Thursday, June 17, 2010

get momma's pryin' bar

Man, so these kids, they’re smoking, they’re drinking beers at baseball games, they’re growing up so fast, right?

I mean, I just watched that smoking toddler video and the accompanying news report about his mother’s concerns over his addiction and a few things crossed my mind instantly:

1. Um, that kid is super fat. What about that? He’s two? He’s got the body of an iowa sow. He looks like a zeppelin. He probably doesn’t need to deal with the subsequent weight gain that accompanies quitting smoking. ever consider that, cruel media pundits?

2. he’s two. How bout this for a way to get him to stop smoking: Quit giving him cigarettes. I mean, I know that over in Indonesia cigarettes are just on the ground and in the trees and right there next to the lollipops and fleshlights in the convenience stores, but this might be one of those times when you’ve gotta take a brave stand and just stop buying your two year old packs of smokes.

(During the course of the newscast I saw, this dude came up to the kid and started taunting him with cigarettes at the airport. Now, that’s a rough situation. Here you are, a mom with your two year old who’s addicted to cigarettes, and you’ve got some asshole taunting him and trying to get him to smoke. That sucks for sure, but keep in mind, mom of smoking toddler, you’re dealing with the kind of dude that taunts toddlers and thinks that smoking kids are funny, so you probably just want to get your kid away from him asap. I mean, giving a strange kid cigarettes is creepy on more than a few levels. Definitely ‘windowless van’ level stuff, if you know what I’m saying.

3. All these people who are so hyper outraged over the smoking toddler in Indonesia and the other one in China are forgetting that those kids both work in canneries. Who are you, western world, to deny a little boy a few cigarettes after a nineteen hour shift in a dangerous factory?

I hope we can all be a little more open minded in the future, when it comes to smoking toddlers in the far east. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

Now, the kid at the baseball game, he’s just awesome. For those of you who haven’t seen it, there’s some little kid out there who’s parents like the Phillies and he’s getting a lot of attention (and requisite media outrage) because he’s been caught on tape drinking a beer in the stands at the game. It’s a miller light, so well, I don’t know what I’m really trying to say here. Bad beer? Sure, but it’s the ballpark. That’s what you drink at the ballpark, so I don’t think that’s what’s got everyone so upset. He’s really chugging too, and there doesn’t seem to be any sense that anyone around him is surprised, or even there with him. It’s a pretty good video. Man, if I ever see that kid at the airport, I’m gonna buy him a beer. That’s for sure.

I don’t know, folks. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This manufactured media outrage is so asinine that it’s actually dangerous. Sure, kids aren’t supposed to smoke. Sure, kids aren’t supposed to have beers. But kids aren’t supposed to do a lot of things. Neither are adults. The problem is that every time anything at all happens all these nitwit newscasters throw up their hands and start freaking out like a bunch of outraged senior citizens.
Well, guess what, folks. The world IS going to hell in a handbasket. It’s the fucking end of days. No two ways about it. There’s smoking toddlers and kid touching priests and oily birds and fish and some kardashian sister you’ve never heard of staring in some show you’ve never heard of that’s being watched by millions. There’s no more Gary Coleman. Betty White has won the Golden Girls endurance race. God is dead, they’re talking about putting Ronald Reagan on money and man, the fact that there’s such a market for outrage tells you something about our world:

namely, that everyone wants to be pissed off themselves, but can’t be bothered. If outrage was common among your friends and neighbors, you wouldn’t want to watch Hannity on television. You’d be up to your dick in people complaining and raising a stink and all that. You can’t sell people something that’s free and plentiful already…except water, I guess. Huh. Maybe I’m missing the point here.

Maybe the point is this: we’re so dumb as a nation (not as individuals, so relax) that we’ll sit around and pay for anything at all. We’ve completely shirked the idea of accountability to the point where we don’t even think twice about just forking over money to make things easier. It starts with things like ecological disasters being handled with cash and it ends with things like people being a little thirsty and rather than bringing water from home in a reusable bottle, they just buy a plastic bottle of water at the store. That’s like buying air, people. It’s fucking duuuuuuuuumb. Now, I do it too, so don’t think I’m trying to be smug here. I’m also lazy and entitled and about the only thing I’ve done lately, in terms of venting any outrage is write this series of paragraphs. I’m no better than anyone else out there with their plastic burrito on their lawn chair with their feet in the kiddie pool watching Maury. And that’s kind of the thing too.

Ah, I can’t get into it now…my kid (the second one) seems to be all out of vodka, so I gotta run.

xoxoxo

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go Phils!

Donnie said...

I saw a mom give her crying baby a margarita once...

EZB said...

mmmhmmmm... margarita

Nina said...

mmmhmmmmm... moms

EZB said...

oh ya, just realized i missed all the jazz at the end of the day yesterday.... but candice i think you are a beard-ist, every dude with a beard looks like every other dude with a beard... i have forty long lost brothers, 22 biological fathers and 2 biological mothers out there... according to people like you

Anonymous said...

My sis has this picture of my nephew, when he was pretty young, sitting in a kiddie pool. The kid was a little chunker and had an empty beer bottle in one hand(that had been washed out, my sis isn't Britney Spears) arms up on the edge of the pool just letting shit roar with his little kid beer belly hanging out. It, to this day, is a favorite pic of everyone in the family.

Maggie said...

Okay, while we're on the topic of how to raise kids, there's this article I read in the Times that I found to be maddening:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/fashion/17BFF.html?pagewanted=1

The kind of people who get legitimately angry because of media outrage surrounding a particular incident like the smoking child (while ignoring the fact that the kids probably live pretty difficult lives with problems that can definitely use a little media attention) are the same kinds of people who let the schools do shit like this.

So whatever... their opinions are null and void

Anonymous said...

Your most brilliant post yet!

People being held accountable for their actions?! Never!

Miller Lite sucks.

Robb said...

Indeed, Candice - plus no brother of mine would say "mmhmmm...margarita"

Drunken Acorn said...

Miller Lite does suck huh. Unless it's free free beer is always good beer.

Anonymous said...

my brother gave me a little wine so i could sleep when i was 10, at 10 i was no child so i guess its all right, despite my severe alcoholism nowadays.

by the way,this stupid world cup its bringing out the hidden nationalist in me, all of a sudden i hope Argentina wins (and sure we will, we have Messi for god's sake!). i'm kinda worried i'm loosing punk point here.

GO ARGENTINA!!!!!!!!!!!!

limited nobility said...

anyone seen that old pic of neil with morrissey and the popes?It seems pretty telling,he's giving this perfunctory yet good-natured kind of smile as if he's next to candice or something(no offense) while everyone else is doing their best to look as if life/death doesn't particularly appeal to them either.Its got a photo-bomb vibe.smoking popes morrissey google search if inclined.I wouldn't recommend doing so upright though...........cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Candice said...

not every guy with a beard, ez. i'm not that racist.

The Super Erica said...

i can think of a hundred worse things that parents have done to children. i work at a kids emergency room in kansas city. part of my job is seeing fucked up shit people can do to kids. while giving a kid a cigarette is definitely not going to put a mom in the running for the parent of the year award, it is not the end of the fucking world.

Robb said...

yeah but there's a diff b/w giving your kid a cigarette and giving him like, 5,000 cigarettes. I was sposed to see menzingers last night but their van done broke down in louiiiiiiiisiana! It was weal saaaaaaaaaaa

Robb said...

...that having been said, lil' ardi was clearly put on this earth to make me laugh, so smoke monkey smoke

Sean said...

no post friday is a badddd start to a weekend...

On a slightly related note: Anyone from Chicago goin to Soldier Field to see The Eagles, Dixie Chicks, and Keith Urban play tonight?

Yea, me neither.

Robb said...

btw have the geniuses at jbtv online heard of fast forward? That video player is fucked

Sickie27 said...

Speaking of the media, have you heard that Miley Cyrus is too sexy at 17 and there's something in the water?

Anonymous said...

happy father's day beex!

James said...

Happy Father's Day Bk... hope ur kids gave you back ur smokes