Do you remember where you were when the cell phone became the most important device on the face of the planet? I must've slept through it. At some point in the past 10-12 years, the cell phone made a power move to own our lives and everyone knelt down and said "Your wish is my command" in unison. Really what invention can stand up to the awe created by a shiny, new cell phone being waved in your face at a deeply discounted price? Don't worry I'll wait...© Kat Williams.
Of course, I'm just being an ass. I hate your cell phone. I hate my cell phone. I hate the cell phones of people I've never even seen. Have you ever been talking to someone about a matter that you find to be fairly important and wanted to punch them directly in the fronal lobe as they reply to a text mid sentence? Have you ever witnessed some biological mistake completely disregard your life to answer a call about how awesome last night's episode of 'The Bachelor' was? Then you feel my pain. If you are one of the people who routinely commits one of these atrocities then happily go DIAF.
I love standing in line at Restaurant X and noticing how every person in the line has to stop at some point and look at their cell. You couldn't have possibley missed a call or text or video or email since you last checked your phone 10 miliseconds ago. If you did get a phone call, we'd all know about it because your portable iriation device will spew some rythmic abortion into the air to ear-rape us all. How nice of you! You know what would be even more super awesome of you? If, when you do get a call, you can scream every single word of it at so that I can hear exatly how big of an asshole Mike is or how much you hate Audrey because "she's such a batch!". That would really make my day.
Everyday people walk down the street gazing into their cell phones with little to no regard for all of the people they are rudely staggering into. People drive home from work picking up their phone whenever it buzzes, hums, or sings because they just can't wait to hear what their single-cell brained companion on the other end has to say. Meanwhile all of us regular folk have to swerve around John and Jane Q. Fuckstick as they make your drive home into vehicular dodgeball.
The point? Put the God dammned phone down and unplug long enough to realize that your phone is worthless. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go shopping for a new cell phone. Don't judge...I gotta get something nice with my upgrade
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Stand-Up Comedian: America's Unlikely Last Hope
I have a friend who is a comedian. We grew up together in a tight-assed, Christian, Republican, get-me-the-hell-outta-here town in southern Mississippi where neither of us felt like we belonged to any of the rigidly defined social groups that we were supposed to file neatly into. That was one of the reasons we stuck together so tightly once we became friends. Another huge factor was the way our senses of humor seemed to exist on the same twisted plane. We shared an adoration of the outrageous that no one else we knew even came close to having and we made it a point to throw our brand of humor directly into the red faces of every person we could possibly piss off. Our teen years were essentially a living shrine to our favorite comedians: George Carlin and Chris Rock.
I remember seeing both Chris Rock's 'Bring the Pain' and George Carlin's 'Back in Town' on HBO for the first time in 1996. Beyond the extraordinarily amusing comedy of both comedians, the thing that made me such a fan and repeat viewer of specials was this very uncomfortable feeling that the performers left with me during and after the shows. They didn't push boundaries...they ran right through them. They spoke about politics, religion, sex, and the state of humanity in ways that absolutely blew me away because it was so raw, so frank, so real. That uncomfortability with the words I was hearing sparked me to do more investigating into the world around me and reevaluate all of the nice(and mostly untrue) bullshit that I'd been fed my entire life. I loved the way both Rock and Carlin packaged intelligence with painfully hilarious insight to create this very intriguing social commentary disguised as clear buffoonery.
As the years have passed, I've found myself continuously searching for another source where valid, intriguing commentary has been paired with a no BS approach to little avail. Watching politicians speak on almost any topic is simply a task of wading through Berlin wall thick layers of double-speak and partisan posturing to find a thimble of anything worth listening to. A lot of people I know worship at the altar of certain authors, but I feel a lot of the work that gets praised as being so visceral and awe-inspiring seems rather half-hearted. Journalists(with some exceptions) are now personalities who are more interested in promoting their personal brand than they are saying anything that really challenges the conventional wisdom and making people think. Time and time again, I find more value in the words of Louis CK than anything Anderson Cooper has to say.
Whether it is relationship advice from Chris Rock ("You can't just love the white bread part. You got to love the crust of a mothafucka"), George Carlin on politics ("If you have selfish, ignorant citizens you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders"), Louis CK on child rearing ("If you hit a dog you go to jail, but you can hit a child and it's perfectly ok") I'm constantly hearing well thought out, challenging, and constructive commentary from the supposed clowns of our society.
Let's keep things in perspective while I'm on this topic. There are thousands of worthless hacks out there with nothing more interesting to say than you'd hear in a Limp Bizkit or Wacka Flocka song. I've seen so many comedians attempt to get by on fart jokes and screaming obscenities into the microphone that I can literally tell whether I'm going to like a comedian before he/she is three jokes in. Most of the time you've heard the joke before done better by someone who took the time to craft a bit into something that is worth listening to and memorable. For every Richard Pryor or Bernie Mac there are 10 Carlos Mencia's.
Go ahead, sit down and watch Dave Chapelle's pre flip-out comedy and attempt to miss the genius of everything happening on stage. Of course, the jokes are delivered with amazing timing and wit that he appears to deliver naturally...that's why you're laughing so hard. But listen closer and you'll see layer upon layer of commentary on politics, drugs, racism, sexism, and economic disparity dressed up and presented as just a joke. That is what makes the comedy of great comedians stand head and shoulders over the Dane Cook's of the world. That is also what makes the stand-up comedian America's unlikely last hope for open and honest discourse.
I remember seeing both Chris Rock's 'Bring the Pain' and George Carlin's 'Back in Town' on HBO for the first time in 1996. Beyond the extraordinarily amusing comedy of both comedians, the thing that made me such a fan and repeat viewer of specials was this very uncomfortable feeling that the performers left with me during and after the shows. They didn't push boundaries...they ran right through them. They spoke about politics, religion, sex, and the state of humanity in ways that absolutely blew me away because it was so raw, so frank, so real. That uncomfortability with the words I was hearing sparked me to do more investigating into the world around me and reevaluate all of the nice(and mostly untrue) bullshit that I'd been fed my entire life. I loved the way both Rock and Carlin packaged intelligence with painfully hilarious insight to create this very intriguing social commentary disguised as clear buffoonery.
As the years have passed, I've found myself continuously searching for another source where valid, intriguing commentary has been paired with a no BS approach to little avail. Watching politicians speak on almost any topic is simply a task of wading through Berlin wall thick layers of double-speak and partisan posturing to find a thimble of anything worth listening to. A lot of people I know worship at the altar of certain authors, but I feel a lot of the work that gets praised as being so visceral and awe-inspiring seems rather half-hearted. Journalists(with some exceptions) are now personalities who are more interested in promoting their personal brand than they are saying anything that really challenges the conventional wisdom and making people think. Time and time again, I find more value in the words of Louis CK than anything Anderson Cooper has to say.
Whether it is relationship advice from Chris Rock ("You can't just love the white bread part. You got to love the crust of a mothafucka"), George Carlin on politics ("If you have selfish, ignorant citizens you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders"), Louis CK on child rearing ("If you hit a dog you go to jail, but you can hit a child and it's perfectly ok") I'm constantly hearing well thought out, challenging, and constructive commentary from the supposed clowns of our society.
Let's keep things in perspective while I'm on this topic. There are thousands of worthless hacks out there with nothing more interesting to say than you'd hear in a Limp Bizkit or Wacka Flocka song. I've seen so many comedians attempt to get by on fart jokes and screaming obscenities into the microphone that I can literally tell whether I'm going to like a comedian before he/she is three jokes in. Most of the time you've heard the joke before done better by someone who took the time to craft a bit into something that is worth listening to and memorable. For every Richard Pryor or Bernie Mac there are 10 Carlos Mencia's.
Go ahead, sit down and watch Dave Chapelle's pre flip-out comedy and attempt to miss the genius of everything happening on stage. Of course, the jokes are delivered with amazing timing and wit that he appears to deliver naturally...that's why you're laughing so hard. But listen closer and you'll see layer upon layer of commentary on politics, drugs, racism, sexism, and economic disparity dressed up and presented as just a joke. That is what makes the comedy of great comedians stand head and shoulders over the Dane Cook's of the world. That is also what makes the stand-up comedian America's unlikely last hope for open and honest discourse.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Did I do it? Fuckin' right I did it!
There is this commercial for Sam Adams Boston Lager where Jim Koch, owner of the Boston Beer Company which brews Sam Adams, where Mr. Koch says "I had a good job, but I thought to myself 'I don't wanna do this for the rest of my life. I don't want to do this tomorrow'. Those words play in my head every morning when I walk out of my apartment on my way to work. No one wants to work for "the man" for their entire lives, so it's not like this is some unique thought native to Mr. Koch and myself. For me, the difference is that I know that I can't do this for the rest of my life.
I don't want to be your boss. I don't dream of business meetings in downtown Chicago sky scrapers or getting the big promotion or having hordes of fearful peons cowering and kissing my ass when I walk into a a room or...you get the point. I try my best to understand the people who live their entire lives trying to chase the dream, but I always find myself looking down my nose at them and coming off as a colossal douche. I can't help it. I'm sure they look at me as some sort of head-in-the-clouds slacker/loser who can't get a grip on reality. I'm fine with that because I know we will have to agree to disagree on this one as our approaches to happiness are on opposite ends of the spectrum: theirs is to collect the most toys while mine is to do something I love.
I hate corporate life. I hate the plastic, ass-kissing, saving-up-for-a-Volvo, cookie cutter, lifeless people I have to pretend to like on a daily basis. I hate the pointless work that the empty suits seem to think is the most important thing since opposable thumbs. I hate it all and they day that I can leave it all in my life's rear-view mirror I'll probably explode.
This is my salute to Jim Koch and every other person who has given up being a drone to the job. A shout out to all those people who decided that their soul was worth more than a killer dinette set (word to 'Old School'). The idea of giving up everything you have to do something that you were born to do is the scarier than most empty suits can ever understand, but it is something I have to do...
I don't want to be your boss. I don't dream of business meetings in downtown Chicago sky scrapers or getting the big promotion or having hordes of fearful peons cowering and kissing my ass when I walk into a a room or...you get the point. I try my best to understand the people who live their entire lives trying to chase the dream, but I always find myself looking down my nose at them and coming off as a colossal douche. I can't help it. I'm sure they look at me as some sort of head-in-the-clouds slacker/loser who can't get a grip on reality. I'm fine with that because I know we will have to agree to disagree on this one as our approaches to happiness are on opposite ends of the spectrum: theirs is to collect the most toys while mine is to do something I love.
I hate corporate life. I hate the plastic, ass-kissing, saving-up-for-a-Volvo, cookie cutter, lifeless people I have to pretend to like on a daily basis. I hate the pointless work that the empty suits seem to think is the most important thing since opposable thumbs. I hate it all and they day that I can leave it all in my life's rear-view mirror I'll probably explode.
This is my salute to Jim Koch and every other person who has given up being a drone to the job. A shout out to all those people who decided that their soul was worth more than a killer dinette set (word to 'Old School'). The idea of giving up everything you have to do something that you were born to do is the scarier than most empty suits can ever understand, but it is something I have to do...
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
All Roads Lead Me to Self-Destruct
You ever wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and think to yourself "We're at this point now"? Or maybe yours goes something like "Yep, this is it". Maybe "Jesus-fuck-Christ, what am I doing with anything?". If not, fuck off. I have that morning like it's a 'Groundhog's Day' TBS marathon and I'm strapped in a medieval torture device. Sometimes I have that day smack dab in the middle of having that day. I guess if you put this together for enough days you might as well label it as your life and move on with the misery. I figured that out when I was about 7.
More and more I realize this 9 to 5 "Yessuh Massah" dick-dance isn't worth the dead slave owners the corporate machine trades for my rotting integrity for each week. I need a remedy. I'm paid to figure stuff out and make things work where conventional wisdom broken down. I get to stare at numbers, figure out patterns in the data and report my findings to the praise and piss-shower superlatives of the ruling class all while pretending like I give a pig's scrotum about any of it. I need a remedy. Truth is, I'd rather be doing this. I'd rather be sitting at my computer making my fingers click out the shit from the cesspool between my ears...too bad nightmares don't earn enough money to pay for dreams.
More and more I realize this 9 to 5 "Yessuh Massah" dick-dance isn't worth the dead slave owners the corporate machine trades for my rotting integrity for each week. I need a remedy. I'm paid to figure stuff out and make things work where conventional wisdom broken down. I get to stare at numbers, figure out patterns in the data and report my findings to the praise and piss-shower superlatives of the ruling class all while pretending like I give a pig's scrotum about any of it. I need a remedy. Truth is, I'd rather be doing this. I'd rather be sitting at my computer making my fingers click out the shit from the cesspool between my ears...too bad nightmares don't earn enough money to pay for dreams.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Self-Depriciating Encouragement Part 1
So, I'm an outlandishly negative person. A contrarian of the highest order. So much so that I'm constantly finding ways to take whatever positive thoughts I have about myself (or compliments other people give me) and turn them into a rancid indictment of my inability to do just about anything. I'm sunny like that with mine.
At any rate, I happen to find most of these statements outrageously humorous and end up laughing at the heights I go to to hate myself. So, seeing as though you should probably hate me too (hey, it's worth a laugh here and there) I'm going to start sharing these statements in the hopes that you will find them as funny as I do and use them to batter your own self-esteem and that of the ones you love. Starting with this one from just last night:
"I gotta get a job soon. I'm losing so much weight being unemployed that its gonna be a bitch to hang myself when I'm skinny like this."
Hahaha...HIGH-larious right?! Keep looking out for more of these in the near future.
At any rate, I happen to find most of these statements outrageously humorous and end up laughing at the heights I go to to hate myself. So, seeing as though you should probably hate me too (hey, it's worth a laugh here and there) I'm going to start sharing these statements in the hopes that you will find them as funny as I do and use them to batter your own self-esteem and that of the ones you love. Starting with this one from just last night:
"I gotta get a job soon. I'm losing so much weight being unemployed that its gonna be a bitch to hang myself when I'm skinny like this."
Hahaha...HIGH-larious right?! Keep looking out for more of these in the near future.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Assassination of Common Sense Pt. 6
Long time no bored to death, huh?
So, I'll just jump right into this: common sense must be some sort of rare degenerative mental disorder that only a few people in the world get the pleasure of being stricken with. I've long held true the cliché that "common sense ain't so common", but now it's time to put away polite little sayings and deal with the reality that most people are lucky to not drown themselves while attempting to drink bottled water. Don't believe me? Read on...
Bumper Stickers are Billboards of Idiocy
Today as I'm making the drive West on Main St. in lovely Evanston, I pull up at a stop light behind a woman in a Prius with a bumper sticker that reads "Abortion is child abuse". Immediately I want to ram her car into the Chicago river and dance maniacally around her watery grave, but not for the reason you may think.
Now we won't get into my personal feelings on abortion because they have nothing to do with this story and you don't give a damn anyway. Her little tag of opinion incontinence just made me wonder why the hell people feel like you want to have their personal beliefs vomited all over your brain while driving. Are you actively looking to argue with people? Are you actively looking for your tires to be slashed and/or have your car keyed? Why, oh glorious lord, why?!
Secondly, have you ever had your opinion changed by a bumper sticker? (If you have, please let me know so that I can stop calling you a friend of mine and begin to pepper your car with sticky flags of my opinions.) The answer to the question is no, of course you haven't. Anytime you've seen a bumper sticker that wasn't humor-oriented, you've either A) agreed with what it says and wondered why the person felt it necessary to put it on their car or B) really wanted to ram that person's car for thinking you give a shit about their dim-witted beliefs.
Bumper stickers are for egotistic, self-centered, nut jobs who think other people deserve to witness their amazing intellectual discoveries...or simply put, douchebags. Moving on...
Are You Asking Me to Stab You?
After my foray into the mind of a moron, I stop at Jewel in Skokie to pick up some crackers to go with my lunch. I walk in, meander over to the cracker aisle, and then scramble to pick up my jaw when I see the price of saltines. Seriously, an 8 Oz box of Nabisco saltine crackers was like 3.70 or some shit. The fuck? So, now I'm just standing in a row of crackers being pissed off about the price of a small box of saltines when I notice that the box next to the ones I'm looking at is 2.69. Fuckin' Score!
Then my jaw hits the floor again when I see that it is the same Nabisco crackers as the box I was losing my shit about...only the cheaper one is 16 Oz. This can't be right. So, I try to make sense of this using my Mississippi public school (read: shitty) math skills. Magically, no math known to man can explain to me why one product is priced higher than the exact same product while giving you 100% more in the cheaper item. "Fuck it" I say and make my way to the self checkout. Ah, the self checkout.
So, I get to the line and realize that there are three self checkout machines in the line that I'm in, but only two of them are being used. Meanwhile, there is a line from here to the mythical location of Iraqi WMDs for the two machines that are already in use. I take one look at the empty machine, while not leaving my place in line, and I see the huge symbol for "This shit ain't working" on the screen and go back to standing in line with the other normal people.
Ex: This shit ain't working sign
This little trick doesn't work for the chick in the Metallica jacket who gets in line behind me. She proceeds to look at all of us in the line as if we're from West Virginia (Hey, you're the one in the Metallica jacket asshole!) and promptly walks over to the broken machine. After staring at it for about 15 seconds she finally becomes familiar with the aforementioned sign. Realizing that she is the one from West Virginia, she gets back into the line.
Moments later, as the line has grown to include several other West Virginians at this point and I have moved up to the front of the line, I hear "Excuse me, sir" from a very effeminate male voice in the line "Are you going to use that machine right there?". I turn around to see a freckle-faced kinda man who looks a lot like his voice would indicate and before I can ask him "Are you asking me to stab you?" Metallica broad politely tells him that the machine is broken. This brings me to the point...WHY THE HELL WOULD ALL THESE PEOPLE BE STANDING HERE IF THERE WAS A OPEN, WORKING MACHINE RIGHT THERE YOU FUCKING DOUCHESTAIN!!!!
Why must there always be some asshole in the line who figures everyone else is an idiot and only he/she has a working brain? No matter where you go, Albert Einstein's inbred cousin is always there to show you that he is an even bigger dumb ass than you thought God could ever grace the planet with. I wonder if that person goes home and rants to everyone about his inability to deduce much the same way that I rant about his propensity for making me want to beat them with a frozen ham?
Beware, these people live among you.
So, I'll just jump right into this: common sense must be some sort of rare degenerative mental disorder that only a few people in the world get the pleasure of being stricken with. I've long held true the cliché that "common sense ain't so common", but now it's time to put away polite little sayings and deal with the reality that most people are lucky to not drown themselves while attempting to drink bottled water. Don't believe me? Read on...
Bumper Stickers are Billboards of Idiocy
Today as I'm making the drive West on Main St. in lovely Evanston, I pull up at a stop light behind a woman in a Prius with a bumper sticker that reads "Abortion is child abuse". Immediately I want to ram her car into the Chicago river and dance maniacally around her watery grave, but not for the reason you may think.
Now we won't get into my personal feelings on abortion because they have nothing to do with this story and you don't give a damn anyway. Her little tag of opinion incontinence just made me wonder why the hell people feel like you want to have their personal beliefs vomited all over your brain while driving. Are you actively looking to argue with people? Are you actively looking for your tires to be slashed and/or have your car keyed? Why, oh glorious lord, why?!
Secondly, have you ever had your opinion changed by a bumper sticker? (If you have, please let me know so that I can stop calling you a friend of mine and begin to pepper your car with sticky flags of my opinions.) The answer to the question is no, of course you haven't. Anytime you've seen a bumper sticker that wasn't humor-oriented, you've either A) agreed with what it says and wondered why the person felt it necessary to put it on their car or B) really wanted to ram that person's car for thinking you give a shit about their dim-witted beliefs.
Bumper stickers are for egotistic, self-centered, nut jobs who think other people deserve to witness their amazing intellectual discoveries...or simply put, douchebags. Moving on...
Are You Asking Me to Stab You?
After my foray into the mind of a moron, I stop at Jewel in Skokie to pick up some crackers to go with my lunch. I walk in, meander over to the cracker aisle, and then scramble to pick up my jaw when I see the price of saltines. Seriously, an 8 Oz box of Nabisco saltine crackers was like 3.70 or some shit. The fuck? So, now I'm just standing in a row of crackers being pissed off about the price of a small box of saltines when I notice that the box next to the ones I'm looking at is 2.69. Fuckin' Score!
Then my jaw hits the floor again when I see that it is the same Nabisco crackers as the box I was losing my shit about...only the cheaper one is 16 Oz. This can't be right. So, I try to make sense of this using my Mississippi public school (read: shitty) math skills. Magically, no math known to man can explain to me why one product is priced higher than the exact same product while giving you 100% more in the cheaper item. "Fuck it" I say and make my way to the self checkout. Ah, the self checkout.
So, I get to the line and realize that there are three self checkout machines in the line that I'm in, but only two of them are being used. Meanwhile, there is a line from here to the mythical location of Iraqi WMDs for the two machines that are already in use. I take one look at the empty machine, while not leaving my place in line, and I see the huge symbol for "This shit ain't working" on the screen and go back to standing in line with the other normal people.
Ex: This shit ain't working sign
This little trick doesn't work for the chick in the Metallica jacket who gets in line behind me. She proceeds to look at all of us in the line as if we're from West Virginia (Hey, you're the one in the Metallica jacket asshole!) and promptly walks over to the broken machine. After staring at it for about 15 seconds she finally becomes familiar with the aforementioned sign. Realizing that she is the one from West Virginia, she gets back into the line.
Moments later, as the line has grown to include several other West Virginians at this point and I have moved up to the front of the line, I hear "Excuse me, sir" from a very effeminate male voice in the line "Are you going to use that machine right there?". I turn around to see a freckle-faced kinda man who looks a lot like his voice would indicate and before I can ask him "Are you asking me to stab you?" Metallica broad politely tells him that the machine is broken. This brings me to the point...WHY THE HELL WOULD ALL THESE PEOPLE BE STANDING HERE IF THERE WAS A OPEN, WORKING MACHINE RIGHT THERE YOU FUCKING DOUCHESTAIN!!!!
Why must there always be some asshole in the line who figures everyone else is an idiot and only he/she has a working brain? No matter where you go, Albert Einstein's inbred cousin is always there to show you that he is an even bigger dumb ass than you thought God could ever grace the planet with. I wonder if that person goes home and rants to everyone about his inability to deduce much the same way that I rant about his propensity for making me want to beat them with a frozen ham?
Beware, these people live among you.
Friday, March 20, 2009
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