I have always considered myself a writer. This is a particularly bold proclamation considering I have zero published writings to my name. But as both ancient philosophers and current girlfriends constantly champion the power of manifestation, and since people will mostly just accept things that you tell them as true despite the extreme ease of verification, I see no harm in referring to myself as the thing that I want to be even it isn’t the thing that I “am.” Besides the sheer number of things on my laptop that I have written give some support to my claim that, while not quite a Writer, I am definitely a writer. And anyways if at the end of this adventure you venmo me one US Dollar as a thank you then that would make me a person who was paid for something that they wrote. The point as always is that you can make my dreams come true at only the cost of your money.

To be more specific about my aspirations, on my laptop sit no fewer than five incomplete novels each one no doubt a future Oprah book club member/New York Times Bestseller/Pulitzer Prize winner; if only they could brought to completion. The reason for their incompleteness is partially a testament to my fondness for starting new things and leaving things unfinished, but it is also a result of good old fashioned writer’s block. Also Skyrim, a 15 year old video game. Seriously you would think I was immortal based on the amount of hours I’ve spent playing Skyrim.

Writing is a skill, and skills must be exercised, and I have been undisciplined. Whereas in college I wrote often and enjoyed it, in current times I write never and regret it. In addition, when I try to write I find my brain overloaded by the other things I want to discuss, clogging my mental pathways like a neurological Ever Given. So in an attempt to unblock my mind, as well as exercise this skill, I present to you that timeless tradition: a blog! This is Nine Things, a blog in which I talk about Nine Things that have been on my mind since the last time I wrote a Nine Things blog! My plan is to put out a new post biweekly, but due to all the issues listed above I make no guarantees. So in honor of the least used button on the microwave, let us get on with the first, potentially last, edition of Nine Things. And let this overly long intro serve as Thing One.

Thing Two: Because the purpose of this exercise is to declutter my brain, it is inevitable that the blog will occasionally touch on political topics. I have no love of confrontation so I usually try to avoid politics when among humans I’m not on intimate terms with, but being basically a socialist in what is by some measures the most conservative state in the Union means that these exact topics are often the most pressing upon my mind. Last week when I decided to do this blog I had a rough outline of topics I wanted to discuss. Then you know what happened.

No one needs another white man to weigh in on abortion rights, other than maybe to say unequivocally that I support a woman’s right to have an abortion if she chooses regardless of reason because it is her body, her life, her future, her health, and thus her choice. I have never a heard a reason to ban abortions that extended beyond “the Bible says it’s wrong” which first off it doesn’t, and second off the closest it comes is saying not to kill people, but in America we kill people constantly, in so many ways, so frankly I don’t buy it. Abortion is also the only example in America of forcing a person to put some (potential but not actual, in my opinion) other person before themselves. My father is currently waiting for a kidney transplant. Hundreds of people will die this year waiting on kidney transplants while millions of people walk around with two kidneys in America. We do not force them to give their kidneys up because they have a right to their bodies even it harms others. From gun ownership, to privatized health care, to giant eight mile per gallon vehicles, to the world’s most loophole filled tax system, America has decided as a society that people are allowed to be as selfish as they want to be no matter how many people it harms because we have a very warped idea of freedom. This applies across the board to everything except abortion. The reason for this is so obviously sexism that I only point it out because sometimes you have to say the thing out loud so people can’t pretend they don’t know what you mean.

Thing Three: A lot of your friends are scared right now. Not just because of Roe v Wade being overturned, but also because of what happens next. The leaked opinion puts almost everything on the table: gay marriage, birth control, interracial marriage; nothing feels safe. That the “freedom must be protected by force” crowd has once again failed to rise up in defense of freedom is the least surprising development, but at least it gives more evidence of the lie in their claims. To all of my scared friends, I can offer nothing but a promise of support; if you need help, and I can give it, I will.

Thing Four: On a less timely but nonetheless commie bullshit topic, I recently finished Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. I won’t give my full thoughts because I haven’t fully eliminated the idea of doing separate book reviews on here, other than to say I give it my fullest endorsement. But what I wanted to address here that the book got me thinking about is the subtle way that education can present two competing ideas while only actually informing you about the preferred idea. Galeano talks at length about the damage that free trade has done to development in Latin America. The evidence he gives is extremely compelling, and it occurred to me as I was reading that outside of token broad strokes in textbooks, this was the first time I had read something that directly addressed the damage that free trade could do and the benefits of a protectionist system. This realization surprised me at first because I have a degree in International Studies, but it really shouldn’t have. Studying when I did, free trade was the economic gospel of the new international order post Cold War, and any countries not on board were considered either too underdeveloped to participate fully in the international market or communist holdouts doomed to fall in time. But now thirty years later and, to use outdated terms for period effect, the first world countries are still the first world countries and the third world has not caught up despite bowing almost universally to the will of the World Bank and IMF. Interestingly one of the few countries to emerge as a major player in the International economy is China, a country that makes ample use of protectionist policy to foster domestic production. Now I’m not saying China is a country to emulate, but the failure of free trade to provide a great counter example is telling.

Thing Five: To prove that this is not supposed to be a vehicle for political rants, and also that not every point is supposed to be exhaustive or exhausting, I wanna talk a little bit about Seinfeld. I recently finished my umteenth rewatch of the show and it is excellent as always. But being in season nine reminds once again that I feel as though one of the most underrated creators of Seinfeld is Jerry Seinfeld. Larry David, a certified comedic genius without doubt, is basically held up as the sole creator of the show. But so many of the most memorable episodes of the show come from seasons eight and nine, after David had left the show. From Festivus to Serenity Now to Yada Yada Yada to the Summer of George, the last couple of seasons, while a little more outlandish at times, are fantastic as well. Give Seinfeld a little credit.

Thing Six: Last week I listened to a few people complain about the Oklahoma City Streetcar and deem it a useless attempt at looking prestigious. I didn’t opine at the time because I had no interest in arguing, but since this is a forum where only my opinion appears and I don’t have to hear yours, I will present a small defense of the OKC Streetcar.

The arguments against it are not without merit. It basically connects a commercial district to a commercial district, the only people who live near it are trust fund kids and young professionals, two groups that are basically the same group and who would rather die than ride public transit with the poors; it is underutilized, poorly designed, and it’s one way design is often more inconvenient than just driving or walking. These are all valid points. My counterargument is twofold, I like it and at some point we have to start somewhere.

I like it because I like public transit. I hate driving, if I lived in a remotely walkable city I would sell my car or at least relegate it to road trips and buying new televisions. Riding the streetcar reminds me of all my favorite places I have visited, all of which had at least decent public transit and most of which were not in the United States. Counter-intuitively I find it relaxing to have no control over when I arrive somewhere, the streetcar reaches the stop when it reaches it stop and I can only sit and wait for it to get there. As for the second part of my argument, OKC recently became the 22^nd largest city in terms of population, and while that is an extremely misleading measurement I’m using because it best supports my argument, it is still a fact that Oklahoma City is both a growing city as well as an urbanizing city. And at a certain point this city is going to need some form a decent public transportation to help people move about the city without spending half their free time looking for parking and waiting at streetlights. If a gimmicky tourist transporter can start acclimating OKCitzens to the idea of not driving every where even though it’s only a block away then I am all for it.

Thing Seven: One thing that struck me about the streetcar hate conversation was that no one to my knowledge actually lived in Oklahoma City. Edmond, Midwest City, Moore, Yukon, all were represented but the City of Oklahoma City was absent from the discussion of its streetcar. Perhaps relatedly, in the most recent Mayoral election, there were two candidates who made doing away with the streetcar part of their platform. They got trounced. It’s not unreasonable for suburbanites to be against public transportation improvement, they will be the last ones benefiting. But that is why they don’t get to vote in Oklahoma City. The reason we have cities is so that people in an area can determine the way they want to live their lives. People who live in Oklahoma City have decided they want to be closer to things, live closer to people, and put up with the traffic, construction, noise, and other inconveniences that go with it. People who live in the suburbs have chosen otherwise. Of course Oklahoma City is perhaps the worst city to illustrate this point, being so sprawling that you can practically live on a rural farm and still technically live in OKC, but in general this point stands with regards to all urban areas. I used to think that suburban people should get to vote in the elections for the anchor city in any given metro. After all the decisions made on the Oklahoma City council will probably have more of an effect on the people of Mustang than those made in Mustang. But I no longer think this way. Those people didn’t want to embrace all of the costs and benefits of living in Oklahoma City proper and so choose to live in suburban cities. That is great for them but it means they don’t get a say in what we in the city choose to do with our city. Oklahoma City is trying it’s hardest to be a progressive, modern, urban city. From Gay prides to drinking in the streets to yes a streetcar, this is the path we have chosen. I hate Edmond with all of my soul, but I’m glad it exists so those people can live there with their hate and blandness and boredom and not interfere with what we are doing here.

Thing Eight: I’ve decided to post this to my Slackerz guide blog because despite my love of abandoning old projects for new projects that are basically the same project just slightly tweaked and, well, newer, I couldn’t justify the cost of starting a whole new blog. I still think I might do some specific travel posts more in keeping with the recent theme of the website, but really it was originally conceived of as a place primarily for media discussion so maybe this is even more in keeping with the true theme. Anyways for the purposes of branding consistency the official name of this blog shall be A Slackerz Guide to Nine Things. Please remember that for your google reviews.

Thing Nine: I shall try to always end these posts with something travel related as it is my favorite thing in the world and almost always an upbeat end. Today I think we shall talk about Amsterdam. A few months ago I went on another short Europe outing, and Amsterdam was one of the stops. It wasn’t my first time in Amsterdam, but my previous visit was brief and mostly centered around psychedelic mushrooms in a park. This time we had about five days and I just want to take this opportunity to apologize for some of the previous slander I had directed at Amsterdam. I often extol the virtues of Utrecht, a smaller city south of Amsterdam as the superior place to visit. It has canals, old buildings, coffee shops, but it lacks the huge throngs of tourists that fill the central parts of Amsterdam. All of this remains true and I still encourage you to visit Utrecht, but on second visit I must admit I was wrong, Amsterdam is pretty damn cool.

It goes without saying the red light district is giant tourist trap where English kids on stag parties go to get high, throw a bike in the canal, and gawk at prostitutes. But outside that nightmare mile is a city with a feel of carefree freedom, where the ability to smoke pot, lie in a park in a swimsuit, drink beer on a streetcar, and a ride a bike anywhere knowing you have the right of way is taken for granted. And I love that. From the bartender who refused service to a group of six people because there were too many of them, to the hostess who rushed us to a table because the kitchen was about to close only for our server to tell us not to worry about it and then proceed to play on her phone for ten minutes to all the people at the street market who just wanted to chat with us to the other bartender at the Irish bar flipping off the guest who wanted their blonde ale in a Guinness glass to every single person in the whole city who when asked if they spoke English replied “of course” Amsterdam is filled with people who seem to be enjoying life. And it was intoxicating to be around. That is what true freedom is, the ability to just not worry and be happy. Take note America. Be safe out there, take care of each other, fight for a better tomorrow, try to enjoy today. See you next time.