I succumb to the allusion of my volunteered confusion
Friend or lover
Guilty of loving her
Hung on a cross
A fine line to cross
It will always be her loss
It will always be my loss
Like a rolling stone that will not collect moss
Unburdened by the ways of the heart
Free to dismiss
Free from the pleasure of a kiss
From the outside in how couldn’t she resist?
Painfully obvious
Sinfully simple
A boy who refuses to comprehend
Capable, yet seeing it to the end
Willingly suffering
Sufferingly willing
A dull drill that keeps drilling
Shattering hope
The numbing effect of dope
Persistent in the face of resistance
Romantic despite idealism
Where is the origin of such a curse?
Haunted by the image of a man on the cross never appearing in church
Only in plain sight does he erode
A heart exponentially beating till it explodes
A love like music without notes
Harmony in the midst of chaos
A symphony of exhausted repetition
Only to be slowed by a petition
From the world because it’s seen enough
Sick of the senility
No longer amused by the evasion of reality
Face the facts
He never could
Or maybe just never would
Like hammering a nail to wood
Until he is out of breath
Perhaps then the conclusion of the quarrelsome organ in his chest
From the beginning it was never like the rest
It needed to be heard
Ignored the telltale signs of even bold words
A lifetime infected by the snooze button
Never asleep, never awake, always one breath from losing something
Holding onto too much
Lacking a reflection to witness such blush
Born with too much blood to gush
How is that all he sought and lacked was her touch?
Desperately committed
For far less things men have been committed
Beyond an Achilles heel that needs to be admitted
If this isn’t proof then there is none
Starring down the barrel of a gun
Love or loss
A fine line to cross
A rolling stone without moss
A tear without moisture
Heart, without a beat
Only when stars aligned could be blessed to meet
Yet here I am
Time and time again
It is fact; my romantic madness has no end.

There are both sinners and saints

I know which I am

And most definitely what I aint!

I smoke, I drink

For Christmas I asked for the ability to puke in a sink!

I hold it all down, and wander around town

Missing only the suit of a clown

For your pleasure, disgrace, and amusement

If you’re calling after the 20^th taste

I’m already in the booze-ment!

I moved out of the bag

Utilities weren’t included

I felt a bit under dressed

All other pirates were suited

The booze-ment is where I go when it’s blackout
I have a few friends there but I don’t recall their names

Between you and me, I think they have a loyalty problem

They only check in on occasion

While I of course, a maintained vacation

Standing before, and saluting you wasted nation!

I pledge my allegiance to the flag…

That burns because I was wearing it when I fell into the fire!

But don’t you worry

It burns bright on this hotbox cloud filled night

It burns for all of those who cannot

All of those who will not

So raise your hand to your mouth

Might as well light this J before the fire is out!

Synonymous burning

A drown soul yearning

To fly or maybe just get high

Before it is time to come down to Earth

Where he was always been just a bit cursed

But where once lived, and even loved

He felt blessed from above

Her name was drugs and alcohol

She was a sweet talking persistent son of a bitch

That always seemed to somehow dismiss

My wicked ways

Wasted face

And last but not least

A lack of acquaintance with a thing call grace.

By: Kevin Lamb

Tomorrow I join my fellow Traveling Wilbury softball mates as we the Magnificent 7 travel to Las Vegas for the annual Winter Softball Meetings. Softball meetings you say? Yes, we Wilbury’s mean business when it comes to our nations past past time, and by George do we have quite the agenda. We will be throwing a weekend long bachelor party for fellow Wilbury Mark Delang. It’s not like that pussy shit you saw in the Hangover, one night of recreational drugs, China-man face fucking, and Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight courtesy of Mike Tyson. Forget your Hangover, we will sink far under the above average, no good, dirty, rotten, son of a bitch sinner seeking all that the Sin City has to offer.

On top of it all, it’s the AFC NFC Championship weekend! The obvious fear when heading Vegas is premature ejaculation, and by this I mean not having the sobriety, functionality, and energy to go the distance if you will. Adderall is the obvious game saver, or cocaine, but Adderall is risky to fly with, and cocaine, well, for obvious reasons. While shopping at CVS yesterday I browsed for caffeine pills which weren’t available, and then came across 5 hour energy. I purchased a few but with the clusterfuck airports are in there’s no certainty of making it through security with them intact.

We will be staying the MGM Grand which is sick, previously I stayed in Treasure Island, no complaints, but minor leagues in comparison. Often people plan bachelor parties with a scheduled agenda, like my most recent one in Montreal, which was amazing, but full of be here and there’s at this or that time. That’s not the Wilbury style, we have zero agenda, well one, getting fucked up big time. There will undoubtedly be tricks up these gents’ sleeves; we range from 24 to 60, cool, to less cool, wild, to well me. I apologize in advance for all of the fun you will not be having with us in Vegas this weekend. We are an exclusive gaggle of Tetons, refusing to teeter totter the fine line between sane and insane, as we are well south of the Mason Dixon.

If we make back alive I wont be surprised, rather disappointed, but hey, not all dreams can come true. After all, what greater tribute to a lifelong ode of sin then to be beamed up by the mother ship herself.

I pulled you in, just in time to be apart
Distances shed light, on matters of the heart
I feel you close, when I fall asleep at night
But I miss your warmth, so far from sight
One countdown after another
I suppose life is about time had or lost
Happy to have had, happier to have once more
I await for you on a sandy beach, wont you come ashore?
It may be winter, with chill to the bone
But with you in my heart, I know not alone
I wait for you to once more, be in my arms
I squeeze you tight, the dark sky opens to shed light
On life worth living
Passion worth giving
A certain head to toe worth sinning
Give in to the temptation
Time’s always going to be a wastin’
Waste your time with me
Only the world left to see
Winter cold may make you old
But warmth from within is always a reason to believe.

By: the loony lam-baster

We were on the road for yet another fantastic elongated weekend at my parent’s beach condo on Hilton Head Island, SC. This had become a frequent getaway, only five hours South East of where I went to undergrad, High Point University in North Carolina. My friend Justin Sphinx, his girlfriend Emma and I left on a Thursday eager for beach madness as a necessary break from daily school madness. Like the average college student from the average generation, we we’re stoners, philosophy majoring stoners at that. Traveling in my 96 black Ford Explorer, we smoked the occasional bowl of 95$ a quarter headies, I distinctly recall, and made our way down and across through Charlotte, into South Carolina. Getting high while driving wasn’t a rare occasion, rather more like the way it was, a chance to turn a normally unpleasant effort into well, something pleasant. With a fresh Carolina sun beaming from above, windows down, wind in our untamed hair, we didn’t have a worry in the world; this was my undergraduate existential definition of freedom. We walked the walk, talked the talk, we were the people of our time, in our place; most everyone enjoyed being caught up amongst our mission: get high, toss a bee, sing, dance, and frolic in an ocean wave; the very description reminds me how dearly I miss the beach, and the days that melted together like a wrapped candy bar in the sun.

About and hour and half into the trip, roughly 160 miles in we passed a sign on the freeway labeled “Narcotics Checkpoint.” What the hell is a narcotics checkpoint I said to myself?” Seeing as how I had never seen such a sign before, nor thereafter. Come to think of it, outside of the silver screen, I have never witnessed traffic being brought to a sudden halt on a freeway in an effort to search cars for anything. Some time had passed since out last burn, our minds were clear, but fright was unarguably the tone as we slowed our pace with a decision to make. My weed was in the right pocket of my cargo shorts packed away with the rest of my things in the trunk, leaving myself a bit more comfortable taking our chances with the mysterious narcotics checkpoint. Justin had his green on him, paired with my bowl in the center counsel. We wavered for a half mile or so before reaching the conclusion that we would get off at the next exit, giving ourselves more time to make our minds on the matter. While exiting we noticed six seemingly normal vehicles parked in the median, thinking nothing other than it was a little peculiar, I pulled off and discovered six more vehicles assuming the position.

“Oh Christ,” I proclaimed, “Those are all undercover cops!”

Just slightly short of shitting my pants, I pulled into the gas station to discus a game-plan. We considered using the map to discover an alternative route we could take to get back on the freeway, minus the obvious DEA setup. Largely due to my horrific experience on freeways and driving direction, we elected to get back on the freeway, but rather than continue south, we elected to turn around, giving us another chance to read what the sign had said. Yes I know, just short of the definition of idiocy. We began our trek once more, uneasy at best; I pulled on to the freeway monitoring my speed closely as to avoid any further incrimination. Unfortunately what I failed to address was the use of my right turn signal. Without a doubt the most terrifying experience of my life, (well non-mountain-related terrifying experience), six undercover DEA officers had sirens blazing, lights flashing while pulling license plate TRE 907 to the side of I-77.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck! What do I do? What do I do?”

My first impulse had me tear off my “High Roller” trucker hat and toss it in the back. As if my shoulder length blonde hair, aviators, and recent turn around on a major freeway just short of a narcotics check-point weren’t enough. If you have ever been in this type of situation there are certain things you do, and things you don’t do.

Do:

1. Breathe
2. Remain calm and collected
3. Answer questions with as few words as possible

DON’T:

1. Let the officers search your car
2. Confess to marijuana and glass pipes
3. Admit guilt with a single look, word, breath.

Fortunately for yourself, and the sake of this story, my actions were a highlight reel of DON’TS. While it wasn’t my first time being pulled over, or even my first time being pulled over with weed in the car for that matter, I panicked. I spat out words a mile a minute while attempting to explain my sudden turn around, all of which were completely worthless of course. After an obvious disregard of everything other than the name on my license, the officer asked if he could search the car. There I was, instantly transformed from laid back, cool hippie on the way to the beach Kevin, to fucked like Jenna Jameson with six undercover-DEA-agents about to go to jail Kevin. While I claim to be and enjoy many personas in this life of mine, I am certain I could have gone a lifetime without that Kevin I transformed into on that particular Thursday in the fall of 2006.

With the fear of a child and his father’s belt- I stepped out of the vehicle, Justin and Emma the same. They began to tear the car apart with high hopes, PUN intended. I willingly surrendered that I had a glass pipe in the center council, and directed them to my bag in my cargo shorts in the trunk. Even with such instructions, it took them a good twenty minutes to find my weed, further reinforcing my idiocy for immediate confession. The Carolinas are major crossroads in drug-trafficking in the U.S.; Due to my obvious discomfort, and mumbled admission of guilt, they seemed to believe they had just made a major (heroin, ecstasy, coke) narcotics bust. When they eventually found my bag I was greeted with another forgotten element, my scale was in my cargo shorts pocket with the weed. I was moments away from leaving, before I convinced myself it’d be best to bring the scale so I could sell off some of the grams to my friends Bond and Mimi who were coming the next day. After all, it was some fine green, and just about my only means to the green you’re certain never to smoke, $. One of the officers examined the contents of the bag, before administering the sure fire two finger test; the officer used his pointer, and middle finger in juxtaposition with the bag, and determined my eight grams was about two. While his method of testing may hold ground when dealing with degenerate qualities of dense Mary- Jane such as schwag, it was of no service in our particular instance of fantastic fluffiness.

Justin and I took responsibility for the narcotics, allowing Emma to go free with my Explorer. This proved particularly valuable in a few instances: for starters, had we all been arrested, my car would have been towed to impound, easily a quick $500. Next, without a free Emma we would have been unable to access the funds necessary to bring us from a soon to be deprived freedom. Sphinx and I were cuffed and sardined into the back of the squad car. In case you haven’t had the privilege of such an experience, being 6’7, cuffed with hands behind your back, in the rear end of a cop car fucking sucks — and I’m talking purely in a physical sense. To my parents knowledge I was a semi-straight edge son, sure I drank a lot, and partied often, but prior to this incident had remained drug free. Sure, I had an older brother who was a “Phish Head”, traveling on tour across the nation with his shoulder length hair, mud- master of a jeep, and a wardrobe that was certain not to contradict. So along with significant physical comfort and no real conception of what to expect next, I pondered the enormous disappointment and infuriation such news would bring my parents, and arrived at the conclusion there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I would let them find out.

We were taken to the local drunk tank of a holding cell, sat before a room of smug cops, and properly orientated. Before being addressed, I knew my parents were expecting us that evening, and had to give a cover; I called my dad and told him that the three of us had decided to spend the evening at UNC Charlotte, of which I had some friends, and had never visited before. He thought it was a great idea, told us to be safe, and that he’d expect us the next afternoon. I was scorned by the officer for doing so, but it needed to be done. Through our conversation we learned that an individual you could have up to an ounce of marijuana in South Carolina, and be charged with personal possession. This was a big relief in loom of the scale that I just needed to bring, and the majority of other state’s personal possession laws versus an attempt to distribute. Even if the laws were less generous, the officer went to the length of measuring the accuracy of my scale, which was spot on, yet never bothered to weigh my bag of green.

The officers in the room asked why we exited the free way and ultimately turned around. I ran through a similar story minus the details that you just heard, and the room broke out in laughter. Turns out, just a few days prior to our fine display of panic the narcos had moved the narcotics checkpoint sign up the freeway five miles before the exit rather than after. Forget that we hadn’t been transporting crystal meth, this made the cops month, shit year. We couldn’t believe it, outsmarted by a bunch of jackass narcotic officers; sure fire way to deteriorate a man’s view of his intelligence. They tweeted their ego of a horn for another few minutes before telling us that we would be transferred to the county holding facility; funny how when you phrase it like that it doesn’t sound like jail, but it is.

We were transferred among other prisoners, all properly dressed in fluorescent orange prison suits, except us of course. I still recall one of the songs playing during the transfer, “Let me hear you say, this shit is bananas B A N A N A S This shit is bananas B A N A N A S” Gwen Stefani’s “Holla Back Girl,” arguably the most obnoxious song of all time, icing on the cake at this point. The two of us were put in a cell with four others, given a gym mat to sit on, and access to a “call collect” payphone. While I had no intention of alerting my parents of our predicament, it wasn’t even an option; when making collect calls only land lines can be reached, leaving Justin’s parents as our only option. Fortunately we were not limited to the infamous one phone call, and were able to relay messages to Emma, who drove back to High Point after we got detained. She talked to a bail-bondsman that would have us released for $160, which was hell of a lot more money then as a student, than it is a look-a-like working citizen today.

For the first time that evening I felt a bit of relief when I remembered I had left my wallet in the car, with close to $200 in it. Things were finally starting to come together, Emma was on her way, we we’re getting bailed out, back on the road, and in Hilton Head by morning; Unless, Emma got in the car and discovered all of the cash was gone from my wallet. I flipped, any gaining momentum had immediately seized, I yelped a scorning “Fuck!” and punched the wall of the holding cell, I couldn’t believe it, the goddamn narcos took the money from my wallet. Maybe it was an F you for the fake ID they found, or maybe they’re just pieces of shit, my guess is both, but either way we were running out of options. In a perfect, no just very average world, there would have been money in my Wachovia bank account, and Emma could have withdrawn $160 and freed us from our then current South Carolina nightmare, but of course, that was not the case. My funds consisted of the $200 the cops stole $140 of, and my $100 quarter of ganj’. Amidst a panic, Justin made another phone call to his parents, and had it relayed from Emma that she discovered unanticipated funds in her savings account in the amount of… freedom!

Via the bail-bondsmen and Emma’s efforts we reentered the shackle free world at 2 am, broke, hungry (we missed dinner in the jail), and three and half hours away from our destination on a quarter tank of gas. Our funds consisted of a $40 prison issued check, given to Justin in exchange for the cash he walked in with’ which was still a major improvement unless you consider the amount of establishments that cash checks between the hours of 2 and 5 am. Once more we boarded the ‘96 worn asphalt black explorer, minus 10 grams, $300, and made our way down I-95 heading south, despite a brief wavering consideration of returning to High Point and calling it a weekend. With freedom came the resuming burden of explaining to my parents where my month’s utilities payment, which was due to them, and weekend spending money had gone. Surely credit is due to years of lying to the people I love, but the voice mail I left my sleeping father went something like this:

“Dad, we were at a party at UNCC, we ran out of beer, so Justin and I walked to a store nearby… while we we’re walking two guys came up and got into our face, they started shoving us and asking for our money.. I pushed him back… and he punched me in the face… the other pulled a gun, I was scarred as shit, I pulled out all my cash and dropped it on the ground, Justin too, I can’t believe it… but we’re driving now, coming down tonight, we’ve only got a quarter tank, and no money… not sure what we’re going to do… call me if you wake up and get this..”

Yes I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right, mostly, that I’m going to hell, but hey, it was quick thinking in a jam, and not nearly the end of this evening.

While we knew a quarter tank of gas would only take us a third of the way, looking for a place that would cash Justin’s check was an irrational waste of gas, so we drove, and we brainstormed. The Carolina fall night air was cool. I turned on the heat only to have Emma explain how she froze on the return ride to the jail because she feared wasting gas with the heat; I had my first laugh of the evening. Pedal to the medal, we arrived to the realization that Wal-Mart was probably our best late night check cashing option, and attempted to locate one near the freeway with little fortune. Approaching empty, but not quite on the dawn, we exited to the town with the most food and gas options on their sign. Our eyes lit, “Harris Teeter!” a well known 24 hour southern grocery story; I pulled in, parked, and ran with Justin and our prodigal check into the ‘Teet to the first cashier. Alas our sufferings would be purged, hunger relieved, and day from Judas’ corner of hell transformed into the existential beach getaway we had longed for:

“We stop cashing checks at two, I’m sorry.”

For the love of god make it stop. I protested for an exception, sadly those were the days I still believed in exceptions to damn the man’s rules, they declined. So close to paradise I thought I could taste it; with heads hung, smiles reversed, and hope dwindling, we returned to the car, prodigal check in hand, approaching the dawn of empty with a midgets tail over two hours left in our journey.

As if to mock ourselves, we pulled into the nearest gas station for which money we had not, and inquired as to the whereabouts of a possible Wal-Mart super center. A kind gentleman said he could not be certain if there was a Wal-Mart, but the Two Notches exit had a lot of businesses, and would be our best bet, some 15 miles south on 77. With no other options we took his advice and ‘counted on a miracle’ as one Bruce Springsteen put it. Nearly half way to Two Notches, our last straw if you will, the check fuel light lit, as did our nerves as we continued South a little after three on a stretch of Carolina freeway that I’d rather not remember with such detail. In moments such as those final miles approaching the exit, the idea of fuel economy really hits home; with each mile came the gasp of a breath we were thankful not to release out of gas on the side of the freeway we had previously been cuffed. I had not asked much of my first automobile to that point, but like the typically “raised catholic” spirit I found god in those moments, swearing off the many of vices that make scenarios like this possible, later of course which would be forgotten, or rationalized in their return. If you have seen the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer blacks out pushing the depths of an empty gas tank to the max for sure thrill, imagine the complete opposite and you will have arrived at my terror holding onto to an ounce, no gram of hope promising a Wal-Mart super center at Two Notches because some guy had a hunch in the middle of the night.

But hope it was, and we had come too far, in addition to no other conceivable options to turn back. Considerably lighter than we had set out on our adventure, 10 grams, $300, one scale, one pipe, and 23 gallons of gas to be exact, we approached Two Notches light as a feather and ‘counting on a miracle’. Hope grew with the glow of the lights from the freeway, yet nerves tightened. Alertly we exited I-77, an unfortunate recurring theme of our experience, with heads on a swivel came to a stop at the first light. The man was right, both sides of the road were cluttered with flashing signs; this was our best bet, yet no Wal-Mart in immediate sight. A half mile or so passed, and still nothing, well nothing other than the one thing we needed. I vividly recall McDonalds, Bojangles, another Harris Teeter, and oh I how loathed each and everyone! I felt we were being mocked by the gods for all those I condescendingly laughed at for ever having run out of gas. I ran through exit strategies in my head, all of which involved sleeping in the car, and my parents busting me as they were the most likely to deliver us funds for gas and continued travel, I felt my sphincter shrink…to quote the late and great Homer J. Simpson..

“Help me Jebus.”

With what could be the final turns of the wheels of a day I’d otherwise have forgotten, we rounded a long corner and held our breath… I recall thinking to myself, just give me this one goddamn thing and I will endure life’s many less comical sufferings and ask nothing in return, maybe even smoke less weed, with which to be honest, I had my fingers crossed. I imagine what land must look like after being lost at sea, or anything with four limbs and tits after serving time, and believe those very things were depicted similarly illuminated as the Wal-Mart super center at Two Notches I saw that night. Lacking proper words to communicate our ecstasy, we screamed with joy and pumped our fists in release of a panic I’ve known only in nightmares. To think, our Mecca, our savior a corporation we’d often scorned for their plasticity and great bounding destruction of all the little mom and pap’s in the world. The prodigal check was alas cashed and a whopping $40 exchanged hands boosting us back into business. We splurged for a $6 meal at the Waffle House, for the three of us, which if you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing first hand, is quite the collection of characters in the wee hours of the morning, especially in the south. Riding high on a partially appetite curbing snack, we were back on the road, and for the first time since our initial departure we had an ETA (estimated time of arrival).

After 19 hours, 35 gallons of gas, 11 grams (they confiscated 10 but we smoked one), $340, one scale, and one pipe, we arrived to Hilton Island, it was 5 am. In the final minutes approaching the island, like any good leader/liar I briefed the team on the exact details of our cover story.

“Justin and I left the party to get more beer, we were confronted by two guys asking for our money… they started talking shit, then shoving us… I shoved back… then one of them punched me in the face… the other pulled his gun and told us to drop the money… we complied, they picked it up, and as soon as they turned away we ran back to campus.”

It’s funny to think about it now, but our biggest dilemma outside of being arrested, was having no money other than a check to buy gas; what if we had really been robbed? They would have been pissed! At the time I was so relieved to be A. out of jail, B. not sleeping in my car on the side of the road, and C. at the beach, that I didn’t even feel bad traumatizing my parents through my lying efforts for the sake of a good weekend. We had discussed how they would probably eventually find out, but there would be a time and a place, and it was neither here nor there, especially with my lady of interest at the time and another friend coming that Friday evening. Determined to cement our fiction as fate, I began emphasizing to Justin that he would have to punch me in the face once we reached the condo, convinced of its necessity in selling the mugging. He was caught off guard and immediately declined my request, pleading to its lack of necessity, clearly uncomfortable with the idea, like most friends would be, although I can think of a select few who would enjoy particular thrill and satisfaction in such an opportunity. With everything that happened in the day’s events, I could not risk any loose ends that might have risked my weekend of redemption in the sun, at the beach where I spent my childhood’s spring and summer vacations, and so I persisted.

To this day I have yet to convince another man to punch me in the face, which isn’t to say I haven’t tried, well not directly I guess, but I can be really obnoxious when opposing you on a beer pong table, which is another story all together. But on that day of firsts, where I was arrested, cuffed, robbed by the police, and bailed out of jail, I was determined for yet another first and convinced Justin to give me a right hook in the eye. I told him not to worry, that I had taken plenty of punches to the face, which was a lie, and to let me have it.

There we stood in the Villamare parking lot in Palmetto Dunes on Hilton Island under the fading 5:30 moon. Our journey was over; we had overcome great odds, douchebag pigs, and holy bout with the depths of a ‘96 Ford Explorer gas tank. Emma stood as witness, I nervously braced myself for a deal sealing punch on my weekend of freedom and ocean waves; Justin took a few steps back, raised his clinched right fist and gave me one last look as if to say “I’m sorry and you’re an idiot” at the same time. He advanced swiftly and uncoiled his wound right arm and delivered a swift but greatly un-devastating blow to my right eye;

“Are you serious? Hit me mother fucker! It needs to leave a mark!”

punchTalk about blue balls, there I was prepared to be anything short of knocked out in final conquest of our great adventure, and he gives me a love tap. For the second time in my life I awaited willingly and frustrated to be punched in the face with some conviction; Justin seemed certain not to have to repeat this process for a third time, I could see it in his eye, and braced myself as he repeated his previous efforts, clinched, back step, forward, uncoiled, and powww! I braced my self.

“Now that’s a little better, but fuck! Man, hit me, make it hurt, don’t make me ask Emma!”

Don’t get the idea I was trying to be a tough guy, not the case, I simply had a plan, and that plan involved a recently bruised and blackened eye to sell our mugging and other tall tales of shenanigans. Convinced this had to be the punch; I clinched my teeth to avoid damage of the tooth or tongue, and took a breath as he assumed the now annoyingly usual position. In a thrust of a days worth of damn the man anger Justin approached and heaved a heavy right hook to my right eye. I fell back and nearly to the ground as I knew our mission was accomplished,

“Alright that’s good! That’ll due we can stop right there…”

My head spun a little bit as I stood in place leaning over my knees in an effort to recollect myself and brain functionality. I took a breath and tasted the salt and sea on the wings of a fall night’s ocean breeze, and knew that I was home in many senses of the word, and that everything would be alright. Justin was a bit shaken and unnecessarily apologetic over the tri-factor of punches,

“You’ve done well my friend Mr. Spinks.”

We gathered our things and made our way up to the third floor where my parents two bedroom ocean-front condo resided. I expected that they would be asleep, but might possibly wake with our late night arrival. I punched the key code, the green light lit, and we entered. As expected, my parents woke and came to greet us,

“We thought you might decide to come!”

With a freshly swollen and soon to be bruised eye I replied,

“You have no idea what we went though to get here! This was the worst the day of my life. Me and Justin got mugged and robbed at gun point on our way to get more beer in Charlotte. They took all our money, we barely got here, we’re exhausted, and just need to go to sleep, we’ll tell you more about it in the morning.”

“Oh my god, we’re just happy you’re okay, we love you and we’ll talk in the morning.”

Holy shit, it worked I recall thinking, even thought I anticipated success. We entered the room finally having truly arrived to our destination, with the remainder of the night to get our story straight before waking. We nestled comfortably in our two double beds, and once more revisited the intricate details of our encounter, falling asleep peacefully with the promise of booze and beach and fun in the sun to come.

After a healthy sleep-in, we came to, gathered in the kitchen and recited our story as rehearsed, and talk about a TKO, total knock-out! They ate it up, word for word; after all, it was a convincing story, from some convincing mother-fuckers, one of which had quite the convincing shiner on his right eye. In true triumph we assembled the perfect cooler with mixed drinks and cold ones alike, put down a few drinks, and headed down to the pool and beach area. We sent word to Mimi and Bond, our friends arriving later that evening that the crisis had been resolved, and the party was in full go mode. Like kings and Queens we spent the morning afloat in raft with drink in hand, soaking up what seemed to be truly earned UV. Seeking sun block I returned once more to the Ford Explorer, and was shocked to find the case containing my blue glass bowl, alive and kicking. We had discovered Justin’s after Emma bailed us out and we once more headed south, but it had been broken to pieces by our friendly Mr. Narcs. It was quite the surprise, and a pleasant one at that. Although we still hadn’t any herb, it truly felt like a moral victory and a cherry on top of our fantastic scheme.

I headed back up to the condo for a necessary cooler refill, and of course a few shots while I was there, after all it was the beach. Shortly after some shooters, old man TL returned from a walk with the old lady, and not the most encouraging smile on his face. Like any good father he was curious to see the condition of the car his son drove from north to south, spanning hundreds of miles without so much as the proper care and judgment of an oil change. My parents and I didn’t see either too much, as the child in the family, with a brother in Alaska, and sister in Connecticut, we weren’t exactly the parents weekend kind o’ cats. We met at the beach, in New York City, and even atop mount Jumbo in Juneau; no strangers to vay-cay us Lambs. This was one of the few opportunities my dad had to check for my life’s safety, so he went a checkin’, and of course, the doors’ was unlocked. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, I hadn’t left anything incriminating in the car: our weed was confiscated, bowls either broken or recently found, seemingly nothing to endanger our beautiful embellishment… unless of course Justin left his violation ticket in the car! That might change things a bit, and it did.

Only in this moment could I express that being caught red-handed was the understatement of the century… perhaps red assed from the soon to incur ass raping my father would deliver would do it justice. Paps went ape shit, I shall digress and mention my father and I have a limited but unpleasant history in our indifferences when it comes to mari- jjjjjjhhhhuanna. There was a time when I really thought he’d understand… he bought us beer as a long as we drank it in our basement at 18, we just couldn’t drink liquor, which we did, and got in repeated trouble for. As previously mentioned my brother was a “Phish Head!” for Christ’s sake, dreaded long hippie hair with woven tapestry in corduroy pants, and despite my early collegiate status as an athlete, post baseball I reveled in shoulder length hair, cell phone freedom (that means not having one!) and a lifestyle only appropriate for great men of philosophy, scallywags, and last but not least, undergraduate students. All I’m saying is he should have seen some of the signs, but maybe as a loving father he did me the favor of seeing past them, he is a great man, in a line of great Lambs, so watch what you bring home from the butcher!

His greatest fury came not from our lies, or newly formed acquaintance with the state of South Carolina’s judicial system, but because I dared bring drugs and defile the sanctity of their home away from home, as an invited guest. I’ve since learned that in such instances it is better to tell them (substitute any authority figure in a position to make life miserable) what they want to hear, and move on. Unfortunately these years of my life represented a time of empowered rationale, a need to out wit any opposition in an argument, not to say that’s altogether changed, but I have acquired a tit-bit more discretion. Justin tried to help the cause, big mistake, paps nearly bit his head off ordering him into the other room. It was a vicious argument to say the least, but I pleaded that it was my problem that I had brought upon myself, and I would take care of it, both legally and financially. Let the record show before senior year I maintained zero employment, (well at least any that paid, I had a variety of unpaid internships), outside of the few times I worked the furniture market, which is a pretty penny, High Point being the furniture capital and all.

While in jail we told jokes and discussed the various levels of shit we were all in, good ol’ fashion mail bonding if you will. A gentleman whose name I haven’t the slightest clue informed me of a program available for first time offenders called Pre-Trial Intervention (PTI). PTI allows first-time offenders a chance to stay out of court, and ultimately have the charged expunged from your record. I told my parents this would allow me to pay my fees overtime, and avoid hiring a lawyer, their most immediate concern. Little did I know when it was all said and done it cost me a little over $1200 anyway, well $1800 if you include getting ripped off five days before next my SC payment was due. Things definitely became interesting to say the least. I knew a sense of panic like never before. I used the Harris Teeter gift cards that my parents gave me as a meal plan to hustle, I bought cartons of cigarettes, which are appropriately cheap in the south, and sold them at parties by the cigarette. My junior year was most certainly a stressful one, strictly outside of the classroom of course, that was always the easy part.

Despite it all I kept my word, I handled it on my own, jumped through the system’s hoops, and cleared my record .How exactly I handled it is where the real hoot of it comes to light, after all, often the easiest way to get out of a situation is the very way you got in; I dealt grass, and due to the drug test I had to pass, successfully I must add, it’s not just a cliché that you shouldn’t smoke your own stash. The great state of South Carolina was fueling the further demise of the High Point University college campus, and that’s not to say it wasn’t going on otherwise; I mean, how else do stoners afford to get… no stay high?

My father and I got through our fight, the thing I remember most is a question he asked later that day…

“If you didn’t get mugged, where’d that black eye come from?”

I couldn’t believe it, amongst all the chaos I didn’t even consider how reasonable and obvious a question it was. Shellshock aside, I laid it out there…

“Ohh yea… I pissed off one of other guys being held in jail, he was drunk and obnoxious, and we got into a little bit.”

To this day I’m just about certain my dad didn’t buy a word of it, but I’m sure he was quite curious as to what really happened… some things are just better off left unsaid, but oh well, now he knows, that is of course if he ever reads this. If he does, I think on some level, somewhere way out there, he’ll appreciate the thought and consideration put into my deeply devious scheme that came but a breath from destruction on more than one occasion, but found its way into the light, and a clean record.

We were granted what we sought, an existential escape to the beach to once more celebrate are unbounded freedom in the days of undergraduate education. Sure, it came at a slightly hire cost, and expenditure of effort, but isn’t freedom always a bit sweeter when it has been sweat for?

Be forewarned, narcotics checkpoints are not a recommended exiting point on the freeway, narcotics officers will rob you, and selling marijuana while not the most dependable or legal means of profit gain, is accepted as payment for drug offenses in the state of South Carolina.

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE DIVIDING LINES OF FREEDOM

Kevin Lamb

ORGL 515 – Interpersonal Communications and Small Group Theory

December 18, 2009

Communication Technology and The Dividing Lines of Freedom

Introduction

Since the days of Socrates, evident in the works of Plato, there has existed a fear of the effect technology would have on human intelligence, and ultimately humanity (Hamilton, 1971, Plato: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII). Socrates feared that something as simple as writing would make individuals receptacles of knowledge rather than owners of an understanding of such knowledge, “[Writing] will implant forgetfulness in their souls… calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks” (Kahn, 2004, p. 155). With the evolution of technology, arose the social evolution of man and a growing dependency on such developments. At the center of the concern is man’s ability to communicate with one another, build relationships, and ultimately communities. In an ever present technological world, it is critical to understand the level of dependency man has placed in machine, and freedom sacrificed as a result of constructing a portion of identity through those relations.

Using the Structure and Agency theory (Giddens, 1984),  the dialectic power struggle between man-kind and its dependency on technology, in addition to the ability to balance virtual experience with authentic experience, will be used to explore the risk diminished interpersonal communication poses to freedom and humanity. Both individual and group focus findings will be paired with exploration to better understand the construction of identity and freedom within the struggle. As for Giddens, “Only in man’s struggle to find identity within a system, can freedom be realized; but what grows upward from mechanism, easily, automatically, running by itself, is not human freedom. Freedom is always a struggle” (Tallbot, 1995, ch. 1).

Ethical and Communicative Implications

While tools like computers and the internet are landmarks in the history of humanity and communication, man-kind’s dependency on these systems to replicate every-day human functions poses great danger to freedom, acting as an enslaving agent to such systems:

Such a recasting of social issues as technological ones points to a thoroughgoing habit of abstraction. What can be mapped from the human being to a machine is always and only an abstraction. One cannot embrace a device as the midwife of freedom without having lost sight of the living, ambiguous reality of freedom as an experience of alternative, inner stances. All that is left is an abstract shadow of these stances, in the form of external, machine-mediated “options.” Where freedom once required the fateful exercise of an enlightened, heart-warmed will, it is now enough to play with clickable choices on a screen (Tallbot, 1995, ch. 1).

Once removed from experience, this virtual relationship based on immediacy has alienated individuals from authentic experience and emotion, giving way to secondary experience and emotion (Tallbot, 1995). For example, a child’s experience of an alligator on a computer, programmed to be active and responsive to the child’s ever whim, versus an alligator at the zoo that spends most of its time asleep. What then is more real? The child’s experience with the virtual alligator educating him or her of every capability the alligator species possesses, or the observation of a living, breathing, likely sleeping ‘gator, in captivity? The nature of the problem lies in the implausible nature of a child actually visiting the Amazon to truly witness a functioning alligator. Thus we have arrived on the allure of the virtual, and other such tools like communication technology that simplifies the way humans interact with the world around them, of which there is no doubt great value, but in value comes great challenge and risk for Tallbot (1995)

The computer, like so many tools, is a specialized and one-sided expression of what we have become, and therefore requires an effort of self-mastery. It requires the restoration of a disrupted internal balance… In this sense, every tool paradoxically offers us one gift above all others: it gives us something to work against. We turn it to our own use — overcoming it in the process — not primarily in order to gain some thing as a result, but in order to have accomplished the overcoming. It is always ourselves we work on, whether we realize it or not” (ch. 1)

The danger of such tools is a human nature known only through a close identification with computer mediated experience. By giving human or lifelike functionalities to machines, we begin to lose the ability to recognize where what is human stops, and what is computer generated begins (Tallbot, 1995). Interpersonal communication is commonly understood as participants who are dependent on one another and have a shared history to communicate using direct and indirect channels (Pearce, 2008) Direct channels include both verbal and non-verbal cues, such as words and facial expressions, while indirect consist of subconsciously received gestures such as body language (Pearce, 2008). In an ever growing computer mediated world, the foundation for which relationships were once harnessed and fostered has dramatically changed. For example, just five years ago, if a single guy met a girl he was interested in, he’s ask for her number, call her some days later, have a conversation, and ultimately take her on date. While, granted, the same process still occurs, more commonly today a guy meets a girl he’s interested in, finds out her first and last name, and later looks her up on Facebook. He requests to add her as a friend, perhaps writes on her wall, or sends her a message. The process helps avoid or diminish the ever so feared experience of rejection, but it is rejection and struggle that socializes us and makes us human:

Much of the appeal of cyberspace appears to be its clean, dematerialized, conceptual nature, born of the programmer’s and engineer’s schematizing, ungrounded and therefore uncontaminated. That many Net enthusiasts see this as a strength — as an opportunity to realize our highest ideals — testifies to the absence of the concrete human being from the idealist’s aseptic calculations. He has forgotten that the improvement of the human being is a messy, lifelong undertaking, inseparable from suffering (Tallbot, ch. 1)

Such suffering is a quintessential to “self mastery” (Giddens, 1984); interpersonal communication must be promoted in order to find balance in identity from the technological system man-kind has embedded itself in.

In an effort to simply what it means to be human, man has in fact dehumanized perhaps the most essential function of what it means to be human, community and communication.   The convenience and allure of communication technology has created a sense of devotion; between social networks, I Phones, Blackberrys, text-messages and even telephones, the basis by which we live and interact has changed, yet hardly even acknowledged as a point of concern; “If we are asked to come to ourselves over against our machines, we remain free to shun this extremely difficult work. So far, there has scarcely been an acknowledgment that the challenge even exists, let alone engagement with it (ch. 25). The growing presence of communication technology is widely acknowledged, but what is lacking, beyond in discussion of scholars, is that there may be something to fear through such interwoven dependence. Certainly only a handful of romantics will make noise pleading that language as we know is deteriorating, which it is, but until it is acknowledged that communication, relationships, and community are suffering as well, there is a slippery slope. Tallbot (1995) speaking from the fears of Socrates claims”

But the relevant comparison is not between oral and literate. It is between the genuinely oral communication that once took place face- to-face, and the “secondary orality” now electronically replacing that communication. Here we see the computer’s influence running exactly counter to the usual thesis: informal communication is tending toward the abstract, disengaged, and remote, with feeling conveyed indirectly through the artifice of written expression, and participation unavoidably constrained by the narrower channel (ch. 1).

The common place for communication is no longer only face to face, it is from the thumbs on the keyboard of a text-message, or the message boards of personal profiles on Facebook. While such tools are making the world a smaller place, they are undoubtedly thinning the walls which hold it in place. How long until children are more comfortable text-messaging one another than talking face to face? Will future generations be capable of socialization without these crutches, and doesn’t the problem really lie in that so few free individuals are asking such questions of themselves? Unmediated devotion is at the center of this struggle, and must be combated to construct identity from authentic experience more so than virtual, secondary experience (Tallbot, 1995) “The possibilities of our freedom, it seems, vanish into the necessities imposed by the tools of our freedom” (Tallbot, 1995, ch.1).

Structure and Agency Theory

Structure and agency theory is found within Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration (Giddens, 1984), which is an attempt to reconcile theoretical dichotomies of social systems such as agency/structure, subjective/objective, and micro/macro perspectives (Giddens, 1984). Giddens suggests, human agency and social structure are in a relationship with each other, and it is the repetition of the acts of individual agents which reproduces the structure. As used by Durkheim and others working within a similar tradition, structure is a metaphor that denotes qualities of society that are likened to the skeleton of a body in the field of anatomy, or to the frame of a building in architecture (Ritzer, 2007). He insisted that there are patterned ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that are general throughout a society acting as external constraints over its members (Ritzer, 2007). Man’s ritualized implementation of communication technology: text messaging, emailing, social networking, and video chatting, gives birth to the structure by which man depends on those technologies to function. Within these social structures lie traditions, institutions, moral codes, and established ways of doing things (Giddens, 1984).

For Giddens, structures are rules and resources organized as properties of social systems. It refers to the recurrent patterned arrangements which seem to influence or limit the choices and opportunities that individuals possess. A social system can be understood by its structure, modality, and interaction. Structure is constituted by rules and resources governing and available to agents (Giddens, 1984). Structuration theory aims to avoid extremes of structural or agent determinism. The balancing of agency and structure is referred to as the duality of structure (Giddens, 1984): social structures make social action possible, and at the same time that social action creates those very structures (Ritzer, 2007). It is in the duality of structure (Giddens, 1984) that we discover the reflexive individual necessary for “self-mastery” (Giddens, 1984).

Social networking websites such as Facebook are an example of specific social systems within the dichotomous relationship of man and machine. The individual users within the system are examples of agents (Giddens). Agency according to Giddens is human action, it refers to the capacity of an individual to act independently and make their own choices (Giddens). The modality of a social system is the process under which structure is translated into action (Giddens). A social system cannot exist without modality; Facebook is not a social system unless individual users create profiles and give it functionality. Interaction is the activity that takes place through the agents experience within the social system (Giddens, 1984). With a single user Facebook is not a social system with agents capable of modality; it is not until there are multiple users, enabling “friending” that modality occurs.

Giddens defines ‘ontological security’ as the trust people have in social structure; everyday actions have some degree of predictability, thus ensuring social stability (1984). Ontological security paired with a lack of “self mastery”, has resulted in the devotion of man, or agents to the social systems resulting from communication. At the heart of the debate over primacy of structure or agency is the question of social ontology: Do social structures determine an individual’s behavior or does human agency (Giddens, 1984)? Many individuals create much of their social identity through their relationships in the world of social networking, leaving structuralist theorists to suggest that the perceived agency of individuals can also mostly be explained by the operation of this structure (Turner, 1991). In direct opposition, social phenomenologists content that the capacity or freedom of individual agents allows them to construct or reconstruct the world (Turner, 1991). This dichotomous relationship between agent and social system helps portray mans struggle within a world interwoven amongst machines. Bourdieu sheds light on this struggle, “symbolic power is a power of constructing reality”, it is “invisible power which can be exercised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it” (1994, p. 164) Agent’s within the social system do no consider the fears of structuralist, they are born free men and women, and believe that is the way it will always be.

The third alternative contended by many modern theorists, is to attempt to find a point of balance between the two previous positions. They see structure and agency as complementary forces – structure influences human behavior, and humans are capable of changing the social structures they inhabit (Turner, 1991). Giddens theory of structuration is where process of “self-mastery” (Giddens, 1984) is made possible. It is only the reflective individual that is capable of such processes. Giddens contends we possess different levels of awareness which affect the way we act in the world. We switch between them in differing contexts. Practical consciousness; describes the practical skills and knowledge that we employ. Discursive consciousness refers to the ability to reflect on and comment rationally on our behaviour (Giddens, 1984). It is in shifting to one mode of consciousness to another that we employ another characteristic of agency – our ability to reflect on and monitor our own behaviour (Giddens 1984).  Thus we become reflexive agents.

Focus Group and Interview Results

For the purposes of the focus group, five students were selected, three in high school, two in college. The meeting was held at a Caribou Coffee. Prior to the meeting the students were emailed the following set of questions, to help prepare them for the discussion, in addition to see how quickly individual prepared stances may or may not be altered by the group’s responses. In the instance of the interview, a high school student and I met at Caribou on a different occasion. I considered using one of the members of the focus group, and interviewing him or her prior to conducting the focus group, but since group dynamics are not a focus or necessity of this study, deemed otherwise.

1. What is your preferred method of communication? Face-to-face, text-messaging, Facebook or other social networking site, email, or other form of instant message?
2. Of those options, which do use the most? Second most?
3. Are there certain things you would rather communicate face-to-face rather than via text or Facebook? Vice versus? What type of things?
4. Are there certain levels of relationships associated with the type of communication used on occasions like birthdays? Meaning, if it was one of your best friend’s birthday you would call or text them, but if it was just a pretty good friend you’d write on their Facebook wall.
5. On the reverse, are you excited or possibly disappointed when certain friends congratulate you by a means other than you hoped or expected. Meaning, your best friend who usually always calls you on your birthday, wrote on your wall instead.
6. Do you find it easier to stay in contact with a wider range of friends because of Facebook, or other social networking sites?
7. Do you find it easier to talk to the opposite sex via text than in person or on the phone?
8. How would you describe your Facebook use, very rare (once a week), rare (five times a week), moderate (once a day), active (four times a day), very active (10 times a day) or religious (20 or more)?
9. Have your parents ever tried to regulate your Facebook use? Often?

10.  Have your parents ever tried to regulate your text-messaging, other than due to running up your phone bill?

Focus Group Results

In response to questions one and two, what is your preferred method of communication? Face-to-face, text-messaging, Facebook or other social networking site, email, or other form of instant message? Second most? The students responded that they preferred face-to-face, but often they’re not in the presence of the people they want to be talking to. This is the appeal of texting and Facebook, because they could do it anywhere, and with anyone. They expressed that it was easier to communicate via text and Facebook as well, allowing them time to prepare, write, and rewrite what they wanted to say. Facebook allows them to watch people, know where they are, what they’re doing, and who they’re friends with. This seemed to be a greater appeal for the high school students. They would friend students of other schools, because they had common friends, although they expressed they often wouldn’t ever physically meet, yet still monitor via status updates. When asked why they still paid attention to theme even though they had never met, they mostly responded that it was without thought, or because it was right in front of them, or they had something cool to say.

In response to the third question, are there certain things you would rather communicate face-to-face rather than via text or Facebook? Vice versus? What type of things? The students said there were few things they’d rather say in person, but examples of them were if something really good, or really bad happened, although they often would text-message anyway. They indirectly answered question seven, do you find it easier to talk to members of the opposite sex? Expressing strong preference for texting, or Facebook’ing members of the opposite sex in terms of rejection, some flirtation, and asking for plans or a date. They said it was easier to explore boundaries that way, see if a guy or girl was interested without being rejected, and in turn, to reject someone, or convey difficult to express feelings.

Are there certain levels of relationships associated with the type of communication used on occasions like birthdays? The students said yes and no: that they would always call or text a good friends, rather than writing on their wall, others said they were happy to remember them at all, or that they would do one or the other on a whim regardless of the type of friend. Regarding whether they’d be excited or possibly disappointed when certain friends congratulate them by a means other than they hoped or expected: The males said no, the females yes. The females expressed disappointment when one of their good friends wrote on their wall, or sent a text, rather than phone call. The guys didn’t express disappointment, but did express excitement and satisfaction when a friend would call, or even send a text rather than writing on their wall. It is important to know for the sake of this study, that Facebook announces birthdays days in advance, leading up to the actual day.

Responding to question six, do you find it easier to stay in contact with a wider range of friends because of Facebook, or other social networking sites? The students all replied; “absolutely, even if they move away or we move away you can look at their pictures, see if they’re dating someone, what type of job they are working, where they are in school, what music they listen to, videos they watch” etc. This transitioned easily into the next question; How would you describe your Facebook use, very rare (once a week), rare (five times a week), moderate (once a day), active (four times a day), very active (10 times a day) or religious (20 or more)? This was the most interesting question in terms of the group, at first the majority of them answered active, but one answered religious, resulting in three of the four remaining to laugh and admit they were also religious, resulting in four religious, and one active users.

Lastly, when asked Have your parents ever tried to regulate your Facebook use? Often? The students responded as following: “they did at first, when we first started using it, before everyone was using it, but then they stopped, they started using it, wanted help with how to use it. Sometimes when we’d get in trouble they’d tell us not to use the internet, or to go on Facebook, but for a lot of us, it’s on our phones, they couldn’t help it if they tried.” This lead to the final question; have your parents ever tried to regulate your text-messaging, other than due to running up your phone bill? Two of the students responded yes, and that it bothered their parents when they’d text at the kitchen table, or in the company of others, or in school, or when they were trying to talk. The other three said their parents had posited similar annoyances, but made no attempt to deter the rate with which they text.

Interview Results

In response to questions one and two, what is your preferred method of communication? Face-to-face, text-messaging, Facebook or other social networking site, email, or other form of instant message? Second most? The individual responded; “Face-to-face”, as he received and responded to a text-message. He replied when prompted that “texting is easier, you can respond quicker than calling someone, or waiting to see them in person”. He expressed belief that face-to-face and texting have become practically the same thing. He was an avid user of Facebook but thought it was more removed than the other two. In response to the third question, are there certain things you would rather communicate face-to-face rather than via text or Facebook? Vice versus? What type of things? He replied; “I’d rather tell my parents I screwed up, or got in trouble, I’d rather do that in person, even though texting it would be easier, they couldn’t yell at me until later”. He conveyed similar findings regarding issues of the opposite sex, expressing gratitude in the ability to be smoother via text than at times in person.

Addressing the question, are there certain levels of relationships associated with the type of communication used on occasions like birthdays? The student expressed that he and his good friends would text each other, but even that didn’t always happen, sometimes they’d just write on his wall, and vice-versus, but they didn’t care either way. His response to whether he found easier to stay in contact with a wider range of friends because of Facebook, was inline with groups. He talked about a good friend that moved away when he was young, that they used to never talk, but because Facebook, will occasionally write on each other’s walls. He was also a religious user of Facebook, citing his I Phone as the reason to blame, “it alerts me whenever I get a notification, keeps me from boredom in class”. Finally, he said his parents were more concerned how to use Facebook, than regulating his use, and that his mom rarely calls him anymore, sufficing to text.

Theoretical Application to Results

Results indicate a positive and prevalent relationship with communication technologies. There is great indication through “religious” Facebook use that socialization within a social system has occurred. The students, or agents, within the social system, or Facebook, give great indication that they have been reconstructed by the structure found within the social system they are embedded, in line with structuralist theory. A sense of “ontological security” (Giddens, 1984) is reinforced by their peers, teachers, coaches, and even parents use of such social systems. They are given little reason to question their “religious” commitment to Facebook, because its use is becoming as natural as butter to butter. Few parents seem willing or concerned to even fight the surrendering of their children to the powerful forces of communication technology. The “reflexive individual” (Giddens, 1984) seems to be a ghost, students in some instances are liking text-messaging to face-to-face interacting, unanimously citing it’s ease, and ability to reach places where he or she current isn’t for their devotion. Highlighting the fallacy of surrendering the passion of personal face-to-face connection; Tallbot writes “The efficient distance from which such a user interacts with the person and meaning behind the text can hardly be a reflective distance. It is more like a reflexive and uninvolved immediacy” (1995, ch.25). The overwhelming convenience of monitoring other agents to reinforce individual activity has further embedded the students within the system. Despite citing disappointment in the cases of the girls who failed to receive a call from a good friend on their birthday, but instead wrote on their Facebook wall, those very girls were indifferent in their own communication to good friends on such occasions.

Responses in admiration to mediated communication with matters of the opposite sex, while no surprise, signify a strong presence of social systems in identity formation. Learning to talk, and interact with the opposite sex is historically an awkward and exploratory experience, necessary to developing meaningful relations. Communication technology aims to erase that once age old aspect of being human; it is not of great reach to link this with the progressively regressing age by which children become sexually curious and active. No longer can parents mediate the communication through which their children share with the opposite sex; as one student replied, “they couldn’t helped it if they tried”. By removing a stress for interpersonal communication, through the prevalence and acceptance of communication technology in social institutions, the flood gates have been opened in so far as the means by which individuals communicate.

The children’s particular fondness of the Facebook at the fingertips, via I Phone or Blackberry demonstrates their affect on the social institution they are a part of. Social institutions have catered to the every whim of its users, or agents. This is not to suggest that the social institutions efforts are met without resistance; several students indicated restrictions they placed on themselves regarding what they would allow on their Facebook page. However, any ability for these agents to reconstruct the social systems that they are a part of, come strictly to instill further devotion in such agents. For example, individual agents create groups to protest for a “dislike” button, in response to Facebook’s implementation of a “like” button. While this demonstrates the freedom of the agent to organize and reconstruct the social system, Facebook will eventually comply, resulting in agent fueled change in the system, a lot of happy users, but what has been accomplished? Autonomy of the agent must be in the form of reduced use, or more realistically, the awareness that continued “religious” use poses a threat to an agent’s freedom, and humanity.

Conclusion

The great philosopher’s fears have been realized, but rather than intelligence being sacrificed, freedom and humanity have ventured down a slippery slope due a lack of interpersonal communication, authentic experience, and opposed resistance. Every aspect of society, from schools, to sports, to business and community, sing the song of praise and embrace for communication technology, and the ritualistic nature by which it has become interwoven in what it means to human. There is a distinct difference however in what is man and what is machine; the problem lies in man’s desire to recreate machine in his image: “Our experiment with the computer consists of the effort to discover every possible aspect of the human mind that can be expressed or echoed mechanically — simulated by a machine — and then to reconstruct society around those aspects” (Tallbot, 1995, ch. 25). It is no wonder why technology is scapegoat for all of humanities social problems; for crime and violence we blame television and music, for obesity and eating disorders, once more television, yet it is what we continually enthral ourselves with. Imagine the magician who pulled of the mastery of creating an assistant in his image, while simultaneously citing him for all of his own shortcomings.

The “self-reflexive” (Giddens, 1984) agent of structuration is only possible in a world that acknowledges this struggle. Abstinence was hardly ever the answer to promiscuity, and to ask man-kind in either instance is impractical, but we still educated children in health classes across the globe. There is no question of the value of technology represents, bur in order to conquer the threat such value poses, value must once more be restored in authentic interpersonal relationships, and their staple in what it means to be human. Human language, communication, and ultimately relationships are based on one another, not the tools by which the former are made easily reducible.

References[MP1]

Barnett, Pearce (2008). Making Social Worlds: A Communication Perspective, Wiley-Blackwell, January 2008.

Bourdieu, P. 1994. Language and Symbolic Power, Oxford: Polity Press.

Hamilton, Walter (trans.) (1971): Plato: Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII. Harmondsworth: Penguin

Giddens, Anthony (1984). The Constitution of Society. University of California Press.

Kahn, Charles H. (2004). “The Framework”. Plato and the socratic dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge University Press

Ritzer, George (2007). Structure and Agency. Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Retrieved December 09 http://www.sociologyencyclopedia.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405124331_chunk_g978140512433125_ss1-293

 
Talbott, Stephen. L. (1995) The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst. Sebastopol CA: O'Reilly & Associates.
 

Turner, J. H. (1991), The Structure of Sociological Theory (5th edn.), Wadsworth

Publishing Company: Belmont CA.

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[MP1]Although Jane cited only one reference in her paper, we’ve added some additional references to demonstrate the variety of references and how to cite them

In Jane’s actual submission she would ONLY include references that were cited directly in the text of the paper.

Some live above and below the rainbow
Amongst heavens and heathens
Each for their own reasons
Our coordinates do not label our souls
Placement in this life is so often like the wind blows
Left to chance
Like a hand you may or may not know the pleasure of in dance
Those with true faith in this world need not prayer but romance
To blindly believe in something is pure
But when such purity can be met in the eyes of another, it becomes a cure
An arrival at peace and contention from a journey you’d rather not mention
Declining belief, dissolving hope, yet some so quickly turn their heads from a life ended by a length of rope
Despite our distinctions, we are of the same existence
Why judge another man’s ending, is it really so mind bending?
Have you not had such thoughts?
There is a fine line between thought and action
A line clearly defined
Yet on both sides a tip toed dance
Who will allow themselves to be saved by romance?
Who will succumb to the wicked ways of despair?
Our fate is not in the air, but it exists in the wind
Like riding the crescent of an ocean waive
Out of breath, clinging to at least one more inhale to the chest
Hanging by a moment
Maybe hanging here for you
Either way, sunk or saved, under a sky blue
It will not fade
So few little things to phase
We walk, we talk, we hope, we pray
To see, to meet, to believe, for a chance to leave
With the ones we love
With someone we love
With anyone at all.

It seems the beat of my hard had been fading with the weather
Once vibrant and rapid, to calmed and cooled
The ways of the world can deter our passion
Remind us at times we’re silly to hope for the stars
The idea that a large part of happiness can be attributed to a single girl
Romanticism is a hopeful cause
It will hurt more than help
Burn more than bless
Yet of all the ism’s, I like it best
It never fails to remind me, I must live according to the organ in my chest
Take life’s punches, even when it seems I cannot
Endure the deepest trenches, to one day bask in triumph under sunlight on mountaintop
Days, weeks and months can be dissolved with a single smile
Eyes green like the earth, lips too delicious to think love a curse
To taste is to touch, and to touch is to believe
If you found the Garden of Eden, why would you ever leave?
Blessed with the fruits of life
Blanketed under stars bearing witness in the night
I pull you close, in need of a necessary dose, and thank the good lord for being a gracious host
Our lips touch, a once cooled heart begins to gush, while our passion paints the night’s sky with the precision of Picasso’s brush
Horizons decorated from east to west
The sun and moon are reminded of the hearts inside their very chest
They gaze in awe, shiver in splendor
How beautiful the collision of two hearts can be once surrendered

By: Kevin Lamb

You don’t need a front row seat to witness history, nor greatness for that matter. Last night I was able to be a part of something I often thought not possible, a Bob Dylan live performance. While I knew he still made special appearances at this festival or that, I knew I was reaching the end of a great line, and dared not risk passing on one of the greatest gifts to music, rhythm, folk and soul that this fine Earth has known. The Fox theater played a beautiful host for a packed house, filled with both fans that were in their twenties in the prime of Dylan’s career, and the new generation of music loving teenagers and twenty-something’s alike. I approached the theater and large lit facade in admiration and wonder; how many other young, passionate soul seekers had witnessed this very same sight before I, could any performance be like they were in the sixties? Or has the world changed? Has music changed? While I wonder these things I assemble the perfect set list in my head, Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright, Shelter from the Storm, Man in Me, Hurricane, Like a Rolling Stone, Blowing in the Wind, It’s Alright Ma, Mr. Tambourine Man. yet I know I’ll be fortunate to here but a few of these fine classics. It’s hard to imagine, all the shows, all the set lists, all the cities, hearts, minds, booze and Mary Jane in the 50 year career of a journey around the world. I am put in place as a creative mind when in the presence of such greatness, historic significance, and yet just another man with a dream, heart, and vision. Often I think our generation, those born in the times of Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama, don’t have the same voice of those before us, because our freedoms aren’t met with such an iron fist. Military service has become an exit strategy when all else fails, we are not haunted by the possibility of a draft, our united passion seems to have been replaced by the wide world of social networking, a sin of which I am not absolved of.

The music is still in us however; it is as much a part of everyday life as it ever was, running rich in our blood, I Pods, I Phones, and Pandora applications. For years I yearned for the first hand experience of a rasp known only in the voice of one Bob Dylan; for years I listened to album after album connecting myself with the essence of what I feel from his words, life, love, exploration, and peace. The poet in Dylan brings out the music in me, calling from Watchtower to Rolling Stone, and last night the culmination of a relationship reached new plateaus. With each song he bellowed through the larynx of a fading yet brilliant life, I told myself it could be the last I heard from a man I have always admired, and known in the only way I know how, my understanding of the beauty in his work. While over the years his music undoubtedly transformed identities more than any of the greats; his rasp grew thicker, his clarity dwindled, yet the man in me still felt the man in Dylan like never before. A man for the people, performing in a town built on motors and music, brought together in hardship, brought to their feet in appreciation, celebration, and blessing.

Set List

1. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
2. The Man in Me
3. Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
4. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue Bob on guitar
5. Summer Days
6. Desolation Row
7. Cold Irons Bound Bob center stage
8. Sugar Baby Bob center stage
9. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
10. Po’ Boy
11. Highway 61 Revisited
12. Workingman’s Blues
13. Thunder On The Mountain
14. Ballad Of A Thin Man Bob center stage
15. Encore:
15. Like A Rolling Stone
16. Jolene
17. All Along The Watchtower

Folk and Open Road

Bob Dylan sings a raspy tune in my ear

Business men walk by my side

I sit, I listen, and yes, I try

To be different, to make a difference, to be the antithesis of it all

His folklore and reflection make me think of my own

A skill of the great artists, a skill I know not yet, if I own

I write, I type, I talk- and people listen

I spread good word, good faith, hope is my mission

A revolutionary of love, wisdom, and gold souls

I am becoming the mission I wish to lead

For the things I believe in, I need only a mirror to see

If we live not, the lives we preach

Then how, or why, would we ever teach?

My medium is not broad, but of personal reach

In order to see, I first listen, and be blessed to receive

His words, his accents, his rasp, and his soul

An endless journey of hands held by our side

Self-discovery, self-becoming, love to find

Love to be, love to lose, love to seek, and love to choose

These roads we walk, often talk, of men who traveled years ago

They speak of pain, of course none the same, all unique- with beauty to tame

Open roads, un-daunting loads, horizon and possibility fill the sky

Trails of daylight, hopes it’ll stay alright, hopes- of anything at all

Aching stars paint the night sky

Watching, waiting, never certain why

They sing of misery, love they lost, and of course- love never had

The price of eternity they speak, the price of fading, yet never weak

Death by supernova, it’s sure been nice to know ya, whoever, wherever you are

You kiss, I wish, for a taste I know only by how it is missed

You walk, you tramp, you sleep, you dream

How surreal, the fading life of stars must seem

I was born today
I am told it is November
It feels like I’ve been asleep for an eternity
Of course this cannot be
Everything’s a bit different than I imagined
Colder
Bigger
More colorful
But it is enough
I am enough
With a smile I walk these streets
Through the first fountain I see I leap
Splish splash, then into a dash
Through the city for the first time
Gazing at the masses, wondering if any of them are mine?
What am I entitled to on this blue earth?
Above me the sky stretches seemingly without ending
Imagine the places I will go
Fountains I will splash through
I wonder if all places will be the same
Streets just as crowded
People just as silly looking
Machines transport them
Perhaps they cannot transport themselves
It must be sad
These two feet will be all the transport I need
I hear a wonderful sound coming from afar
It carries on a gentle breeze
It’s got rhythm, moving to a beat
Soon to follow are my feet
I walk, I run, I dance, now I must fly
Like the feathery creatures not so far above and below
To and fro the Earth they go
I wonder if they can travel till the sky is no more
Reach the limits not even the eye can see
I believe that describes the life I want for me
Undefined limits, until I’m standing right with it
Conquer places these cannot even see
The hills, the plains, the mountains and even valleys
I want it all, the Earth, sun, sky and moon
The sun is past set and it’s second in command is coming soon
All in a day, this I cannot conceive
With such possibilities how could anyone ever want to leave?
With just one more day to live there is still so much to see
I did not believe them when they told me this was all possible if only I did believe.