Today, I had one of, maybe, 5 truly eye-opening, possibly course-changing conversations that one will be lucky to have in life.

I attended a rally with Kendrick Meek and President Bill Clinton earlier today, honestly just looking for a good time peppered with some light political conversations. I am a registered Democrat, but I honestly think this two-party nation we live in is a downright sham, but more on this later.

Now just to add a bit of depth to this story, I like Clinton. I like what he says, what he’s about, most of the changes he wants the government to make…but listening to him today, I just truly felt that I was in a convention full of politicians who really do not give two shits (pardon) about anything other than some “Democratic” agenda. I started to reflect on some of my beliefs, and started to think that maybe I should take this stuff seriously…not to support Democrats or Republicans or whatever, but to support a change in the mindset of most Americans here today. The only reason I am registered Democrat is because I agree with most things Democrats like to push. If I register Independent, I don’t get to vote during some crucial points in the game, so until that changes, I won’t budge. It is this that makes me ponder how much politicians TRULY care about the betterment of America.

But this post isn’t about politics. I merely wanted to share the catalyst. See at this rally, I ran into a former teacher at my old high school who I used to bug constantly because I tend to flock to the better teachers at a school. We shared a quick greeting, then parted ways. Just after the rally, I ran into him again (the third time this month) at Tailgaters. So he, Vincent, and I all sat together and just caught up on things. Then the conversation started to take an interesting turn.

We began talking about my old high school, and how it has fallen into the same hole that most schools in Florida (if not America) have fallen into…not caring about the students or the teachers or, dare I say, education…but scores. And politics. It is this frustrating reason that so many good teachers are not just leaving schools, but the profession as a whole. My high school, alone, lost 30 teachers, many of whom I knew personally and who truly made differences in adolescent lives. Education takes the back seat to other “issues” in the forefront of American minds.

Now we started to delve a little deeper, and bear in mind that most of what I will tell for the rest of this post came from this teacher’s brilliant mind and not mine.

We complain about having no money, lowering taxes, keeping tax cuts, raising taxes, feeding the poor, saving the world, etc. etc., but we must be the largest hypocrites, wasting our time and money on such trivial things. The teacher used an example of sports which really rung true in my mind. On average, an American will spend $40 on a ticket to a sporting event, or spend hours weekly, religiously, watching sports. Let’s take football. A person will spend around $900 on cheap-seat New England Patriots season tickets. They sit in these seats all season long, watching their Pats win game after game. Holy crap, they made it into the Superbowl. Gotta get a seat to that. Plus airfare (say they have family there, so they don’t but a room) they spend about $2100 to watch the Superbowl. Mind you, that’s roughly $3000 the NFL has charged them to watch all of these games live. The Pats get the ball…they go to the 30, the 20, the ten…TOUCHDOWN! PATS WIN!

…and it starts over. That’s it. Next season, we’ll do it all over again.

Now sure, most people aren’t like this…they’ll catch the games on the tube. The average American will spend 3 hours a week watching sports. I’ll be generous and round down to 100 hours a year the average American spends watching something that is completely null and void the next season.

God forbid someone decides to tax it further so the government can actually gain loads of money to put for good use. During one sold-out baseball game, if every person in the park gave a dollar they spent toward their ticket, they could feed a poor village in Africa for a year.

Oh, P.S.: The average salary of an athlete of the Big 3 sports (Baseball, Basketball, Football) in the USA? $2.92 million. Average salary of a teacher? $45,000 (and some teachers I know would scoff at this number).

We spend our time and money on such trivial, useless, non-contributing things, then turn around and complain and blame the government for all of our woes. We blame all of our problems on a president who has been in office for two years…but I’ll bet we don’t REALLY take a good look at ourselves and maybe think that we are major contributors.

My teacher was 100% correct on all of the things we talked about today (and I’ve only touched up on one, maybe two topics). He summed everything up at the end of the conversation by saying that Americans always look at either the Black or the White. The Republicans or the Democrats. The Good Guys or the Bad Guys. The extremes. Funnily enough, it’s the middle that runs our lives. The Grey. It’s the tide that we are forced to follow, or drown in it. This is what holds us from our true potential.

The last thing he said to me before we left really got to me. We talked about these people who are just content with having a job that they never wanted, and going home and watching TV. No exploration, no following your dreams. Just live and die. Then, he told me that just by how we interacted in high school and now, there’s no way in Hell I’ll be one of those. I am always itching to do something, to go somewhere, and I may settle down someday, but not before seeing everything that I’m worth. He told me guys like me either end up getting everything they’ve ever wanted, or stuck in the middle.

I came out of this day looking at the world from a slightly tweaked perspective. There’s no way in Hell I’ll settle for the mundane before I’m ready.

Scary stuff.

Things like this can drive people insane with worry, but me? I take things easy, then pull my hair out when I’ve completely dug myself into a hole. Then the desperate man stumbles upon a course entitled, “Dude, I Hate My Job (or I need a freakin job)” and of course I am immediately interested. It is a course that teaches one how to make money  by, basically, blogging. So I do a little more research, and it turns out that the money being made is done through affiliate marketing (kind of like when your Facebook gets hacked and it sends all your friends a link to some product online). I always thought this was an underhanded way of making money (by promoting scams), but then I actually did research.

Then I got interested.

So I’m going to put forth a little experiment and try a little “sampled” version of how this stuff is done. Below I’ve put the affiliate link to the product I mentioned (don’t worry, although the site can be  a bit annoying, it is no virus or scam-bot) and you can click it if you’re interested, or not click it, if you aren’t into it at all. But if you have the time, maybe share it with some friends who may be interested in a product like this, and let’s see if “affiliate Marketing” is truly the key to helping college students find their way:

http://dee1epy8tbnv96d472f535dvee.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=BLOG

I’ve had a little time to move on (as best as possible) from this terrible, terrible month in my family, but the moving on has added an element of thought to all of this. Death strikes different people at different times in different ways. This may be obvious for many people out there, but I hadn’t truly thought of this until this past week. Whenever a person dies, we immediately think of how it affects US and how WE will deal with it. Then we think about those affected. The children who lost a mother, the parents who lost a son, the nieces and nephews who lost an aunt, the two or three generations who lost a father-figure…it is such a momentous and traumatizing event, death. It can change lives forever, creating or destroying bonds.

How do we cope with it? Do we find solace in the thought that they’ve “moved on to a better place”? Do we ignore it? Do we try to simply move on, or do we try our damned hardest to live up to whatever they would have liked to see us become? As a Christian, I am taught to believe  in a Heaven and a Hell, which I do believe in (whether or not this makes me “weak minded” is of no concern of mine), though I still have trouble finding much solace in death, because it is so uncertain. My beliefs are, at the end of the day, faith-based and there is no way of knowing such an afterlife exists (nor is there any way of knowing the nonexistence of one). While I have faith in God that He takes care of all my loved ones who move on through the pearly gates, it still hurts a great deal down here on Earth. It doesn’t just hurt me for my own personal reasons, it hurts me because of how many people are affected by this death business. While our loved ones move on to their better place, we are left behind, grieving, mourning, and asking “why?”

I suppose there are some lessons we could never learn if those loved ones were still with us; things that we’d never do if we still had them to talk to. There is some grand scheme at work here, whether it be set forth by my god, your god, or just chaos, things just seem to fall into place for a reason. As of now, I have not figured this grand plan yet, but I will find out sooner or later…hopefully more later than sooner.

My suggestion to any of you right now: start hugging your loved ones. Tell them you love them. Spend as much time with them as you can, because you never know what’s going to happen around that corner. That is the lesson I’ve learned from this past month: don’t wait. You will thank yourself later, trust me.

I know what I want in life…and I’ve even given myself a few options I would be happy with. Stage/screen actor, voice actor, talent agent, casting director, Theatre professor, video editor…anything that has to do with entertainment and me, basically (a comfortable-or-more salary would be a nice bonus to that). What I lack is that drive to do anything and for that, I will always be average. I know I can do these things, but I just lack that kick in the pants that everyone seems to have.

I barely have the drive to type out a ranting blog about my lack of motivation. I only continue pressing these keys in hopes that someone like me may read this and know that they are not alone.

So what do I do now? Well, what I’ve been doing for most of my life: stride on by, wait for an opportunity to come to me rather than for me to make one happen, grasp it, let it go, and wander around a bit more until the next one comes by.

Alright fine…the stand-up comedian from I Love the 80s and Michael & Michael Have Issues. There, some of you should know now.

Anyway, I saw his stand-up last night live, but the night before I figured I’d get to know this guy a bit so, like most people do nowadays, I “Googled” him and found his blog. It was here that I found out about him “losing his shit” over a guy who yelled “Heil Hitler” in a recent show in regards to Black saying he loved Obama. He talked about cussing him out, and this and that. So after I read it, I didn’t put it to mind and moved on to the next posts. Even figured if he mentioned Obama the next day, I could have a little fun and heckle him for a second.

So cut to the stand-up show and, sure enough, he starts his bit on Obama. I admit, I shouted “Don’t lose your shit!” while the crowd was laughing and clapping. But then the show kind of took an unexpected turn as he basically started saying what he said in his blog post. The roaring laughter kind of inclined to a mild chuckle, then the sound of intent listening…something I could imagine being either a stand-up comedian’s worst nightmare or best liberation. He spoke of his guilt toward the “Heil Hitler” guy, and how we should take this as a little nugget of wisdom through our lives and maybe learn a little something from it. Through the last part of his spiel, I was really thinking about what he was saying and in the manner he was saying it. This guy really felt guilty about what had happened two nights before, and I almost felt as if he was using the UCF audience as his listening board for a little bit.

I’ve, obviously, always known this in the back of my head, but it was strange seeing a live example of it: the humanity of celebrities. They’re thrust into this spotlight and expected to act a certain way, as if they don’t have some of the similar problems us less famous folk have. Seeing a guy on that stage rather than a  professional comedian for even a minute was actually a really thought-provoking experience (for me, anyway). Thank you, Michael Ian Black, for inspiring me to write my first blog in months…and for getting me to do what most college students avoid: stop and think. This is, of course, assuming I am right in what I said above, otherwise, eh, nice show, bub.

In the non-virtual world, I’m sitting  in my living room, waiting for dinner to be ready and watching “Minute-to-Win-it” on NBC while listening to Alexi Murdoch play on my laptop. No expression on my face. Probably no visible signs of a 19-year-old young man holding back tears because he just  heard from his father a few hours ago that one of his favorite people in the world, his Aunt Maria, has been given one month to live. Two months, if she’s a fighter.

And if I know my Aunt Maria, she’ll be fighting all the way.

A few months back, I was hit with similar news, and I was floored. Thank God I had my girlfriend near me at the time, or I don’t know how I would have handled it. Also, due to that time, this time feels like I’m less floored and more…again, dealing with those inexplicable feelings here. So this time around, I feel like I’m all alone. Dealing with emotions and things of the sort  in my household have never really happened. Sure, we talk about things, but when it comes down to pure emotions such as these, I have just never felt comfortable enough to go to my family, or mostly anyone, for that matter.I am just going to deal with this the only way I know how: talking about her.

In a nutshell, she is the typical Italian woman. Cares very much about family, the best cook in the world, and, of course, tough as nails. This woman has been looking out for me since day one, and she’d take down a room of wiseguys just to make sure I was safe. She came all the way from the West Coast, despite her deteriorating condition, to attend my high  school graduation. Just my high school graduation…and not one other member of my family besides my parents and Aunt Cindy can say that they did that for me.

Wonder Woman being beaten down by cancer. What a crock.  She would live to be 102 had life been any different. My aunt, who has done so much for me, is counting the days now on her life and I can’t do a thing for her except write a blog. A blog she may or may not ever read. All I can do is write and tell the world how much I love and care about her…but I can’t pick up the phone and tell her myself. If by some miracle I am able to go to her next week, how can I expect to face her with  a smile, when I can’t even hold it together now? I feel like the selfish, scared kid I was ten years ago, holed up in my room, weeping until it all stops and all is right with  the world again. Maybe my dad is right and this new generation, this new age of people connected to the internet is bad for the human physical connection.  Or maybe this is just a normal reaction to one of the most important people in my world nearing the end of her life.

Thank God she was around long enough to see me graduate high school…at least He gave me that. Though I suppose, according to my beliefs, she’ll be there when I graduate college. When I’m at the altar, saying my vows. When I’m accepting my Tony/Oscar/whatever important award for some achievement that will not measure up to what she means to me. I love you, Aunt Maria, and I hope I can work up the courage to tell you this in person, or at the very least on the phone.

Core 4: Rights for Sex Offenders

Sex Offender. This term has become a staple in American households to describe those who either download hundreds of pictures worth of child pornography, or people who molest elementary-aged children. What doesn’t make the headlines is the person labeled as a sex offender after a night of drinking and public urination, or the 18-year-old who angers the parents of a 17-year-old with whom he had consensual sexual relations; less extreme crimes which yield much of the same consequences, the only differences being amount of jail and probation time (Informal Interview). Being marked a sex offender means being on a registry for the rest of your life, which means your address will be made available to anyone. It will also make it nearly impossible to get hired, with “employers stopping at the ‘sex offender’ in [your] record and immediately assuming [you are] a serial rapist” (Personal Interview).  These consequences, which the majority of the public are not exposed to, can ruin the lives of not only the sex offenders, but their families as well. It must be made clear to the American parents and lawmakers that there are levels of severity, rather than assembling all sex offenders under one label, and those who pose absolutely no threat to their community should be allowed their basic civil rights.

As of late, sex offenders have become a hot topic in the eye of the media. The show “To Catch a Predator” dedicates itself to capturing those who prey on children through online chat rooms. Shows such as this and major news outlets are to blame for the demonization of anyone with the term “sex offender” attached to their name. A survey given to college students and parents shows that the term stands almost as controversial as “murderer”, and anyone associated with it deserves nothing but the worst kind of punishment. This common consensus about sex offenders can be attributed to the crusade against sex offenders which has been apparent in America, its origin being in the mid 1990s (Clinton).

The Jacob Wetterling Program, passed in 1994, was the beginning for sex offender legislation, implementing sex offender registries for the use of law enforcement (U.S. Code). President Bill Clinton went further with this legislation, signing Megan’s Law, which makes these registries public, and requires all homes in a neighborhood to be notified whenever a sex offender moves in (Clinton). Good intentions were meant by the passing of these laws, and it is still argued that the sex offender registries are necessary to provide security for families and to prevent re-offenses from happening. In the sixteen years that this legislation has been active, however, studies show that this is not the case.

According to a study done by the U.S. Department of Justice, since the Jacob Wetterling Program was signed, there has been no significant change in sexual re-offenses. The sex offender registries have actually done more damage than they have done good, costing millions of dollars for upkeep fees (United States). Keeping the addresses of these sex offenders public can only be more dangerous than anything else, with “vigilante justice” being popular among people who think they are doing the right thing by harassing the families of these offenders, or vandalizing their homes. Why keep the registries around if they are not doing any good? Getting rid of the public registries would be the first step towards solving the problem of the lack of rights granted to sex offenders, however more must be done in order to ensure separation between those offenders who may commit more crimes, and those who are completely reformed.

Conducting an impromptu interview with a sex offender further helped me to realize that these people are human beings. This man was sent to prison for making a poor decision with a seventeen-year-old with consent, and after five years, he was released. He told me that the looks and threats he receives from neighbors coupled with the problems he faces from his probation officer makes prison “a lot more [expletive] appealing than freedom.” It has been ten years since he committed his crime, and five years since his release, not showing one sign of being dangerous to society since his release. This is just one example of how hard some sex offenders have it after serving their sentences. In Indiana, a man was banned from public parks for confessing in confidence to his therapist that he had thoughts about re-offending after visiting a public park (Constitutional Law). Sex offenders in Iowa have so many zoning regulations as to where they are allowed to live, they must resort to living in rural areas as far away from society as possible (Sex Offenders in Exile). There are many offenders who have done the bare minimum to gain the label and its consequences, and this is becoming more apparent to the American public. According to the survey I conducted, roughly sixty-two percent of all people surveyed displayed some kind of want for a difference in punishment for different types of sex crimes, depending on severity, whether it be registration only for those dangerous to the community or easing up on those who are labeled as sex offenders.

Currently, a sex crime can range from public urination to rape. Each person who commits a crime within this spectrum gains the full consequences which come with being a sex offender. For this, a simple solution can be suggested to state or even the national government. Instead of associating every case where lewd conduct is concerned with a sexual offense, states can instead assign the label “sex offender” to those who commit more heinous crimes which could deem them potentially dangerous upon being released from prison. While this seems like a viable solution, there are still those who insist that the sex offender registries are keeping our children safe from re-offenders, and “going easy” on sex offenders now would be nothing but harmful to our society. A recent study, however, expresses just how ineffective the registries brought upon by Megan’s Law are.

As mentioned earlier, the Department of Justice conducted a study as to whether or not Megan’s Law was effective in reducing re-offenses. According to this study, only 8.9% of all sex offenders commit a sex crime after being released from prison. That is only a 1.1% decrease of sex offenders who re-committed before Megan’s Law was implemented (United States). This decrease in re-offenses is miniscule, and thus ineffective.

Sixty-five percent of all sex offenders have at least one child (United States). That means hundreds of families are affected by that one sex offender in some way, shape, or form. Why is it that we continue to punish former sex offenders and their families in more harsh ways than those who committed more heinous or violent crimes? It is for a sense of security many Americans do not know is false. After showing ten parents the results of the study on Megan’s Law, seven of them had no idea how little effect the registries had on re-offenses. These facts must be made more apparent to the parents of America, due to the power they hold, as far as support for sex offender legislation is concerned.

Sex offenders are human beings; a fact many people have forgotten as of late. Due to the media painting this vivid picture of an average sex offender being a greasy pedophile, the ones who are either fully rehabilitated or the ones who never committed a serious crime to begin with are treated worse than second-class citizens. Because their names and addresses are public knowledge, these people are harassed, their homes vandalized, their families in high stress situations. An overhaul of sex offender legislation must be at the very least considered to specify and separate more serious sex offenses from the less severe. Also, the removal of public sex offender registries should be looked at. It is proven that the registries have had no positive effect on re-offenses. These lists seem to be doing more harm than good, both in monetary and emotional value. If something is not done about this, what sense of humanity can we still hope to claim as a free society? Yes, feel compassion for those who have lost children to the sick people out there, but leave some sympathy for the anonymous sex offender who can barely make it in society because we have all but shunned them from a life outside of prison.

Works Cited

Aldhous, Peter. “Sex Offenders: Throwing Away the Key.” New Scientist. 21 Feb. 2007.

Web. 17 Mar. 2010.

Calley, Nancy G. “Juvenile Sex Offenders and Sex Offender Legislation: Unintended

Consequences.” Federal Probation 72.3 (2008): 37-41. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Apr. 2010.

Clinton, William J. “Memorandum on the Development of a National Sexual Offender Registration

System.” Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 32.26 (1996): 1137. Academic

Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 6 Apr. 2010.

“Constitutional Law – Freedom of Thought – Seventh Circuit Upholds City’s Order Banning

Former Sex Offender from Public Parks. — Doe v. City of Lafayette, 377 F.3d 757 (7th Cir. 2004) (en banc).” Harvard Law Review 118.3 (2005): 1054-61. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Apr. 2010.

“Informal Interview with Anonymous Sex Offender.” Personal interview. 21 Mar. 2010.

“Sex Offenders in Exile.” New York Times. The New York Times Company, 30 Dec. 2006. Web.

17 Mar. 2010.

United States. Department of Justice. National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Megan’s

Law: Assessing the Practical and Monetary Efficacy. By Kristen Zgoba, Ph.D, Philipp Witt, Ph.D, Melissa Dalessandro, M.S.W, and Bonita Veysey, Ph.D. Department of Justice, Dec. 2008. Web. 21 Mar. 2010.

“US Code: Title 42,14071. Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent

Offender Registration Program.” Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.

Cornell University, 5 Jan. 2009. Web. 05 Apr. 2010.

USLaw.com. USLaw.com, 1999. Web. 05 Apr. 2010

Three generations separate us. I don’t think there are many people out there who take the time to appreciate this fact, whether they have grandparents, great grandparents, or great-great grandparents. This man has seen so many things, from the Bataan Death March to the Thrilla in Manilla (where he served as bodyguard to Muhammad Ali) to 9/11 (living in New Jersey at the time), and of course everything else in between. He has quite a few children through great grandchildren whom he has taken care of and, now, who are taking care of him. That’s what struck me as important enough to write a blog about. I am his 19-year-old great grandchild, and I am taking care of this man who must be tough as nails to have led the life he has leaded so far…and live to be in his mid-nineties. I am sitting here, writing on something with more sheer power than he could ever imagine when he was my age, not only because of his age, but also because of where he grew up: in the Philippines.

Maybe I’m making too big a deal over the matter, but it’s just incredible, contemplating everything that can go into a simple meal with your great grandfather.

But, I’m not going to do that (those who don’t want to read about self-motivating, selfish thoughts, click away).

Instead, I’m going to  rant, type, and possibly whine about how, each and every time someone walked up on that stage tonight (or last night, according to my 3:45 AM clock), I so longed for myself to be walking up on that stage, whether it be as a presenter, or as a winner.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had a knack for acting (well, more of a knack than some anyway…I refuse to do any self-horn tooting here, that’s what Mootart is for). I was born to a Filipino dancer/small-small-time actress and a natural performer/DJ/smooth talker/car salesman/insert-job-which-requires-skill-in-speaking-here. I know my parents are still pulling for me to one day wake up from this starry-eyed dream and study medicine or law, but genetically, there was no way I could avoid it: I was born into an immediate family of entertainers. The only place I fit in is with my theatre/movie-loving friends and my theatre/movie-loving girlfriend. Where the heck else can I end up?

One thing that frustrates the heck out of me is the fact that I am 19 years old, and I know I can be better, in all aspects. I should be getting paid acting gigs by now! Even if it’s dinner theater, my first job should be doing something I love, even if it’s for below minimum wage. I blame myself for this. If it’s one thing my father has been trying to nail into my head recently, it’s that no person is entitled to ANYTHING in life. You earn what you get, and nothing else. I can’t expect to sit around and be offered the chance/role of a lifetime…which is basically what I have been doing. Damn it all. The one thing that lights a fire in my behind and sends passion running up and down my veins…and I can’t even bring my lazy butt off my chair (or, in this particular case, the living room floor) and DO something with it.

It’s about time I changed that.

Starting tomorrow, I’m setting a new pattern for myself. First, before I head to bed, I’m going to create a new wordpress blog (which will set me at a grand total of 4), which will chronicle my road to stardom. And this isn’t going to be a “post something, then wait a month or whenever to post something new” gig. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I will commit to posting at least one post that is acting related…whether it be a monologue I would like to use for auditions, a reflection on a chapter of an acting book I’m reading, an audition for a play/movie/school…ANYTHING major that comes upon me on this long road. I will also be putting up my acting resume (in preparation for a future, official website), complete with contact info, etc.

Hopefully March 8th, 2010 marks the official beginning of a future star. First thing’s first…gotta get that acting body up to snuff.

Roger needs…two hands for his…instrument. (that’s exactly how it’s typed, lmao.)

Roger has…died. (well then…)

Roger did…it the right way.

Roger likes…everything about football.

Roger loves…toast.

Roger hates…Doug, a lot! (A link to a ytmnd thing about Doug appears…haha)

Roger dislikes…Star Trek. (hey, that’s pretty accurate!)

Roger is…dead. (oh c’mon, I don’t like the bad omens!)

Okay, I’m done (for now). If I decide to do more, I’ll add to this post.