Thursday, August 25, 2011

Good-Bye

All moderately amusing things must come to an end. As a farewll, I'll leave you with one of my favorite songs:

Minusmensch

The grey wind covered the last windows with dust
Where are all the souls?
buried and expelled
degenerated to ghostlike shells

You can see the behind weak backs
Bended, their face buried in their hands,
corroded by poison, paralyzed by ether
Fading figures.

Where is all the yearning in their leaden faces?
They hunted it down and killed it
Drowned in wine and estranged via syringes
set into whores and paid with cold.

Disembodied, gasping, I tumbled
In the flush of a thousand cold lights,
through this night of neon,
That I'll never belong to

©LANTLÔS

Monday, August 22, 2011

Ain't No Captains on This Sinking Ship

If you hadn't noticed (or just got here from Jupiter), there seem to be a couple of large, looming issues in the political world these days. In the midst of all of the chaos, we're gearing up for one of those swell election things that you people like so much (©George Carlin). I, personally, find this coming election about as hilarious as watching Wacka Flocka teaching a philosophy class. When viewing the credentials and ideas of the presidential hopefuls (including our current head of state) through the lens of our current and upcoming problems as a country, I nearly convulse out of sheer terror.

Let's start with the GOP candidates because there is just too much fun to be had there. I have yet to hear any of the GOP candidates say something that wasn't either A)complete fallacy B)highly implausible or C) batshit crazy. In other words, they sound like political candidates...just exceptionally bad caricatures of them. Of the front runners, I thought Rick Perry seemed like the most normal of the bunch and a really strong candidate for the GOP. Then he talked and all of that was melted away. Michele Bachmann seems like she has a tenuous grasp on reality at best and I'll vote her as "President Most Likely to Burn Illegal Aliens at the Stake" if she wins. Mitt Romney doesn't seem like he'd make a bad President, he also doesn't seem like he'd make a very good president. Plus he's a Mormon, which isn't inherently bad, but can you see a gaggle of mouth-breathing rednecks in Arkansas voting for a Mormon? Sarah Palin is always lurking out there also, but I think she's having a hard enough time nailing down the English language as it is. Additionally, she's already proven that, given the opportunity, she can talk her way to the bottom of any list.

Now on to President Obama. Remember when Obama was elected and we had a Democrat-controlled congress and that was supposed to be the gateway to a Utopia? If so, I'm sure you also remember the Democrats wasting two very valuable years doing absolutely nothing and getting voted out of office. Our current president is fast on the road to that same fate if SOMETHING doesn't get done. I'm not going to say that the Obama administration is a failure, because I don't think you can say that yet. I do, however, believe that if he and his administration don't make some big time decisions and show some level of unifying leadership in the coming months then he's done. He hasn't done anything reprehensible in his time in office, but his administrations inability to affect the change voters were sold could be the nail in his political coffin.

This is all very important because of how close this country is to backsliding out of the "Super Power" category. Most Americans can't fathom the day when the world doesn't look to Uncle Sam as the red, white, and blue vehicle of progress and innovation. The problem is that the rest of the world can fathom and welcome that day. Far be it from me to look to politicians for direction, guidance, and most of all leadership in a time of despair, but with the way Americans have become the textbook definition of apathy we must. As unromantic as it may be, we don't need politicians that we necessarily like or feel like we can trust; we just need politicians that will do their jobs. With most of the current crop of presidential hopefuls I have little confidence that we will get any of those things.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

One More Piece of Unsolicited Advice...

Spotify is 3X 'Fantabulous Resplendence' (©3Floyds). Go here download it and move on with your music listening life.

NOW Companies Want to be Economically Responsible

Please take 3 minutes out of your day and read this article. It deals with the rise of corporate income and how it is in contrast to our rapidly declining economy. Good, quick read.

I found the part of the article where they discuss how corporations are reluctant to spend their ever-growing profits on hiring and investing rather mind-boggling. One corporate asshat had this to say:
The labor market is weak, which hampers consumption, notes Charles Biderman, chief executive officer of the research firm TrimTabs. "So without growing income, where's the money to buy more stuff?" he says. "Absent a change in demand, the fact that companies have all this cash, well, good for them. It's not going to help us."

Now I'm far from a genius (shut up), but in an economy that depends on consumer spending as its backbone, wouldn't hiring more people and investing those surpluses cause people to have more confidence and spend more thus sparking the economy and the economic recovery? Isn't the economy weak because there are no jobs and therefore no oil to grease the American slurge wheels? It seems like you're trying to use the problem as the reason why you can't solve the problem.

What do you think? Am I just looking at this completely wrong?

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Owned - With a Slice of Politics

"What was their correction policy on their Enron rating? What was their correction policy on their Lehman rating? What was their correction policy on their Bear Stearns rating? They don't have an error correction policy — they have an error denial policy, and the (Securities and Exchange Commission) is absolutely right to step in."

Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, on an SEC proposal that Standard & Poor's and other credit-rating agencies post on their websites when a "significant error" is identified in their methodology for a credit-rating action

Sunday, August 14, 2011

You're Not That Special

When I was in elementary school I remember having several concepts drilled into my head that I thought then and still contend now are utter bullshit. One of them was the concept that no one's opinion is wrong; which is something that is just senseless. The two that have pissed me off the most over the years are: 1)everyone is unique and 2)everyone is special in their own way. Seriously? Don't get it wrong, teaching children tolerance and inclusion is something that I wholeheartedly agree with. What I don't agree with is the way this sort of preemptive apology for mediocrity and idiocy has become par for the course in society these days.

This disease isn't the creation of the schools of this country,in fact, it probably started at home. We all grew up with those kids who were flawless in their parents eyes. The kid who would hit you in the face with a G.I. Joe and his mom would complain to your mom about what a bad kid you were when you beat the shit outta him. That child was the product of his parents constantly telling him how great he was. He was their precious little snowflake (©Fark) and although everyone in your neighborhood considered him an insufferable asshole at the age of six, they praised him at every step along the way. He never learned to be a good person because he was rewarded for being a fuckwad. If he was getting low grades, it was the teacher's fault. If he didn't play in the little league game, the coach was an asshole. If you beat his ass for being a little fucker, you were an out of control miscreant who needed better home training. He was never at fault.

When this little assbag went to school, nothing changed. He learned at home that a halfhearted apology and a little ass kissing made all the trouble go away. He also had his home teaching reaffirmed: he was special. His mom told him he was special and now his teachers all said he was special so he began to act like he was special. Never mind that the teachers said that we were all special (we'll get to this in a second); they were really only talking about him.

Now that kid is a 30 year old man. Every time something doesn't go his way it's "fuckin' bullshit, man". You can tell who the women are who don't laugh at his lame jokes or fawn over him because he'll explain to you that she's "just a bitch". He's the guy who does the least work and gets the most praise because he plays the game and kisses the boss's ass instead of working hard like the rest of us. This is all because he's been told the same thing since he was a newborn: you're special.

Let's just skim the the surface of the ludicrous nature of telling children that everyone is special. How does that make sense? If everyone is special, doesn't that just make us all normal? How can a superlative that is supposed to differentiate between the mundane and the exceptional be applied to everything? It would be like calling every athlete the greatest of all time. You can't possibly have something be special if there is not a normative level of achievement by which to measure and differentiate between. None of that stopped millions of parents and thousands of teachers from spewing this nonsense into children's heads for the better part of three decades.

We have a society full of "special, unique" people now. Everyone has to be handled with kid gloves so as to not offend their special nature. There is no personal accountability because no one is ever wrong. We've morphed the concept of respect into this Frankenstein of mindless phrases and actions because that is what has become socially acceptable to the special people of our society. I can do what I want when I want because I'm unique and special and you have to respect that. By the way "you have to respect that" translates to "give me my way" in special. You can thank our Baby Boomer parents and their entitlement issues for that one.

Most people aren't close to special. Hell, most people aren't even unique; just walk out your front door and count the multitude of same looking, same acting, same talking people in just your neighborhood. It amazes me that we preach individuality to our citizenry while bemoan anything that doesn't conform to convention as being "weird". If you don't dress the same way, like the same things, parrot the same ideologies, and enjoy the same entertainment that the vast majority does then you are boxed off into a little island of odd. So, different is bad and conformity is good as long as you conform to one of the three or four socially acceptable groups that allow you just enough difference to be just like everyone else. How exactly does special fit into that?

Every person you know has a long list of flaws and imperfections that they carry with them every day, but that doesn't mean we have to celebrate those imperfections. Ghandi was special. Martin Luther King,Jr was special. Albert Einstein was special. The guy who cures cancer will be special. There is a reason we can name those people out of the billions on Earth and the countless number of people who've come before us while most people on your street don't know your name. That is what makes special "special".




Thursday, August 11, 2011

I'm Lazy Today

For all of you who thought creepy, molester youth pastor's only came in vanilla flavor, this young brotha would like to correct you. The good Lord don't discriminate.

In other news, make sure your cemetary has a good credit rating
before you die. I wonder if the state will forclose on the bones also...

AND Finally, for all you vodka drinkers a switch to brown, flavorful liquor may be the best move.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Urban is the New Colored

Political correctness is something I will always detest. Just because you call something by a sanitized,safe term doesn't mean you don't think the taboo word in your head or hold onto stigmas/stereotypes of the taboo word. Where did this notion come from that you can take the sting out of a word by packaging it as something prettier?

I overheard the guy on the other side of my cubicle (read: torture chamber) wall on the phone with a friend of his the other day. They were discussing directions to the softball game they would participate in later that evening (I was listening HARD) when I heard this line: "Well, be careful driving around there. It's kind of an urban neighborhood". Now, by urban, we all know he meant black. The fact that he said urban instead of black (or the dreaded N-word ©Byron Crawford) didn't change the connotation of his comment one iota. In fact, it made the comment even more offensive because of the way he chose to hide behind a sanitized version of what he really wanted to say. I didn't take offense to the fact that he was, in his own under-handed way, implying that a black neighborhood is dangerous solely by the virtue of it being a black neighborhood because we know in all honesty that some black neighborhoods are dangerous. I took offense to his cowardice.

When I say the word retarded (one of the few times my wife will actually yell at me), what image do you get in your head? Is it any different when I say the phrase mentally-challenged? Probably not. I will bet green, worthless American dollars that your brain doesn't distinguish any change meaning between the words handicapped and disabled. A person can use the phrase mentally-challenged (or even worse "special") with as much or more malicious intent as they can use the word retarded. Changing the word doesn't change the intention and anyone who thinks so is assuming that nice words equate to nice people which we know is rarely the case.

Don't get me wrong here, I don't think you should run into your nearest Jenny Craig and start calling obese people fat bastards because that is what you're really thinking. I do want people just to be more honest with themselves. Most of the time political correctness is nothing more than a mask to make people feel like they are a good person. How 'bout we all stop acting like retards (see what I just did there?) and realize that words aren't offensive, but the way you use them can be? This message has been sanitized for your protection.

The Assassination of Common Sense: Redux

I would like to point out a little bit of humor in the groundhog's day that is my life. You'll recall from such blogs as this (© Anthony Bourdain), that common sense is dead and buried. Well, I had common sense rise from the dead a la Jesus of Nazareth only to be shot in the head by the a roving gang of fucktards.

I'm standing in the self check out line at the grocery store yesterday. Of the four self check out machines, three of them are occupied and one is open. The screen on the open machine is completely black and there is a crate that was placed up-side down on top of the screen so as to indicate the painfully obvious "This shit ain't working" symbol. There is an annoying family (mother, two daughters) behind me with whom I share this wonderful interaction:

Polly Numb-Nuts: Excuse me, sir. Are you going to use that machine?

Me: I'm pretty sure that machine isn't working.

PNN: Well, the green light above it is on, so it should be working.

Me: Yeah, but the screen isn't even on.

PNN: I don't see why that means anything. If the green light is on then the machine should be working.

I almost shot myself in the face just to get away from her as fast as possible. But wait, THERE'S MORE! Polly Numb-Nuts then proceeds to ask the self check out overseer if the machine is working! It's almost like she wanted me to push her on the floor and run screaming out of the store. The best part is the overseer and I share a glance of "Is this bitch for real?!" before the overseer finally says "Well the screen is off and there is a crate covering the machine, so no." I couldn't hold in the chuckles that ensued.

There is no point to this post besides to reiterate how the dumb live among you. Just remember that they are hard to detect because they look just like you and I...until they open their mouths. If you encounter one of these feral beasts in the wild please flee to the closest normal human haven and report the incident immediately.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Work: The Crown Jewel of Satan's Empire

First, let me apologize for the lack of posting. As I'm sure you're all (3 of you) aware, sometimes real life gets in the way of the shit you really want to do. I've got some things in the works and as soon as the totalitarian dictators I call bosses take their collective boot off of my neck, I'll be posting 2 or 3 glistening nuggets of misanthropy to warm your little black hearts. Until then, I leave you with this.

Friday, August 5, 2011

WTF is Going On?

This is absolutely disgusting. This is how far we've come? To the point that now we're out there doing the same racist bullshit that was aimed at us for all these years? C'mon black folks! Every time a brotha does out and does something positive, jackasses like this come along and set every black person in America back 25 fucking years. What the fuck?

Parenting Should Require a License

Chances are you had a time in your life where you hated or at least strongly disliked your parents. Either justifiably or out of your own disdain for their rules, you decided that they were bad parents for that period of time and you actively did whatever you could to piss them off to the highest level of pisstivity (©Walter Jackson #highschoolquotes). We've all been there, but this isn't going to be one of those discussions. This is going to be about the truly horrible parents of the world. The people whom you see every day and ask yourself how the state hasn't taken away their children and locked the parents in a dog kennel.

On a bright, sunny spring day back in 2007, I was driving eastbound on good ol' Central Street in Evanston. Just coming home from a rewarding, fulfilling, totally worth it completely horrible day at work. I had my music blaring and I was in complete relax mode. As I'm cruising along, a woman pushing an infant in a stroller just decides to cross the street...directly in front of my moving car. She wasn't at a crosswalk, there was no cop controlling traffic, there was no traffic light; she just decided that crossing in the middle of a fairly busy street while pushing a baby in a GOD DAMNED STROLLER (into on-coming traffic) was a really good idea. I lost it. I screamed "You fucking worthless idiot!" out of my driver-side window at the woman who looked at me as if I had offended her...good because she offended me deeply.

I've had several opportunities to shout at shitty parents in the years since. It almost seems like some parents go out of their way to put their children in the most dangerous situations possible. We wonder how kids drown in the backyard pool or get abducted from the front yard when half of these parents wouldn't notice if you replaced their child with a doberman. I'm not blaming all parents of abducted children for the abduction, that would be obnoxiously ignorant. But we cannot disavow the connection between idiot, non-attentive parents and child abduction, that would also be obnoxiously ignorant.

Bad parenting goes way beyond putting children in danger, though. I'm sure we all have some weird hang-up due to the mental scars our parents blessed us with. Whether they made fun of your weight, or your intelligence, or how you've somehow failed to live up to their expectations we all know from personal experience or witnessing through close friends the damage done by parental berating and nit-picking. There is two sides to this coin: all of the over-praised, you-can't-do-anything-wrong, self-glorifying abominations that live among us. The kind of people who grow up to date-rape women and not feel the slightest bit of remorse. That is an extreme example, but you get the point. It almost seems as if most parents don't understand that there is a middle ground and you don't have to swing to one of the polar extremes. Just like everything else in this country, people assume you have to be on one side or the other, but the middle usually yields better results.

Look, my mom didn't do the perfect job raising us (can't you tell?), but she did a damn good job considering the circumstances. Being a single mom in the projects surrounded by gangs and drugs and not having one of us get involved in anything remotely shady or illegal takes a lot of luck and even more good parenting. We always thought our mom was hard on us coming up, but looking back we see that she had to be. She did the right amount of discipline and encouragement to make us not feel like we had to go out and do outrageous things for whatever purpose kids do outrageous things. Hmm...balance what a novel idea.

If bad parents put half the effort into raising their kids as they did into their outfits and finding out what time the club opens, this country would have something to look forward to. The bad parents far outnumber the good parents (by my totally valid and in-depth research) and, as far as I can tell, have kids like mogwai-rabbit hybrids on Viagra in a swimming pool (let it sink in). What is the answer? Selective sterilization? Maybe. Perhaps we need a government agency that gives a limited number of parenting licenses per year to deserving, responsible adults and we can criminalize unlicensed births? No? Too much like China for you? That's ok, we all know it would never happen (for a million ethical and logical reasons). Besides, the government is much better at doing the fucking as opposed to controlling it.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Are You Ready For Some Boredom?

***What follows is just pent up confusion and frustration. If you are not in the mood for such antics please move along***

One of the most baffling things in the world to me is fantasy football (or fantasy baseball, basketball, hockey, table tennis...). I don't understand the appeal or how so many people have become rabid fans (followers? coaches?) of this activity in what seems like an overnight explosion of lame. I've met and talked to folks who have tried to give reasonable defenses of fantasy football, but it always just sounds like something they made up on the spot. I suspect most times it is.

I didn't even know fantasy football was a thing until about 2003. Out of nowhere I start seeing commercials and ads on websites for it and the idea really just confused me. Not to be ignorant of something that could turn out to be really interesting (boy, was I wrong) I started looking into what exactly fantasy football was. Once I found out it was the most disappointing moment of my sports-related life. You mean to tell me this is just a bunch of bored suburbanites sitting around staring at stats to see who's "team" is doing the best? Was there something just too exciting about regular football that made them want to strip all of the fun out of it for public safety concerns?

This is fantasy football
This is fantasy football

Now this thing has exploded beyond my wildest nightmares. ESPN has not only dedicated resources to having fantasy football "experts" on their payroll, but they even give these people air time to discuss a non-sport smack dab in the middle of programs dedicated to actual sports. Not to be outdone, most sports radio stations around the country have been forced to give time to "experts" to drop some knowledge on which players you should "draft" into your league on a week-by-week basis.

Last fall, I was working for a CPG company that makes the little red, plastic cups (Not Dixie...the other one) that so many of you love to fill with liquid yeast poop when I over heard some fantastic idiot in the following conversation:

Complete Airhead: So, how was your draft?

Fantastic Idiot: It sucked. It would have been awesome if my girlfriend wasn't nagging me the whole time. She asks me to come over and I explicitly told her Sunday was my draft. Then I get there and she's all pissed that I'm on the computer doing my draft and not paying attention to her. She ruined the whole thing.

CA: Dude, you told her it was your draft. What didn't she understand?

I dunno. Maybe she was a little shocked that a man would turn down spending time with an actively interested female to sit on a computer and imaginarily draft men in tights to be on their imaginary "team". That is how strong some people's affinity for fantasy football runs.

If anyone can explain to how fantasy football is an enjoyable and rewarding exercise please feel free to do so. In the meantime, I'm going to start a petition to tar and feather everyone in a fantasy football league.

Satisfaction is the Death of Desire ©Hatebreed

The only people I ever meet who are satisfied with their life at the present time are really old people and really big losers. Feel free to quote me on that!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The End is Nigh...Again

I saw online yesterday that there is a lake in Texas that turned blood red and is filled with dead fish. In this same article I read how some groups (read: most Wal-Mart patrons) feel that this is a sign of the "End Times". Here we go again...

Bloody lake in Texas aside, how many times in just your own life have you heard or read about some group of religious zealots claiming that Event X is a sign of the end times? The fact that you're even able to ramble through the times you've heard this in your head should be enough to send you into a hysterical laughing fit complete with tears and yelps of hilarity. At least 3 or 4 times a year some dick, some putz, some yo-yo (©George Carlin) comes out and tells us to stock up on Bibles and meth because the end is nigh...and then we all wake up the next day. You'd think at this point even the mindless flock who follow these jackasses would say enough is enough.

First let's deal with the psychosis that would make one think that he/she can predict something like the end of the world. Where does one get an education on Apocalypse prediction? Is there a certification process? Can you study it in a lab? Where does this magical ability come from? If I woke tomorrow and told you I could predict the winner of the Super Bowl in 2037 you'd call me a rambling nut job because there is absolutely no way to tell what the NFL is going to look like 26 years from now. If we can agree that predicting the winner of a trivial football competition years into the future is a hideously dumb idea, why can't some people apply that same logic to something as important as THE END OF ALL LIFE ON THE FUCKING PLANET?!

The best part about the end times mongoloids are the actual explanations they provide that usually involve some combination of "scientific" research, astonishingly self-serving Biblical interpretation, divine communication, and lack of contact with intelligent life forms. They provide no proof, just examples of natural catastrophes in a short period of time and psychobabble. Somehow these people are given air-time on supposedly serious programs to discuss something that a 10 year old can see is the biggest bullshit since OJ Simpson and the "real killers". The picture of a deranged pastor from a 20 member congregation somewhere in the rural cesspools of America is the image I get whenever I hear about these "predictions" and rarely have I been proven wrong. That isn't to say that this is an accurate depiction of rural America as a whole, just the psychotic parts (let's call it 70-85%).

I can't forget the people who follow these "prophets". There must be a specific genetic mutation that prohibits the followers from making rational, logic-based decisions. There is no other way to look at it. Why else would you take on the utterly loony (let alone blasphemous) notion that some guy who can't predict the next time he has to go pee can tell you when the world will end? I understand the need to believe in a higher power, but that is no excuse for following every snake oil sales man who comes along shouting Bible verse and claiming that God speaks to him. If this is seriously all it takes for people to follow your commands and fork over large sums of money to you, then I need to brush up on my Corinthians.

It is more than reasonable to assume the Earth will be here long after man is gone. This relatively small blue-green orb will continue to revolve around a bright gaseous bulb just like has done for billions of years. We are no more important to the Earth than the dinosaurs were; and when she's done with us she'll shake us off and keep on rollin'. That isn't a prediction, that is a fact. To all of these psychotic end times believers I have a proposition: How about you stop prognosticating about when the world will end and give me a date on when you'll stop selling your idiocy to anyone who will listen? That is a question I'd much rather have you attempt to answer.

Monday, August 1, 2011

You're Into Depression Because It Matches Your Eyes

Depression is not a subject that I take lightly so, rest assured, that this is not something directed to those among us who actually carry this black cloud draped over their being on a daily basis; those people for whom our every day existence is just an all-consuming tunnel of blackened sorrow. This, my friends, is for the attention-whores who use depression (or their self-absorbed idea of depression) as an excuse. A bitch, whiny, poorly-acted excuse to slump through life while never actually doing anything to change the circumstances surrounding them.

When I was in my late teens, I went through what I genuinely thought was a long bout of depression (see 1996-1999). I wanted things that I didn't have, I felt like I was being beaten down by the harsh realities of life, and I debated over whether life was worth living at all. What I later realized was that I was just being a selfish young asshole. My depression was born out my teenage narcissism and a belief that I was entitled to what ever I wanted. When I didn't get the things I wanted out of life (usually following some half-hearted effort that I told myself was the best I could do) I would fall into a "depression" state or what normal people would refer to as pouting like a little bitch. Once I realized that there were people with bigger problems than not having a car at 17 or feeling sorry for myself for being poor, I quickly got my act together and moved on with my life.

Nowadays whenever someone blurts out how depressed they are in the middle of a conversation I know that very moment is when I should cease to pay attention to them. People who are really depressed don't go around talking about how depressed they are all the time. What that person is really saying is "Life is much more exciting when it's all about me". They are looking for your sympathy, so you can tell them how person X is an asshole or how they deserve something solely because they really want it. The actually depressed don't do this at all. They don't want to talk about their depression; they hide it as best they can and feel sentenced to suffer in silence because they believe no one cares about them enough to hear their cries. It takes a Herculean effort for an actually depressed person to come to grips with their situation and actively seek out help. Essentially, the attention-whores set themselves apart by being attention-whores.

The faux depressed have been shoved in our face more and more since the grunge era where the music of bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and (not grunge at all, but fit the bill) The Smashing Pumpkins was latched onto by needy suburban teens looking for a reason to feel special. That era begat the Nü-Metal era where bands like Papa Roach, Linkin Park, Korn, and the like passed off their whine-fest as aggression toward some undefined source so that they can feel special (and about as metal as daisies). Our television shows are filled with the image of people who can't get out of bed or sulk away in seclusion over their latest break up or being passed over for a job. All essentially media-approved, inaccurate depictions of depression that have done nothing, but make light of a serious condition that literally kills people every day and make it seem cool to be depressed because it somehow authenticates your existence.

Depression isn't a cold that lasts two weeks. Depression is a black cloud that hangs over the heads of thousands of people every day who struggle to find a reason to live. You don't get to use depression to explain away your reasons for being a jackass, or not getting off the couch, or eating two cartons of Häägen-Dazs in one sitting. Let's all get over ourselves and keep the pity parties to a minimum.

Friday, July 29, 2011

I Wonder If They'll Fit in Brown Paper Bags?

So, who's ready for the greatest invention EVER?

The Assassination of Common Sense Pt. 7

For those of you who are regular readers of this little piece of heaven called 'Preserved Disorder' (all 2 of you), I don't have to go into how this works. For those of you who are just popping your cherry with this blog I will provide a brief explanation. This won't be a typical blog that focuses on one topic. This is more in the vein of George Carlin's "Fee-Floating Hostility" bit. I'll instead focus on the general idiocy that we all encounter daily as an attempt to point out areas of modernity where common sense has not only failed, it was been shot in the face and tossed into a watery grave. Got the premise? Here we go....

It's Just Easier

This phrase has become the banner slogan for American sloth and lack of self-respect. Whenever I encounter someone who is making a stupid life decision and press them as to why they don't just make the obviously smarter decision, the person replies with "I dunno, It's just easier". For example, here is an actual conversation I overheard while at the grocery store yesterday:

Brainless Idiot: "I really hate going to Amanda's when Chris is over there. He is just such an asshole all the time."

Actual Human Being: "Well, why don't you just tell her you're not going to come over when he's there because you don't get along with him?"

BI: "Cuz then she gets all worried that I don't like Chris and starts asking me like a thousand questions about why I don't like him. It's just easier to go and deal with it for a little while, ya know?"

And this is easier how? The only person this seems easier for is Amanda and unless she's saved you from a burning building (completely plausible) then why is it easier for you to suffer than for her to deal with her asshole boyfriend on her own? It's also easier to just let someone murder you and not attempt to fight back, but you don't see people jumping on board for this idea, do you?

"It's just easier" has become a valid, reasonable solution to problems in cases where smart or reasonably intelligent people just don't give a damn enough to give a damn.

Suburban Talladega

When did driving on regular city streets become the qualifying race for the Indy 500? Ever day I'm almost killed by some fuckwit who thinks that he's Rusty Wallace in a Chevy Aveo doing 60 in a 40 during rush hour traffic. I really want to bludgeon with a spiked bat ask these people exactly what the rush is. Do you think the rest of us want to sit in bumper to bumper traffic all day? Because let me tell you I personally love it when it takes me 35 to 45 minutes to get home when I live 15 minutes away from my job. It really is the best part of my day you fucking mongoloid prick!

I'm sure you've had this happen to you before: You're driving (at the customary 10-15 mph over the speed limit, of course)when you spot a driver waiting to pull out of a parking lot/alley/cavernous vagina directly ahead of you. The driver of said vehicle is starring directly at your car as you approach him/her and they have plenty of time to pull out onto the road before you get close...but they don't. They just sit and stare at you until you're 10 feet away and then frantically pull out in front of you causing you to curse their father's polluted semen and slam on your breaks so as to not kill everyone involved. Every time that happens to me, I want to throw a Molotov cocktail through their windshield.

We hear about fatal car accidents on an almost daily basis in the news so it baffles me as to why people are so willing to take a chance with their lives in this circumstances. We've all heard the cliché about how you're more likely to die in a car crash than you are a plane crash, but why is that logic only applied to instances where people are about to fly and never to driving? Why is the douche nozzle in the Volvo behind me riding my ass like I have control over the speed of the 2,000 people in front of me who are also NOT GOING ANYWHERE! He must be special or something.

Hipsters

Hipsterism, which is an actual fucking term, is the layup drill of common sense. It is the actual definition of the phrase "low-hanging fruit". Why, oh, why would anyone of sound reasoning latch on to this shit sandwich of a sub-culture (which is way too mainstream to be a sub-culture)? Every time I see someone with a sweatband on their head and wearing a "vintage" purple t-shirt, dark brown cargo shorts, tube socks, and Chuck Taylor's I want to cry bloody tears.

The thing that annoys me the most about hipsterism is the feigned exuberance for all things cheesy and bad. It's like they actually want you to hit them in the face with a flaming brick. Old Atari games? Check. Excruciatingly bad music? Check. Irony as life's condiment? Check. There is no authenticity, no purpose, and no common sense to this "sub-culture". These are the same people who were listening to Dave Matthews and wearing Birkenstocks a few years ago, but now they want you to believe they are way too cool to care.

In a "sub-culture" where the whole point is to avoid being defined by a label, why is it so easy to walk into a room and spot the three hipsters without so much as a second glance? Because this culture is bullshit. A bastardized amalgamation of awkward and fun turned into a too brutal to watch train wreck of forced ambivalence and manufactured coolness that looks almost as pointless as it actually is. Fuck off.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Oh, My God! You Don't Like Yellawolf?!

Try this little excercise: walk over to the person nearest you and ask them what kind of music they listen to. If they say something like "Oh, I listen to everything" or "I like a mix of different things" I want you to bow down and worship at the altar of my genius. One of those two responses is the answer you'll get from 90% (totally valid and heavily researched percentage by the way)of people when you ask that question. I'll even go so far as to say that 100% of those people are lying directly to your face. No one listens to "everything". Find me someone who has pop, rap, bluegrass, zydeco, acid jazz, Gregorian chant, blues, classical, afro-punk, funk,soul,techno, 70's rock,country, and shoegaze on their iPod and I'll show you a avocado made from oranges.

Most people like one or two types of music and a couple of additional artists that are mainstream forms of various musical styles. For instance if you love Christina Aguilera, Kanye West, and Linkin Park you like one type of music: pop. Just because those three artists present their pop in different formats doesn't change what it is. If you also happen to like Miranda Lambert, that doesn't make you a country music fan that makes you a Miranda Lambert fan.

Think about this: When did the term Indy rock become the definition of a musical sound and not music that was written, recorded, and distributed on a shoe-string budget by a tiny record label with no connection to the big music labels? Answer: the minute record execs discovered that some people will go out of their way to listen to obscure, poorly-played music just so they can feel unique. Speaking of unique, where did this idea come from that just because an artist doesn't sound like anyone else makes them exceptional musicians? I don't care if you're fusing afrobeat and delta blues with crust punk if it sounds like you're playing three styles of music poorly at the same time. Then there is Lady Gaga different or as I call it marketing different. Here is a woman who sounds EXACTLY like 80's Madonna with a splash of R&B, but somehow gets lauded as being the most original artist since the dawn of man because she wears odd outfits. But I digress...

Who cares, right? Why does it matter if someone is into one specific style of music or 36? It matters because it is indicative of the state of the American psyche. Everyone wants to fit in despite all of the stories we've been told of this country being the one place in the world where you're free to be an individual. No one is going to come to your home and arrest you for banging out to some Blut Aus Nord if you so choose, but the social consequences can be interesting. I often get curious glances when I tell someone that I listen to a lot of hip hop and also a lot of metal (death, black, sludge, and doom being my favorite styles). People often assume they can tell what kind of person I am solely by my musical choices. That is the very reason why everyone you meet tells you they listen to "everything"; they are afraid of being reduced to a single line definition of their existence (this happens a lot more with clothing, but that is a different post altogether).

There are people out there who do listen to a wide variety of music. Some people can go from Celine Dion to Aesop Rock to Brooks & Dunn to Agalloch and not think anything of it. I'm not one of those people and, most likely, neither are you. Our fear of being judged for saying anything out of the ordinary, even about something as trivial as music choices, goes further than most people would like to consider. The same mentality that got the American public to at one time support a war against a country with no connection to 9/11 (remember 2003? It wasn't that long ago...) in two terms as president likely comes frome the same place that makes you think people listen to Arcade Fire solely because they like the music.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Not Today Man, It's Monday

I don't have to go on a rant about how Monday mornings are the worst thing since Hitler's birth because you are probably living a Monday morning hell as we speak. I will talk about something that makes the worst day of the week exponentially worse: "The how was your weekend?" questions. I'm not just talking about that one specific question, but the long list of questions people around your cubicle concentration camp let slide out of there mouths with mindless abandon. A guy knows you're a big Dodgers fan? Expect him to mention the Dodgers every time you see his slack-jawed face. That really annoying chick in Marketing? She's going to ask you how your wife/girlfriend/booty call is doing every time she sees you because she saw the two of you in a restaurant together 9 months ago. Everyone is going to put their most chipper, chatty foot forward on this lovely morning and it makes me want to slowly push them into traffic. You don't have to say anything...I know you agree with me.

Don't get me wrong, I don't look down on people for trying to be convivial with the other schmucks they have to stomach for at least 40 grueling hours a week when none of us really want to be here. I get that, I really do. What I don't get is the forced nature of these interactions. For instance, you know the guy who always seems to be walking out of the bathroom/kitchen/building whenever you're going in? How many times a day do the two of you have to pretend to genuinely enjoy awkward head nod hellos? Once? Every time you see him? What is the statute of limitations on disingenuous greetings? Even worse, Have you ever had someone actually respond to the how's it going?/How was your weekend? question by actually stopping to tell you how they are doing? JESUS H. GODDAMMED CHRIST! Are you shitting me? I actually have to stand here and here you ramble about your kid's ear infection while holding this "Aw, that is so sad face"? Shoot me...shoot me in the eye right now!!

Monday is the one day every week that people should be able to be as honest as they want to be. I don't mean the bullshit excuse people use to be assholes known as "brutal honesty", I'm talking about real honesty. The "I'm going to walk directly past you and not say hi because both of us are miserable and don't want to be here" honesty. We can chit chat about the weather, your favorite hot dog place, or the amazing cinematic efforts of the (shitty) movie you just saw on Friday...the only appropriate day of the week to be happy for no reason.

I know some people feel it makes them a good person to smile and say hello to everyone. I'm not one of those people. I think anyone who can give you the reasons as to why they think they are a good person is an assbag. Being a good person isn't some set of preordained actions that you have to master and acquire an appropriate score on; nowhere in the Bible/Koran/Torah/Penthouse magazine does it say fake smiles and manufactured politeness is the key to spiritual awakening and eternal salvation. There is nothing inherently bad about small talk, but it's Monday so please in the name of all that is holy leave me the fuck alone. Thanks and have a great day!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Most Insightful (and accurate) Nicki Minaj Album Review Of All Time

Hi there. So, I sat down at my computer today just looking for something interesting to read to pass the time on this lazy Sunday afternoon so I started reading music sites. I have a fairly adventurous musical appetite (LIE) so when I came across a review of Nicki Minaj's album 'Pink Friday' over at The Number of the Blog (a favorite of mine) I said to myself "I should read this because maybe there will be something unexpectedly awesome about the album that will convince me to give it a listen"...I like to at least pretend to have an open mind, ya know?

So I read the review and it makes the album sound like everything that I had anticipated it would be: abominable. No hate towards Nicki Minaj, she does her thing in the lane she's chosen and she does that better than a lot of her male counterparts (Spotlight directed onto Drake, Big Sean, et al.) It's just that, in terms of the quality of her music, I'm not the kind of person who is inclined to listen to a pile of crap just because it happens to smell less shitty than the other piles of crap. Any motherfarkin way, just read the review. It's funny, it's an interesting read, and it's pretty damn accurate as far as I'm concerned.

Friday, July 22, 2011

NFL Lockout: People Who Should STFU

The NFL lockout is something I never want to hear about again. I'm an avid football fan, but if there is no NFL this fall I will somehow manage to survive and not give a shit. BUT since so many people have their crotchless panties in a bunch over the whole ordeal, I've decided to make a quick list of people whom the NFL lockout makes me want to tar, feather, and grill over an open flame.

THE FANS


Has there ever been a group more worthy of kicking in the throat than NFL fans? No matter what city you're from, your fans are annoying, sloppy drunk, mouth-breathing shit sacks. I didn't think I could hate NFL fans more...until the lockout. Now every article about the lockout has to be accompanied by 761 comments from slobbering sloths all across the country. Never mind that most of these inbreds have never played an actual down of football in their entire lives or know much about football besides their "My team is awesome....Your team blows" philosophy. Everyone has an opinion despite not knowing much about labor negotiations, law, long division, or proper hygiene.

I also love the not-so-thinly veiled racism, homophobia, and general ass-hattery that an NFL fan will proudly share with you at any moment. It's no wonder that the country as a whole is falling apart faster than JLo's marriage (Fuckin' right I did it!) when we have these beacons of the American school system as some of our nation's most vocal citizens.

THE OWNERS


As a football fan, I can honestly say that I despise the owners. Every time an NFL owner opens his mouth he does something to ruin football. Like "Hey guys I don't think any of us are nearly as rich as we need to be, let's squeeze some extra cash out of the guys who make us richer every week". Great idea. How 'bout next week we shut down the sun? Granted, most NFL owners came to own a team by first using their business skills to amass a huge fortune and acquire an asset that is the picture next to the textbook definition of cash cow, but that doesn't make them good people.

How many billionaire businessmen do you think have any humility? *Crickets* How many billionaire businessmen can you say actually care about the common man's plight? *Crickets on fire* This is the same group of lying fartholes who wanted rule changes for "the safety of the players" and not a week later wanted to extend the season to put players in harm's way more often. They'd make wonderful politicians. Now they want me to believe that they are losing revenue, but they can't open up their books because that is private information. I think NFL owner's are actually behind the Nigerian email scams.

THE PLAYERS


In the loving words of my mother "The fuck is you crying 'bout?!". We don't need to go into the myriad reasons as to how great life is as a pro football player. We also don't need to go into the danger's of playing pro football. The reason that we don't need to go into these things is that (some) fans "get it". How 'bout we help NFL players get it: maybe just maybe if you didn't spend every cent you earned in the NFL on houses, cars, designer sun glasses, and child support you'd be able to afford to pay for health care after football. I'm not talking about the guys who played in the 50s through 70s era NFL...those guys got a raw deal in terms of pay and health. But if you've played more than 5 seasons in the modern-day NFL, you can probably afford to put some money away, make smarter business decisions, and stop banging every woman who lifts her skirt up so that you can get that knee replacement surgery after your pro days are behind you.

I've played organized football in my life, but I'll never play in the NFL which is every 10 year old football player's dream. You've made it to Wonderland and you can't stop bitching about the decor.

THE MEDIA


Less is more. As in the more you talk about the NFL lockout, the less I want to listen to you. Call me when it's over and you have something of value to say, but we don't need round the clock coverage of the NFL lockout anymore than we need round the clock coverage of my toilet. I don't care that DeMaurice Smith called his mom about the lockout or that an intern for the Rams left the meetings with problems related to diarrhea.

If the lockout hasn't ended then you have nothing to report. So, why don't you pump up another sporting event no one cares about (I'm looking at you Women's World Cup) and sit the hell down.

Black, White, and Lame All Over

Let's talk politics. I don't mean let's talk about the moronic concepts of left-wing vs right-wing or liberal vs conservative or jackass vs fat ass; I'm talking about the actual game of politics. I'm talking about the bullshit that gets shoveled around ever couple of years that has Americans foaming at the mouth to vote for new prom kings and queens every time a "sexier" candidate enters the forum. I'm talking about the fantastic shell game that has been going on in this country since 1776. I'm talking about the art of selling people a can of Budweiser and telling them it's champagne.

As a black man, I'm very proud of Barack Obama for achieving a feat that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime: a (sort of) black president. Now let me say something that is going to piss a lot of people off: I've never been a Barack Obama fan. I like Obama as a person. I'd love to have a beer and catch a game with the brotha. I'd like to hear him describe how it felt to reach a height that we as black people never thought we'd reach. Then I'd like to ask him what his long range economic recovery plan looks like. I'd like to know why he hasn't taken a hard line on pretty much anything since he took office. I'd ask him why poor people are still getting locked up for smoking pot and most of Wall Street gets to go home and sleep in complete comfort every night. You know...questions about his job.

This is not an Obama bashing excursion. I just want to know why he sold Budweiser as champagne. Speaking of Budweiser (bad pun in 3...2..1...)I know some of you are thinking "Hell, he's better than Bush!". Which is true, but that's setting the bar pretty low isn't it? I mean Steve-O could probably do a comparable job to what George Bush did. Why bring up Bush? What can you possibly use to compare Obama and Bush? Where are they equal to each other? They are both politicians.

pol·i·ti·cian   /ˌpɒlɪˈtɪʃən/
[pol-i-tish-uhn]
–noun
1. a person who is active in party politics.
2. a seeker or holder of public office, who is more concerned about winning favor or retaining power than about maintaining principles.


How do politicians win favor and retain power? By selling Budweiser as champagne. Every election cycle we get a new crop of wolves in sheep's clothing making the same promises. You'd think that by now Americans would be living in a Utopia that was the envy of every nation on the planet. My driver's license just says Illinois, but maybe that is some sort of codename (HA!) Yet you see Americans from Tukwila to Bangor in red-faced fury over which candidate is the secular messiah sent by forces unknown to right all the evils of the last 235 years. Then four years later we're all bitching and complaining about how Senator X or House Speaker Y is the reason for all of our ills, but as soon as Representative A gets into office the sky is going to pour strippers and lollipops. Right, and Lil' Wayne is gonna win best new artist at the Country Music Awards (#sarcasm).

"If you have selfish, ignorant citizens you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders" ©George Carlin


I don't get mad at the likes of Palin, Boehner, and Gingrich when I see them on television bad-mouthing our current president. They are just trying to win one for their team just like Obama, Clinton, and Biden were in 2008. A politician is a politician is a politician. And a politician by definition (see above)is just a pimp with better education. The sooner the majority of Americans come to this realization, the sooner we get closer to actual change in this country.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

I Hate Your Phone

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

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.

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...