Just call me Chez

i realize that i haven't ever really introduced myself. furthermore, my friend ian snail seems to misperceive my character and even chooses to slander me at times. so, i'm going to spell things out with deliberate clarity here, folks. my name is Cheswick Dudley Crabcake, but just call me Chez. i live in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania, and i'm a political science and philosophy double major at the University of Pittsburgh. if you want a sample of my thoughts, take this for instance: i capitalize proper nouns but absolutely never the first-person pronoun, because i don't favor the imperial cult of the ego. Western consciousness has its high marks, like The Birth of Tragedy, but just like that work, i try to capture the Tao in everything i'm about. i was raised Presbyterian, but now i practice Zen sitting meditation for spiritual depth. Wait, i need to outline this. i can't just give this whatever impressionistic account of myself. i need to structure my thoughts. Here we go. Ten Things You Need to Know about Cheswick Dudley Crabcake:

1) Just call me Chez.

2) i'm a poli sci/philosophy double major at Pitt.

3) i intern at Bank of America; i'm a marketing consultant. basically, when any client or investor contacts the firm, i check up on their credentials and let the managers know about their investment history and stuff like that. this job is a little more corporate than i would like; i'm more of a theory-wonk, and i'd rather be working on my latest manifesto right now, but i need the work-related experience. really, a comrade has to infiltrate the cogs of the machinery to have an effect. i'm heavy into Marx, especially the 1834 manuscripts, but to be honest i consider myself a rigorous Trotskyite. still, i'm not a weirdo. i want to effect change in society, and i'm not opposed to working amidst evil to dispel evil, basically.

4) i'm hardcore straight-edge (sXe).

5) Let's see...Really all i watch now is PBS art history programs and Stan Brakhage films (Pittsburgh Trilogy is sick).

6) i moonlight at Caliban books (Craig Street, Oakland) on the weekends and at the Waterworks Tommy Bahama on summer weeknights. Come hang out with me some night if you want to enjoy some really deep discussion. at either place i'm the guy who plays Minor Threat, really early Dylan (i.e. live at the Gaslight), and Joy Division on the store speakers.

7) During the semester i work for the 2008 Presidential campaign of Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

8) i write a political cartoon serial for the Pitt Chronicle called "Calamity Sam," about the harebrained trials and tribulations of a neocon quasi-Fascist medical supplies salesman who sells Americans devices to be implanted in their chest cavity supposedly to cure heartburn but that actually work like self-detonating atomic weapons of obvious global consequence. i also write obituaries for the City Paper.

9) My girlfriend's name is Maggie. She goes to Mercyhurst and is working at Whole Foods right now.

10) My dad is Hymen Radcliffe, but i don't write poetry.

Well, that's about it for now. If you want to know anything else about me, just hit me up. Peace.

~Chez