How's it going?”
“Great!”
“Top-notch!”

I’ve gotten so good at lying to cover up my flaws and real emotions that I can recognize when others do it. It appears everyone is just meandering through life telling each other lies. I see it. I may not see you just as you may not see me, but I see your lies and that’s a start. I can read you.

I recently noticed a friend changing the way they interact with me. The vocabulary has changed. So has eye contact, mood, topics of conversation, physical interactions and other subtleties that appear obvious. I can only speculate as to why the change has occurred, and I have my theories, but it’s beyond strange to observe it as it’s happening. It puts me in a familiar yet weird predicament. If I am to ask honestly what’s going on, I would incidentally reveal to them a part of me I don’t want them to know. For some reason, which makes zero sense, I don’t want them to know I’ve noticed a change and therefore care. I don’t want to show my hand that I can tell they’re lying. I don’t want them to know they have the ability to make me feel vulnerable which would subsequently allow the whole chest cavity shitting situation.

So, what do I do? Act like a healthy human being, ask what prompted a change and accept what may come? -or- Be a fucking coward, harden and reject these feeling of sleight and pretend I don’t give a fuck until it actually becomes true?

You know which one I’m choosing.

And I despise myself for that. I feel so guilty. It’s lonely.

It’s not just friends. I’ve never revealed my inner self with anyone romantically. And I desperately want to. But, every time I feel like there is a possibility to do so I fuck up, or get let down, or find any reason not to. The truly pitiful thing is that I sometimes judge people who fall in love with the version I allow them to see. I create and internal struggle. If I reveal myself, then the charade is gone forever. But I’m not that interesting, I’m not nearly as funny, most of the time I want to be alone and at half the time I can be a real asshole. The charade is how I fit in. So, the question is: Is it worth letting someone, even momentarily, see that inner version of me?

I see me constantly, and I’m not sure it’s worth it.

The version you know is much more bearable to be around. I assure you. This one in my head is self aware and yet self deprecating to a degree that could only be described as "obnoxious".

Anyways.

Sincerely,

-Matthew Hides

You're Going To Die (Let's Go To Mars!)

9.28.2016

Today is the day after Elon Musk laid out his plan for Mars colonization. I am still freaking out a bit. I haven’t really been able to focus on anything because I’ve been fantasizing something fierce about a future that I won’t ever see. I understand I will die before Mars ever becomes an equal alternative to Earth, but one day it could be. And I got to witness a detailed presentation that showed the possibilities of how that may happen. That fills me with so much joy. Or, maybe it’s pride? Like, I can imagine how humans will one day do this and even though I’m not personally doing it, I’m proud of us who are alive right now because of what that means for the future of humanity?

Fuck, I don’t know! It’s a complicated feeling.

It’s literally the coolest possible future I could ever imagine for the human species and people right now are working on it. Although, sometimes I get ridiculously excited thinking about what humanity will do long after I’m gone. Then I get ridiculously jealous of future generations that will experience the things I can only dream of. Then I get sad thinking about how I haven’t heard one god damn person talking about it today.

Why the fuck isn’t everyone as excited as I am?
Why can’t I be having this conversation with a friend instead of a fucking computer?

I mean, I sort of understand...
I was waiting for this presentation for a while now, for I am a dumb person who is absolutely fascinated with the future AND space travel.
Plus, I have a giant Man Crush on Elon Musk and his sexy ass brain.

But what I legitimately don’t understand is why no one seems to give a fuck, time and time again, about the future. I get that we are all different and my interests aren’t going to be your interests, but this one seems like EVERYONE should be interested. It’s not just my future, it’s everyone’s.

I don’t think I’m in the wrong here or am I missing something?

As I was watching our Lord and Sav... I mean, "Elon’s" presentation, I honestly thought this would be the most newsworthy and talked about event all year.
And I’m fully aware that it’s an election year.

In fact, watching that presentation the day after the first presidential debate where Fuckhead#1 and the Lesser of Two Evils debated about America and all its policies, I realized how little people seem to think about the distant future in general. It seemed so much more important than the next four years, yet no one gives a shit.

What is that?

Does anyone else feel that excitement, that complicated feeling, that I feel?
Or, I wonder, do people just fear the future because that inevitably makes us think of our own death and we’re just not wired to deal with our own mortality?

If that’s the case, we all need to collectively grow the fuck up. We are all going to die.
Let’s not get hung up on that part.
Deal with it now.

Stop being an asshole.
Get excited about Mars, damnit!

But seriously, I often think back to when I was a child and how much I legitimately feared death. It was almost debilitating. I mean, I still fear death in the sense that I don’t want to die and I avoid it, but I thoroughly understand I will. I accepted my own mortality, which doesn’t make me a slave to it.

That may seem obvious, but I was raised in the Christian faith, so all I could ever fucking think about was how much I did not want to die. So many nights I would lie awake in my bed thinking about the logic of how everyone sins all the fucking time, hundreds of times a day, and if just one little tiny sin happened right before a freak accident that killed me, I would spend a damned eternity in excruciating pain, alone, and separated from my disappointed family.

#guilt
(BTW, please understand that “Hell” is an invention of Man to control people and that a benevolent Creator would never create such a place... Cheers!)

When I started questioning and eventually losing my faith, at such an early age, I had to confront my own mortality. That sounds weird. Actually, it sounds absolutely absurd. But there was genuinely a time where I whole heartedly believed that Hell was real and if I didn’t believe hard enough I would be sent there when I die. This meant I had to very seriously consider my own death and ponder my own existence while trying to fall asleep. THOSE ARE COMPLEX THOUGHTS FOR A FUCKING CHILD.

Now that I think about, I should probably write an entry on that whole debacle. It’s probably one of the biggest “ordeals” from my life that has shaped who I am today.
Whatever.

What am I talking about again? Death? Mars? Future? (Fuck up some commas!)

I suppose I am just getting tired of not having the important conversations because someone “doesn’t like to think about that”.
I’m so fucking sick of that excuse.
What is the point of this irrational fear? We all know that we are all going to die, so what’s the hang up? Why do we have to let the only fact of life be off limits?

That’s so limiting.

I think I know why, I just don’t think I accept it.

It’s very hard for us to picture the world without us in it. We are incredibly selfish beings in that way. It’s scary to think about death, and we sort of think that life shouldn’t go on without us. This is why man creates thousands of flavors of religions and a million versions of an afterlife.

By any definition of the word, it’s not “fun” to talk about or even think about our death, but that’s not fucking good enough of a reason to not deal with shit.
It is absolutely necessary to make decisions now that will shape the future.

Just like how thinking about global warming, or an asteroid, or the AI overlords, or whatever the event is that actually destroys this planet, isn’t “fun”, but it is a fact, and we shouldn’t be ignoring it.
I’m not a “Doomsday-er”, but just like you, this planet will one day die. Ignoring that seems incredibly foolish to me. Especially when if we were to just confront and address these issues humanity can live on!
Wouldn’t it be fucking rad if we all grew the fuck up and made changes to ensure life kept going?
Isn’t that something to take pride in?
Isn’t that sort of an afterlife?

I don’t man, I just know I’m stoked I’m alive right now. I think that colonizing Mars is this beautiful example of human preservation. Humanity will literally SPREAD TO ANOTHER FUCKING PLANET and live on because of the shit that people alive RIGHT NOW are doing.

Long after you and I die, humans will be around... loving, changing, creating new shit, becoming more and more capable within this universe, and just being human! That’s how this shit works, folks! We get better and better every generation and we figure new shit out.

I find that to be the most beautiful thing I could ever imagine.
I get super excited, I am filled with joy, and I am proud to be a human. Or whatever.
It’s a complicated feeling.

This got a bit ‘Ranty’ and (ironically) a little ‘Preachy’, too.

Just please think about the future.
Like, really think about it.
Think about how bad ass you are because you’re a fucking human being who is alive right now, but then think about how that’s all going to end one day.
Embrace that.
Don’t dwell on it, but really understand that humanity will outlive you.
Don’t let your inevitable death cripple yours, or the lives of future generations.

-Matthew Preaches

The Lesser Of Two Evils

8.13.2016

There is something like 324 million people in this country.
The idea that Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is going to lead that many people truly terrifies me. They’re both fucking lunatics who are completely out of touch with reality.

Reality isn’t being a life long politician doing shady shit while compromising one’s own morals day in and day out. That’s just creepy. That’s what it takes to be a politician of Clinton’s caliber, by the way. In the current system you have to compromise all the fucking time. Most of the time these politicians start out as a lawyers (just like Hillary did), and being a lawyer is fucking creepy too. There is one case where the future leader or the free world (most likely) got this client off with only two months after he raped a 12-year-old girl... and she fucking knew he was guilty! That’s just being a lawyer. That’s Hillary Clinton. That’s creepy.

And before you say it, I know. Lawyers have to swear an oath to stand by their clients and defend them no matter what, blah blah blah. Ok, so do we really want someone who can compromise that much to lead this country?
Maybe these shady lawyers shouldn’t rule the world.

If you had a friend who lied all the time, who literally changed their accent (depending on who they’re talking to), and who was known for their blatant disregard for the law (even though they know it), would you invite them over for dinner? Would you want them in charge of anything you care about? Would you trust them?

Really? She’s your pick to run this thing?

Reality isn’t being a rich prick whose dad gave ‘em money and blames brown people for all the problems of the world, either. Trump is a fucking idiot. He doesn’t know anything about history, he doesn’t know the basics of how government works, and he’s not going make up for that by “hiring the best people”. He’s just an egomaniac with a Trump sized goal.

That stupid fucking wall won’t work. It just won’t. I’m so sick of people acting like that it’s even a possibility. Do you know what is on the boarder? It’s fucking mountains and canyons and shit. It’s not possible. Let it go.
Banning Muslims is dumb as shit, too! You can’t just ban a religion you fucking Hitler-esque morons. This isn’t a Christian country; this is a country of immigrants with tons of different religions, so shut the fuck up.

Talking about Trump is too easy, though. How anyone can rally behind this guy is beyond me. He’s a spray tanned orange goofball billionaire with a bad attitude that sits in gold chairs and talks about himself all the time.

Again, If you had a friend like that you would you invite them over for dinner? No! You’d avoid them like the plague. And you know what? You would make fun of them all the fucking time.

Really? He’s your guy?

One of these two horrible fucks is about to lead 324 million people.
I don’t get, man. I just don’t.
I won’t choose a lesser of two evils. I won’t be responsible for the shit storm that follows.
I honestly don’t understand how anyone can support either of these candidates.

There was no one better?
What? You mean we’re just stuck with these two? Why?

Yeah, I guess there is Gary Johnson (who I will probably vote for) and Jill Stein, but it doesn’t look like they have any real shot.

It’s probably going to be Hillary. I mean, as long as no more of her shady shit gets released, that is.

It seems like people can lose their faith in Clinton but not in Trump.
It’s kind of fascinating.
The Trump supporters are insane die-hards who blatantly ignore all of the goofy/dangerous/racist shit he does.
Or they like it... in which case, fuck you, you’re a garbage person.
But, to me it seems like Clinton supporters are trying as hard as they can to close their eyes real hard so they don’t have to notice all of her shit.

And I can at least sympathize with them. I get that you feel like if you don’t support her, that orange nutcase is going to win.

They’re both horrible choices for completely different reasons.

It’s a scary time.

Maybe we shouldn’t have a president for a couple years?

-Matthew Fears

LINKS:

Clinton talking about Rape Case

Hillary Lying for 13 minutes straight.

Hillary lying about e-mails

Donald Trump lying for 13 minutes straight

Donald Trump Washington Post interview. If you can listen to this whole thing without cringing I'll vote for you to be president. The guy is an egomaniac and can't answer basic questions.

Fuck The DEA

8.11.2016

(Note: I will be referring to the DEA as “those Fucking Fucks” or “Fuck Heads” for the remainder of this entry. I’m sorry for the excessive use of gratuitous language, Mom.)

Jesus Christ.

I woke up this morning to see that those Fuck Heads refused to reschedule Marijuana. As it is now, Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug.

If you don’t immediately know why this angers me, let me put it bluntly (zing!): The Fuck Heads think that Heroin and Marijuana are equally harmful to society.

It’s 2016 and the average person who has access to the Internet will undoubtedly know that this is absolute horseshit.

To me, this is an example of corruption and is the poster child for incompetence by certain government agencies.
This angers me so much that I’m almost at a loss for words.

Almost.

Now, I understand that the entire scheduling system is fucking ridiculous. For example, other drugs listed as Schedule I could be arguable as well (LSD and MDMA have shown potential medicinal benefits but haven’t been made available for research because of said classification), but I’m going to focus on Marijuana here.

From the Department of Fuck Heads’ website:
“Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangers drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence.”

SHUT THE FUCK UP.

“...no currently accepted medical use...”

Tell that to the people who find life exponentially better while managing pain sans your (prescribed) schedule II drugs that were fucking up their lives.
Tell that to the fucking poster children with the rare forms of epilepsy who benefit GREATLY from cannabis.

Tell that to anyone who has benefited greatly from cannabis use, myself included.

You Fucking Fucks. The only reason there is hardly any medical research on cannabis is because of your Goddamn ban on researching it for the last 50 fucking years.**

“...the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules...”

Ok.
Jesus.
My blood is boiling.
Let me take a moment to compose myself so I can do this one with out cursing.

This is just not true at all. Everyone knows this. Prove that statement. Now. Because guess what, ALL THE FUCKING EVIDENCE POINTS TO THE EXACT FUCKING OPPOSITE... YOU FUCKING FUCKS!

Whoops.

We can all agree that something smells awfully like shit in this situation. Quick, everyone check your shoes.
Anything?
No?

Fuck Heads?
OH, YOU ASSHOLE! Why would you not scrape off all that shit before coming in here and acting like everything is normal?

Who’s shit is it you ask?
Ugh.
Ok, who knows what a lobbyist is?
But I hope most people know what a lobbyist is. Though, assuming most people know these basic things has burned me a lot before.
(See: This election.)
It seems like a lot of people enjoy their ignorance. It makes me feel like a paranoid lunatic for knowing anything about how government works.
(I know very little.)

So,
Lobbyist:
noun
1. A person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest; a member of a lobby.
-Dictionary.com

Sounds a little sketchy, right?

Lobbyists aren’t inherently bad. They justify doing what they do in order to help their interests. That’s how groups like teachers unions and non-profits are able to be heard by the ones writing the laws. They represent groups to make change happen. Lobbyists make the case (or deals) to implement changes that affect how our country is run. They are a MASSIVE part of the current system.

The problem? They are for hire negotiators.
They make deals with the power structure. Having pull in that system is a commodity. Who has the most interest in owning the best lobbyists? The giant corporations and groups who need to look out for their interests. People who stand to gain or lose the most from any law, will hire the best lobbyists.
Well, that’s not bad, right? Again, not inherently bad... BUT THEY FUCKING LOOK OUT FOR THEIR INTERESTS AND REALLY DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.
So if your interest is money, and you stand to lose money by a new law... you lobby against that law, regardless of the data or what the people want.

So who’s lobbying to keep the federal ban on Marijuana? People or groups genuinely concerned with the public health? HAHAHAHAHA Not even remotely close.

-Police unions (A huge part of the criminal justice system’s revenue is policing marijuana use)
-Private Prison Corporations (They make a lot of money housing convicted users)
-Prison Guard Unions (If the prisons don’t have money from the lack of inmates, they will lose their jobs.)
-Pharmaceutical Corporations (They are scared of losing business form all those “Non medicinal” properties)
-Alcohol and Beer companies (When recreational use in Colorado went up, alcohol related crimes dropped significantly, leading people to believe that use went down. I’m not sure on the sales, but I would wager they dropped.)

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, and I despise when people downplay facts or truths by assuming they are “conspiracy theories” simply because they haven’t looked into it. Just because something sounds so fucking dark and unbelievable doesn’t mean it’s not true.

It is true.
It is unbelievable.
It is fucking dark.
And we should all be screaming about how ludicrous this all is.

Fuck you, you Fucking Fucks.

-Matthew Curses

Here I am enjoying a Schedule I drug.

**I know the ban was recently lifted. It was a brutal effort to get that done, and it wasn’t lifted because the Fuck Heads wanted to research it. It was lifted because the people demanded it. Good job, people.

My Job is Too Easy :(

Cameras are fucking awesome.

The Camera is an amazing machine that has evolved and changed the world many times over. Since the Camera Obscura, people have been FASCINATED with the idea of recording life. The desire to make better and better cameras has existed since the first camera was invented. Innovation is humanity’s greatest gift. Personally, I have always loved old cameras. We had an old Brownie in our house growing up, my father had an old 35mm he bought in High School, and any time I saw a camera I didn’t know what it was I would research the fuck out of it. I liked the idea of knowing how to use cameras that not everyone was able to. It was a learned trade, which is something that I value and respect in society.

Any craftsman, who genuinely loves their chosen practice, will have beautiful ways to describe their trade. Also, they will know what the fuck they are doing. Learning film photography is important -It may be irrelevant, but it’s important. To learn all of the basics of camera operations, learn how to develop your own film, and learn how to make prints are all incredibly important if you want to call yourself a photographer. When I learned such things, it was enthralling. I remember being in the first dark room being hyper aware of the fact that I was discovering my passion as I learn. That’s a weird thing to be aware of. I fell in love.

The history of photography and cameras is like this enchanting world where science some how turns into art and then back to science. The ability to Record Life as precisely as possible, can be twisted, composed, conceptualized in all different ways which turns life into Art. I had an amazing professor in college, Alex Emmons, who works with “alternative processes”. (BTW, I hate that fucking word, “Alternative”. It just means older generations of processing techniques. i.e. Cyanotypes, daguerreotypes, etc.) She was incredibly influential in making me understand that this passion of mine, is a learned craft. You had to know what you were doing and how a camera actually fucking works before you could make anything in her classes. Seems like a bit of a no brainer, right? You’d be surprised. Alex Emmons is a brilliant teacher and a true craftsman.

Why am I being all nostalgic and pretentious?

It’s too fucking easy to take pictures these days.

Yep. The advancement in camera technology is amazing. It seems like science fiction. No one ever talks about how fucking awesome it is we have the ability to actually record life. It gets better and better, which is fantastic, but it also gets easier and easier... too easy, even. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet.

I have, many times, said that it’s too easy to be a photographer in 2016.

Let me give a dumb example:

1. Joesephine Somebody goes on instagram, sees some awesome photos with hashtags about all the gear used to make said photos. (#CanonRebelT74i or whatever number they’re on now)

2. Quick Google search of said camera, thinks, “Whoa! $300 is totally doable!”, and orders it via amazon prime.

3. The camera kit gets there the next day (or maybe even same day? Fuck man, Amazon is taking over. They got their shit together. Whatever.).

4. She switches that mother-fucker to fully auto mode and snaps her first picture.

5. She uploads to instagram with same hashtags (maybe even #JoesphineSomebodyPhotography because why not?), hundreds of people see, like it, follow her, and get excited by her “work”. She’s ecstatic. Good for her! It feels awesome to have people like your shit.

6. Someone asks her to shoot them for money.

7. She says yes.

8. She’s now a photographer.

Awesome, good for her. I know tons of people just like her. I think I read one of those shitty Kardashian types is now a photographer? Whatever, my point is, it’s too fucking easy.

Also, what’s actually “in” right now is very amateur stylized photography. Thanks, Terry Richardson, American Apparel, and everyone else who rips them off... myself included. You could argue that even going back to Nan Goldin and others’ early work who made candid photos with that Point and Shoot look Art, but whatever I’m getting away form my point.

So, the cameras are far more advanced than ever, the ability to take a high quality photo without even knowing how the camera works, and the fact that it’s trendy to take simple shitty photos is the magical combination of ingredients that make being a photographer the easiest goddamn thing in the world.

But should we be giving people money for this? I don’t know. I get confused myself.
Now, let’s take it a step further and say that Joesephine Somebody is actually a model with a large following on instagram. She is an “influencer” who is around cameras all the time, becomes interested in having a “new thing”, buys a camera, and BAM! Suddenly a photographer. She now talks about her “work” and all that douchey bullshit. What happens next is interesting to me, because her “work” is instantly a real commodity. She has an audience for her “work”. If a person or company were to pay her to photograph something, she might feature it on her social media platforms and expose it to her large audience. This is a valuable thing to people. It’s a little gross, but no one seems to care. It’s exposure. It’s marketing. But is it good?

Some would argue that if it’s a “good photo” then it must be good. But is it a good photo? Is it really? If it’s just a happy accident based on the simplicity and ease of taking a picture in 2016, is it really good?

Let me go off on another tangent, because this isn’t already too long:

Picasso knew how to paint. Like, really knew how to paint. To the layman, his most famous works might look simple (I know, they’re not really. But for the sake of argument, ok... just go with it) but I promise you, Google his early work and you will see that, Homeboy obviously knew what the fuck he was doing. (#Understatement of the year?) It drives me crazy when I hear, “I could do that!” in reference to major paintings. That’s probably not true, but whatever. With photography, though, it is true!

You can probably do whatever American Apparel ad is currently running within the first week of owning a camera, while not knowing a single thing about cameras or photography. It’s that easy!

But, should you?

There’s a story I heard about Picasso sketching in the park when some cunty* woman recognized him and then proceeded to ask him to sketch her. He did in less than a minute or some shit. She was amazed by how perfect he had captured her. She asked him how much it would it cost to take home, and he responded, “$5,000”. She was taken aback and said “But, Picasso! It only took you less than a minute or some shit!” Picasso responded, “It took me my entire life.”

BOOM.
(I’m paraphrasing, folks. I don’t even know if it’s a true story.)

This hits home with me. I see all sorts of people taking photos. Friends, strangers, people from my past, famous people... literally fucking everyone these days is a photographer. Yet, very few of these people take the time to get to know how their Magical Picture Boxes work. Most of them aren’t even making good photos, just trendy ones with mass appeal. This wouldn’t bother me at all, except I see that they’re charging for this craft that they don’t actually know how to perform. They’re missing the skill set that should determine whether or not they are able to be called a photographer. Yet, because of the technological advancements, the end product is still a quality photo. This freaks me out.

On one hand: Whatever, if the client is happy, the “photographer” is happy, I shouldn’t care. But, on the other hand: This is all a sham and no one knows what he or she is doing and it’s perverting the craft I love. If I were in that situation, I would NEVER charge anyone. I would adamantly tell people, “I am a beginner, let me figure this Scientific Magic Box out before I can morally charge you. Let me develop my craft before I boldly claim to be photographer.”

Whatever. The world would be better with less shitty content, and more craftsmanship.

Who knows though, maybe I’m just self-righteous.

Nah, I’m definitely self-righteous.

*Cunty. Yes, going up to arguably one of the best painters ever and asking them to draw you is in fact a "cunty" thing to do regardless of your gender.

*ALEX EMMONS WEBSITE