Greener my ass

A friend of mine just said to me, "Your best job is always your next one and your last one." How true it is. I've always had a hard time appreciating where I'm at when I'm there. Apartments, friends, jobs... it's always better in my mind where I was because I want something better for the future which never shows up. I think it takes a certain kind of zen ability to just BE that I've never been able to manage. I'm always unsatisfied, uncomfortable and unappreciative. I'd like to change, but frankly I feel I need to be in a better position in order to do that.

_________

Ideas, dreams and masks

I had a very good idea this weekend but I cannot for the life of me remember what the fuck it was. I come up with some of my best ideas in the mornings as I'm waking up but trying not to. I wear a mask when I sleep to help me not snore. For years, I didn't dream. I thought I just didn't remember my dreams, but it turns out I actually wasn't dreaming for shit. Now, I lay there in the mornings and keep myself in this perpetual dream flux bordering on the edge of wakefulness. The ideas flow through me and if I could write them down I would, but they come and go while I lay there motionless except for a twitching leg or the scratch of an itch.

Moral values in retrospect

People talk about how we've strayed morally as a nation and talk about how we need to get back to the values of the past. Well, I call bullshit on that. What exactly is so moral about the past? Genocide? Forced whitening of Indians? Keeping women from voting? Slavery? Cheap access to legal prostitution? Segregation? Child labor? The exploitation of immigrants?

We think because gay people want to sanctify their unions with marriage that things are getting worse? If anything, isn't that an example of things getting MORE moral? Why should they care, if they aren't moral, if their union is sanctified. People play violent video games and we think things are going to hell? They aren't actually killing people so that's really a step in the right direction, isn't it?

The problem is that in the U.S., violent crime is at an all time low. Bad shit happens, sure it does, but not like it used to, not per capital. We obsess ourselves with this trivia so we don't have to worry about the real problems we can't fix. We'll act all shocked and horrified that 10 year old girls are going out and getting pregnant. We'll start a moral crusade about that shit, but we don't get up in arms about the fact that 10 year old girls are CAPABLE of getting pregnant these days, do we? 100 years ago that wouldn't have been possible. 200 years ago a girl wouldn't have entered menses until she was 14 or so. Everyone in our society is too sedentary and as a result, young girls are hitting this benchmark early. It's nature's way of filling the void.

It's always been easier to bitch and whine about moral decline than to do something constructive that might have been hard and taken time. We thrive on fear because fear makes it OK for us to bitch about the wrong things and ignore the real issues in this world.

The chickenshit way out

You know, it really bothers me when people think that suicide is the "easy way out." It isn't. If you fear Hell, guilt, pain or the unknown, taking a handful of pills, eatinng a bullet or sitting in your garage with your car engine running is definitely not easy.

Let's assume for one second that the desire to kill yourself isn't based on a one time, quick decision. No one is happy as Larry for 40 years, gets their Verizon bill, sees $200 in overages and blows their head off with a shotgun. Me mate Mark's uncle killed himself last week after 20 years of physical pain and mental anguish strapped into a wheelchair. Does that sound fucking easy? The guy thought about killing himself for two fucking decades. He talked about gassing himself, but ended up using a gun. That surprised a few people, but not me. No one wants to hurt themselves, but no one wants to fuck it up either. I'm sure he thought it would be painless to sit in his car with his radio on, maybe a favorite tape. He'd have that door closed, maybe a pipe going from the tailpipe in through his window. He'd fall asleep gently and never be in pain again ... unless he fucked up or someone found him. Then he might be retarded in addition to stuck in a God damn wheelchair.

I stuck a gun in my mouth once about 10 years ago. I really wanted to pull that trigger, man, but I was so fucking scared that the caliber wasn't big enough to the do the job that I'd just end up with a profound lisp and severe brain damage. But what really fucking scared me was the idea that maybe all those fucking Christians were right and there is a Hell and the only surefire way to get into it is suice. That is something to fear. God will forgive you for murder, rape, theft, being a Republican, but I thought, what if I kill myself and wake up in someplace where I am not only NOT dead and at peace but suffering the tortures of the damned? What if my punishment is just to keep on feeling the way I did at that moment forever?

I'm not saying anyone should kill themselves, but those shiny, happy motherfuckers who run around poo-pooing anyone who's offed themselves as a chickenshit coward have no idea what kind of shit people with suicidal ideation put themselves through or what kind of shit their brains foist on them.

I recently had a solid month of panic attacks. And I can tell you, I wasn't fearing Hell any more. I know for damn sure that if I'd had a gun, I wouldn't have hesitated to kill myself because this wasn't just the hard-core depression of 10 years past. This was full blown axiety attacks day in and day out. No loving deity could possibly hold you responsible for ending that kind of human suffering. But I used every fucking trick in my bag to keep going this time. That bag was full of decades worth of mental gymnastics. Some worked, some didn't. Eventually, the attacks subsided, but I live in fear every day that they will come back as unexpectedly as they started and I might have the means to finish the job.

And talk about the weather pt. 2

So my dad did get his hearing aid today as planned.
I had agreed to meet him at my sister's house three
blocks from mine at 11 a.m. So, of course, he shows
up at my house at 10:20 a.m. and honks his horn
like I'm supposed to bound out of the house immediately
in glee to be going on a fun adventure. Fuck that shit. I called
down to his cell phone and told him to go back to
my sister's house and wait 'til 11.

"I don't want to be late."
"We've got and hour and 10 minutes!"

Fuck, it's like no matter what the fuck I do, he's got
to create a situation where I'm wrong. I wasn't late.
Yes I was fucking asleep, I didn't go to bed until 3.
My god damn alarm was set to go off in 10 minutes so
I could get up, shower, use the toilet and get to my sister's
house by 11 so we could make the five minute drive to the
mall so he could get his god damned hearing aid at 11:30
so he can have something else to bitch about for the next
10 years.

We show up at the hearing aid place 45 minutes before his
appointment. The hearing aid people got 15 minutes to kill
before their first appointment which isn't my dad, but of
course my dad thinks if he gets there early enough, they'll
squeeze him in so he can do ... what? Nothing. He's fucking
retired, has nothing to do, but he figures he can get "something
done" if he gets this over with early enough. Well, shit, why not get
something done before you roll up to my house and honk like a
god damned hayseed. I live in the "big" city. We don't go for that pulling up
and honking the horn shit because when you honk your horn,
hundreds of people from hundreds of houses look to see what
asshole is outside honking his fucking horn.

Best part is, he still had to wait 10 minutes after his appointment
time to get in so I guess that's one for my side whatever my fucking
side is.

Then when he does get his hearing aid put in, he has the fucking
balls to say "huh?" and "what?" to me about three times because
he isn't just deaf, he's been zoning me out since I was like 10 or 11.
I'm sick of daddy issues ... I'm sick of being fucking ignored ... I'm
sick of being accused of mumbling, not talking loud enough and
shouting. Because there's a difference between talking loud enough
and shouting, you know, you can speak up without shouting.
You try explaining yourself rationally at 23 dB.

Then my dad decides to just fuck off and go "get some things done."
My nephew and I actually wanted to hang out and maybe, I don't know,
chat. But all through lunch, my dad hasn't got one god damned thing to
say. It's a fucking joke. Maybe if he'd gotten the fucking hearing aid 20
or 30 years ago when he first needed it, there would actually be something
to say besides "no I don't want any of your fucking hot peppers" and "can I
borrow some money?" You think it doesn't feel like shit to only talk to
your own father when you need something bad enough to put up
with all the fucking bullshit talking to him entails?

I am completely unsatisfied. That fucker owes me something for years of
emotional abuse and ignoring me.

Real People

Americans aren't even real people to me man. Real people
would take a fresh slice of tomato and mozzarella drizzled in
olive oil over a MacDonald's cheeseburger any day. I brought
fresh tomatoes from my dad's garden to work today. The taste is
amazing, but of course there are a few blemishes. It's a trade off.
That shit they sell in the stores looks good but tastes like
cardboard. Real people would relish the opportunity to wash
off a nice fresh veg with its flavor and vitamin content intact, but
not Americans. If it ain't shrink-wrapped and expunged of any
and all connections to nature, dosed with preservative, sodium
and high-frustose corn syrup, most Americans won't touch it.

Most real people would be ashamed to live as wastefully as
Americans do.

Real people would fight for their rights as workers and take
advantage of every chance to vote.

Real people wouldn't shit on education and the educated.

Real people would spend more time with their kids than they do
watching TV.

Reeal people would be ashamed of how stupid and ignorant they
are.

And talk about the weather

So my father, who's been deaf more or less since some time
in the 70s when he was working in an industrial plant without
proper earplugs, finally decided to get himself a hearing aid
this week. Before this week, he refused to get a hearing aid for
a couple decasdes. His ex-wife forced him to get one from a
traveling salesman back in 1984. The guys sold him a piece
of shit and then, mysteriously never came back to find out
how things were going. This gave my father all the excuse
he needed to keep people shouting at him for the last 21 years.

"You need to get a hearing aid."
"I HAD a hearing aid and it was a piece of shit."
"That was over 20 years ago!"
"HUH?!"
"Forget it."
"HUH?!"
"FUCK OFF!"
"Oh, I'll have some."

You know how impossible it is to have any kind of relationship
with someone who can't hear you, more than likely doesn't want to
hear you and is a terrible guesser? I've had endless arguments with
my father because he just assumed I said something angry and hurtful
and responded in kind. He never answers the phone and
when he does, you better not be anywhere people can hear you.
I can't call him from the break room of my place of work because
everyone will look at ME like I'm nuts for shouting into the phone.

My father is deaf in exactly the range at which I speak. So I am
the one person in my family he finds hardest to hear. When I was a
kid, he used to accuse me of mumbling all the time. It really pissed
me off since I most certainly was not mumbling and no one else in
my life has ever accused me of that. If anything I over pronounce to
compensate. My father's disability was always everyone else's
problem. Everyone talks too fast, everyone talks too quiet and fully
99 percent of the people of Earth who don't have high-pitched voices
are mumbling.

The funny thing about my father's decision to get his hearing aid
finally is that my sister and I stopped brow-beating him about it
some time ago. We got plenty damn good and tired of never being
able to get ahold of him. If you wanted to see my father, you actually
had to drive 20 minutes north and hope he was at home. Because
my father hates the phone, he's always been partial to the drop-in
as well. I'm not. I don't often wear pants round the house. I'm casual
and if someone knocks on my door, it means I will have to get
dressed before I can answer it. Occasionally, I don't hear him
honking in my driveway. Consequently, my dad doesn't drop by
much either and I don't see him very often. He drops in on my
sister all the time because someone is always home and
wearing clothes. He'll drop in at 7:30 in the a.m. even so...
I'm pretty lucky in this.

I'll have to ask what made him change his mind when he
can actually hear me. But I wonder if it will really make a
difference this new found gift of hearing. I think he liked
being deaf. I think he liked to think people felt sorry for
him even though all that shouting just made everyone
pissed off.

Star Wars fans, your taste is in your ass!

One is often confronted these days by deluded Star Wars fans
who insist on telling me how fucking good Episode III really was.
REALLY? Then why is it that I have this terrible aftertaste of SUCK
in my mouth?

Last night, I had this intellectual discussion with a classmate of mine
who not only thought III was great but that he actually liked all six
Star Wars flicks equally. Now, how in the fuck can you have a
reasonable conversation with someone like that? Star Wars and Empire
were clearly superior to every other movie in the series and for very
clearly established reasons: great scripts, direction and decent acting.
And NO MUPPETS ... besides Yoda was really more of a brilliantly
articulated puppet than a fucking muppet cackling like Animal from
some deleted scene from The Muppets take Manhattan.

I don't mind so much if people like shit, but they so seldomly will admit
that what they like is shit and they insist on convincing you that it ISN'T
shit as well.

90 percent of EVERYTHING is shit and just because you like it doesn't
mean it's good, fuck-o. I like Night of he Comet, a mid-80s B science
fiction flick starring a bunch of no names running around from Zombies.
It's awful AND I like it. Summer School starring Mark Harmon is also
one of those crappy movies I just love. See? No psychic disconnect,
no mental trauma, just the plain God's honest truth: some things we
like even though they aren't high quality.

But try convincing most people that their taste is in their ass and they
get offended. Like it's my fault they think Taco Bell is Mexican let alone
GOOD Mexican. MacDonald's is bad for you but people still eat it. Richie
Rich comics suck ass, but if I'm on a roadtrip I like them.

My whole thing is that if I am arguing on the basis of certain well established
principles of film criticism (direction, script, acting, editing) that a movie
is just not very good, don't come back at me with THE FIGHT SCENES
WERE AWESOME! Especially if the fight scenes were definitely NOT
awesome, but were in fact quite boring and unsatisfying.

If the acting is done in front of green screens and feels like it, then the
movie loses points.

If decent actors give lackluster performances, then the director fucked up.

If Padme says, "Hold me, Ani, like you did by the lake on Naboo." Then the writing
is just shit.

If the action doesn't even jazz me, then there is something wrong with it.

If there is more shit flying at the screen in the first five minutes of a Star Wars
movie than there was in Saving Private Ryan, the idea of a space battle has been
lost ... check out Battlestar Galactica some time bitch.

If the director himself says he isn't a very good director and doesn't like directing,
then chances are he isn't going to put much into it and should turn it over to someone
who gives a shit.

If you are the Sith Lord emperor of a system of government spanning the galaxy.
You JUST OVERTHREW the old government and Yoda is coming to kick your ass,
you might want more than two guards on the door to your office.

If your Yoda and you're going to kick the ass of the Sith Lord who just overthrew your
government, you might want to bring at least ONE other guy to help you take him down.

Journey Beyond Tour '05

This weekend was the '05 Journey Beyond reunion
for me and several of my friends plus associated
hanger's on. Journey Beyond or JB is a role-playing
game of the old school variety. It is isn't a computer
game. It isn't a video game. It is game in which men
with dice and character sheets (of paper) in hand act
out a variety of situations determined by the game's
referee known as the Echo Master.

Now, you've never heard of this game; it isn't sold in
stores or anything. This game is made up from the fertile,
plagiaristic minds of its creator and participants who take
characters such as Wolverine, Dr. Doom, HHH, Darth
Vader and whover else trips their trigger and use them
in this off-the-wall universe of multiple dimensions and
arcane power sources to try and kill each other mostly.

I played back in high school. I had a character based
roughly on Mad Max who was a scrub in this universe.
No special powers to speak off, just some weapons, some
armor, a car and a mission to terminate whoever I was paid
to terminate.

It was fun. Steve Thomas, the erstwhile Echo Master, had
and still does have a quick mind. He is a decent improvisor
who works out a good plot beforehand and then makes it
work as factors change. The thing that I figured out over 20
years ago is that Steve is really playing two games. One game
is JB but the other is favorites. Not so much that he only ever
lets one or two people have everything they want, it's more of a
mind game. Steve likes to manipulate things and screw with
people's minds. It's not an uncommon trait among Dungeon
Masters and other gamers, but it is particulary striking with Steve
because he hides it so well. I quit originally because Steve got
mad at me and I was pretty sure that the character I was so
attached to would get whacked in some terribly legitimate manner
if I ever attempt to play the game again.

Steve would deny this, but I think he really gets off on playing God.
I don't blame him. Who wouldn't love to be able to fuck with his friends
and associates on a regular basis, have them come to you begging
for die rolls and favors for which, they occasionally barter. There was
one douche bag back in the day who would buy stereo components,
CDs and food just to get an extra savings throw or a made-up sword
with special powers. It was sick. Even last weekend, someone offered
Steve the last peanut butter crunch for some little favor.

What I don't understand is why anyone would subject himself to this kind
of summary character/personality assessment and emotional extortion.
Especially for 25 years or more. It seems obvious to me that some
characters and their players do much better than others with no apparent
explanation to anyone who isn't playing the game. Eveyone in the game
who comes out on top is convinced it is due to their superiority.

Granted I've seen some dumb shit moves and callow pretend behavior that
was a reflection of the players true personality, but who the fuck plays a
role-playing to be just as big a loswer in their fantasy world as they are in
their real life?

The answer is no one, of course. The whole point of fantasy is that it is
supposed to be better than reality. This is the shortcoming of all role-playing
games though, not just JB. It's just that JB is the only game I even get near
these days. I couldn't possibly play an RPG with strangers and I can't manage
to have a reunion with my old geek buddies that isn't all about Journey Beyond.
I get to see an occasional movie or have dinner with one or two of them, but when
we are all together, we are playing JB.

Behold ye unbelievers and tremble ... with laughter

Omigod! This MUST be the sure proof that God is indeed
watching over the United States because it couldn't just
be an optical illusion! Tyler Uetz of Iowa CCI sent me this.
Apparently, this "gem" has been circulating around the
Internet to prove, among other things, that God prefers
the United States of America over every other nation on
Earth. Clearly, othewise you could see Sundogs when you
hand any large piece of translucent clothe between you
and the sun.

Some of the other things proved by this flag and the hubbub
surrounding it are: Americans are a bunch of fucking cavemen
with little to no science background and that anyone who
thinks that "cross" looks cross-like enough to be sent from
heaven is also a fucking caveman with about a sixth grade
science education.