It’s the late night, the early morning, the whatever you want to call it.  It’s another time.  The world is different because society is not swarming and squiggling out in the streets, hustling and bustling to get to its next meeting. Everyone is in their houses, maybe being kept awake by bright screens with darkening and lightening pixels like the one on which I type this blog. Everything means so much more now than it does in the daytime, because we’ve made a sense of accomplishment out of our being awake for so long. We are delirious. Nothing matters, yet everything that has ever happened seems so gigantic.

Everything is a much bigger deal when you haven’t gotten enough sleep. There’s every argument in the world for going to sleep early, but it’s just not fun! My eyes hurt, and I’ve been tired since 12:00am. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m part of cyberspace and interconnected to and throughout the circuit board – no lie. Believe it. The truth is unraveling and shines gloriously before your eyes. Behold, all ye dullards.

I find it excellent music for sleeping in on overcast days, sipping coffee at the table with a robe on, talking about whichever and whatever.  The song was included in the 2006 movie “Children of Men,” a film about widespread infertility and the ensuing panic following the realization that our whole gig would soon be up – humanity would be completely erased within approximately 90 years.  The movie ends with a surprise-pregnancy, however, and a quick escape out of the hands of the government and into a boat called “Tomorrow.”  I highly recommend the film.

There is a girl in one of my classes who has a handicap; something wrong with one of her legs.  When she gets out of class, there is a golfcart and driver waiting on her, to drive her to her next class, or to her dorm, wherever she needs to go.

Unrelatedly, I saw an old friend this weekend.  She was a girl who obviously had at one point been interested in me, but I saw no-one else but [Girl A].  [Old friend] and I are horrible at keeping in touch, our both being sort of passive about social interaction and maintaining vast networks of friends.

I was at one point part of an organization called “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”  Several members of The League were commissioned by the Harold Perrin campaign committee to hoist signs on street corners for hours at a time, encouraging voters on election day to vote for Perrin.  I signed on, thinking “Sure, okay, I can write these down as volunteer hours on some whatever resume when the time comes for that.”  We campaigned, raised signs, and Perrin ended up winning the election.  How much of that was our doing, who knows?

I knew nothing about Perrin.  I still don’t know anything.  Honestly, I couldn’t care less whether he won or not.  I was getting out of school for some reason, so I said yeah, awesome, I’ll wave a sign around at passing cars.  Great.  It didn’t occur to me at all that my absent-minded volunteering to support a cause I cared nothing about was really hurting a friend of mine whose father was running in the election against Harold Perrin.  I won’t mention their names, as I’d hate anyone to get any sort of unwanted attention from this, but they were made quite upset by the results of the election; I mean obviously – they wanted to win.  But it’s just so strange how I was pulled into rooting against them without my even having the presence of mind to see how my actions were really affecting everything.  This person is my friend!  It’s one of the strangest situations I’ve ever been in.  If I could go back in time, honestly, I would have just gone to school that day.  Let the politically-minded be involved in politics.  I’ll stay over here.

Goodbye.

Incidentally, my name is Evan Barber.

I am a host at the 501 Club, and just so no-one gets confused, Omar’s Steakhouse and the 501 Club are one in the same institution.  It is my job to decide where to set up the larger tables (of 9 people or more), facilitate a rotation of customers to all the servers we have working the floor on a particular night, answer phone calls, and take to-go orders.  Typically, the phone starts ringing just as people are walking through the front door expecting service.  I think they refer to that as Murphy’s Law.

Here is a map depicting all of the counties of Arkansas: http://www.state.ar.us/dfa/abc_administration/regs/abcadm_map.html The darkened counties are referred to as “wet counties,” or basically counties in which it is legal to sell alcohol in almost all venues, to people of the appropriate age.  We exist in a “dry county,” or a county in which alcohol is only legally sellable via a type of beverage permit issued by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board Administration.  This means that I have the added responsibility of selling $5 memberships in the foyer of the 501 where the host stand is, to allow people to legally access our club, since we have a bar and sell alcohol.  ABC says that every person entering the 501 Club must present their Membership Card and scrawl their John Hancock into our roster, unless they are the guest of a person with a membership.  It is my job to make sure that this takes place, in an orderly fashion.

Recently, an ABC member went into Fuji, the Japanese steakhouse on Highland Drive, posing as an average, everyday customer who just really wanted a drink.  The Fuji staff said “Oh thank you sir!  It’s great to have you.  We always appreciate a customer!  Just go right over there and sit down!”  Mr. ABC tore off the mask and slapped the establishment with a fine of several thousand dollars for not forcing him to purchase a membership.  ”So yeah, that’ll show ‘em!”

…But honestly, what did ABC really show them?

There is a new law scheduled to come into effect sometime next week that says that people are no longer allowed to go to a bar in a dry county and drink unless there is a plate of food setting in front of them.  But apparently, if we just set trays of trail mix before every third seat or so at the bar, we will be regarded as compliant.  Is there really any point at all to establishing this sort of a law?  Is it done just to make Craighead feel better about itself, just for the sake of creating some naive reassurance that it’s citizens aren’t the sort of people who can enjoy alcohol by itself?  The laws really don’t make any logical sense, so I assume their chief purpose is to inject some backward type of morality into the citizens of Craighead County.

I’d like to note here that my position is strictly objective.  It does not affect me in any important way if our county is dry or wet, because personally, I feel that there are better ways I can spend my time than getting completely wasted every weekend, or weeknight.  If I wanted to, though, it would not be difficult for me to obtain alcohol. Despite this being a dry county, people constantly exit to get alcohol, and then only bring it right back into the land of Craighead; if someone really wants to drink, the fact that this is a dry county will not do much at all to stop them.

Look, I love my job.  Working at the 501 is absolute bliss.  The food is amazing, the staff is personable and entertaining, and I get to dress up (shirt and tie) for work every day. But really and truly, the dry county policy here just seems stupid.  These alcohol laws are just laws for the sake of having laws.  Anyone can drive 15 minutes North, South, East or West and enter into Greene, Jackson, Poinsett or Mississippi county, purchase alcohol, and bring it back into Craighead county.  It’s all political, and it’s no doubt highly influenced by local celebrity preacher Archie Mason’s anti-alcohol tangents which are no doubt heard regularly at the massive Central Baptist Church on Harrisburg Road, the one affectionately referred to as “Fort God.”  Most radical positions like his are the result of personal experiences, and I pay the respect due him for those, despite their being completely unknown to me.  It should not be forgotten, however, that Jesus Christ‘s first miracle involved his turning water into wine to keep a party going.  It’s strange to see such animosity toward alcohol spouting from an advocate of a religion in which the centrally-worshipped being performs miracles like this, as well uses wine to represent his blood in a metaphorical “last” conversation a la “the last supper.”

People come into our restaurant and they do not understand why they have to pay for a membership, even if they live in California or Florida or Michigan or Maine and will never be returning.  And I don’t really understand it either.  But I’m just an 18-year-old boy!  What do I know?

Brett Evan Barber

But this is all just wordy nonsense, I think.

… moving on… erm…

My class advisor warned me (back in the summer) that most people get bogged down when they enroll in more than one honors course per semester, but I’m finding that my non-honors courses are basically an absolute breeze, and my two honors courses are engaging, enjoyable, and they are the two courses I prefer over almost all the others.  They also are not overwhelming me with homework – it’s very manageable.  I took lots of AP classes in high school; I assumed my advisor was taking that into consideration but maybe she wasn’t.  Anyway, I’m already sort of compiling a list of classes I’d like to take next semester.

- Honors Fine Arts Music, with Prof. Bonner.  He did a lecture at the honors orientation and his class sounded like it would a lot of fun, to get to study “Rock ‘n Roll” and have it count as college credit – sounds ideal, really.

- The class (whatever it’s called) with Dr. Hunter, where you discuss and analyze all of Bob Dylan’s lyrics.  My new friend Kelsey mentioned being in it and it sounded like the sort of thing I would absolutely love.

Other than that, I don’t know.  I did well on my AP tests so I’m sitting on about 15 hours of credit just from my scores, ranging from History credit to Science and English credit.  I actually got credit for Comp 1 and Comp 2 because I did so well on my English AP exams, both in 11th and 12th grade.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at the BCM, which is an absolutely amazing environment and I encourage everyone to visit it at some point.  I’ve met a lot of really cool people there, and it’s all very casual, friendly and laid back – I don’t have to search high and low for executive members to fill my book with signatures, I don’t have to spend $400 to be admitted, and when I get too busy, I am allowed to just skip out.  It’s all very nice.  I also consider myself a Christian, so it’s nice to have the organization here for both reinforcement of my faith and also it’s just an easy way for me to meet and socialize with (somewhat) like-minded people.

The college life is pretty enjoyable so far.

ebarb44

It made me so upset, thinking about the psychological trauma such an incident could have on a person. We were advised to, if placed in such a situation, consider first the safety of many vs. the safety of a few (i.e. if a large number of people are in a room with the surrounding doors locked and barricaded, it’s smartest not to open the door for any others to come in, no matter how panicky they sound on the other side, as the shooter could quickly round the corner and then gain access to the room full of people, who would then be trapped instead of safe).  This is understandable I suppose (though it would be a little easier if we were all merely cold, logically-based robots) but the fact that a choice has to be made at all is sick to me as a human being with emotion and compassion for other living things.  It isn’t that hard to resist the urge to bully and mock someone.  I wonder how many shootings are just a result of the shooter being mistreated by other people – I’d guess that most shooters have experienced feelings of hopelessness and alienation, as a result of their experiences with other people.

I pictured myself being the hero in the situation, the one who tackled and disarmed the shooter, ready to hear the cheers, the “thank you’s,” the “God bless you’s” and applause from all my peers and faculty advisors.  The feeling inspired me.  Watching the Columbine video I was so ready to stand up in the auditorium and fight, to just do anything to prevent such a travesty to ever occurring to anyone.  But I can’t do that.  All I can do is just be considerate and empathetic toward everyone (or as many people as possible), because there really are “last straw” events that can truly set people off.  There had to have been “last straws” before the two guys decided the only way to solve their inferiority problems and control issues was to come to school and start killing people.  If the whole world was just a little more compassionate, I’m confident that many incidents like this could be avoided.

This is all just wishful thinking, I suppose… But I know that I feel changed; I know that I feel motivation to be a more considerate person.  You don’t know what those strangers who pass you are going through – making them into some sort of joke might be the biggest mistake you ever make.

I think that everyone should attend the Active Shooter presentation, if there are to be other screenings of it.  It’s being shown in the auditorium on the third floor of the Student Union.

Best Wishes,

Evan

This is the first post on my fresh new blog. The account creation screen had me laughing a little bit, greeting me with a “Howdy” and sarcastically referring to my acceptance of “the fascinating terms of service.” Clearly, we aren’t dealing with some ordinary website – this WordPress has personality!

I am a first-year freshman at Arkansas State University. I live in the fresh new Honors Living/Learning Community Residence Hall, where everyone is more or less friendly and pretty calm.

This morning, for the first time, I almost decided to sleep through my 8:00am class. I was up until about 3:00am on Garageband, working on a funny theme song for the Wednesday night collegiate service at First Baptist Church, the one they call “Remix.” No-one asked me to do it, I just really enjoy creating those kinds of things. But at 7:51am I took a look at the Syllabus, which spoke forebodingly to me about dire consequences and punishment. So I threw on a shirt and some pants and made my way to Wilson Hall, and of course, the teacher didn’t even take attendance. The rest of my day consisted of taking naps to catch myself back up.

And here I am again, up late, at 12:20am, writing on this blog. I think I’ll wrap this one up. Maybe sometime later I’ll post my theme song – you can only hope.

Evan