Oh, and Thanks

To those who commented on the short story thing. I really am trying to improve, so any and all feedback helps. Muchos Thankos. Seriously.

Word.

I may have mentioned this before.

Man. Me and my pseudo-philosophies will be pushed aside today, in favor of a short story. I tried my penny-pen in a contest a month back, give or take, and I really liked the idea of the short story. So brief, with so many allusions, so many loose ends.

The problem is that I suck at it (hence, no trophies on my shelves). I am too longwinded (surprise, surprise). So I am going to practice here. Read or don't, I care not.

Rain or Shine

We knew the deal. Five bucks for the lot is what the guy told us. We just didn’t have the five bucks. And he scared me, with his flannel shirt and Wranglers. I just wanted to get out of there. I like zingers and black cats and those cherry bombs are really cool. No one has five dollars though. But Ray had the best idea for us to get it because he likes fireworks a hell of a lot more than the rest of us. Ray never has good plans though.

The Walgreens by my Mom’s place had this old lady working the registers after dark. I guess everyone else would be in the back, cleaning up or something. But she was always there, alone, ringing up all those big black guys who buy the big black condoms and orange soda. It really stinks in there. It always smells like moth balls and the vinegar we use on Easter for eggs. And the floor is always so sticky with spilled apple juice. One time, me and my cousin ran down the card section and poured milk into all the cards. My Auntie Kate saw us do it and told us to go wait in the car while she got her pregnancy pills. It was hot outside that day so we waited under a tree in the parking lot instead, picking at dried-up toads on the ground. She never said anything to us when she came out of there. I think she is really pretty, and my cousin thinks so too. Ray’s plan is to just go in there and take the register. She is really old, so it should not be hard. Last time I was in there with my grandma when she got some bananas and Tylenol it looked like there was a zillion in that register. “We’ll be poppin’ off those fireworks this weekend” he said. Ray better plan it good though.

Ray is so stupid though. One time, two years ago we caught him in the bathroom with no underwear on. He said that he forgot, but we all know better with Ray. He wore the same clothes for three days in a row this week. I bet he has not even gone home yet. He came to school one time with his head shaved after being gone for three weeks. He told us his big brothers held him down and shaved it while he was sleeping. But it was a new shave and he had been gone three weeks. So stupid. Another time he was playing on the playground in second grade, and this bigger boy walked over from outside the school to him and punched him in the stomach. Ray peed on himself right there. And he went back to class like that. He smelled like pee all day, and no one would sit near him. He is so stupid. He better plan it good though.

Friday is here now, and we have no fireworks yet. I will see Ray before school ends so he better say something with his bald head. Mom says that she needs me to come home right after school to help my little brother eat. He has the sugars really bad, Mom says. And he needs to be fed most of the time. He doesn’t talk or anything. I call him my little brother, but he’s actually like, twelve or something. But he’s still a baby compared to me. And with Dad still in The Rack, I’m the man of the house. Or so Mom says. So Ray better get this done tonight. Because I can already tell that Mom is going to have me doing things for my brother all night. Tomorrow morning too. She’s been sick lately, and he’s been real fussy, so I might not even get out on Saturday to pop them off. I will be so mad if that happens. Ray better get this done tonight. Because I can already tell that Mom is going to make me mad. I know she is going to keep me at home all night with my brother. Maybe I can just sneak out for a minute. Ray better plan it good.

Ray is not in school today and I think he did that on purpose. He knows that he has that plan to make and he just does not want to. He is so stupid. At lunch today, he would have laughed at me because my soda exploded all over my lap when I opened it. But he would have asked me for some anyway. And when that retarded kid Jerry came over and sat with us, Ray would have told him to leave because he smelled like poo. But I do not care about the poo and ate my whole lunch without sharing. Because stupid Ray never came to the table. I heard two teachers talking about him today. They kept saying something about camps and him having pubic servants or something. Whatever that stuff is. So stupid. He better be here today. He better plan it good.

No Ray all day long. Mom has me at home and my brother is fussing. She is sleeping in her room with a fever, so I can watch all the TV I want. Whenever my brother gets too upset I just put a hand on his chest or on his forehead and he calms down so that is okay with me. I was watching Chips when Ray started banging on the window. He looked like he was crying, but it was dark, so I did not get a good look. He told me to meet him at the parking lot behind the KFC near Walgreens in an hour. I am not sure about all of this now. He was supposed to have a plan. But there is no plan. He just wants me to go. And I think he was crying. Plus my brother is really fussy tonight and I never get to watch TV this late. Ray looked much older than he normally does. Like my Dad does. Like my Dad did before he went to The Rack. I think it makes me sad. But my brother won’t shut up and I never get to watch TV this late. I bet that flannel guy is not even there any more. So stupid. There is no plan. Ray never has a good plan. Never.

Inner Peace and the Outside Push to Mediocrity

About three years ago I went to Houston to visit with my parents for a couple of days. It was the usual set of events that played out: I dropped my bags off at their house, and headed to my friends’ places for the evening and never made it home before the following afternoon. The nights were always a buckshot experience of caution-free boozery, sprinkled with almost-fights, late-night spring rolls at Mai’s, and lots and lots of double-parking. I would spend my early afternoons in conversation with my parents, still under the influence of the previous evening, and waiting with anticipation for the coming attractions of the evening. The more damage: the better. And that’s how I liked it. I was 27ish with no direction, lots of energy, and enough smarts to keep me afloat. Coming off of some absolutely mind-blowing mid-twenties, it was MY time to be lazy and blow off steam. I was all about myself, and had no intention of taking in the negative perspective of anyone else who may be looking in on the disaster that was: me. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, right? Right.

So, the Saturday evening of my visit, my parents and I are sitting around the dinner table, after a meat-and-potatoes meal, chatting. I was so hung over from the previous night that I really had no appetite or desire to speak, so the conversation was mainly between my parents. Whatever comments I tried to interject were received in much the same way that an errant cow tooth is received when biting into a taco. A mixture of curiosity and dismay. I have no doubt that I looked rather unimpressive: a grown man with a mid-level professional job who reeked of whiskey at seven o’clock at night, dozing off mid-sentence and practically sleeping in the green beans on his plate. Err… No one’s perfect, right? Yes. So in an effort to try and push me in a direction they thought helpful, my parents decided to discuss what it means to actually achieve SOMETHING in life. What it means to do SOMETHING important with your limited minutes on this planet. They rattled off a bunch of hoo-ha about the importance of finding a life-partner, of maintaining familial ties, and of preserving some sort of family tradition. Or something along those lines anyhow. I was probably still drunk, so I don’t have a real firm grasp on whatever they were babbling about. And that continued on for thirty minutes or so, which did little to keep my drooping eyes from hovering inches above my green beans. Just as I was about to completely zone out of the discussion completely, they turned it on me, specifically.

Here, to the best of memory, is what was said to me by my father while my mother nodded her head in complete agreement.

“The thing is, Craig, is that in life, we don’t always get to do anything great. Some of us, Craig, are simply not meant to achieve anything like that. Some people are lucky to be able to have children, and then maybe the children will be great. But not you. Not the parent. And there’s nothing wrong with that, because it is just as noble.”

If you can read that, and not feel any level of disturbance running through your neural pathways, then the comment was meant for you, not me. Nails on a chalkboard over here. While it only makes sense that someone has to occupy the uncontested spaces in the mediocre lot (in fact, by definition, the majority does), I don’t believe resignation to it is the best means to me finding my inner peace. I mean, to “settle” on mediocrity is to compromise one’s self. There’s nothing wrong with mediocrity, true, as long as it is the product of effort to avoid it. At least there was a fight drawn against it. At least there was a notion of possibility, a search, an adventure into brilliance in there somewhere. What the fuck is up with the resignation bullshit? Why MUST I resign myself to it?

I was speechless. And hung over. And angry, sad, disillusioned, disappointed, suddenly alienated. And feeling somewhat deserving of this complete lack of support. I felt almost guilty for it. I took it like an indictment. An indictment of mediocrity. My parents were pushing me into the mediocre department. It felt like they had lost faith in my abilities.

But that got me to thinking, as I felt sure that my parents were not intentionally trying to knock me down. I desperately tried to imagine their point-of-view, searching for some sort of explanation for the cruel tone, since I was convinced that their intentions were kind. The only thing I could come up with was their fear of seeing me fall again. They had watched me wage a war against myself and everyone else for 27 years, and the last 4 of those were the most destructive. They had seen me touch the sky, at almost the peak of performance and success, only to watch everything crash to the ground. They had to watch me clamor back up to my feet, and set off again in a similarly violent fashion, in yet another risky direction, which also ended in utter destruction. I am speaking in riddles here, because these events were very complicated, and would require a great deal of explanation. Suffice to say, my parents had been stressed enough by what probably appeared to them as pointlessly reckless behavior. And it was scary to them. They just wanted me to calm down and stop fighting my position. As if to say, “please, just settle down. You’re fighting for something you were never equipped to have. You are aiming too far beyond your capabilities, and it hurts us to have to watch you fail, over and over again. Just stop it. Stop doing this to yourself, to us.”

If that was indeed the message, then I could stomach it with more ease. It was not an indictment necessarily, but more of distress signal. Even though it still pissed me off, I could accept where they were coming from, and remain satisfied that their intent was never malicious. I labored over and under their comment for quite some time. I could not shake the feeling that they were looking at me the same way a parent would look at a son who ran for class president every year and lost, while the parent knew that their child had a severe learning disability which would preclude them from ever holding the office. Eventually, the parent would cringe instead of support when election time would come around again. Eventually, the parent would be compelled to sit their child down and have “that talk” in order to help shelter them from (yet another) sure-fire failure. And I am sure “that talk” would be loaded with resignation, much as my parents’ discussion with me.

It made me physically ill to consider that my parents might view me the same way. That they might feel the overwhelming urge to step in to offer me protection against my own inability to see how pointless the struggle is for me, specifically. My other siblings never received this talk, or any advice remotely similar. I felt patronized. I felt relegated. I felt compartmentalized as inferior.

I felt like a cheap Mr. Coffee coffee maker, returned to Target because it was “missing pieces from the factory”, and would never function as designed. For the first time in my life, I felt the feeling that no one had any faith in my abilities, and it mattered to me. Before that moment, I really never gave much thought to whether or not I had any support for my endeavors. And that was probably because it was always there, before, so there was no reason to question it. I began to spin in an awful cycle of self-doubt, which lasted at least a year, where I questioned my own abilities, my own judgment. I started to take others’ advice above my own constitution, and deferred to others’ opinions and directions whenever available as a preferred selection to my own. The results were not particularly bad, but they were a rather stark contrast to what I might have done. If I could have kept that up, then it would never have been a problem. If the charade were strong enough to continue, I would never notice my underlying discontent.

But that could never last. I am too difficult a person to follow the lead of others for too long. Especially if the end result is mediocrity for the sake of security. I collapsed under the weight of frustration, and the intense feelings of asphyxiation resulting from the pressure to “keep things safe”. My internal dialog had been more of an argument for quite some time, and was then turning into an all-out revolution. For all my parents’ good intentions, and my well-meaning attempt to “tow the line”, the plan was falling apart in front of me, inside me, in my mind.

Once again, I was at war with myself, and with what was expected of me. Once again, I was forced to pit who I am against who I expect myself to be (which I had not done in a while), along with a new contender: who I am expected (by others) to be. The third contender was quickly disposed of, as he truly is a waste of good character. But more importantly, he was disposed of because there was absolutely no positive tissue match there. My mind and motivations tried, but could not accept that version of self. It was wholly rejected, killed off, and easily disposed of.

So here I am. Back from the fires. Renewing the squabble between who I am and who I expect “me” to be. Even though I know that the results appear self-destructive, and that it can make me more difficult to get along with. I realize that my lack of acceptance of where I am makes me impatient, and my refusal to resign myself to mindless line-towing makes me appear unstable.

But I would take that instability over the resignation to mediocrity any day. Because, for me, it appears, by process of elimination, that my particular inner peace (if I am afforded any at all) is somewhere on the other side of my internal struggle. Somewhere in the dust of the climax. It has to be. Because it sure as hell isn’t buried within the acceptance of life on medium heat. I believe that fact is evident in that everyone wants everyone else to accept mediocrity. No one is honestly championing it for themselves. If you aren’t meant to dwell there, then it feels like a prison sentence instead of the vacation spot you got sold on. Never accept mediocrity. Never tow the line “just because”. And never let your questions be answered with “well, that’s just how things are”, because that is complete and utter rubbish. You deserve more from yourself, and there is nothing unhealthy about self-challenge. Resign yourself to nothing. Fall down, get back up with a grin, and give it another go, slapping off the hands of those who try to hold you back “for your own benefit”. Why not? What have you really got to lose? Mediocrity? Why would you care if that got lost? I would take brief and phenomenal failure over painfully long, soul-wrenching mediocrity any day. Any. Day.

So, to my parents and friends, I apologize before hand for being impetuous at times. For being obnoxious, or difficult, or too “cup is goddamn half-empty”. That’s just how I roll. That’s how I get things done. That’s how I understand things to be. And that’s how I will continue to make my way.

Because one day, I will be class president. Bet.

Motherfuck yeah.

Don’t Call it Hip Hop, damnit.

Maybe I’m just “old skool” or whatever, but I feel as if one of my cherished forms of expression, art: Hip Hop, has been completely stolen by the Marketing Departments of every publishing house within the recording industry. Well, the big publishing houses anyhow.

I do not intend to show links to anything here, as this is all opinion, and I am pulling it from memory. Feel free to check minute facts on your own time.

Hip Hop, as a movement, is still around today. And even though it is still referred to as such, a large portion of what is commonly referred to as “Hip Hop”, is actually just Pop music. But calling a new artist a “Hip Hop” artist gives him/her some strange sort of street-credibility. As if “Hip Hop” were invented purely to promote half-assed rappers. Or worse yet, a black guy with a microphone should immediately be classified as “Hip Hop”. Just because he’s black. And probably “urbanesque”. Or whatever.

This is so, so, so not the case. So, if you are reading this, and previously considered Nelly to be a Hip Hop artist, please let me explain why you are completely and utterly wrong.

Hip Hop, as a movement, started sometime in the mid seventies, most likely in The Bronx, NYC. Kool Herc, Bambatta, Apache, Fab 5 Freddie, Funky 4 Plus One, Sugarhill Gang (the jury is still out on their authenticity, just so you know), Kurtis Blow, on up to BDP and on and on and on and on. There are several accounts of where it actually started (different parks and neighborhoods within The Bronx), when it actually began to gain steam (down to the actual month, which specific party, hour of a specific night, etc), and who coined the hyphenated phrase we use today (this is of little significance to me, as it was probably a journalist who was on the outside anyway). I want to stress that the origins of Hip Hop are highly contested, as all underground movements which turn out to be explosively lucrative always are. And any historian MUST keep in mind that EVERYONE involved with HIP HOP in its infancy was probably under the age of twenty. Very few bothered with school. And there are absolutely NO official records of ANYTHING surrounding the movement at that time (save for some party fliers, which hardly count as “official”). No contracts, no written agendas, no “mission statements”. These were kids, acting out of frustration and the overwhelming desire to express themselves and have fun in the process. It grew on itself, those involved grew older, the economy got worse, and the need for this art form increased as those who were producing it were finding themselves more and more isolated from mainstream America politically, socially, and certainly economically. So read what you want about the details, believe what you want, but I would take it all with a big ol’ heaping handful of salt. It’s all hearsay.

But this is about what it means to BE a Hip Hop artist.

In the early days, the culture was still building itself. But by the time it was developed enough to have a solid identity, Hip Hop had become the inner workings of a culture made up of four related groups: The DJ, The B-Boy, The Graffiti Artist, and The MC. There was significant bleed-over between these four groups, but all four were (and still are) considered distinct and necessary parts of the Hip Hop whole. They were dubbed “The Elements”. Which begs the question, which came first? Where did they come from?

It is safe to say that the beginnings all centered around the DJ. Now I am not just saying that because I spin records. It simply makes sense. The Bronx, early seventies = relatively poor community made up of mostly African Americans and Puerto Ricans. If you lived there, the majority of your social life revolved around your neighborhood park. That’s where the hoops were, that’s where the baseball diamond was, that’s where all the boys would be, so that’s where all the girls went too. DJ Kool Herc is the first noted DJ to just “show up” at a park with his mobile sound system, plug it into a street lamp, and start playing James Brown, Reggae Dub, and the like. When he and others like him would show up at a park, a neighborhood party would bust out. This went on for a couple of years, through dozens of local kids starting their own DJ collectives and whatnot.

Soon, the B-Boys started to show up. They were just groups of kids who had their own style of dancing, which they preferred to exhibit during a break-down, or “the break” in some regular song played by the park DJs. Soon, the DJs began to recognize that these kids were going crazy during “the breaks”, so they would buy two of the same record and play them on both turntables, “looping the breaks”. So the B-Boys and DJs started their relationship.

B-Boys were typically younger kids, middle-school age, who had big brothers who would paint subway cars and walls. Graffiti artists. At that time, many graffiti artists were indeed gang-related. It all started out as territory marking, or “tagging”, which is little more than just writing and/or spray-painting a printed name or moniker onto something easily seen by rival gangs. To mark territory. Textbook stuff. But as the “tags” grew more and more complex, they began to be recognized for their unique artistic bend, and split off from direct gang relation. The B-Boys learned to bomb (paint graf) from their brothers, and the older brothers took an equal interest in the B-Boy style. Graffiti had landed as the third element.

Now there had always been a microphone laying around for the DJ to use. “Uh, yeah, Jenny, your dad is here to pick you up.” Or, “Happy birthday shout-out to Mingo”. That kind of thing. It wasn’t until DJs started to book warehouse parties, where they would charge cover (and typically hire B-Boy crews as security for the event), that they needed some sort of true crowd control. Then the microphone started to get used by the DJs sidekick, who would “work the crowd” by instigating “call-backs” and such: “now when I say hip, you say hop” or “DJ Starsky is tearing up the tables tonight boys and girls! Y’all better DANCE!” and the like. But the DJ was still the main focus as the B-Boys danced, the Graffiti artists bombed, and the MC paid homage to everyone else.

Then, at some wildly contested point in time, one of those MCs started to rhyme over the instrumental breaks. My guess is that there was a really charismatic guy who was familiar with The Last Poets (look them up, that shit is amazing), and hating being upstaged by some quiet dude who just happened to have the cash to buy equipment and records. So this charismatic fellow grabbed the mic and started to be funny and witty to the crowd, throwing rhymes in there as part of his shtick. And so, from the meager job of MC, the “Rapper” is born. And here is where Hip Hop found its most lucrative method to getting paid. DJs made some money at parties, but nothing big, as it was someone else’s music they were playing. B-Boys had no venue beyond the subway platforms to ply that art form, as it was really difficult to sell “action art” on a large-scale. And Graffiti artists were considered outlaws, so there was no money in that. And most of the elements of being an MC were completely unnecessary without a DJ behind it all.

But Rapping. Yes, rapping… that could be done on its own. And it could be completely original. It could be the most pure and easy to understand of all the Elements within Hip Hop. It could be the torch-bearer for all the feelings of disenchantment, frustration, and utter lack of hope which fueled the movement as a whole. This “Rap Thing”, could be the meal ticket out.

It took a couple more years to really catch on, but it is safe to say that in 1979, “Rap” was first laid to wax (King Tim Iii), AND made a hit (Sugarhill Gang). From there, it took off.

Now that’s just the early portion, and how Hip Hop got its foot in the door. Rap is NOT Hip Hop, although it is an piece of one Element: MCing.

Side note: Today, most cannot imagine “Hip Hop” as existing outside of SOMEONE rapping something over studio produced beats. Well, there was a time. The beginning, in fact, had nothing to do with rapping at all.

So Rap continued on, making headway as it pushed into popular culture, in the hopes of making money. Blondie gave it shout-outs. Slick Rick and Doug E Fresh got all kinds of air play. Run DMC, LL Cool J, and Def Jam up and running. And then the Beastie Boys hit. If no one had figured out just how lucrative rap could be before then, they were pretty square on it soon after.

But it STILL wasn’t Hip Hop, as a total movement. It remained what is called “braggin’ rap”. “Rap” being the operative word. The title is pretty self-explanatory. No purpose beyond self-promotion to make more money and/or get laid. Just like every other rock star out there. Being poor and black did not automatically guarantee substance in the product. But it would, very quickly. The ideas of social justice, speaking out against institutional racism, historical recognition of black efforts, intelligent public assistance programs, remembrance of cultural (mainly African) roots, and general harmony between all members of the population (US and beyond) were to become more prominent subjects used by Rap artists.

I would say that it wasn’t until Public Enemy and BDP hit the scene that Hip Hop was being honestly represented. Rap is fine, but it isn’t Hip Hop without the other elements. And it certainly isn’t Hip Hop without the message of the movement itself: self awareness and social consciousness. They had DJs, MCs, B-Boys, and Graf artists (along with other things, particular to the groups).

Public Enemy and the BDP family had their share of braggin’ rap too. As did their other contemporaries (Tribe, Jungle Brothers, KMD, etc…), but the main message was consistent with that of the overall Hip Hop movement.

I want to take a second to point out that these groups were from the East Coast. West Coast groups were starting to gain in popularity as well. Too $hort, Sir Mix-a-Lot, and the Fila Fresh Crew had been making some waves out west. But they were essentially mimicking the style of their East Coast contemporaries. It wasn’t until the explosion of Gangsta Rap out of LA/Oakland that the West Coast had a style that was truly their own. I would also like to point out that while the West Coast groups claimed to be Hip Hop, their style was self-dubbed Gangsta Rap. Emphasis on Rap. Again, there’s nothing specifically wrong with that, but it isn’t Hip Hop by default, damnit.

So. How does this all boil back down to Nelly? Well, he has no DJ. He has no B-Boys. He has no Graffiti artists. He has no socially conscious message.

But he does have a group of fellas that back him everywhere he goes, he sings ballads with other popular music stars (of all popular genres), and has his own clothing line. That, my friends, is NOT Hip Hop. It does however, sound like a description for the lead singer of a Pop Music Boy Band.

For the record, I wrote this little rant in the span of about 45 minutes, so pardon the editing mess. After writing this, I went out on the interweb to check some of my references, and it turns out that there's a billion other people saying the EXACT same thing as me. Some are much better. But fuck it. I already typed this out, and it's still important to me, regardless of how many other ass-monkeys have written about it. Word.

Hmmm…. Hip Pop. For the first time, I agree with that silly-ass "urban dictionary" thing. Yes.

Photos from the places. With the things.

So. The European tour proved survivable. I would add a-lot to that, but I am without words for the moment.

I put the photos into a slideshow-kinda-thing. In the upper left is a "back to album" button. Feel free to click that if you're a photo-viewing purist.

There are only like, six photos from Amsterdam, because my camera battery died. And the Hostile Hostel did not have any outlets for me to use. Well, none in our room anyhow.

Amsterdamnit.

Here is Ireland, as put together by random photos, supplied by my waffling interest in bothering to pull my camera out to catch a moment.

Jolly Ireland! Oh wait, that's England. Fuck it.

Good times, good times.

Damn you no-electrical-outlet Hostels!

What the Hell are YOU Looking For?

That last post was a bit dark. For me, at least. And I might delete it, so read it now if you ever care to. (I put it up there in the first place as an exercise in honesty, with myself. Since only a handful of others actually read this stuff, it would not be too much of an exhibition)

This post is substantially more light hearted!

So. People come to read things here. But not all of them know why they show up. Many get here by way of search engines. Oh yes. Google, and Yahoo!, and other meta-data-minders funnel hapless folks in search of substantive answers to substantive questions, here, to the Agitated Ass Monkey. To me.

With searches like:

Barachos

Yes, often. In fact, I am really starting to hone my whole "binger" persona. You certainly found "Barachos" on this drunk-ass page. Word. Thanks for choosing to say it in another language.

Jeanine Garofalo Alcoholism

Sure, why not? Bring her along for the ride. Fuck it.

Unwiped asses

Now that's just nasty. But I can see why you might want to look around here for that. Sometimes it's a step that just gets left out of the poo process. Bygones.

Hallmark stocker job

Fuck Hallmark. And fuck that stocking job. Knobs, all of them.

I believe that I am not racism

Hell, me too. Interesting statement. Sucks that Google brought them here. I mean, shit, what kind of person AM I, anyway? Am I racism incarnate? Personified? Shit.

Free forced gyno inspection

That is some crazy shit right there. What other kind of "forced" gyno inspection could there possibly be?

What does agitated mean?

Keep reading. It'll get clearer, and clearer, and clearer, and.....

Congolese Porn Tapes

Wow. I wish. Are they subtitled or something? Doesn't porn transcend language? It must be noted that this search was done TWICE. And both times they came here. I don't know what they found, but it wasn't my precious Congolese Porn Tapes. That you can be sure of.

I hid them real good.

Monkey taunting guy with bud light

Hm. I didn't catch the Superbowl, so I must have missed (yet another) classic bud (f'n) light commercial. All I can say is that ANYONE or ANY ANIMAL is well within their right to taunt a man with a bud light. True, true...

Sex.for.guy

They put the periods in there themselves. Damn. The google search brings up a slew of gay porn. And my blog. Great. That is... fuck it. Whatever.

urinated my pants while unconscious

I found what they looked at on this one. It was one of my NYC drinking stories. I never finished the thing, because I felt it was dragging out. I hope whoever pissed themselves read that story, because no one else is willing to.

rodents into the rectum for sexual pleasure+homosexuals

What. The. Fuck. Is Richard Gere reading my blog? Don't hate if you're a fan. For the record, Richard's middle name is "Tiffany". No joke. Even his parents knew they had a nancy boy on their hands.

Just had to do that. Analyzing one's "reference links" is about as bad as those meme things.

Damn you Congolese Porn Tapes!

Pointlessness and The Theory of Finite Babble

Today is Valentine’s Day.

I’m not a big fan of this “holiday”, in any way-shape-form. In fact, it is the most despicable holiday to ever be violated by Hallmark. Sure, there’s some sort of history behind this day, and I am sure it is a most fascinating story (Feast of Lupercus, St. Valentine the “match-maker”, whatever’s clever), but just like all other days-of-celebration, Valentine’s Day is little more than an obnoxious festival of consumerism, pushed by candy-peddlers and sentiment-writers alike, up and down the blood-red aisles of Target and Walmarts across this great land.

Because you should only celebrate your significant other one time per year. And you better spend lots of cash, asshole, otherwise you obviously don’t really care, and that would be awful, wouldn’t it? To show them you don’t really care like that? By not buy-buy-buying the high-priced/low-qualitied on-sale-now-gift-sets for him/her “this special holiday season”?

Well shit, I guess so.

I’ll leave that one be now. There’s no sense in beating up a dumb-ass holiday too much, as it’s existence will only be amplified by my attention (good or bad). And just for the record, I feel this way whether I have a mate or not. Me and my lady will be staying in tonight, making dinner, as that is what she preferred.

Moving on to a brief message on job insatisfaction.

I just deleted several paragraphs which were dedicated to how little I enjoy my job… After reading over a piece of it, I decided that it was quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever bothered to rant about. If you can honestly weigh all the elements of your job: salary, health benefits, work environment, a life-schedule, retirement funds, access to technology, venue to learn and grow, blah-blah-blah. If you can honestly map that all out, value it against the negatives, and come up short… then you need to figure out what you can do to have that valuation move to a positive. There is no set prescription for how this should be done. Different strokes for different folks. But for the love of all that decent and worthwhile on this planet, DO NOT whine about it.

Because really, no one gives two shits. And that’s only fair.

For the astute/regular reader, and the perceptive rhetorical analyst, my position on job satisfaction should be more than apparent. I am not paid to write, yet I post long-ass posts here on a (kinda) regular basis. Take that however you want, wherever you want, and smoke it. I care not.

On what it means to think up a theory, only to hear someone else use it as their own.

Back in the mid-nineties, frustrated with life, and angry at the uphill battles I felt forced to fight, I came up with a theory. It helped me get through certain times of trial, and it made a great deal of sense during times of utter nonsense. It is a simple theory, as it was meant to actually help me to understand my unforgiving environment (and not to forward any academic or intellectual thought). After the passage of time, I have found it easy to poke theoretical holes in the theoretical crutch-of-a-parachute, but I continue to stick by it as a theory of my own making, and I am therefore proud of it.

As any parent feels proud, regardless of how inept or developmentally challenged their children truly are.

I called it the Theory of Finite Happiness. And the theory postulated, quite simply, as the name implies, that there was only so much happiness available to the human race. At the time, I was referring to a couple of tenets made by the theory. 1) The more humans milling about, the less happiness available per individual. And more importantly, 2) any happiness felt by one person is offset by a decrease in happiness felt by others (a single “other”, or a collection of “others”).

That is to say, your happiness in winning the lotto would be equally offset by all the unhappiness felt by everyone else for having not won. Simple math to explain disgustingly unhappy times. Obviously, this theory is riddled with holes too large to be properly spackled. But it served its purpose, and it served well. After many years, the theory lost its importance and validity to me, and I shelved it. But I have maintained a low-level appreciation for it, as I considered it purely my own.

Flash forward ten years. Amongst a large group of friends, many of which were around ten years prior to hear me discuss this little theory, I hear someone mention it. And claim it as their own.

Now I cannot help but feel somewhat flattered that someone would refer to the theory, especially since it is both old, and easy to dispute. But at the same time, I felt almost hurt that someone might, even mistakenly (which could very well be the case) claim something like that as their own. I feel that it was something that was purely me, a product of my rage from a decade back, and that it does in many ways represent a very real piece of who I used to be. And this person, a very good friend of mine, hijacked it and claimed, in front of many other people, that this was a theory they had about life.

Out of respect for that person, I did not confront them about this. In fact, I still haven’t. I haven’t bothered to correct them for a number of reasons, including: they weren’t around when I thought the theory up. They entered our circle of friends several years later, so they must have heard it from someone else and simply forgotten where they got it, or they weren’t told that it was my theory (and perhaps thinking that it was a “free theory”, up for grabs, they simply took it) when it was passed to them. This would make it a pure accident, and I don’t want to be the dick who busts into someone else’s group conversation to call out the speaker. But mainly, the combination of me knowing that it was the mindwork (albeit simplistic, and feeble) of that time which is actually valuable to me, not necessarily the product, AND the fact that it really is a poorly founded theory, together, make it easy to just let it all go. I am fully capable of building better theories, and that one pretty much blew donkey nards, so no sweat. Water off a duck’s ass.

But only for that specific theory. Other theories I’ve boiled-up in my feverish brain, I might not be so quick to see attributed to anyone else, especially a close friend. It would be tantamount to someone else claiming one of my children as their own. I’d be beyond irritated or hurt by it. I would be livid. My words are MY words, damnit.

Since I’m on stupid-ass high-horse (my apologies for sounding like a pompous douchebag, if that is how this is coming across) about all this…

As a curiosity, I decided to look up my Theory of Finite Happiness on the interweb, to see if anyone else had published it themselves. I found a bunch of religious hoo-hah with a similar name/idea, some discussion of Pascal’s theory that everyone should go ahead and believe in heaven for statistical reasons (look that crap up yourself, it is mind-bogglingly silly) and THIS. Someone, back in 2003, wrote of the almost the exact same theory, with essentially the same name. Another reason to not care too much if it gets hijacked: someone else thought of it too. Craziness.

Because I do not believe that my theory spread far out into the world of philosophic discussion, I can only believe that similar theories and thoughts can be invented and/or considered in parallel, mutually exclusive of one another. More evidence that everything that can be thought of, has already been thought of.

The theory of finite knowledge. Another theory (not my own, this time) that is easy to poke holes in.

Damn you finite happiness!