well, that was a scary couple hours, eh?

Before we get to the good stuff: PUNK ROCK TUESDAYS at Risque Cafe tonight!!!!!!! There will be cheap tacos! 3 buck fancy drafts! Punk Rock! Someone acting sketchy! Naked chicks! Shotgunning contests! The hour of Power (at 9!) and more! This shit has been super fun the last few weeks and I'm glad that y'all seem to be enjoying it! Let's get a beer or something, eh?
On clark at Sheffield.

Okay, onto the daily drivel:


hola.
Hi kids. You all are real nice. Seems you not only went and bought me a 'puter in my hour of need, but also took the time to weigh the pros and cons of doing something like this for someone who can (presumably) afford such a thing already (you know, in terms of global/socio economic ethics and all that). Well, here's my two cents:

1) You guys are awesome. I'm touched and it's a real cool gesture. It's also worth pointing out that I wasn't gonna be buying a computer any time soon, and not just because of money issues either. I have two kids, and as I said, that shit takes a lot of time and energy. As a mister mom, I get very few moments on this earth to do things like relax, whack off, watch tv, read books, sleep, eat food, sit quietly and shop for things. I'm out of pants. I still haven't seen inception. I've got three pairs of socks to my name and I haven't bought a new book in seven months (which is technically fine since I've got tons of books in this house that I've never read, but the point remains, buying a stack of books used to be one of my greatest pleasures, up there with random glory hole analingus and now I don't hardly ever get either. Sigh). (At this point I should mention that yes, yes, of course having kids is my own doing and raising them is my responsibility and NO, I'm not complaining about the time crunch in my life like it's unfair or anything like that. Wouldn't have it any other way. Just simply stating the truth.)
SO, my point here is that I have lots of shit to do, and plunking down some money (which I don't really have) for some crappy computer that's not the 'real' computer i 'really' want just wasn't on the horizon. I was simply NOT gonna just buy a computer just to have one. There was NO chance that it was gonna happen any time soon. SO, if in fact the rumors percolating in the Sock Drawer (of you guys doing a pool and buying me a computer) are true, then you, Socks, Dogs of War et al. have done me a great favor/solid and you have indeed contributed a wonderful and worthwhile gift to me, your overlord. I wouldn't have done it without you, and as a result the wonderful day waster that is BSC would have probably suffered and/or not been as regular. Y'all are real sweet and you didn't have to do that (can't state this enough. Y'all really didn't have to do that and just to be clear, this is an entirely unexpected and unanticipated outcome of this whole deal) , but since you did, gotta tell you, I'm real stoked. You kids are all right. And my mom says you're nothing but perverts! What does she know?
Listen, dude who is in charge of this: Just email me at the addy that's linked on this page and we can sort it all out. Shit. Y'all are the best.

2) Concerning the notion that I can buy my own computers and that people don't need to do this kind of thing and if they want to be altruistic they could do something that makes a real difference instead of giving some gross old man a computer which he can use to beat off and rant at the rest of us via this here blog: Yeah. Totally. That's true. It bears mentioning though, that it's a really nice thing to do and lots of very nice things to do technically come at the expense of doing something nice for someone who needs it more. Now, this is a slippery-as-shit slope since I'm essentially defending the notion of a bunch of strangers buying me something that's not cheap, but um...I dunno. Hear me out.
It's very hard to think globally and do anything at all. Buying shoes often means that you're supporting (however indirectly) a pretty fucked up system in which people are exploited just so you can walk around on a cushion of air. Buying fruit and meat at the grocery store, ditto. Now, it's easy to get defeatist when you begin to think like this and say something like "well, fuck it. What can I do? I gotta have food. I gotta have shoes and unfortunately, I don't live in some dipshit hipster mecca where environmentally sustainable shit is available to me, and I'm too poor to be vegetarian and not just eat fries and mac and cheese all the time, so fuck this. I'm doing none of it."
This is obviously defeatist, lazy and not a cool way to go through life. You do what you can for the things you believe in and you must at some point decide how far is far enough for you to go and be comfortable with that line. For some, it's real far. For others, not so much and there's lots of disagreements that arise as a result. This is why even though your shoes are canvas and you're eating locally made hummus, the anarchist girl in your sociology class still thinks you're a half stepping dildo. This is also, in essence, a very simplified allegory that works towards explaining why radical religious fundamentalists hate infidel sodomites like myself. People have different ideas about how far they're willing to go for what they believe in, and once you start pointing to your line in the sand and saying it's the true one and thumping your dick about it, you're gonna look like an asshole to (and bum out) everyone else. Now, maybe you're right. Doesn't change the fact that people all figure out their own line in the sand and they're not about to adjust where it is because someone calls them names. It's never EVER worked.
Okay, so I'm off topic, but lemme see if I can steer back a bit.

The argument was essentially that since I'm an employed man with a wife who's also employed that the idea of strangers buying me something is absurd. There are people with no fucking plumbing for fucks sakes! There are kids in thailand who have to literally suck old wrinkly penises for pennies and the dollars that were put towards this computer (which, the argument goes, I ultimately would have bought myself) could actually make a difference in one of those kids' lives and get the dicks out of her mouth forever or at least until she meets someone she genuinely wants to blow and how dare we sit here in the first world and buy nice things for strangers when people have it so bad and we have it so good.

Yeah. True. I mean, there's no way to argue against that. BUT at some point you gotta live your life and you gotta do what makes you happy and you gotta do things that you think will be nice for your friends. I just bought my wife a robe that she desperately wanted but didn't buy and then kicked herself for. Using treachery, I found the name of the place where she saw it, called em, asked them if they remembered her, had them put aside the appropriate robe and send it to us. When she got it she was really, really happy. It was a surprise. There was no real reason for it other than I like her and I like when she's happy and when she's in a robe there's usually not much on underneath, so my lecherous purposes are served thusly. Sure, I could have done hundreds of thousands of other things with the robe money that would have been more meaningful or effective or helped out people in need more, but man, I love that girl and I want to see her in the robe that she wants and I shouldn't have to look at every single person on the earth who's got it worse than me and need to justify to myself or anyone why i got someone I like something they want. Is that shitty? Some say yes, some say no. It's all about your line. My line leaves me pretty comfortable buying my wife something that she wants for no reason other than that I like her.

Now, let's reiterate that this is different. I didn't ask anyone to buy me a computer and you all aren't my wife or anything. Presumably you're all just a bunch of people who read this blog when you should be working, anywhere from everyday to only when I mention Tom Gabel and it gets picked up as news. The gesture was unprompted, unexpected and supported by a group of people who all chipped in a little. To me, that sounds like a groundswell idea, so what the fuck? It's not a bad thing to do something nice for someone who produces something that entertains you in hopes that it'll prolong said entertainment. I mean, I don't need to tell you that I've never made a penny off this blog, and I don't even really do it for any other reason than I like it. It's probably the purest form of expression I've ever dealt in honestly, because there's no end game. there's no notion that I'm gonna parlay it into anything and there's no glory in blogging. It's nerdy. Period. SO, the fact that you guys like this drivel enough to come back day after day after day and read this and comment and have a community here and care enough when the going gets tough to take it into your own hands and help me out, fuck. That's great. That's punk rock, innit? That's the community coming together and doing something for the guy who does something for the community. That's why I got into punk rock in the first place and I'm flattered and humbled and so so SO happy to be a part of shit like this (even if it is on a dumb, nerdy blog).

Now, let's be transparent here: Yeah, I'm a grown man and if someone had come to my house and demanded, gun to my head that I buy a computer asap, I could have pulled it off. There's no doubt about it. I've got money. BUT, I don't have much money and I have a lot of things to spend it on and as I said in topic 1), I had no plans to do so on a computer....SO, I just have to say thanks to all of you that hooked it up (provided that this is really happening. If not, I'm gonna feel like a real heel), and to the uh...naysayers: Yeah, you've got a good point, but really, this is small potatoes in the world of misappropriated funds and people living their lives in ways that are counterproductive to society. In the time it's taken me to write this someone has started a meth lab using about a hundred bucks. A bunch of kids each chipping in a ten so they can continue to have reading material while they shit at work hardly seems like a place to aim your crosshairs. And if that doesn't sway you, how bout this: You all get my records free and I've never had a problem with that even though I used to sell that shit for a living (now I'm a bartender); it made me money. money that could have gone to zimbabwe or montenegro or somewhere where there are people with real, legit problems. Instead it went to me and you got music in exchange. Now my music is free. So's this. I've got no problems with any of that. The universe sometimes works itself out. It's called galactic poetry.
thanks for the gesture. It won't be forgotten.
xoxoxoxo