childhood trauma content ahead!

I’ve never shit my pants. Actually, that’s not true at all. A much more accurate way to say that would be to say that I used to shit my pants all the time. As a kid, I tended to not wipe as thoroughly as I could have and the results were lots of hastily wadded up and hidden streaky underpants. That’s not exactly ‘shitting you pants’ per se, but the general results: shit particles on your underpants, were the same.

I can actually only think of twice that I’ve actually dropped a dump in my pants, if we’re being completely honest. Once was when I was over at Eric Bachewicz’s house. It was winter and snowing and we were out ‘skitching’ which was essentially hiding between parked cars and then running out and grabbing onto the bumper of a passing car and letting the car pull you through the snow. This was an entirely stupid pastime, and it really didn’t work that well, but that didn’t stop us. We were out there with a dude named Norman and his brother who was named Rayhan. These guys were, uh…they were eastern Euros of some sort, maybe serbs (?), and they didn’t really like me that much. They were kind of bullies.

Norman and Rayhan were friends with Eric, and so was I so we tolerated each other (well, that’s not really a fair way to categorize the relationship. Realistically, they thought I was some kind of total fag and I pretty much just prayed they wouldn’t attack me [which actually goes a long way towards proving my ‘total fagdom,’ if I’m really examining the whole thing with unprejudiced eyes]). We’d all hang out and I, as the kind of outsider/loser of the squad, would foolishly try to do the ballsiest things I could think of to win the respect of these two guys who are probably both janitors now (not that I have a job of any kind. Just sayin).

This included hanging out and skitching even though I was feeling sick. SO, as a particularly slow moving car headed down Wellington ave. I came out from between the cars and grabbed the bumper. Now, skitching, as you may have guessed, doesn’t hardly work at all. When I grabbed the bumper, the only thing that happened was that I fell forward pretty violently and shit my pants with a savage ferocity that can only be summed up as “Totally Gross”. I went back to Eric’s house and scooped the bright orange goopy crap out of my underwear and off my legs. The shit had come out in spray form, not unlike the way that pink goo shot out of the dudes’ hoses in Ghostbusters 2, and it had done a pretty good number on my drawers, my pants and even my socks(!) and it also smelled kind of gnarly (if you can believe it!) I wrapped my ruined underwear in toilet paper and explained to Eric’s mom that shit wasn’t going so well and I was gonna just go home. Then I went outside and threw my underwear away in the dumpster (keep in mind it was FREEZING! And I was wearing wet [because of poo] pants), endured a little open mockery from Norman Rayhan and Eric and then went home and promptly took a hot bath. That sucked. The other time I shit my pants was way better.

My mom had this boyfriend who was a real asshole. His name was Michael Gratz. Michael Gratz had a son named Michael Gratz jr. and the day we met (me and the son) he called me a fag (this was obviously a common theme in my childhood) because I liked Michael Jackson. I was probably 7. I could not fathom how someone could not like Michael Jackson, much less think that his fans were fags. This kid was uh…probably ten or eleven, just by the way. He thought Michael Jackson and all his fans were fags. That’s pretty advanced, right? Anyway, I aksed him what music he liked, as I was so completely blown away by his opinion, and his response: John Waite and his classic jam (which was, at the time a current hit) Missing You. Now, if I can editorialize for a second, there’s nothing cool about being reductive and using the word “fag” in any sort of context, but seriously, the gayness of John Waite and Missing You cannot be overstated. Michael Jackson and Beat It are fucking Burt Reynolds eating a tiger raw compared to John Waite, bro. No two ways about it.

Anyhoo, we (me, my mom, and the two Michael Gratz’s) were going on a road trip from St. Louis (where I lived as a wee one) to Nantucket (where Michael Gratz had a summer home that he visited about twice a year). This was a horrifying prospect for me because while Michael gratz Jr. made no secret of openly hating me, his dad was more treacherous, threatening me and shaking me and shit when my mom would leave the room. The whole thing kind of sucked, and though I had a great time in Nantucket, I was always on edge, and I was constantly under attack by this father son team that really, for whatever reason, hated my faggy guts.

I remember that the house out there reminded me at the time of the house in Weekend At Bernies and I also remember that I got my favorite shirt from my childhood out there (it was a fish skeleton) and here’s the other thing I remember:

Michael Gratz yelling at me and Michael Gratz junior constantly punching me and me waiting, biding my time until the last day we were there. See, I hated these guys a lot, and I may have been a faggy cockblocker (a sentiment so personally revolting that I can barely handle it, but realistically, that’s why dude didn’t like me, right? He was trying to bang my mom and I was often in the way…ew. Ew. Ew. I, like all humans, like to imagine that my mom has no genitals and was impregnated in a lab) but I was also an intelligent and highly revenge motivated little boy. I KNEW that they only came to this house twice a year (when we showed up, the amount of getting shit together so we could function in the house betrayed that it had been a LONG time since anyone had been there) and I figured that I could pull a highly subversive move pretty easily if I just waited for my moment.

So, on the last day we were there, we’d packed our bags and everything, we were leaving and all in the car. I ran back into the house under the guise of going to the bathroom, which I kind of did. I shit in my pants. On purpose. I shit into my underwear, took off my shitty underwear and hid the shitty underwear in the vent of the room that I’d shared with Michael Gratz Jr. I knew it would be a bare minimum of six months before anyone found that dumpy load, and I was pretty proud of my little plan.

I rode all the way back to St. Louis with no underwear on, and it was worth it. It was great. This is also a story I’ve never really told anyone before, and if it wasn’t for the big bottle of Jim Beam on the table at the JBTV staff meeting (and my resulting hangover) I probably wouldn’t have told it right now. But, yeah. I’ve got lots and lots of great stories like this, folks. Lots.

Good morning

Love ya, Black. Always a pleasure.

Why divorce happens: a completely definitive guide

So many marriages these days end in divorce. Unrealistic conservatives call it an epidemic of massive proportions and point to things like pornography and the Simpsons as purveyors of a wanton, new, consequence-free social paradigm that’s quickly shuffling us all towards Gomorrah, while selfish babies point to everything from the animal kingdom to life extending medication to the lessons of our parents to justify why divorce ain’t a big deal. I’m not trying to come down on either side here, because frankly, they’re both wrong, and as we discussed yesterday, real issues are rarely able to be reduced to a simple two sided argument. I know all about why people are getting divorced. I live inside a marriage and I’ve discovered the place where the water first trickles through before the dam bursts. I KNOW where divorce comes from and I’m gonna share it with you.

Now, before you read into this too much, I don’t think my marriage is gonna end in divorce (It’s much more likely to end with my wife just running out for a pack of smokes and never coming back, which is a whole different thing). Lots of marriages don’t, but some do. Lots do, and here’s why:

When you first see that special dude or lady that you someday end up convincing to try some form of unnatural sex which eventually results in enough guilt and weirdness to ultimately lead to a marriage proposal, there tends to be some form of energy there. Some couples report hating each other upon first meeting, while others claim to instantly have recognized true love while still others (and I’m guessing this is about 95% of everyone) just become overwhelmed with the urge to bone the bejezus out of one another. This is the category I fell into (and still find myself in, hence the constant pestering, a decade later).

So, you’re there with this potential life/boning partner and you manage to not fuck it up. You end up with each other’s phone numbers, you guys decide to go out, maybe you bang or immediately exchange oral sex in the back stall at the Dennys that you’re in and things are starting to go well. You get this reasonable idea that you’re at least semi palatable to this other person. So what happens next?

You hide yourself away as much as humanly possible, that’s what happens next. You don’t want him knowing about your hairy ass, so you get it waxed. You brush your teeth before you see her, you pretend you’re not outraged by people saying that Jedi is the best of the original trilogy, you douche, you hold in your farts with the desperation of someone hiding under the bed from a death squad holding in a sneeze, you never, ever shit. You’d rather DIE than shit. You pretend to like her weird tits and dipshit friends, you pretend that you’re fine with licking balls. You act like this weird sex position that you’re constantly finding yourself in is something you don’t find to be degrading/painful/ridiculously laughable. You show up on time, you pay for things. You pretend to be employed. You laugh at shit that you’d otherwise openly mock. You agree with things you strongly disagree with. You wear panties that match your bra that match your shoes (because that’s gonna be all you’re planning on wearing at some point in the evening) that matches your dress. You check your teeth. You actually wash your hands after you piss. You shower. You pretend you don't ever think about banging his/her friends. You clean up your filthy, disgusting room.

(ed note: in every relationship I’ve ever been in, this last item has actually never materialized. From the most casual all the way up to my wife, I’ve never cleaned my room for a girl, nor has anyone ever cleaned their room for me. American, Midwestern white women between the ages of fourteen and twenty five have to be the sloppiest, messiest human beings on the planet. Followed closely by me. Just sayin.)

So here you are: you’ve got this person that makes you happy and all you have to do to make them happy in return is completely hide almost everything about yourself. Meanwhile, they’re doing the same exact thing (though you don’t ever realize that. You think they like the way you twist their tits when you’re fucking them and that they really always keep their balls shaved, or that they don’t find your eating habits to be gross). It’s a happy and exciting house of cards, marked by lots of work and lots of boning as a reward for said work. These are the good times, right? So why not kick it up a notch?

You move in together/get married. These can be interchangeable, because for one thing, lots of divorces are avoided by people living together and then breaking up, and for another thing, lots of people live together forever and never get married. The general notion of what happens next, however, is the same. And it’s this:

Suddenly, that person that was the one person on earth that you never ever wanted to fart in front of becomes the one person that ends up smelling ALL your farts. They’ve gone from being the person that you think doesn’t shit to the person that doesn’t light the match or spray the spray. They wake up in the morning and they’re grumpy, or you’re grumpy. They’re standing right there so it’s not maintaining any sort of illusion to shave your back right in front of them. May as well let it go. He’s right there, and he knows that I haven’t had my asshole waxed for a while, it’s not like he’s gonna be upset if it’s still not waxed tonight when we go out. This is in stark contrast to when these things used to be priorities. Now, they’re expendable and seemingly pointless time wasters; smoke and mirrors that are only being put up for someone who’s in on the trick. What’s the point?

Well, do you know the physics behind a house of cards? Because if you take one card out, the whole thing collapses. Suddenly, she’s not getting the smooth-backed gentleman that she thought she had purchased. She’s, however subtly or unconsciously, realized that the masks are falling. A decision is made (again, perhaps subconsciously) that she’s not putting your balls in her mouth any more. She doesn’t like it, and it seems like we’re getting rid of the inconvenient things in this relationship, right? And Balls-mouth is certainly inconvenient.

Well, no balls in the mouth means no more pretending I like your cunty best friend or all these stupid pillows. Well, you don’t like my pillows? I hate your action figures/beer posters/neon signs/band/stench. My stench! Don’t you dare deride my stench! How bout this: I’m not really a dentist! I actually just sell asprin to old people at the nursing home and tell them it’s heart medicine and I charge six hundred bucks a pill! How bout that?!

And it goes on and on and on like this.

You see how this can quickly lead to people bolting from each other, regrouping alone, douching, shaving their backs, pretending to always wear clean underwear, and then fucking it all up again with someone new, can’t you?

Sure you can. You’re not idiots, right? Of course not. Anyhoo, if you find that this is what’s happening to your marriage/LTR, well, there’s one foolproof way to fix it right up: Have kids. It’ll have you guys waxing each other’s assholes and back in matching underwear faster than you can say “Dinosaur Train.” Seriously, it’s foolproof.

Okay, speaking of, this baby is upset. Gotta go.

We'd better get moving if we want to stay ahead of the weather

Good afternoon! Today is the darkest, most brutal storm of the century here in Chicago. They say that this storm is gonna have more of some kind of barometric pressure than the one that sank the old Edmund Fitzgerald all those years ago and subsequently gave birth to that terrible Gordon Lightfoot song (ed. Note: does it seem strange to anyone else that ‘lightfoot’ is recognized by my spellcheck [but in a SHOCKING twist ‘spellcheck’ is not!] Seems like someone over at the software-making place has some highly dynamic taste in shitty music).

Well, I’m in the thick of it right now. I’m watching some trees whip around and checking out some dude bringing kegs into a bar. Seems downright terrifying out there. I mean, fuck. The traffic cones are threatening to blow over. There are clouds covering almost half the sky! OOOOOOOOH. I battened down the hatches at my house for this shit, people. Took in all the shit off my porch, boarded up the windows, got some whiskey and some toilet paper and some drinking water and the last coke on earth and buried it in an underground bunker and for what? The Edmund Fitzgerald was obviously a total pussy of a boat. There. I said it. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be walking around all elderly and wearing a sail right by the highway or anything, but I’m hardly terrified by the weather today.

Frankly, it’s a bunch of hooey; the climactic equivalent of the 24 hour punditry that derails important news and makes (for example) some Yosimite Sam looking Koran burning hick, or a rehabbed Burlington coat factory a front page story. The weather people finally got their own Terry Jones in this storm with the catchy trappings of a famous boat and song and the thrills of almost unheard of barometric readings (hold onto your seats!) and they’re off! Only problem is that shit’s not all that devastating and well…the whole thing is easily debunked by, you know, looking out the window.

This kind of sensationalism, however, gets harder when you’re talking about things that you can’t just walk outside and stand in, like say, when people started saying that getting your kids vaccinated would lead to autism. Never mind that on one side was the whole medical community, doctors, nurses, researchers: you know, the people who know what the fuck is going on, saying things like “um, this is not true, and in fact, it’s gonna lead to shit like whooping cough and measles and so on having a resurgence (which is happening as we speak, actually), so seriously, please PLEASE vaccinate your child” and on the other side was respected iconoclastic medical personality Jenny McCarthy. I mean, um…

This should have not even been an issue. Jenny was parroting the ideas of a UK doctor who has since admitted that his claims had no basis in research results or any other sort of fact, and who has subsequently been thrown in jail for peddling his pseudoscience. There’s no point where the quack and the former host of Singled Out (look it up, kids) should have been given an equal platform alongside all the Rest of the Medical Professionals in the World, but a funny thing has happened in our 24 hour media cycle of a universe. Suddenly, two opposing viewpoints can be presented as THE two sides of an argument (see: should we build a mosque right on Ground Zero or not? Which side are you on [notice there’s no room for the {highly logical} ‘um, this isn’t a mosque and it’s not at ground zero’ viewpoint])? and voila! We’ve got people not vaccinating their kids because some dipshit with a communications degree and 24 hours to fill decided that putting the skanky wingnut and highly dangerous fringe up against the entirety of rational thought, pragmatic and responsible discourse and general sanity would be a great idea because it’ll play and create follow up stories that can fill subsequent 24 hour cycles ad infinitum.

In a way, it reminds me of religion. And here’s what I mean: There’s no inherent difference between hardass atheists and fundamental religious people. They’re both arrogant and cocksure and refuse to listen to any opposing viewpoints and they’re both pretty much talking out of their asses when it comes to their ideologies, because the ‘big questions’ of the universe don’t have answers, so no: you’re not right, atheist prick, and no, you’re not right, fundamentalist religious nutjob. You’re just both arrogant deesh that don’t really know what you’re talking about and won’t listen to reason.

BUT, the thing that happens all too often is that the smug atheist is placed up against a person from a specific faith, and at that point, the game becomes totally skewed. I mean, there’s a legit debate in “is there a higher power/something more than science and dirt and recycled energy and entropy” but when it comes down to “Is Jesus the son of god, or is there no god,” well, come on…if those are my choices, I’d be an idiot not to side with the atheists. The bible, as we all know, is full of recycled stories from Egyptian, greek and other various mythologies and well, (spoiler alert!) it’s all a bunch of bullshit. You’d have to be kind of retarded to really, truly in your soul think that the bible is anything more than a haphazard handbook, hastily amended and rewritten hundreds of thousands of times that’s kind of oriented towards a general idea of how to deal with the possibility of something greater existing out there. To think of it in terms of any specifics at all is just dumb. A guy who was living in the middle east 2000 years ago wasn’t friends with people named John and Matthew and Paul, for starters. It’s just not an accurate document. BUT, for whatever reason, people insist on giving this one highly wacky perspective a fifty percent share in the entire talk of cosmic perspective.

That’s why, if you get your news from talking head tv, you’re likely kind of stupid. It’s not your fault, and it’s not to say that you’re not educated, but you’ve been ingesting a dumb dualistic view of a highly polyglot world that can’t be easily reduced to for/against arguments, and the idea of the entire perspective is based in no small part on the programming ideas of dumb people that work for TV and have to fill up time in schedules.

Anyway, long story short: this storm ain’t shit.

uh, this is uh...fucked up? booo!

You all know what’s going on over here? You want to know how Monday starts for the Kelly household this week? Pink eye! It’s like being at chong’s house, with all the bloodshot eyes and eyedrops and shades drawn and everything. Only instead of bongs and spliffs and topless chicks, we’ve got puzzles and stuffed animals and cut up apples and chicks with their beavers out (I hired them to act as sort of waitress/nanny/slaves to improve everyone’s mood for the duration of the malady). It’s actually not as awesome as it sounds, though it’s real close.

They say that pink eye is caused by bacteria getting into the eye, and if films like “Knocked Up” have taught me anything, it’s that the bacteria in question comes from the human ass/turd/poo vapors (or ‘farts’ if you’re a doctor), but here it seems more like it came from our baby. She’s the patient zero in this house and I can only speak for myself, but I haven’t farted in the baby’s face in like, a month, so I’m guessing she must have picked it up on the streets somewhere. Sometimes, just for fun, we’ll be walking along and I’ll just kind of throw her at a passerby just to see the reaction. It’s pretty funny. I’m trying to teach my older kid to snatch their wallets while these pedestrians are frantically trying to safely catch my airborne baby, but so far all he does is cry and scream “no daddy! Quit hurting baby!” He’s a real pansy.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s where the pink eye came from. Stupid, dirty, shit-eyed pedestrians. I took the baby into the baby mechanic to get her looked over on Saturday morning, and aside from the place being a complete fucking zoo (full of snotty kids that probably all have pink eye now [take that, densely populated part of the world!]) they prescribed her a tiny little thimbleful of antibiotic eyedrops that cost (get this!) eighty bucks! Now, thanks to the highly contagious nature of pink eye (and our family’s natural tendency to wipe our butts and then hold the toilet paper up to our eyes for a second) we’re all looking at the little tiny stash of eyedrops like a bunch of cokeheads eyeing that last corner of the baggie. If I have to go get another one of those fuckers, I’m gonna lose my mind (although I went to a very friendly, all gay pharmacy that I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s in the building with the REI on Halsted just south of the new apple store and it offers free home delivery. And did I mention that it’s entirely staffed by extremely courteous gay dudes? Oh, I did? Good. Well, it is. Anyway…).

It’s gotten me to thinking about how entirely fucked up the notion of not having regulation on prescription drug prices is. I mean, if you really want to look at the effects of free market capitalism on the patient/drug manufacturer’s relationship, there’s absolutely nothing stopping these folks from completely raping sick people. Okay, the notion here is that you can charge whatever someone is willing to pay for your product, right? Well, if your product is the difference between me living and dying, or being sick for the rest of my life, or not getting this herpes flare-up to go down in time for the next gathering of the Juggalos, you’ve got me completely by the balls. You could clean out my bank account for a tube of Zovirax or some eye drops or some penicillin or whatever it is that cures whatever it is that I’m gonna get next.

I guess that’s why cancer ends up being either the death of your body or the death of your finances. It seems crazy. The entire medical profession is governed by moral law first and foremost, with the Hippocratic oath and all that, but the administrators, the pharm companies and the price fixers, in stark contrast, operate in an atmosphere completely bereft of any morality whatsoever. I’m with Sarah Palin: we should just go up to Canada for our drug needs.

Oh, and going to Mexico for your drug needs is also highly recommended. They’ve got ‘doctors’ right there in the pharmacy that will prescribe you vicodin or valium or oxycontin or whatever (not that you should be taking those things if you’re not in acute mental or physical pain, folks!), and the shit’s cheap. Apparently they’ve also got people who sell drugs right there on the beaches and stuff. Now THAT’S classy! If I had pink eye down there, I’d just cruise out to the beach and be like “Reuben, put down those brochures for snorkeling and hook a brother up with some of those antibiotic eyedrops, eh?” And I bet Reuben would even set me up with a discount if I was staying in the hotel that he stood in front of, or if I promised to do his whale watching tour or something. That would be cool.

As is, I’m stuck here in quarantine and all I want is a fucking cheeseburger. I’m thinking Windy City Gyros. That’s the best cheap burger around these parts for my money.
Whatever. I’m out.
xoxoxoxox

cheers!

This morning while making my rounds on the interweb I’ve already come across two distinct articles about drinking less than delicious things to get drunk. One was a ranking of the worst tasting beers (spoiler alert: Bud Light Clamato Chelada made the list) and the other was the grossest shit that people drink to get drunk all over the world. Some of the featured brews in this article were a Kenyan booze that contains such ingredients as rocket fuel and battery acid (people often die while getting their drank on) and pruno, which is the delicious treat that prisoners brew underneath their toilets using sugar cubes and fruit cocktails and ketchup. Oh, and they also mentioned Russian aftershave. I guess folks are guzzling that shit too. It’s pretty wild what people will go through for a buzz, eh?

I mean, it’ Friday. All the world over, motherfuckers have been slaving at their various jobs all week, and this evening, everyone is gonna finally trudge out of the boxes that hold their souls hostage, take off their ties and/or pantyhose and gulp down fermented grains and fruit until they’re all staggering all over the place and fucking/punching each other with wanton abandon. It’s a wild phenomenon.

You’d think that there would be some sort of alternative method of repopulating/getting people to crash their cars at least somewhere on the earth, but no. Everywhere you go, it’s booze. Motherfuckers love to get drunk. And for whatever reason, we’re all kind of okay with it. There’s really nowhere that has a completely alternate method of allowable wastedness, is there? I mean, sure, in Holland (for example) you can smoke weed and hash, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that there’s way more booze flowing through Amsterdam than there is pot smoke. Even in those Muslim countries where all wastedness is illegal, booze is still the go to, as per what I’ve read about the illicit club scenes in Dubai and UAE and so forth.

You’d think with all the wacky ideas that people have about how to live, with all the wildly different cultures out there that there’d be a society somewhere on earth that completely eschewed alcohol and instead uh, all shot heroin after work (just for example). But no. There’s no LSD nation or cocaine nation or heroin nation, and even if there are places where that shit is more acceptable (Colombia comes to mind) they’re still boozers first and foremost. I mean, it bears repeating that motherfuckers are out there drinking AFTERSHAVE and ROCKET FUEL to get drunk.
That’s making it seem like a borderline instinctive need.

No, seriously. Think about fucking for a second. It’s an instinctive need, right? In Maslow’s pyramid, sex is down at the bottom with food and crapping. So, put a dude somewhere where he can’t fuck anyone…let’s say he’s a pumpkin farmer up on a mountain or a shepherd way out in the middle of the New Zealand boonies. What’s gonna happen? He’s gonna fuck those pumpkin/sheep eventually. Ladies, this is true. There’s not a man alive that doesn’t just know instinctively that a period of solitude, real extended and unbroken solitude is the only thing that separates him from those who fuck gourds/livestock (on a side note, I don’t know how this works for ladies. I don’t really think it’s the same. There’s no way a woman, left alone with a bunch of goats or pigs or something would eventually just wind up fucking them because they’d been alone for fifteen years and they really needed to get laid. I mean, right? Am I crazy? Does that mean that sex is an instinct to males only? I’m really not trying to be funny here, and if I wasn’t sure that my daughter was about to wake up and completely dominate my time to the point where I couldn’t maintain a train of thought well enough to write, I’d start this whole post over to just tackle this notion….woah. Woah. Woah. I guess tune in Monday for that, maybe).

Anyway, you see what I’m saying? People have to crap. Sometimes, in a pinch they’ll just crap on the floor or in their pants. People have to fuck. Sometimes they’ll wind up fucking pumpkins or pigs or the keyboard player because that’s the only option. People need to eat and sometimes people will eat rocks and dust or maggoty meat because their bodies are ORDERING them to eat something, no matter how gnarly. Doesn’t this same sort of necessity seem to apply to people who are out there drinking glasses of battery acid to get loaded? Now, yes…EVERYONE eats and everyone shits. Not everyone drinks. BUT, not everyone fucks either. Ever hear of lesbian bed death or nuns or any stand up comedian’s spouse? That’s still considered to be an instinct. I kind of think drinking may be too. How else can you explain Bud Light Clamato Chelada?

That’s what I’m sayin, bro. Have a good weekend. See you all in hell.

it gets...uh, wait. does it?

So, I guess this whole thing with gay kids and gayish kids (that is, not necessarily gay, but gay seeming enough that their peers call them names and harass them) is getting kind of out of control, eh? I mean, not the bullying so much (though that’s not in any way cool) but all the resulting suicides. I mean, now, don’t get me wrong, bullies suck (as someone who was both bullied and a bully [although I was a pretty minor league bully, as I always remembered what it was like to be called a fag and punched] I can attest to this) but the real shitty move here is the suicide. Nobody wants to say this shit out loud and I’m definitely not trying to be unsympathetic, lord knows every time I read one of these stories I die a little thinking about what my poor, sweet little kids have in store for them when they get a little older, but man…fuck. The people that are really committing the shittiest act here are the people killing themselves. Yes, they’re young. Yeah, they feel like shit’s bottoming out, but uh…doesn’t everyone at some point? That’s kind of where the drama of being a teen comes into play, right? Okay, let’s back up a bit:

I didn’t grow up gay. I realize that especially in a world where your family is important to you and religious and they unequivocally equate gayness to evil, that’s a pretty heavy burden for a kid, but I want to stop short of saying that it’s something I could never imagine. Kids are, by nature melodramatic. That’s why kids desperately cling to music and identities and sloganeering and ideologies and shit like that. Pain is pain and in my experience a kid that witnesses their parents hateful divorce, or suffers abuse at the hands of some grownup or gets put into a special class because they’re stupid or grows up a pimply lard ass or has to watch a parent die or has a drunk mom or any number of other things make life for a teenager just as unbearable as it can possibly get.

Sure, there are fat, pimply gays out there who grew up watching their drunk moms die right after the hateful divorce and that totally sucks, but at the end of the day, there’s something really weird going on here, and I don’t want to say it’s something that pertains to all these unfortunate teen suicides, but I’ll be damned if it’s not a factor in at least some of them:

Namely, the sort of shrinking of the world and global localization of news have taken all these very separate events and bound them together and the message that is being presented (the secondary message, mind you. The first message is obviously “omg! Bullies are so mean [which is true, don’t get me wrong]) is that a lot of gay or otherwise persecuted teens see suicide as a viable way out of their situation.
This is a slippery slope, because this IS going on, and it needs to be reported, but there are tons of kids out there that are unfortunately thinking about, or successfully killing themselves and I can’t help but feel that all this attention on these gay suicides further marginalizes these bullied, marginalized gay/gayish kids and sends the message that being gay is SO MUCH WORSE than anything else that for a lot of kids, suicide is the go-to option. That’s fucked.

How bout a report on how being a teenager is rough, and how kids are dramatic and there’s a huge cross section of kids who have these kinds of thoughts, not just gay kids or kids who are perceived as gay. It’s just not healthy to keep this problem (which is the third leading cause of death in teens, by the way) in the media as a ‘gay kid’ problem. It’s irresponsible and it’s gonna create a self fulfilling prophecy that’s truly, truly dark and ugly.

Now, Dan Savage, one of my personal heroes (I actually had the good fortune of taking a piss right next to him once, which was pretty great [strange] and his brother was my professor at Northwestern, which I awkwardly told him while we were pissing…sigh) started this whole “it gets better” youtube campaign, which is awesome. It’s a bunch of people talking about how yes, being young and picked on is hard, but suicide is never the answer and here I am, all growed up and gay and I’m rich and I’ve got friends and shit gets way, way better.” It’s a great project and even if it may be a little bit uh, what’s the word….dorky and grown up, I think it’s about as close as anyone’s come to really effectively addressing what’s at the heart of this issue, which is marginalization.

However, I gotta wonder, does it really get better or does it just get worse in a different way? I mean, I’d never go back to living in my mom’s house and going to highschool, but I don’t know that I’m really totally psyched on getting audited and growing uglier and closer to death by the day either…I dunno, like I said, the ‘it gets better’ thing is cool. Maybe I’ll start a youtube channel too that says shit like “hey, it gets kind of good for a second there, and maybe if you’re lucky, you can capitalize on that moment, but otherwise, it may not get better, but you’ll be able to buy fireworks and whiskey and pornography soon, so there’s that, right? Good deal. Hit the showers.”

Okay both my kids are crying. I need to pay them some attention, I guess.
Later dicks.

on a pale horse, bro

I sat down here to write about my avid consumption of nerdy things as a kid, but then my baby woke up and kind of threw off my train of thought. My older kid is watching Diego, which is about a young latino male who spends most of his days screaming at monkeys (and breaking the fourth wall, at which point he screams at toddlers from within the television), and well, frankly the notion of talking about the more sublime facets of the works of Piers Anthony seems a little bit too focused for the chaotic world of boogers and poo diapers and screaming that I’m currently occupying, but I’m gonna give this whole thing a try anyhow. It may fall off the rails. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

I used to read the books of Piers Anthony with a reckless abandon that could have quite literally gotten me killed at times. I grew up about one mile from my elementary/middle school and I would often read on the bus and then walk the last three blocks from the bus stop to the school reading as I walked, never looking up from the page as I crossed three streets, all of which were avenues for nerd-crushing busses. But hey, you know how it is when you’re reading about an intellectual minotaur or a future primitive warrior who fights in the battle circle with a net or a rope, or even a stuttering, singing incarnation of the god of war…that shit’s entrancing, bro. You gotta see what happens and if that means walking through the hallways of your school or across busy Chicago streets reading a gigantic powder blue novel with a ripped, shirtless barbarian on the cover like some kind of poor soul that’s allergic to pussy, well, so be it.

Now, this is kind of the thing. I don’t know anything about Piers Anthony except for that he wrote about a zillion books and he’s probably rich as shit (and very old at this point). His books really traversed the nerdscape, sometimes being about mythology, or post-apocalyptic dystopian societies, or elves and clerics and shit like that. Hell, he did space and wizards and ancient times and cheap knock offs of the Hobbit and transdimensional sci-fi and dragons and the whole nine yards. The dude was well versed in the nerdosphere, but in the years since I voraciously consumed his vastly entertaining but ultimately super dorky and (in retrospect) hastily thrown together tomes, I’ve had a nagging thought that I can’t quite shake.

Was Piers Anthony, himself, actually a nerd? He HAS published a book that starts with every letter of the alphabet, according to his Wikipedia page (his ‘proudest achievement’ [?]), and he IS currently bald with a ponytail and beard, according to a quick google image search, but he’s also got zillions of dollars and all he really does is imagine soft core erotica set in different nerd zones and probably use a rake and forklift to get all his money into one room.

I mean, George Carlin had a beard and a bald-long. It’s not exclusively the realm of the nerd, and Piers used to be in the army. And for whatever reason I just don’t quite buy the whole thing. He seems to me like he may be a lot like that drug dealer that doesn’t get high…he’s content to get people hooked on his crap, which will sabotage any chance they may have at decent human relationships, all the while making money hand over fist, aloof to the whole deal even as it ravishes the lives of his customers. I mean, thank god I found skateboarding or I’d probably be sitting at a card table in the back room of a comic book store somewhere eating a pizza for breakfast and debating which spells would really, TRULY be more advantageous to be in possession of and shit like that. I’d be wearing the sweatpants I slept in and a stain or two on my double xl (still kind of tight) shirt that may say “I’m voted for Kodos” or something. Probably the extent of my knowledge of the human female cans and/or clam would be that which I gleaned from either Pornucopia or The Magic Fart (Anthony’s two adult fantasy-erotica novels [which is really saying something. This guy’s published probably over a hundred books, most of which have some pervy sections in them. When he finally went for it and fully wrote something that was overtly sexual, he put the word ‘fart’ in the title? Interesting choice. Is it ignorance or a further method of sabotaging his core audience’s potential for real, live sexual encounters; the pimpled virgins and ponytailed fatties, sitting there in their beanbag chairs masturbating furiously to Anthony’s descriptions of the taut, shapely succubus covered in fish scales who absolutely goes wild for farts?]). Who knows, man? It’s a crazy world out there.

Okay, I gotta roll, but I’d urge all of you to do a quick google image search of Piers Anthony, because not only do lots of pictures of him in various states of aging pop up, but also a whole dick-ton of his book covers, and I’m pretty sure that this electronic uh…nerd quilt of images will illuminate the true nerdiness of this guy’s whole universe way better than I ever could.

Oh, then take off the safe search and google image search ‘dong’. Sure, you get a lot of cocks but you also get a lot of head shots of Vietnamese dudes. It’s pretty entertaining.

bad day...

Man, right now I’m sitting in my car outside my gym waiting for the 10am free parking to start. I just went to the bank and closed my account. I’m so pissed off at this very moment. I’ve had the same bank account for my entire adult life and though it’s been kind of a pain in the dick watching the bank get bought and sold and constantly having to get new cards and all that, I’ve never really had much of a problem with them until this week.
Yesterday I was in a bar and I went to get a twenty out of the ATM only to be told that I had insufficient funds. Now, that seemed crazy to me, as I was pretty sure that I had more than 20 bucks in my account. Anyway, I went home and checked my balance online and what do you know? My bank (Chase) charged me almost two grand in fees to print my fucking account records out; records I needed because the IRS requested them. TWO GRAND!!!! Fuck, man, I’m not made of money (to borrow a grandfatherly expression). This was, and remains, a huge, gigantic kick in the dick.

I mean, what the fuck is that? They printed out paper with records that I actually employed them to keep track of, probably a hundred sheets of it and it costs that much? Jesus, that’s like when the government buys hammers for six grand or when you get charged nine hundred bucks for a wimpy, half hearted handjob in the champagne room. I don’t know. It’s straight up highway robbery screwjob city and I’m so pissed I could fucking eat glass. Or cry. Or maybe both.

I went into my branch and I explained to them that I was closing my account and the banker said, “okay” and closed me out. No questions about my satisfaction or lack thereof, no attempts to try to get me (a customer for over fifteen years) to stay on. No offers to look into seeing what they could do or anything like that. I told them I was furious about the fees and the response was, in essence, “yeah, that really sucks.”

There are few things on this earth more absolutely enraging than being rendered impotent by gigantic faceless monolithic entities. These bankers, they seemed nice enough, but the bank has it set up so there’s just no way that they can do anything to help you. It’s the same reason that you can’t get someone on the phone and when you finally do it’s some guy in Bangalore that doesn’t give two shits about your bank fees or your bounced checks or whatever. They have no interest in helping you. Banking customers are nothing but a pain in the ass. We give banks money and they weasel it from us slowly (or in my case, quickly). That’s the thing. Did you ever consider that if all banks did was hold your money and give you interest, they’d be a money losing endeavor? I mean, yeah, there’s all that low risk investing that they do and they’re moving big piles of money around into different international currencies and all that, but don’t be naïve. They’re out there to take your money. Fuck. If I just kept my money in my mattress along side my rifle I wouldn’t have any of these problems, man. Again, fuck!

I don’t really know what to do. I guess there’s nothing TO do. I ordered the shit (because I had to) they charged me five bucks a page (because that’s their policy and they can) and now the money is gone, I’m fucked and my wife is pissed at me because I pissed away a bunch of money for, quite literally, nothing.

Yeah, the whole fucking thing stinks to high heaven. I hate Chase quite a bit right now, and I’m not too happy with the IRS either, honestly. But, well, things are looking up at least, because you know what I get to do next? I get to take my baby to the clinic to get her some vaccines! This is seriously the best day of my life, folks! God damn it.

Ugh.

and it begins again...

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the mystery of the medallion

The other day I saw this guy sitting at a bar just kind of kicking it and I knew instantly, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he was single. Know how I knew? He was wearing a medallion. There’s not a woman on earth who would let their man just walk around in a medallion. That goes for thumb rings and most other jewelry as well. It’s just gross. Now, I know what you’re thinking: this is a completely homo-ignorant point of view, as this dude could be gay and maybe he’s in a caring, stable gay relationship with another gay guy who likes medallions. Ever think of that, smartguy?

Well, I will say that I know these two gay dudes who both constantly strive to wear the absolute worst shoes I’ve ever seen. If I see the one playing pool wearing slip on leather clogs, it’s a safe bet that around the corner, his partner is wearing faux-gold encrusted, bejeweled reeboks, so I’m not gonna just use the fallacy of “gay dudes just dress better than straight dudes” to dismiss this possibility regarding our be-medallioned subject, but I wll say that this dude wasn’t gay.

He was kind of longhaired, unshaven and creepy in a tank top and a medallion. He looked like he was probably wearing strappy leather sandals and had a backpack at his feet. If I had to guess, I’d say he was drinking a Stella and I bet he’s got some pretty serious ideas about ‘freedom’ and ‘living’ and if all this still makes him sound gay, well…yeah, it does, but trust me, this dude looked more like the kind of guy that celebrates his 35th birthday by going to Padre Island and picking up three nineteen year old girls and banging them all in a hotel room after getting them drunk on Goldschlager. He wasn’t gay. Gotta trust me.

So we’re back to his medallion, and you know what? After reading the last sentence of the last paragraph, maybe I should get a medallion…I mean, if that’s your life and you like your medallion, fuck. Go for it, I guess. There’s nothing really wrong with banging a whole gaggle of college girls, is there? Well, I guess if they’re truly 18, you’re kind of treading on thin moral ice by giving them alcohol and then boning them (not that it’s really as immoral as it sounds. I mean, girls on spring break in Padre that are talking to a 35 year old man for long enough to end up drinking his goldschlager have already decided to make some bad decisions. They’re presumably down there to get drunk and get laid and really, truly, if you’re not uh, you know, taking pictures of them passed out or anything weird like that, then you, dude with medallion and goldschlager, are no worse than anyone else down there trying to get laid. I mean, the bar is already almost mind-blowingly low, morality wise, and you’ve got the handicap of being old and creepy, so you’ve probably gotta work extra hard at being UN creepy…I dunno, we’re getting into some pretty AP morality here. Let’s move on, shall we?) but essentially, you’re just kind of utilizing your aforementioned ‘freedom’ and ‘livin’ the best you know how, right bro?
Right-o.

So, remember that show where the perverted dungeon master and his dork troll sidekicks got a bunch of losers laid all by casting them in a completely scripted reality TV contest? Uh, what was it called…Oh, “The Pick Up Artist.” The main guy was named “Mystery” and his sidekicks were named uh…matador and Jbone or Jdog or Tbone or something. They espoused the use of medallions as a powerful weapon on the road to pussy domination, and I’ve gotta say as a single guy I wore my share of medallions and I think a lot more women approached me, and often, were there nothing else to talk about, they’d maybe grab my medallion and say “what’s this?” and I’d probably say something awesome like “it’s a sun” or “it’s a pen disguised as a teddy bear” (depending on which medallion I was wearing) and boom! Conversation started…road to vagina, paved, or at least under construction (like, being constructed, not blocked and restricted by lane closures and workers…sigh. Modern municipal bullshit is getting my metaphors all gunky.). Maybe Mystery and Tbone and that pervert with the Stella from the other day were onto something. Maybe medallions really ARE the way to go.

Actually, now that I think about it, so many of the things I used to dangle off my body in order to define myself have been thoroughly pooh-poohed by my wife and her friends, wacky haircuts, jewelry, goofy clothes that I like that she doesn’t, shit of that nature…you know what I’m talking about, right dudes? You have a buddy (or maybe it was you) that used to be real eccentric with his rings and his goofy bullshit and then he (you) got a girlfriend and she and all her friends, after a while, mind you, started laughing at his haircut and his rings and his medallion and his chain around his neck and his big fuzzy hat and his weird boots and all that and eventually turned him into this regular, dignified guy that no longer stands out in a crowd and therefore is presumably much more high status and high quality. They perhaps point to films starring Brad Pitt/Jake Gyllenhaal/whoever and point out that he’s not wearing any jewelry and everyone wants to fuck him, so see! SEE!!!! The REAL studs don’t waste time with that shit. You’re really just dressing yourself like a clown. Get some dignity!

BUT, there’s maybe a dark side to this that I’m just beginning to pick up on as I type this. When these women met your buddy, they were attracted to his dreads and his oversized juggalo hockey jersey (not really these two totally reprehensible things, just trying to squeeze in a little levity, bro. Let’s say: beaded necklace and goofy hat) and it was only after they sunk their teeth into him that they decided that these things had to go. I’d liken this to dudes who meet chicks when they’re dressed all hot and then decide that they can’t wear miniskirts anymore, because now they’re off the market. Is the medallion and the thumb ring ACTUALLY the sensual equivalent of the miniskirt? Have the women been lying to me?

WELLLL, I don’t think it’s that simple. I think there are other forces at play here. Perhaps there is the notion, somewhere in there that these are items that can be used as “mating plumage” (for lack of a better phrase…I don’t like it any more than you) and thereby sabotage the relationship at hand by drawing in competing hoes, but I think the big thing here is more internal in the catty female community.

Women dress sexy, first and foremost for other women. Don’t believe me? Consider this: if a woman in sweatpants wanted to fuck you, would the fact that she was in sweatpants slow you down, even for a moment? No. That’s the thing: women don’t NEED to dress sexy for dudes. It’s nice, and it sends quite a message, but I’ve heard time and time again that women dress specifically for other women. The same can be said for how they dress (or influence) their man.

By dressing me in a dapper casual outfit with a dignified haircut and a tie, my wife is showing me off to her friends (enemies?, coworkers?) as the closest approximation of the aforementioned ‘leading man’ that we talked about above. I’ve already been vouched for ie I’ve got a woman and friends, so there’s no need to present some gaudy display. Much like the way that all sorts of people want to fuck Brad Pitt’s simply elegant character in whatever dumb movie he’s in because he’s BRAD PITT and brings a certain cache to the role, I’m doing my best version by being (at least in dress) quiet and understated, yet sophisticated. I’m not creepy (see as example: my relationship with actual human woman. I’m not a perv. See: no rings. I’m obviously understated and awesome at something because I’m not trouncing around like some loudmouth trying to attract attention, and I’ve already landed a woman and some sweet duds. This is evidence [kind of, perhaps] that though I don’t flaunt it, I got it) This makes people take notice, is the theory. But here’s the part that is maybe getting lost in all this:

The ladies out there, they may want to fuck the sophisticated Brad Pitt character, and they DEFINITELY want to take him to cocktail parties and on family vacations and have him pick them up from girls night and shit like that. They want “him” because he’s a cultural symbol (by “he” I’m referring to the dapper, handsome, understated dude that some women hope to turn men into) but you know who they really, really truly want to fuck and get their panties ripped off by?

Captain Jack Sparrow, with his wacky three cornered hat and his rings and his boots and his necklaces and his gold teef and his scarves and plumage and all that shit. Sure, they don’t want to bring him around, but trust me, he makes their knees buckly more than any dipshit in a matching vest and slacks ever could.

So, dudes, Sean Nader, I’m talking to you here! Maybe, after some deliberation, I was wrong. Put those rings and medallions back on and get out there and live. And ladies! Wear more miniskirts and shirts that mash your tits together. It’s the least you can do for equality.

See you all at Nomeansno tonight!

How to pick up trashy women

Morning, everyone! I’m gonna get right to it today. Growing up, my favorite actor was Taylor Negron. I know, I know. Who the fuck is Taylor Negron? Well, he’s most famous as the pizza guy in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the mailman in Better off Dead, and that’s pretty much the only kind of role he ever played until kind of recently when I think he became some sort of hairdresser character on some late era Olsen twins Nickelodeon show or something, but that’s not the point. The point is, this dude was vaguely pervy, pretty strange looking and completely awesome at being someone that knocks on doors and brings shit to the people who the movie is, in fact, about. That was his gig. He was the best bit player ever, and I picked up on it and him really early in my movie watching career.

Now, call it a preternatural knack for irony or just a weird fetishized love for recognizing small recurring details, but I’m not shitting you when I say that as a kid Taylor Negron was my favorite actor. I remember being in gradeschool and Chris and I just cracking up about him doing his lazy and (again) pervy takes and the way that he was always vaguely bored and vaguely too good for whatever totally shitty job the director and the script had him in. His career and acting choices were, and remain something I love for reasons that I don’t fully comprehend, but I tell you what: over the course of the past three decades I’ve spent a lot of time saying “Taylor Negron…he’s the delivery guy from Johnny Dangerously. You know him, right? Yeah, I love that dude.”

SO, fast forward to yesterday when I’m waiting for my kids to wake up from their naps and idly surfing around the internet. A friend of mine, on facebook, posts something approximately like this:

“Taylor Negron is on my plane and he’s drinking a martini”

And I fucking lost my mind. I responded to this post with something that can be summed up as:

“holyfuckholyfuckholyfuck!!!!!! Oh man! Are you serious?!?!?! Tell him I love him in fast times and better off dead and one crazy summer and Young Doctors in love (this last one I’ve never seen, but Chris and I used to joke about how good it’s gotta be all the time) and uh….really? Really? Really? I’m so fucking jealous!”

And the response to that (which came quickly, thank you internet plane technology!) was, again, approximately:

“Brendan, you’re such a sarcastic dick all the time I can’t tell if you really like him or if you’re just being an asshole”

Now, I have a couple of problems with this response. Firstly, let’s say that I, like most people out there, didn’t know who Taylor Negron was…What in the world kind of lame life and time on my hands would I be in the midst of to have nothing better to do than look him up on IMDB and feign excitement solely for the purpose of making a lame joke that no one would even really get? Pretty exceedingly lame and a ton of time is the answer. Secondly, if I knew who Taylor Negron was and wasn’t all that impressed I think I’d be more prone just to ignore the post than to just jump on it. I mean, if, in the course of my social networking I came across someone saying that they ran into Jake Busey in a Denny’s, I’d hardly even notice, much less give a fuck and I definitely wouldn’t waste my time pretending to be enamored with Jake Busey (a total dork, by the way. Eh, just kidding. I can’t even picture him [I know, PCU and all that…spare me]). But the third reason why this is so vexing is the vastly most unacceptable:

This friend and I used to date. In fact, we used to live together. FOR TWO YEARS! And yes, fine, she knows about some cool shit, but let me tell you something, Dogs of War: you know why she knows who Taylor Fucking Negron is? OF COURSE! Nobody gives two shits about that dude like I do. The revisionist history that goes into asking me if I’m actually a True Taylor Negron fan is appalling. Of course I am! I’m the one who shouted the breakfast clubber’s name, bro! If it wasn’t for me, you would have no fucking idea who Taylor Negron even was!!!

Now, I don’t know if she reads this, but it’s a safe bet that if she does, right now she’s shaking her head and so pissed and completely convinced that I’m wrong and that she has always known about Taylor Negron and blah blah blah. But you know what ladies and gentlemen? That’s bullshit. I know this woman and if there’s one thing I’m POSITIVE of, it’s that she had no fucking idea who Tay Neeg was before she met me. I’m fucking positive.

But I’m sure that if she even knows I have a blog, much less is reading this, that that’s falling on deaf ears (eyes. Deaf eyes? No, uh…unbelieving eyes. Yes. Much better) and she’s convinced that I’m an egomaniac and narcissist, which, let me tell you slaves, couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m not making everything about me here. I’m just calling a spade a spade. Just reporting the news, not making it, folks.

As a rebuttal I’d ask her (and everyone) to look at some of the recent tests that have been done on how fallible the human memory is. It involves fabricated childhood trips to Disneyland. Seen em? Shit’s wild. Makes you question everything. Oh! And before you all go and say that I could stand to read that shit myself…um, I’m not talking about a specific memory here. I honestly don’t remember turning just one of the hundreds of people on to Taylor Negron’s awesomeness that I’ve turned on over the years. I’m talking about a deep and enduring passion for the work of a creepy bit player that started when I was a wee sapling and has endured to this day, so suck it naysayers!

Pretty stoked he was drinking a martini on a plane, though. That’s tough stuff. Oh Hollywood, you beautiful bitch.

Okay, I gotta go make a waffle for a guy with shit in his pants, so uh, later.

lame, child rearing content ahead. Tread with caution

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No boots! No Show!

Hey kids, how was your Columbus day (it just took me about six permutations of U’s and O’s to get the spelling of ‘columbus’ right, btw. What does that say about me as an American, a human of Italian descent and most of all, as a xenophobic weirdo who gets credit for doing things I never did and as a result somehow subsequently inspired a bunch of people to not do any sort of due diligence or research? It’s a sad commentary…my lack of being able to spell Columbus, that is. Sigh.)?

Yeah, mine was pretty awesome too. I don’t remember anything too wild happening, but I did go look for my Halloween costume. I’m gonna be a mammary exam machine with the holes for the tits right where my face is with a sign that says something clever like “stick tits here.” Either that or I’m gonna be a hotdog vendor with one special, slightly different colored hotdog in a bun right at my dick zone. You get it, right ? Right? It’s something that’s gonna provide me with the great trifecta that is pussy, laughs and respect for buying the best costume in the “adult ideas” section of the hastily assembled costume shack that was very recently a Crate and Barrel (thank you very much, Barack Obama’s sluggish economy! Now no one can afford to buy melon ballers and juicers and $1200 ottomans and as a result good, hard working overpriced and generally useless American gay and female themed retailers like CB, CBII and Z Gallerie are going out of business. Mr. President, if I can’t by a dark brown, tanned leather globe that doubles as a whimsical nightstand for no less than nine hundred dollars, then the terrorists have truly won).

Yeah, so Halloween. It’s gonna be great. You know who I’m gonna be? Greg Graffin. It would be such a great costume, don’t you think? Well, realistically it would be terrible because there’s no way to be both sexy and Greg Graffin at once and the costume shack doesn’t carry the costume, so uh, goodbye respect, but you get my point, right? No? Okay, let’s back up.

This past weekend, aside from being Columbus day, was also Riot Fest here in Chicago. My band, the Lawrence Arms, played and we had the confusing yet awesome honor of playing after the Circle Jerks and before Bad Religion. Now, for those of you not in the know, there’s a few things significant about this: these are legendary bands, and old bands. These guys are all either pushing or blowing past fifty. But more importantly, these two bands are bands that were already huge and established when I first got into punk rock when I was twelve, and bands that I grew up listening to.

The Circle Jerks were the band in the Emilio Estevez vehicle Repo Man, which was awesome, but I first got into them when as a twelve year old skate punk type, when I heard their song “Wild In The Streets” featured in the skateboarding movie Thrashin’ (which is amazing and makes Gleaming the Cube look like Police Academy 4). I’ve never been the biggest Circle Jerks fan, but the singer was the dude from Black Flag and generally, they’re a really awesome band that I’ve consistently bumped from time to time (usually in a rowdy situation) for most of my life. They played right before us and we shared a dressing room with them. It was pretty surreal.

Backing up a bit, I purchased No Control by bad religion, on tape, without ever having heard a note of their music from Reckless Records when I was twelve because I thought the phrase “bad religion no control” sounded dangerous and fucked up. I’ve gone into this before in this space but listening to that cassette for the first time was probably the single biggest perspective shift I’ve ever had in my life, pretty on par with becoming a dad (not that they’re equally relevant, but just in terms of changing my worldview completely and switching up my trajectory), and it’s no stretch to say that I admire Bad Religion pretty profoundly to this day.

Now, there were some moments that were amazing in terms of hanging out backstage with these elder statesmen (like, for example, Keith from the Circle Jerks ranting about how the ‘New Jersey Shore’ is all bullshit because he’s got friends who know those people and they all have college degrees and MTV just pays em to act stupid [this is all shrieked, max volume, by the way, and it completely ignores the scientifically proven fact that college grads get drunk and fuck strangers too] or fellow oldie and Bad Religion friend, Fletcher from Pennywise cracking up telling a story about a mutual friend who’s publically HIV positive who was pricking someone with a (clean) nail as a joke [which is pretty dark, but very funny Jackass-of-the-future type shit]) but the real highlight of the show was seeing Bad Religion on stage.

They came out after us (oh, we killed. Did I mention that?) and I was immediately struck by a few things about their singer, Greg Graffin. Firstly, he’s still got it, and by ‘it’ I mean the most amazing and note-perfect voice in punk rock. Secondly, he’s gotten a lot of other things too, like much, much older than I remember him, for example. He’s out there, completely bald, save the toilet seat situation on the sides and back, kind of overweight, wearing a fred perry bowling type shirt and trouncing around doing his same awkward dance he’s always done, but now, in the context of his new, much more shocking appearance, the whole thing takes on a surreal quality that can’t be easily quantified or explained.

It’s almost like if you picture your dad, or your boss doing their best impersonation of what a ‘rock and roll’ frontman would be doing. Now, the whole thing’s totally embarrassing, right? Sure it is. However, here’s the weird part: your dad can not only sing, but he’s singing better than practically anyone out there, so there’s this odd part of you that’s like “uh, that’s…uh….awesome? And it is. It IS, because he’s just so awesome, but he’s also an old dude who obviously has very little interest in keeping up his appearance and so the disconnect is very startling. And did I mention that his weird dancing and gesturing has always been offputting, even when he was young and uh…more ‘punk,’ or at the very least ‘age/style appropriate’ looking.

Yeah, it was weird. And it got me to thinking: Greg Graffin is one of the biggest divas in punk rock. I don’t say this to be a dick. Lord knows I respect the shit out of the guy and he’s earned the right to pull this kind of stuff for sure, but by all accounts (and in the few times I’ve shared the stage with BR, I can attest to this) he shows up the last second before they go on stage and he’s gone pretty much before the other dudes have even unplugged their guitars. In SF, he once held an entire backstage room hostage while he forced everyone to look for his “show boots” famously screeching “no boots! No show!" To the group of people who didn’t seem to care that much that he’d misplaced them.

And who can blame him? He’s an older dude. He’s been doing this most of his life. He’s got a very successful academic career and he’s pretty much done everything there is to do in punk rock, or rock and roll in general. Why should he put up with any bullshit of any kind for any reason? He’s kind of done it all and I’d imagine he could pretty easily walk away from the whole thing at this point and feel pretty satisfied.

I mean, fuck. It bears mentioning that Bad Religion is one of the most enduring and successful bands in the history of rock and roll. Most bands on the radio, even larger bands can’t consistently play the size of shows that BR plays without a tour/album/ad cycle being in place. Bad Religion doesn’t really have that problem. The dude is one of the most successful and therefore entitled front men in all of rock and roll. This is TRUE.

And as I stood there watching them the other night, looking at this unlikely candidate for that sort of job my mind was kind of blown out the side of my head and I just kind of started laughing. I mean, you could put my dad, my middle school gym teacher, my accountant, Greg Graffin, and the security guard at my wife’s office in a lineup and ask me which one of these people was one of the biggest, most enduring front men for an aggressive rock and roll band in the history of the genre, a diva and a brilliant, misunderstood and highly volatile rock star, and I think it’s safe to say that Greg Graffin would be the LAST person I’d pick. This, also, is true.

Good for him. They ruled. And that’s why I’m gonna be greg graffin for Halloween. Well, or the Situation. I could also be the Situation as a college TA as per Keith Morris’s suggestion.
Either way.

classic bsc!!!

I gotta go get our soundguy for our show and load in, so there's no time for the old in-out, love. Just gotta read the meter and get moving. As such, I'm reposting a classic BSC from yesteryear. For those of you who are new to this blog, I used to be a lot better at it than I am now, but writing every day has squeezed my brain like a toothpaste tube and now only the weird pubes from the toothpaste factory workers comes out. Um....what? Anyhow, enjoy this blast from the past:

Well, I’m thankful that’s all over. It was great, but fuck man, there were dishes in my house until today…We cooked for fifteen people including a very old Englishman with his own bottle of gin, a seven month old and three guys who call themselves the Cobra Skulls. I’d say Thanksgiving was a success. Take that, Indians.
On Friday night, after work, I went with some friends to watch the Cobra Skulls play. They were absolutely great. I was really, really happy after the show and as we went next door to the adjacent bar to spend a few complimentary drink tickets I felt like the night was shaping up perfectly. Then I saw them.
On the stage in all their waterproof boots and cargo pants and dumb sweaters and five string basses and sparse, overthought goatees and floppy knitted hats and fifteen minute songs and irritating smug “jam faces” and hemp chokers and hackey sack calluses and beads and braided belts and dreadlocks and bongos and windchimes and instrumental interludes were a bunch of fucking hippies. HIPPIES! And they were jamming. This is unacceptable, man. Hippies? Now? In this fucking day and age? Haven’t you hippies gotten the Lebowskian memo? The bums lost, man. Besides, there’s just nothing threatening about being a hippy. You know who was a hippy? The guys who started Ben and Jerry’s. That’s a real rebellious and dangerous paradigm you’re forcing on everyone, BRO. Ugh. It’s enough to make me sick.
Okay, so these hippies—they were called, and I’m not kidding, Ultraviolet Hippopotamus. Did you read that shit correctly? Ultraviolet Hippopotamus!!!! ULTRAVIOLET HIPPOPOTAMUS?????????????????? FUCK, MAN!
I was pissed. I was so pissed. Here’s the thing, I’m thirty two. Phony, bullshit wealthy hippies in fancy hiking boots and jeep Cherokees and crappy jam bands are the very thing that got me angry with mainstream culture and into punk rock in the first place. When I was in highschool, the fake hippies were the dominant class. They were the athletes (oh, and they’d just wear the letter jacket and the rasta hat at the same time, like ANYONE could ever believe that shit’s acceptable) they were in the bands that played at all the functions. Hell, in my first band in highschool, we had a bona-fide hippy on the fucking guitar, complete with a poncho! They were everywhere! You couldn’t even throw together a group of dudes to start a punk/funk/pseudo stoner rock band without a hippy being in there. These were the people I vowed to never be. These fake ass hippies made me sick when their band (called Smile High, as though THAT'S somehow okay) rigged the fucking battle of the bands my sophmore year and pretty much stole the prize money from my punk/funk/pseudo stoner rock band, and then, in the same month, held me down and shaved my head with sheepshears at a hockey practice. These were the hippies of the early nineties—entitled rich bully douchebag, aggressive, dicks with a ‘hey bro, I’m just chillin, what’s your beef?’ attitude in their back pockets for when people decided to call them on their completely unacceptable bullshit.
When I started traveling, going on tour, and visiting a large collection of my friends from highschool out in Boulder, I was shocked. The hippies ran the town. Everywhere I went was some dick in two hundred dollar corduroys and a fully loaded SUV ASKING ME FOR CHANGE?!?!?! This was a new low. Now these fucks, who had more money than me were expecting me to bankroll their glass pipe/kind bud fetish? Unacceptable, man. Just unacceptable. (On a bit of a side note, in my experience, these hippies, with their crystally weed and their glass pipes and their dogs on a rope and all that, were as a general rule, SO STINGY with their weed. They were, as per my recollection, mind you, to the last, a bunch of uptight pricks who would rather look at weed [and make you smell it and comment on the ‘red hairs’ or whatever] and tell you all about how great it is and then put it back in a jar than let you try it. This is neither here nor there, just sayin.)

Okay, so that’s out of the way, and we’re back. I’m absolutely furious at Ultraviolet Hippopotamus. AND, these guys are in their early twenties? You know what that means, man? They’re still making hippy jam bands! Didn’t the death of hippy santa, the subsequent disbanding of the Dead, the slowdown and hiatus of Phish, the completely stupid name of the Stringcheese incident and the general realization that these people are a bunch of stinky dildos teach the kids anything? HOW ARE PEOPLE STILL DOING THIS? Anyway, I was through the roof, so I did what any self respecting person would do.
I booed.
I booed the shit out of this band. Over and over and over and over as loud as I possibly could. Their gross merch skank with her hairy armpits and new york slice of a bush was ‘grooving to the energy’ and giving me a dirty look at the same time, so I booed her ass too. Booo! Stupid hippies! Boo!
I guess I kind of see it as when your parents shame you when you do something ridiculously stupid. I was helping these kids out, man. I booed them mercilessly. I was trying to show them the consequences of being so recklessly unacceptable. And you know what they did? They smiled and kept jammin’ bro. How cool is that? They didn’t let the neg vibes harsh their mellow, not for a bit, bro. The groove must go on, bro. The groove must go on. Ugh.
I seriously thought their band was called Electric Rhinoceros, too, or Technicolor Rhinoceros, and that was pissing me off, until I realized that their actual name was so much worse than that. See, though, the thing about an ultraviolet hippopotamus is, he’s not visible to the naked eye. Chew on that, bro.
This is all making me very angry. Let’s just suffice it to say I don’t like hippies. And you didlos in Smile High, if you’re out there, you guys suck too, and regardless of your bullshit shenanigans that cost Gladhand (yes, I know) the BHS battle of the bands title in 92, your dumb hippy ways have only made me stronger. I don’t care how big your parents house was, or how big yours is now. I played real music in fucking Japan, Europe, Australia, Mexico and Cleveland and got paid for it, you fucking fake hippy dicks. Heh.

no son of mine is gonna be any goddamned fisherman!!!

Man, I just had a pretty serious crisis of parenting. My kid wanted to play football on the porch, which we sometimes do, but my other kid’s asleep in the room adjacent to the porch, and getting her down was a real bitch today. Combine that with the fact that I hadn’t gotten to writing this shit yet, and well, what choice did I have? I took his football and told him to watch a little TV. I feel like a crappy dad, but hey…something’s gotta give, right? And if it’s my child’s development at the expense of me mindlessly prattling on about nothing to a bunch of anonymous strangers via the internet, hey, so be it.

Look, I see those kids who have the parents that pay a lot of attention to them. I see them at the park. The kids seem like pussies and the parents are no fun to be around. AND there’s lots and lots of proof out there that how you parent has very little to do with how your kid turns out. No, really.

Okay, here’s what I mean: you know your one friend who had every advantage but still had to work (as so not to become some spoiled pussy) and had two married and doting parents who loved and supported him and he still turned out a complete dipshit loser? Sure you do. We all know a couple of that person. Crappy or no job and perhaps a lingering drug problem or just a general sense that they’re better than you with no real empirical data to back up that claim. Now, likewise, how about the people you know who, after being friends for a while let loose with tales of their childhood that are so crazy that you’re like “wow, you know Kevin from the office? Well, we went out for a few beers last night and he told me some shit, man. Turns out his dad was a crackhead and his mom died of AIDS and he used to have to go with her to the army base where he’d hold her purse and she’d suck dicks for twenties. Right? Shit’s wild. He’s such a nice normal guy. That’s crazy!”

And there you have it. Parenting is irrelevant. As a parent this notion is at once terrifying and something you have to completely ignore, like the fact that you will someday die, and despite your beliefs, deep down, you know what happens and the answer is nothing. It’s like that. That’s why we have all sorts of bullshit that we do with our kids even though it’s not necessary, especially the shit they hate. There’s no reason to take a two year old to an activity they don’t like if the only reason you’re doing it is to ‘culture them’ or something. I’m not saying that I follow this doctrine, I’m just saying that almost anything you try to do with your kids will backfire anyway.

Look around, your dad’s a football coach, you’re a gay typist who dreams of working in the musical theater industry. Your mom’s a plus size model, you’re a dog walker. You’re into pornography and Bruce Willis films exclusively although your parents both have Pulitzers. And conversely, your dad was a raging drunk as a youth, then straightened up and gave you the best possible most nurturing upbringing, so why are you a raging drunk too? The answer is simple: We’re stuck in our genes and there’s absolutely nothing that any form of parenting or anything like that can do about it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. You can ALWAYS fuck a kid up. You can lock ‘em in the basement and make em suck dicks or beat them severely or constantly tell them they’re worthless or whatever you wanna do if you’re a horrible and depraved asshole. BUT, you’re only making them worse on the sliding scale of who they’d already be. There are people out there that survive physical and sexual abuse that grow up good and presumably those people would be good anyway. Likewise there are people who get their asses whupped one day by dudes on the street and become neo Nazis. It’s a safe bet that those people would have eventually found an event that would set them down a strange path even if they hadn’t gotten their asses kicked that particular time.

You dig? Character is ingrained (look at an adopted child or two separated brothers reunited after 20 years if you don’t believe me) and how you respond to whatever happens to you (and EVERYONE has hardships, regardless) is a result of your character, not your parents, not your circumstance. It’s all character.

Now, don’t mistake this as some sort of social Darwinism or some sweeping attempt to justify why certain groups of people have wealth and comfort while others don’t. I’m talking about individuals doing what they can with what they have. Could that kid from the ghetto have been president if he’d grown up in a different place? Maybe. But within the realm of his life experience he’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. That’s kind of what I’m saying. It doesn’t really matter if his dad plays football with him or not.

Okay, with that, I’m off to play football with my kid.

edit: And yes, I'm aware of the correlation between, for example, porn actresses and a distant or absent father, but I'd posit that the type of woman who would marry or have a kid with an absent or distant father and her genetic legacy (and the legacy of said father) plays a much larger role than the absenteeism, as many, many women who have absent or distant fathers never suck a roomful of dicks on camera. Just sayin.

um hey!

Obviously I mistyped. I'm playing the metro tomorrow and the congress on friday. Sorry if I caused any confusion. Good news though. For both, I'm gonna be totally awesome and show off my new post baby bikini body in a speedo. So ladies and gay dudes, get out your whacking fingers!

See you all tomorrow and the next day! Let's get a beer, huh?

a heartbreaking work of staggering idiocy

So, last night my wife and I went out to dinner to a pretty fancy steakhouse to celebrate some of our best friends getting hitched. The steaks were huge and they had decadent shit like lobster mashed potatoes and the manager was a friend of the bride and groom and so the wine was excellent and generally the whole thing was awesome, but really I had but one focus and that was that my wife was looking really pretty smoking hot and I wanted to take her home and take off her dress.

Now, this is a tricky proposition for a lot of reasons. First, like a lot of guys with a wife and kids, I bug her about/make references to boning probably about nineteen to twenty seven times a day more often than she’d care for, which leads to a little bit of a self fulfilling prophecy in which she doesn’t want to encourage such behavior and also has no interest in boning, an interest that wanes further each time I make some admittedly crass comment, which only makes me step it up, as though she’s just not taking the hint which furthers her revulsion, fueling my entendres and on and on.

This cycle, friends, is how guys got started whistling at women out of moving cars. That’s what it eventually comes to if left unchecked. The man, having only a split second of time to convey to the woman in question “hey, I’d really fancy a bone sesh” has no choice but to act fast and directly and the woman in question has no recourse but to walk down the street feigning obliviousness over twenty feet away.

But I’m off track here. Some other mitigating factors that make this whole thing a little tricky: We’re out eating big steaks and heaping, cheesy plates of broccoli and smores and shit. That is not really a likely belly for the rhythm of love (to borrow a phrase from the plain white T’s [thanks guys]) Also, we were drinking wine, and it was flowing freely due to the celebratory nature of the event and the courtesy of the aforementioned manager friend, and as you may or may not yet know, a little booze is great for loosening the corset strings, but too much and you’ve got a sloppy mess that you’re carrying up the stairs on your hands.

Add this last bit of information to the tandem facts that my wife has just spent a year not drinking due to pregnancy and that she is famous for just falling asleep, narcoleptic style in bars and restaurants and pretty much anywhere that you leave her for a few minutes after about 9pm, regardless of if she’s drunk or not, and you get an idea of what I’m up against. Finally, our baby has kept us both up the last few nights, pretty much all night, rendering both of us completely exhausted already. Steep mountain to climb, folks.

Nevertheless, love was in the air (it was a wedding celebration, after all) my wife was next to me in an extremely hot getup and I was determined. I paced myself with the wine and the steak. I ate until I was full and no more. I drank politely but carefully and drank lots of water. I was polite and barely ever reached over and pinched her ass under the table or anything like that.

BUUUUUT, there were further complications on the horizon. As dinner wound down, the newlyweds suggested, nay, insisted that we come back to their bar where we’d indulge in “one drink”. I looked over at my wife and flatly refused. “I’m not positive I’m getting out of HERE without her falling asleep” I thought to myself as she sipped her champagne, “there’s no way in hell we’re gonna survive the ‘one drink’ (which would quickly devolve into several cocktails and shots and so on and so forth) over at the Gingerman tavern. My wife, as I said “I think we’ll pass” said “yeah, for sure, We’ll go!”

This was totally trouble. Firstly, I started thinking to myself, “is this the action of a woman who’s sending me a clear signal, or is this simply special occasion revelry as usual? But man, no way. She’s still looking so incredible AND now she’s clearly tipsy! Our time for exit is now!” We refused desert.

They brought it anyway. We were all finished with everything. The bride suggested one more round of Champagne. I said no thanks. My wife said yes. The bride said to me, “well, if you’re not gonna go to the bar, I’m gonna take your wife.” My wife sounded fine with it. At this point, I said “no way, man” however, I’d started to see the writing on the wall. There was no boning in my evening. My wife, like me was exhausted by the three previous sleepless nights, our trip to NY last weekend and the huge steaks and wine. There was no way at all that I was getting home with an awake old lady.

I mentioned to my wife “sorry, but you’re gonna fall asleep in the car and I’m so good looking and dressed up and you’re gonna miss out” as a last ditch effort. No real response other than kind of a sweet shrug.

The bride as well gave me a quizzical look, to which I replied, “man, she’s gonna pass out in the car. You know how she does” leading to a conversation about the quickness and ease with which my wife falls asleep absolutely anywhere. The bride and groom are no strangers to seeing my wife asleep sitting up, after all.

Anyway, we walked to the car. I began to drive and started talking about some of the more pleasant features of the evening, however there was no response. She had fallen asleep in the car not 3 minutes after getting in.

I drove home in silence, listening to crappy hiphop on the radio and woke her at the house. We went upstairs and paid the babysitter. And this is where the whole thing goes off the rails. My wife, though sleepy seemed suddenly affectionate. I quickly went to the bathroom as she retired on an easychair in our living room to either watch tv or, more likely, fall asleep. I assessed my chances here at about 17%, but I’ve been up against worse odds, and she was still in her dress and looking great, so fuck, what did I have to lose?

In the bathroom, just as sort of a good night to the party, I texted the bride, one of my very best friends, the person who I felt had been unwittingly trying to sabotage my sinister plans, and said something to the effect of “a drink at the bar? This bitch didn’t even make it off the block the restaurant was on!” Now, I wasn’t pissed or anything, just goofing around about my girl passing out, as per my prediction. I’m not one to call a lady a bitch if she’s not being a bitch. You know how it goes. Among friends this kind of parlance between us is hardly rare, especially in text.

However.

I misread my dumb iphone and texted this message to not only my friend the bride, but also MY bride sitting in the next room. I realized this instantly, and saw my chances of getting laid plummet from 17% to negative ever% and I ran out, my hope being that she’d passed out again and I could erase the message from her phone without her knowing. But man, she was sitting there looking at her phone going “why the hell did you send this to me?” and all I could say was “uh, sorry. That was to Katie. Just kind of joking about how you fell asleep and all that.” And she just got up and said, “turn off the lights. I’m going to bed.”

I was fucked, or quite the opposite. I went in to our bathroom, feeling every bit the asshole for kind of weirdly calling my completely undeserving and sweet wife a bitch and tried lamely to explain. Her response was “hey, look. I understand the text and I know you don’t call me a bitch for real or anything. I just don’t know why you sent it to me.”

Yeah, I don’t know either. The moral of this story, folks, is check your fucking multiple text outgoing messages if you’ve got an iphone, because that shit will sneak up on you and bite you in the dick.
Then the baby woke up at 3 and kept us up all night/morning.

I’m off to band practice. I’ve got a show at the metro tomorrow with Propagandhi and the next day at the Metro with Bad Religion.
Oh, and I didn’t even come close to getting laid. Did that part of the story come through? Sigh.

cops come n try to snatch my crops!

I’m at a diner. I’m having some coffee. I’m going to witness my friend’s courthouse nuptials today, and I was supposed to have band practice, but due to a tiny little bit of logistical problems and a lingering refusal of my child to sleep past 345 in the morning I’m just sitting here drinking coffee and rapping at y’all instead. In the booth next to me are four cops of various ethnicities. As far as I can tell, they’re opposed to the woman in Colorado who the news just reported put her baby in a dumpster, they’re opposed to Miley Cyrus and they don’t seem to like Barack Obama. Now, I’m no huge fan of any of this shit, cops included but I’m gonna weigh in here, as though I were sitting at their table (no easy task considering that the slimmest of them is about 280 lbs), just bullshitting along with them. Well, no. I’m eavesdropping and what follows will be some kind of halfassed and highly editorial transcript.

Okay, so the white guy likes the Miami Dolphins (a team that no one should be able to get behind, if based on nothing more than the ubiquitously smug Dan Marino and his [and by extension the whole franchise’s] appearance in Ace Ventura, one of the most irritating films ever made [and all that self important dick thumping about their 72 season doesn’t help matters either]) and the black guy likes Blackhawk helicopters and hates some form of treason. God, I wish I was a cop so I could sit over there and talk with them about this shit. Maybe I’d say something like this:

Yeah, lady on the breaking news. Why are you dumping your baby in the garbage? There’s so many ways to get rid of children that don’t involve putting them in the trash. If that’s the best you could come up with, well, you deserve all the trays that the women in prison are gonna beat you with in about 3 hours when you get processed. Let’s think about it, shall we? You could give the kid up for adoption. You could put the kid in a foster home or religion-oriented orphanage or you could even just be a shitty parent and get the kid taken away from you. Stand in front of the police station with your baby and smoke a little crack, for fucks sake. Or go stand in front of a church and wave your tits at passing cars. I mean, yes yes yes…it bears mentioning that these are reprehensible things to do, and that kids that wind up in foster homes and shelters generally have a very rough time and that’s completely unfair, but uh…give me the choice between growing up in some twisted hillbilly foster home with a pervy uncle and a mean foster sister or dying in some Wendy’s dumpster next to a bunch of half eaten junior bacon cheeseburgers and melted frosties, uh, it’s no contest. Once you’ve made the ethical leap after which you’ll no longer give a shit about your baby, how bout making the self preservation influenced decision to get away from the kid in such a way that doesn’t end up with you in jail and hated by absolutely everyone on earth for being a monster, eh? I mean, look around. It’s 2010 and no one has parents anymore. But they didn’t all get tossed into dumpsters either. Use your head, deadbeat prison mom!

Now, it’s been determined that the cops at the next table don’t like what’s happening in Pakistan and/or Afghanistan. Well, shit. I dig complaining about that, right? I mean, who likes what’s going on there? Is there anyone? Probably not. It’s kind of akin that ugly girl from your sixth grade class that’s also a bitch. Remember her? No one likes her. She’s dumb and her teachers and mom hate her and she’s ugly so the guys and hot girls hate her and she’s mean so even the other nerds shun her. That’s our little wartime situation. I don’t think there’s a person on earth that enjoys the American military presence in Afghanistan except for maybe some shadowy vampire smoking man types who are making money off the blood of the blaaaaaaaaaaah blaaaaah blaaaaah. You know who I’m talking about. I mean, right? Presumably troops would rather be home with their families, dying people would rather be not dying and local warlords would rather just be lording over their local folks, right? I don’t know…there’s probably more to this war situation I’m missing. There’s dudes that just like killing, right? And cars need oil. Hmmmm…this one’s not so easy to govern. These cops, thankfully seem to be having a healthy discourse at least.

Okay, white cop just silenced the table with his ability to name every American president (in order!!!) since Carter. No small feat. The other cops seem a little cowed. This topic sucks. Up next: Miley!!! Are we with her or against her?

Okay, yeah, miley is kind of dumb and vapid and she’s hot one second and looks like a football dressed up as a slutty pig the next, but there’s no denying that she’s about to provide the world with some of the best entertainment ever in the form of her filthy drug and cock fueled freakout and subsequent decline. (black guy cop just sang an old army recruiter theme song at Mexican cop and mocked him for not ever being in the army. He then called him ‘Chico’ and I’m pretty sure that he’s not actually named Chico. White cop just read a Wikipedia entry on the panama canal. Turns out that it was built by the army under Carter. Coooool. I mean, if that’s the kind of information you didn’t already know, uh, that’s cool. Right? Sure.) I love Miley’s weird relationship with her dad and her creepy old boyfriends and her totally gross brother who’s totally got fangs and drinks blood (probably).

Nah, I totally disagree with these cops on their Miley hating. She’s great. I mean, hasn’t the world already seen her clam, when Perez tweeted it or something? I’ve just heard that. I’d never look that kind of shit up on the internet because the last thing I need is some sort of SWAT team busting into my house and ruining my life because I googled “Miley’s beaver” or something. That would be a drag. Maybe one of these guys is also SWAT. Nah, they’re all fat and old.

Oh, now officer Chico is talking about ‘the corporations’ and their shadowy cabal that rules the world.
White cop just said “they don’t hate us for our freedom (he’s presumably talking about Miley and Billy Ray, who, last time I checked had quite a bit of freedom themselves)” and I gotta say, I’m impressed that we’re getting somewhere in the neighborhood of rational and well thought out trains of thought over here. Maybe these cops are smarter than I’m giving them credit for, eh? Eh? Hard to say. Oooooooh! Black guy cop just used the phrase “you’ve been bamboozled by the media.” Come on Chico, pull it together!

The phrase “mr. Gorbachev, I just pooped my pants” just got uttered. I’m out.