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The End of an Idiot

In the recent panoply of media-reported deaths, none thrills me as much as the demise by goring of young Spaniard Daniel Jimeno Romero, who was gored to death by a bull during the fourth day of the annual parade of fuckwits known as the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.  Truly, I wish I could feel sorry for his family, or lament at the loss this is anytime a young life, with so much potential and years ahead of him, is snuffed out - but really, I keep thinking what a lucky thing this is for the global gene pool, and how Daniel just must not have had anything in his life worth living for, since stepping out in front of a bull is just about the stupidest fucking thing you can ever do.  One has to sincerely hope that Sr. Romero is buried in a bull pasture, and that his marker, which will spawn the best magic mushrooms in the world from its platen of bullshit, is inscribed, "Como grande ahora es su chile, Danielito?"

Big ups to the Pamplona Bulls this week, though, for breaking a 14-year losing streak and popping their first kill in a while.  The franchise has been on a good run all week, some solid lung hits and ankle fractures - injuring some Scots and other Spaniards, one Texan (though not the one you're hoping for) and one Frenchman, which is especially impressive, due to their skill at running away.  It'd be much more impressive if they weren't all being run through the streets only as a prelude to their eventual deaths in the ring at the hands of skinny pricks with pointy sticks.  One bull was quoted as saying, "Snort, snort, snuffle...moo.  MOO!"  After that, there was a lot of cud chewing.

For past thoughts on the yearly goring of morons, see this.

Makes ME Thirsty

Ah, the French.  Recently found to be the most arrogant, demanding and insufferable tourists the world over, they have now also spat venom in the eyes of the world by mixing sex and advertising with perversion and childishness to give us this mocking atomic bomb test of a commercial, which - let us not forget - is sort of for a child's beverage.  Don't get me wrong (or I'll find you and stab you), I have been a fan of Orangina for quite some time, as is anyone who feels the need to spend too much money on juice with bubbles and water added to it.  Orangina contains no caffeine, and while cleansing to the palette and moderately refreshing, is best viewed as a mixer, an ingredient to a harder beverage, or a poor substitute for juice, only slightly better than Tang.

Speaking of Tang, check out the tang on that bear, yeah?  And I like a fawn with tits, just not this one.  I do support the inclusion of the transsexual peacocks in the ad, with their feathered crest tails of the males, but obvious human female attributes.  Like a furry's wet dream, a juice commercial that would intrigue Freud and embarrass Fellini.  A minute and 45 seconds worth of citrus money shot, designed to make you...what?  If I associated this commercial with my need to drink a citrus beverage, I'd have awkward grocery store moments.

The femme octopus squeezing her fruited breasts at the camera is my favorite part, though.

25 Question Quiz

What color socks are you wearing?
I have skin socks over my feet bones.

If you could get away scot-free, would you kill someone?
No one ever gets away scot-free.

If aliens were attacking the Earth, would you run or make friends?
Play frisbee with Gort. (TUNK!  "Shit.  Come on, man...Klatuu Barada catch the damn frisbee already.")

What job do you see yourself at 20 years from now?
Industrial solvent flavor testing.

When was the last time you burst into song for no reason?
Tonight, about three hours ago.

What song was it?
I have a goofy made-up song I sing to my kids when they're getting out of the bath.

Have you ever finger-painted?
Only with bodily substances.

When you die, where do you want to be buried?
My ashes are to be blown into the eyes of my enemies.

Do you consider a giant atom-smasher a threat to humanity?
Depends.  Competent help is hard to find.

Do you want pigs to fly?
Who wants to be shat upon by an airborne pig?

If you could be invisible for one day, what would you do?
Steal from the ridiculously wealthy.  Enact petty revenge.  Watch people naked.  Eavesdrop.  Shit - what would you do?

Would you rather fist-fight a badger or a koala?
Both.  At the same time.  And I hope there's money on it.

What would the theme song of your life be?
Shouldn't others pick these for you?

You have 70 seconds to live. What do you DO?!
Make the most of IT!

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
None.  I step on that hairy fucker before he gets to my woodpile.

Where was the last place you swore you'd never go to again?
Pensacola.  Went back in April.

Does the Taco Bell dog scare you?
How old is this quiz?

Jedis or ninjas?
Jedi Ninja Goodtime Fortune Birthday Party!  Who secretly ate the dip?  Yoda secretly ate the dip!

Would you trust a polar bear with your life?
Hell, no.  Who knows a fucking polar bear's agenda?

Would you rather eat moldy meat or drink rotten milk?
Moldy meat.  I bet that's a delicacy somewhere.

Do you wish Pokemon were real?
No - my house would be full of them.

Have you ever played chicken with cars just for the hell of it?
Yep.  Isn't that pretty much the only reason to play chicken?  Stupid goddamned quiz...

Would you take advice from a talking McDonalds sandwich?
Depends on the sandwich.  Big Mac's got street cred, but that Filet-O-Fish is one crazy-ass mick bastard.  McChicken gives bullshit advise due to his being a cowardly bitch, and Quarter Pounder - we cool.

What would you rather blow up: a puppy or a kitty?
Inflatable Shark.

Do you understand what "e=mc2" means?
The energy of a thing equals its mass times the speed of light (in a vacuum), squared.  With the Internet at your disposal, I'm sure you can do better, but that's as far as I'm going.

Sleeping In

I have two kids and a fairly busy schedule most of the time (you can tell by the reduced blogging) but this week I'm on vacation (to be said like a threat; I'M ON FUCKING VACATION) so this morning, I got to sleep in.  For me.  It was 7:46 when I got up, and it was good that I did, because my brain was starting to just dick around, for whatever reason.  The first indication of this was when I rolled over in the wee morning hours, got up for a piss, fell back into bed, looked at the clock and it was 3:78 in the morning.  Then I actually woke up and padded into the bathroom.  I checked when I got back, time outside my head: 4:42.

When I finally got up for real, it was because my dream had begun to bore me.  I was having some kind of involved, cinematic, third-person experiential dream about gender and class struggles in China, and how divisions between these economic classes were reinforced through the teaching and withholding of certain skills like calligraphy, glass blowing, and specific kinds of food prep.  One of the main characters was very Westernized, and preferred to be called Stacy.  He was an obviously gay man with bleached blonde hair and earrings.  Chinese.  The main woman in the dream had an equally obvious to you now unrequited crush on Stacy, and her name was Suan Chin Lo.  Or Chin Lo Suan, I had trouble following this, due to the fact that whatever my brain made up for Chinese was being spoken the whole time.  Her father was dubiously wealthy, with some kind of nebulous connection to organized crime.  He might also have been an elected official.  Stacy's dad was a butcher, and there was much of the interiors of Chinese grocery stores.  There was a point when their hands touched while preparing broth, and I woke up, bleary and amused/annoyed.

I would point out that I know next to nothing about Chinese societal structures as pertaining to class & gender equity.  This is probably apparent.  It's like someone else broadcast their dream into my head.

Family

It is said, often, that we do not choose our family, that we are chosen by it.  That familial bonds & obligations trump all others and that betrayal in family systems is among the worst imaginable.  That blood is thicker than water, and by inference, the drinks shared between good friends.  I call bullshit on the concept entire.  The very idea that we, as an organized (kind of) and civilized (for the most part) society that's nearly a decade into the 21st century would allow so much of our fates to be (pre)determined by what are essentially accidents of biology, is ludicrous in the extreme.  To place so much more emphasis on nature, leaving nurture coughing in the dust kicked up by the family reunion conga line (no) is irresponsible, unscientific, unhealthy, short-sighted, poorly thought out and dumb.  While it is completely possible that every human birth is Dr. Manhattan's "thermodynamic miracle" writ large, there is no logical reason that this qualified revelation of questionable magnitude should dictate future relationships between people.  Don't get me wrong; I'm glad he and Laurie came back to Earth, I just don't think I should have to buy a lot more Hallmark cards because of it.

The somewhat dangerous truth, made so because it questions the automatic nature and assumed permanence of our familial relationships (upon which much in our lives is based), is that we choose our families.  You don't get to choose your parents, that much is true.  At the outset.  But you choose to honor them, choose to listen to them, and choose, after your raising up is completed, whether to live because of or in spite of them.  You can choose to continue your association with them, or not.  So, actually then, you do choose your parents.  They certainly chose you.  Religions and societal structures, political belief structures, morals and mores are all chosen, and if that's true, every birth is the result of a choice.  Births are either dictated by circumstances chosen before sex & pregnancy ensued, or they are planned out to a greater degree by those with the resources and focus to do so.  The idea of chalking everything up on the Blackboard of Destiny devalues, in my mind, the importance of the choice.  You choose to love someone, and they choose to love you.  And behave accordingly.  Forced loyalty isn't worth as much as that which is chosen.  A choice can be reversed, and as such, it becomes incumbent upon both parties to keep the scales of respect and love balanced out so that no one decides to bail.  The potential fragility and impermanence of this arrangement is inherent to its basic worth, dictates such, and requires more attention to maintain.  Soap bubbles are cooler than soap.

As a thinking, feeling, evolved human, I make better choices than biology does, anyhow.  We are smart enough to have fused our thought processes and our emotional actions/reactions into something only higher animals can accomplish - why subjugate that to accident, sentiment, and chance?  Bullshit, says I again.  There is no room in life for blood relations who cannot behave as caring, thinking people, and no argument for the feelings of family I have for many who are not related to me in any biological way.  I have family in Tennessee, Madison, Atlanta, Chicago, Florida, Indiana, Vegas, and a half dozen other places.  I may not talk to you or see you as much as I would like, but hey - that's family for you.  And if we don't talk much anymore because it's awkward or because the distance is too big - you're still my family.  I decided.  (Sorry if I didn't mention your specific geography - it's all about population density.)  Now - you could argue that this ersatz family system chose me as I much as I chose it, and that would be true to some extent, but it also contains a level of mutual respect overlooked and undervalued by antiquated familial models.

How much does blood matter?  As much as we allow.  Aside from genetic prediction of disease, I'm not sure there's much there.  Anyone placing a large amount of importance on bloodlines is either in eugenics, horseracing, the Da Vinci Code, or something ending in "dynasty."  Or they are clinging to an outmoded concept.  You can choose your blood relations, or not.  You can marry into a family that means as much, if not more to you, than your birth family.  Action is so much more important than this other shit.  You can meet people, befriend them, share with them, protect them, have fun together, cry together, and bond over shared experiences, and also choose to call them family.  And all of these simply are, as long you treat them as such.

And never stop.

Ordo Abchao

Ordo Abchao by Ras Kass

I spent most of last weekend cleaning my house.  My house is actually a 1300 sq. ft. apartment in the middle of Green Hills, which is itself a pretty chaotic swirl of rich people, shoppers, students, and retired folk.  It's a hub of activity, and our apartments sit right in the middle.  My little cluster of rooms, each valued at a little more than $100/month, had not been really deep cleaned in a long while.  Too long.  The duffel bag I took to Land Between the Lakes?  Put that away last weekend.  The comforter Jimbo used back in April?  Got thrown instead of washed.  Under the sink?  Gross.  Light bulbs, container in the back of the fridge, gift wrap, unbagged comics, Easter eggs, Valentine hearts, even a Christmas bear - all needed to be dealt with properly.  It's mostly done, but my bedroom and closet still need a lot of fucking work.

My head needs work.  Something along the way has done my fucking head in.  I haven't been able to complete a decent, cogent thought in a week.  So, the school year ends, right?  And then my wife's whole school falls under the axe of Title 1 No Child Left Behind nonsense, where we lay everyone off and make them re-interview for their jobs.  After that, we find out that my aformentioned home sweet rental might be razed in the name of progress in less than 18 months, and some family drama hits on top of that, too.  Some emotional tumult of the serious, must-be-dealt-with-NOW variety, and the other kind, my grandmother taking a turn for the worse - she has now forgotten who my mother is.  (We have joked that the upshot of this last thing is that it might ease the contentious nature of their relationship.)  Add that to drama at work and stagnation of certain career-based landmarks, and my brain is chaotic.  Step One: Clean House.  Literally.

It helped, a little.  Step Two: Steal 14th Anniversary Evening Out With Spouse helped more (Thanks, Mer), and if I could get a decent night's sleep and get rid of my ever-present headache, I'd feel a lot more like dealing with shit.  As it is, tomorrow, I'm taking the day off from work - Friday the 12th, I am unavailable.  I am spending the day with my kids, possibly having lunch with a friend, maybe helping someone else out with some last minute stuff.  Doing the books and park thing, not going near a computer.  Trying to quiet out my head - dump the shite, make room for order to begin.

It's that feeling of needing the whole world to shut the fuck up for 24 hours.

The Rap of Japan

(inspired by a misspelled note from one of my wife's HS students...)

They live on some islands,
this meticulous race!
They work very hard so
they do not lose face!
Tokyo's the capital,
(it's the biggest one)
But you gotta hit the Ginza
if you want some fun!
They gave us Godzilla,
Manga and Anime,
and Hiro Nakamura,
on TV Monday,
Give mad props to Nippon,
Land of the Rising Sun,
They gave us the Prius,
and the bullet train,
They also make creepy robots,
and almost every game.
Their culture is rich,
complex and old,
They are mostly Buddhists,
with a lot Shinto,
Let's hear it for Japan,
where you can live 'til 80,
and chill beneath a cherry blossom
where it's always shady.

HAI!!

"Drinking the Kool-Aid."

Give a bunch of conservatives some lines to say, and it's like winding them up and setting them down on a nice tile floor and letting them spin out their insignificant rage while they repeat that shit over and over in lieu of actually thinking about anything.  I speculate that it's easy for them in this way because of the obvious similarity to the pomp and ritual of organized religion, a phenomenon with which you must be at least passably familiar in order to get your Right WingNut membership card in the mail.  Last one I remember was "Flip-Flopping," and I think there were a couple of even dumber ones this past Fall, but I can't recall them.  This newest one is "drinking the Kool-Aid," describing anyone who supports Barack Obama, while invoking the method of death used at Jonestown in 1977.

The assertion, of course, is that we're all caught up in some kind of cult of personality-esque religious fervor, and that we're sucked into supporting him because clearly, we're no longer capable of thinking for ourselves.  So it's doubly insulting inasmuch as it asserts that Obama's an empty vessel - a pretty smile with soaring rhetoric which hides the void beyond it - and that we, as his supporters (and I think this extends to anyone who's slightly to the left of FOX NEWS or the former President) are easily led sheep, incapable of independent rationality.  Classic strategy, turning your worst sins into those of your opponents.  I don't think this one is working though, except to fill time in the last fifteen seconds of interviews and as Facebook status postings.

First off, it's startlingly ignorant, and shows that the person saying it has nothing to say.  Like slapping someone at the beginning, rather than the end, of an argument.  914 people died at Jonestown, and there's nothing simple about why.  Educate yourself, read a little about Jim Jones and his insanity.  Recognize the mistake in linking support of a political candidate to a blind religious faith.  Could be a little hypocrisy there.  Realize that making this particular connection is not funny, is not cute, is not remotely clever (just look around at who's doing it) and makes a mockery of over 900 deaths, many of them children who chose nothing.  Additionally realize that in jumping to this extreme, you have fallen into the "Hitler trap" of intelligent discussion and debate: anytime you must evoke something this far off topic, this near the vanishing point of rationality, you have already lost.  You weren't capable of keeping the disagreement here in the normal framework in which it exists, so you had to demonize, oversimplify and distort.  Finally, go and fuck yourself, you annoying twat.

Listen up, Right Wing, I'm gonna explain to you how to hate a President, since you obviously do, and because I have some past experience in this arena.  Foremost, you have to come up with some rational reasons to hate the guy.  Don't get me wrong - you're entitled by the Constitution and basic human nature to your irrational, nasty gutter hate.  It's cool - everyone does it.  What we'd all like, though, is if you could keep your trap shut about it until you have something intelligent, or at least informed, to say about it.  Have some fucking patience.  See, those of us on the left hated Bush from jump because we all believed that the Supreme Court bent over for him after Florida cheated us out of a fair election.  Speaking personally, though, I let it go.  I did.  And that's fucking hard for me.  I let it go and I waited for real reasons to hate his monkey ass.  And he gave them to me.  After 9/11, I actually had the passing thought that maybe, just maybe, it was good that "take charge and give 'em hell" Republicans were in charge.  It quickly passed.  It quickly passed when the Bush White House squandered the goodwill of the entire world like it was nothing, and fucked this country into a two-front unwinnable war on an abstract while failing to capture the one man singled out as responsible for the act that precipitated the whole chain of events.  Now - THERE, children, are some reasons to hate.

I say that to say this: You don't have anything yet, other than you're a bunch of fucking soreheads who lost an election.  It's almost five months later - let it go.  If you don't like democracy, move.  In the first 100 days the Obama White House has the highest approval rating in years from the American public, they've begun to deal with the fucked economy, they've had some missteps in legislation and dealing with torture stuff left over from Monkeyface, but nothing catastrophic.  Not yet.  Wait for it.  Have some fucking perspective.  Mature.  Grow.  Shut up for six months, clear your throat and find your voice instead of just screaming at whatever happens, praying for a fatal flaw.  Be a part of a discussion, and stop going along with all the other pissed off morons I run into on a daily basis.

And it was Flavor Aid, you stupid pricks.  Get your facts straight.

Fuck You, Jamie Foxx

Yesterday on his satellite radio show, Jamie Foxx made comments about Miley Cyrus that you've all likely heard by now.  Last night, he apologized - via the Leno show - for the stuff he said, reminding the world no less than four times, "I'm a comedian."  His press people reminded also reminded all those not laughing yesterday that "Jamie's show is a comedy."

"These are the jokes, people." The best comedians never have to tell you.

I'm not a fan of Miley Cyrus, (though "Fly on the Wall" isn't bad) but it seems to me that anyone actually trying to keep their head above the mud of show business should not be dragged down by someone who needs material for a fucking radio show.  And what is Jamie Foxx, anyway?  A guy who associated himself with Redd Foxx (no actual association exists) has some acting chops, and got huge by pretending to be Ray Charles - which he did amazingly well, don't get me wrong.  I actually like Jamie in movies, but based on the R-rated vitriolic crap he spewed at a girl his daughter's age in front of the world yesterday, I now have to wonder if he's one of those actors who's such a good chameleon because he has no personality to begin with.  He calls himself the "black Howard Stern," but I'm not sure anyone needed that.  Now he gets to come off like a disgusting degenerate - someone who is requesting a sixteen-year-old in a sex tape?  Many younger performers spin out and get weird - all the way from Diff'rent Strokes to Miss Lindsay, but when someone doesn't - fuck, leave them the hell alone.

Supposedly, Jamie was dressing Miley down for pitching a bitch about not getting to meet Radiohead.  You would, too.  There's some dispute as to whether or not she was kidding, but just for a minute, think with me: Those of you who have to deal with 16-year-olds regularly, imagine, and those of you don't, attempt to remember what you were like at 16.  Now imagine that you don't get your way, after building something up in your mind.  Imagine being upset, or dealing with that angry, disappointed (probably a little a lot spoiled) 16-year-old.  Now imagine that the format of your rebuke to that teenager includes public humiliation, suggestions to begin using crack & catch a venereal disease, and a career in Internet porn, among other things.  Some of you have jobs where you'd be arrested for talking to children that way.  Does that strike any of you as a mature and thoughtful response to someone's bad behavior, or does it seem more like the ravings of a shitheaded junior pop star who suspects he's peaked as a performer, and now has to watch a 16-year-old singer with a TV show have the #1 movie in America?

You're a whiny bitch, Jamie, just like your boy Kanye.  You're a punk and a shitty comedian.  You don't think - perhaps because you lack the capacity - about the far-reaching effects your comments will cause.  Thousands of articles, the opportunity for Miley to take the high road, erosion of your popularity with a younger generation, people asking why you weren't this upset about Chris Brown, and racist fucks just crawling out of the woodwork to make comments in local papers like "I guess Jamie thinks he can say whatever he wants now that his Affirmative Action President is in charge."  You can't just unhinge your lower jaw and let your lizard brain talk - you have to think as well.  You've come off like a leering, jealous, bitchy little prong over this thing that's not even a thing.

Plus, there's ripping off Bill Hicks, which even though all comedians do it now, is unforgivable.  What a dick.

I did think the Lindsay Lohan egg thing was funny, though.

Shufflin' Meme "Mark II"

I did this once before, but fuck that - I want to do it again.  A couple of people, including Josh, have sent this to me relatively recently (okay - February), and the thing is - when Josh sends you something, it's like sighting a coelacanth in shallow straits - rare enough that attention simply must be paid.  Thus: another shuffled music meme, greatly aided this time by the fact that I actually have an iPod.

• What do your friends think of you?
"Rock & Roll (Part 3)" - Virgin Tears

• If someone says, “Is this okay?” you say?
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" - Eric Clapton & George Harrison

• How would you describe yourself?
"Experimental Film" - They Might be Giants

• What do you like in a guy/girl?
"Kiss and Control" - A.F.I.

• How do you feel today?
"Sledgehammer" - Peter Gabriel

• What is your life’s purpose?
"Zero" - Smashing Pumpkins

• What is your motto?
"All Things Must Pass" - Harry Heck

• What do you think about very often?
"Glory Days" - Bruce Springsteen

• What is 2 + 2?
"Mozart's Sonata #3" - Scatterbrain

• What do you think of your best friend?
"The Good, the Bad & The Ugly (Main Title)" - Ennio Morricone

• What do you think of the person you like?
"Scarlet Begonias" - Sublime

• What is your life story?
"Top of the World" - Shonen Knife

• What do you want to be when you grow up?
"Galileo" - Indigo Girls

• What do you think of when you see the person you like?
"I'm Still a Struggling Man" - Edwin Starr

• What will you dance to at your wedding?
"Fat Cats, Bigga Fish" - The Coup

• What will they play at your funeral?
"Jefe de Jefes" - Los Tigres del Norte

• What is your hobby/interest?
"Shout 2000" - Disturbed

• What is your biggest fear?
"Altar of Corruption" - Razor of Occam

• What is your biggest secret?
"Haunted" - Evanescence

• What do you think of your friends?
"Where is the Love" - Black Eyed Peas & Justin Timberlake

• What will you post this as?
"Mark II" - Ramin Djawadi  (totally works - cool.)