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

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.

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?

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

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.