What is VERGE?

What is VERGE? Jersey Campbell explains a few things for us*:

*this is not the final version

A Rational Defense of Ratchetness by Jersey Campbell

Do you live in the New York Metropolitan area? Turn on your radio (do radios still exist?). Now turn the FM dial to 105.1 or 97.1. Soak in the ignorance. Bask in the ratchetness. Let it marinate in your mind.

“Ratchetness” is an epidemic people, and it doesn’t look like slowing down anytime soon. Don’t fret people of Earth, there is a way to reconcile the rampant ratchetness infecting our culture with ideas that make actual sense and can be identified as reasonable.

Let’s take a look-see at some ratchet tunes and discover the real meaning behind them.  

The Lives of the Deceased by Jersey Campbell

I've abandoned my consistent essays on shit no one cares about (but me) for the time being because I'm exploring other writing styles, namely poetry. Don't worry though, I won't dedicate all my time to writing this mushy, abstract nonsense people love so much. 

This poem is for an anthology friend of VERGE Chosen Lyric is whipping up that speaks on addiction... thought it would be nice to share it with the five fans of VW. 

Jersey Campbell's Passage of the Day: Who the fuck is John Galt?

We had a couple of candidates for passage of the day today. I chose this one because I rule this post and thou shalt not have any bloggers before me.

Today's passage comes from Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. On a serious note, I chose it because every time I post a quote or passage they are appropriate to the ideals I advocate. We're gonna switch it up today. The message we are about to read does not reflect my views; while I agree with some of what is said, I cannot support the whole statement. In a way this does reflect the ideals I advocate... it is healthy to explore opposing philosophies, and this is certainly an opposing philosophy. After we explore it, we can shut it down and throw whomever believes such philosophies in prison for life. We don't tolerate differing opinions at VW.*

Quick question before we continue- is it necessary to add a spoiler alert for literature that was released over half a century ago? Is it necessary to add a spoiler alert for a blog that three people read? Whatevs.

*Forreals... As I've explained before, we accept and welcome all philosophies here at VW . In our effort to expose all ideologies there will be more posts in the future expressing views that differ from mine. All viewpoints deserve a fair criticism and review, let's get to it. 

Ujima performed by VERGE

So here's the video to the script we posted a couple weeks ago.

Special thanks to Lady Rae, NYC Robert, and Jersey Campbell for playing the roles so well.

Post-Historical Art by KV Sart

A Pellucid liquid drops

            steadily in temperature

A steady

plastic-metal click

moves the cup

            shakes the cup

            vibrates the liquid within the cup

He hears me

            when I have said nothing

He sees

                        causal chains

            undermining his own values

            opposing his own values

            breaking the internal logic by which he organizes his values

In the closet he keeps

            A picture of his own face

It grows weary

                        Graying and sagging

            Not like his perceived face

            He hides behind his perceived face

            He puts a front of self righteous confidence upon his perceived face

He speaks to his id, ego, and superego by KV Sart

Super Ego:  What is it you want to be loved for?

He:  I don’t

Super Ego:  So, as the adoring crowd claps you do what? Duck your head in shame?  Run from the stage as a donkey runs from the rain?

He:  I cannot accept the praise in good faith.  What I have done was of mere coincidence and accident.  There is nothing praiseworthy in the action.  It is praiseworthy in the reception. The crowd is praiseworthy for praising correctly.  That crowd is exceptional.  I am ordinary.

Ego:  This is true but the crowd sees themselves through you.  They thrive as you thrive.  They love themselves as they love you.

He:  But they can only love as they have seen.  They can only praise what has been praised before.  I construct from prior construction.  Everything that is novel has been done.  I can only passively combine.

Super Ego:  Allow them to love you as they wish, there is love-worthiness in all creatures.

Id:  What they love in you is your drive and innate sense of purpose.

He:  I have no innate purpose.  My drive is a car ride in the night without headlights.  I move through the world in no particular direction, and in doing so I amass no evil and I amass no virtue.  My choices are both arbitrary and meaningful.  My outer display is a consumable product.  My inner life is my own.

Ego:  But surely it is not all mere chance.  Surely there is something to be said for virtue.  Of prudence, reason, and rationality?

He:  These are some of the guiding principles of civilization.  But even reason has its limits.  One cannot sit on the couch all day, reasoning the day away.  At some point, one must dive head first into the world action. 

Id:  In acting without reason we succumb to our instinctual selves. We act as we do in dreams, without thinking.

He:  There is an important distinction to be made though.  The dream being has no bounds of self.  There is no difference between subject and object.  It is simultaneously itself and all else.  In the non-dream world, I am a singular agent of action, and responsible by consequence.

Super Ego:  If everyone knew as you knew, would the world be a better place?
He:  In a way…yes.  In a way…no.  Better is a judgment that can only be made by the historians.  It would be better for me, because there would be no pushback.  Better for everything?  That is a question I cannot answer.

Ego:  If you sit on the fence, you risk not helping anything.  Isn’t it proper to sacrifice yourself for the greater good?

He:  The greater good is a figment.  There is only the good that sits in front of you.  Large-scale change is uncontrollable.  Those who attempt to control it become the power hungry dictators and genocide-creators.  The only good the individual can know stares them in the face every day.  We cannot see the links of the causal chain, and the idea of the greater good relies solely on the linking of the causal chain.

A peek inside the soul of a soulless man Pt VI: Are you there God? It's me, Jersey

I had a conversation with God the other day. God was asking me a lot of questions about my intentions with my life. Who knew God was a dialectic conversationalist. Or maybe God is just my God and exists solely for me... or maybe God doesn't exist and I'm imagining God as I want God to be... Regardless, it was a revealing conversation for the both of us. Here's how it went down:

Ujima by Jersey Campbell

VERGE- Vicariously Enter the Realm of Good (motherfuckin'*) Entertainment- is performing a skit tomorrow evening at this event:

I was charged with writing the script... and directing... and acting. Three things I have inconsiderable experience in. Yet, the show will go on- and it will be off the bomb. SO IT IS SAID!

Here is the script**:
(Video coming next week)

 *This is not a part of the official VERGE name
 **Script is loosely based off an anecdote about Ubuntu, which was also the famous rallying cry for the 2007-08 Boston Celtics, the eventual NBA Champions.

Jersey Campbell's Quote of the Day: the passion of the masses

This quote garnered a "same shit I was saying yo!" from me as soon as I read it.  Because really, this is the same shit I be saying.








  
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real; they are almost as strongly influenced by what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two."

- quote taken from The Art of Seduction by Robert Green

JC and NYC Rob on the radio and shit

This past weekend, Jersey Campbell and NYC Robert- on behalf of VERGE- were invited to Best Kept Secret. Judging by the name, we're guessing some of y'all don't know what Best Kept Secret is... let's clear it up. It is a web radio show on the SUNY Old Westbury Web Radio network hosted by Lady Rae. But shhh, keep it a secret. 

Here is a brief clip from the interview showing our very own JC performing some poetry for the listeners. Yeah, we video record radio shows, because there are no morals. Listen.. and be enthralled. 

Jersey Campbell's Vocabulary Word of the Day: Pillory

Pillory: a wooden framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used to expose an offender to public derision.


In a sentence: The pillory could still be effective today. It is often public sentiment that helps maintain our morality.

Empathy Flashlight by KV Sart

We speak in muted tones

Earthy muds and forest greens

Take me in through the back

Shelter me from the storm

I’ll give you my kidney

Take care of the child

Let him free upon this plane

Tell him his pain is the same

As your pain

Rise above the scree hand in hand

There is a dip in the boulder

Water collects in this place

The early morning rain has passed

But here it remains

Reminiscent drops of past

Be civil young man

For this place is a civil one

Do not forget your head

Stubbornness is the starless night

Empathy is the flashlight

It's about time by Jersey Campbell

Time lacks the eternal strength it is attributed

For with time our physical beings become old, brittle, stale and feeble

With time, rises fade while roses bloom

With time, eyes observe cycles of birth and death

So with time, we live

With time, we seek a fulfillment of magnificent proportions

Yet in time, the sands of the hourglass eventually run out, only to be flipped over, so that another cycle may begin

The meaning is too elusive, so with time we grow and learn

Only for the hourglass to be flipped over once again

Lessons re-learned and new flowers bloom

In time, we forget all truths granted to us because when the hourglass flips, time resets

Time is no more eternal than the souls traveling through its corridors

But what a novel concept! Time ushers enlightenment… a spiritual awakening is an inevitable result

The only inevitability, is the loss of time itself and the eventual resurrection of the eternal paradox

A realization is in order. An epiphany of divine nature

Time waits for no man, and no man will wait for time

In time we act, decisions made determining the fate of our lives which, in time, will end in death

It is with time we grow, and in time we decompose

An inquiry: what have we learned? In which way have we grown?

Time is simply a paradigm

Moments in mirrors which mimic the times passed

Reflections of fallen eras haunt our contemporary dreams

With time we become corrupt

In time our minds expand to see the vast wasteland that was once promise and hope

The hourglass is reset, and time, laid to rest

Election Thoughts by KV Sart

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Jersey has asked me to write a brief essay concerning the election.  Even if he had not asked for something “brief”, I can’t honestly say that I have a great deal to write about the election.  For me, the election has the feel of sporting event, something like the Super Bowl.  There is a side which I have chosen as my favorite, I root for that side to win, which is fun for a time leading up to the event and during the event itself, and then, the next day, I am left feeling slightly let down.

            For some reason we build the election up into this massive marker of whether or not the country is fucked, and depending on which side you agree with, you either think its time to leave the country, or you spend the next 2 months fantasizing about how much better the country is now that someone who you think you agree with is in power.

            Not only is the presidential election an undertaking in ego masturbation for the candidates, it is likewise for voters.  It is a time when people allow themselves to say, “see, I am right, you are wrong, the majority of the people believe what I believe.”

            The greater reality to remember during these times is this: it is hardly ever the president who makes the biggest social changes.  For sure, there have been good presidents who have done good things, but it is hardly ever the ones we “elect” to do good things who end up being the ones who do the greatest things.

            So, for those who voted for losing candidates, relax, your day-to-day reality remains unchanged.  For those who voted for candidates that won, congratulations, you were on the right side of what is essentially a 50/50 bet.  Sorry to be so cynical, but both sides seem to have neglected honest discourse and sound reasoning during the campaign, little seems to have really changed.

Jersey Campbell's notebook ramblings: thoughts on the election

Sources tell me there was an election in America last night, and now a black guy is president? Wait, wait? He’s been president for four years already! Wow! What progress we’ve made!

If I can be super cereal for a minute, I’d like to share my thoughts on the election:

Jersey Campbell's Quote of the Day: The Fifth of November

Remember, remember the fifth of November...   I can't even act like I completely understand what V is saying in this amazing monologue of ambitious alliteration. The acutely accurate words aim at abolishing a despotic English government. All credits attributed to the astute authors of this awesome film. 

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valourous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition! The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

- V 

TWD by KV Sart

Give me the first line

            Public drunkenness in a private

            place    The street paved with

uneven cobblestones

Awaken in the

            same panic-state

            Same as yesterday    Same as today

Swimming in thoughts

            Broken in utility    Continuous

            in stream    Forged with the

strength of a Chinese finger cuff

Don’t let go of the dream    All you have is the dream

Jersey Campbell's passage of the day: give me liberty, or give me holidays!

Greetings all, we've got another edition of "passage of the day" for y'all. (Why do I insist on referring to myself as "we", as if some force were beside me, guiding my fingers through the perilous terrain of a MacBook keypad as "we" write this?)
Today's edition comes to us from deceased former slave and forever fighter of freedom- or as the common folk say, "freedom fighter"- Fredrick Douglass.
Most of us had the privilege of learning to read and write via school. Mr. Douglass had some help early on, but customs of the Antebellum South quickly turned his teacher into an inhibitor. True G's learn to read in silence like Brother Fredrick.

I've often been criticized due to my focus on studying history. Why am I living in the past, wasting time reading about ancient wars and brooding over slavery? History teaches us lessons about human nature, and what we are capable of. History is about reflection, which is necessary for anyone who considers perspective a virtue. So when I am studying history, there is always one eye on the present, trying to figure out how the lessons of yesterday apply to the conditions of today. 
With that in mind, upon completion of the selected passage, I urge you to identify the parallels from his time to our time . (Obligatorily, I also urge you to publish your personal discoveries below in the comments section. You don't have to if you don't want to, but it would be nice if you did, nah mean?)

History is useless if not used as a tool for cognitive growth. Read, and expand your understanding...

Take it home my dear fellow:

A name is never yours until you accept it. by NYC Robert

Though from birth we are given a name; and do summon ourselves to responding to it. We do not, at that age, have the competence to make a decision if we want to change it. In many cases, if not all, that decision cannot be made,at that age, mainly because we have not been exposed to other names. A contrasting similarity is food. When an infant is first exposed to food it picks and chooses what it likes and doesn't. However, if you only had one type of cereal, milk, bread, chicken etc... You would then have no choice other than to eat what is given. Thus, an infant truly can't make decisions whether they want there name or not because they know no different.