assorted rants

things that piss me off

Things That Suck #361: Weenie Commentators, and #362: Assorted Ass Pilots

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Disclaimer: I like Will Ferrell.  The character he portrays in Anchorman, Ron Burgundy, is a humorous depiction of the douchebag that lives inside just about every newscaster.

It’s inevitable.  Whenever there is some kind of highly visible public tragedy there has to be at least one highly visible public figure who says something so asinine you want to bitch-slap him or her through the monitor. Usually there are several such weenie commentators, as they start repeating each other ad nauseam once one weenie commentator rears its ugly head.  I try not to watch TV news too much as I am prone to anxiety and depression. At least I can pick and choose a bit more getting my news online.

Most of the crap in the mainstream media is exactly that- “Crap” with a capital “C”-so sickeningly politically correct and skewed to reflect one particular world view that it lacks any kind of substance.  Don Henley said it back in 1985- crap is king, and we all love dirty laundry.  I don’t think even Don Henley had any idea just how stupid “journalism” would eventually become, although he was spot on as far as humanity’s flaming desire to see the carnage broadcast live and in color.

I hate to admit it, but even though I try not to have that “stop and gawk” mentality, I do too.  It’s human nature to go past an accident scene and try to determine if anyone’s injured, if it’s anyone I know, and worse yet for me, because of my automotive background, I’m actually assessing the damage to the vehicles.  Saturday I actually came upon the scene of a car/motorcycle accident.  Those seldom turn out good.  The motorcycle was in pieces, the front end of the car was pretty much hosed, and the guy that was on the motorcycle ended up motionless on the pavement.   I figured if he wasn’t dead he was probably close to it.  I’m glad I was wrong.

There is a reason why I don’t ride these things.  Note the damage to the Explorer is comparatively minimal (though that front fascia, fog light, bumper reinforcement, core support, radiator and condensor will cost you.)

I found out today that the dude involved in Saturday’s accident actually got off with relatively minor injuries, though he was life-flighted to the trauma center.  He got sent to the trauma center because he was knocked unconscious, and God only knows what kind of brain injuries and internal injuries and broken bones can happen to someone thrown off a motorcycle.  Especially if you’re not wearing a helmet.  ER staff have a name for motorcycle riders who choose not to wear helmets: organ donors.  This guy dodged a bullet so to speak, and what he does with his motorcycle riding in the future is up to him.  I wouldn’t ride one of those things but hey, if you want to, knock yourself out.

Society is not obligated to protect people from every possible stupid thing they can do.  Shit and stupidity are the two most common elements in the universe, and even the most intellectually astute among us are not going to avoid either one entirely.

One of the beautiful things about individual freedom is that you are entitled to be stupid to a degree.  No one should have to tell you the coffee is hot, that you shouldn’t smoke crack, or that riding a motorcycle without a helmet is a bad idea.  But no one should have the “right” to sue because of pouring hot coffee on themselves or because of their own negligence.  No one else should be obligated to bail others out of the consequences of their own stupidity.

Another situation that disturbs me is when a weenie commentator excuses a person’s criminal behavior based on their past experiences.  I am appalled every time that some ass pilot gets a pass for everything from armed robbery to mass murder because “he/she had a bad childhood.” So you peed your pants and your peers called you “Pissy” when you were seven, so you decided to go on a killing spree 20 years later and take out people who never knew your sorry ass from Adam’s housecat?  I have no sympathy for dumb shit like that.  Neither should anyone else.

Do you whiz your pants when you’re executed by lethal injection?

I had a shitty childhood.  I got my ass kicked every day.  I was lucky to get three hots and a cot- and didn’t always get that.  Big freaking deal.  Does that give me the right to go fire bomb the WalMart for failing to have English speaking cashiers on duty when I need to buy a jug of Pennzoil? Give me a freaking break.  No one owes me a damned thing, and what is the point of taking out my misdirected feline aggression on others?  I’m fortunate in that my cats get along well and don’t fight- but what good would one cat beating up a completely innocent cat do?

Isabel is not impressed.

It disturbs me that the media almost immediately wants to exonerate people who get caught doing the most ghastly things.  I understand in this country (and this is probably unique to the US) that a suspect is innocent (according to the law) until proven guilty.  I don’t think criminals should be tried and convicted in the media (though they often are, and often wrongly) but when someone’s caught red-handed, on camera, committing an atrocity, let’s not just start in making excuses for the alleged criminal.

I don’t want to hear about some ass pilot who molested kids but he’s “not responsible for his actions” because his Dad beat him.  Bullshit.  Yes, life cut you a bad deal.  I’m sorry to hear that.  Welcome to the club. Now get with the program, learn from history, and figure out how to be a decent human being.

I also don’t want to hear from the ass pilots who scream and cry on either side after a shooting incident that either a.) everyone who is not a convicted felon should run out and buy a gun (I am a believer in the 2nd Amendment, but whether or not to carry a gun is an individual choice) or b.) guns should be banned, like in the UK and other parts of the world.  Screw that too.  Both of those views are too extreme and uncalled for.

Gun laws aren’t the issue.  By definition, a criminal is one who breaks the law.  How many criminals are going to give a rat’s ass if guns are suddenly made illegal?  They don’t give a rat’s ass about the law, otherwise they would be law-abiding citizens.  Outlawing guns would simply create a black market much like the one already in place for illegal drugs.  That “war on drugs” is going so splendidly, ‘ya know?  Why not expand it, and expand the crime that naturally follows?

Why not expand the concept of personal responsibility, and enforce the notion that individual choices and individual actions have consequences?

 

Cosmic Crap Shoot, Happenstance Cathedrals, Everywhere and Nowhere

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If Asthma cigs are so great, why deny the kiddies?  Or do they just have to suffer from the paroxysms like the brats they are?

The more that I study the evolution of science, I am amazed regarding how much we don’t know, and how much of what we thought we knew that has been proven wrong.  Personally I would like to see if any of those three-pack-a-day Camel smokers from 1950-whatever are still alive, or if they all ended up dying from emphysema like Aunt Sam.  Aunt Sam (short for Samantha, no, she was not a former dude, even though her voice was so trashed and raspy she sounded like one) died back in the late ’70’s- thankfully she didn’t take anyone out with her.  She went out presumably the way she wanted to go: gagging on an unfiltered Pall Mall as she lifted up her oxygen mask to take another hit.

Sure, Sam, you keep on smoking these mo-fos and you’ll live forever!

Then again, not so much.  Aunt Sam was only 59 when she died.  She looked about 318.

Medical science has evolved quite a bit in the last century, but it’s too bad that a good deal of that crucial knowledge came too late for some people.   Jerry’s Dad still believes that kerosene is a hemorrhoid cure, and he’s also under the assumption that women have prostates.  I can only hope that he doesn’t think you have to buy boxes of Tampax to go swimming and horseback riding.

I could only safely wear white after the hysterectomy- nice try guys!

A good number of astronomers, physicists and other scientists who have achieved notoriety or academic acclaim (because they could understand the math that I just am not wired to get) are atheist or agnostic in their belief systems.  Even Carl Sagan, who had so much insight on astronomy, was a self-described agnostic.   Cosmology (not to be confused with cosmetology or cosplay) is the science of the origin and the evolution of the universe.  I would have to attribute the origin of the universe to something other than random chance.  Maybe it’s just me, but whenever “random chance” is involved in my life it’s never a good thing, and is almost always indistinguishable from Murphy’s Law.

Perhaps to maintain my mental stability I have to trust that there is a higher power or a supreme being, because I could never get the math, but even I get enough math to understand that the odds of coming up with the universe, life, and Steve Perry in spandex are pretty much so astronomically high as to be statistically impossible.   I find it hard to believe that a cosmic crap shoot is all there is, even if the placement and timing of the universe and life could be proven to be random.  Tell me, Who is throwing the dice?  Perhaps it is my own human limitation to assume that if something is created, that it necessarily had to have a creator behind it in some way.

I don’t necessarily take the Garden allegory literally, (and I don’t believe the Genesis account was meant to be taken at face value,) but it would have been cool to wander about naked in a garden all day with wild animals.  Just sayin’.

I don’t necessarily take the Flood story at face value either.

Blaise Pascal (and I’ve outlived him by four years so far) was a mathematician and also somewhat of a theologian.  He put forth the notion (Pascal’s Wager) that even if you can’t prove that God exists that the odds that He does are strong enough that it’s worth your while to live as though He does.

The only problem with living like there is a God is that it’s impossible to do so aside from His grace.

This being said, I am definitely not the greatest example of piety and selflessness out there.  Mother Teresa, I ain’t.

I tend to connect more with things spiritual in happenstance cathedrals- places that seem unlikely and that are often temporary.  If it’s quiet, if it’s secluded, and if there’s a sort of chaotic beauty, those are the kinds of places where I feel closest to God.

I loved places like this abandoned railroad bridge.  It was destroyed in the early 1990’s for its scrap iron.

I’d have to say there is some kind of solace in the chaos of entropy, and in the patterns to be found in the disorder, as strange as that sounds.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been to one of those convergence points that seems like everywhere and nowhere at the same time.  There are simply some places where time isn’t what it is everywhere else, and I find those places to be amazingly spiritual and amazingly renewing.  I don’t have an explanation for them just as I have no way to effectively convey how I know God not only exists but is present in and through everything.  That’s just about how metaphysical I can get, and then I simply have to say I don’t know.

Nothing That Years of Psychotherapy Won’t Fix, Pragmatic Politics and Obscure History

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I’ve never been a true believer in Freudian psychology, especially his premise that all behavior goes back to sex.  If that’s the case, and everything revolves around sex, I’m in really big trouble, because in that regard I am extremely low mileage- as in barely driven off the dealership lot.  That vehicle’s been sitting on the lot so long the tires are dry-rotted and the battery’s dead and the upholstery smells like locker room funk, if my sex life could be compared to a used car.

But it only has 200 miles on it!

I also have problems with the touchy-feely approach that some psychologists take where it’s all about “embracing your inner child.”  When I was a child I didn’t want anyone touching me for any reason.  “Touching” usually involved getting my ass kicked in some sort of way.  I was the geek kid that nobody associated with unless it involved me getting an ass kicking, or it involved someone trying to bribe me to let him/her cheat on a test.   If you’re trying to improve my self-esteem, then why do you want me to “embrace” the geek kid?  I have to wonder about that approach.  I have to wonder about all the hoo-hah about self-esteem.  Today’s kids are all about self-esteem, even if they suck.  I would rather know I suck than have some lying ass pilot fill me full of crap about how great I am.

I was the butt-ugly geek kid.

My childhood was not nice. It was mostly hell.  There were good moments- but they were few and far between.  I won’t blame my parents.  They did the best they could with what they had, and in their defense, they got dropped a raw deal.  There are no child development manuals that could have offered them any help.  No parent asks for a child with physical deficits, and no parent asks for a child whose intellectual, emotional and social development can only be categorized as highly abnormal.   There was no option of specialists or special schools, especially when it was a struggle for them to afford the bare necessities.  Hell, Mom was at the zoo herself most of the time, being bi-polar and untreated- and unpredictable.  Dad was at work just about all of his waking hours- partially out of necessity and partially because he didn’t know if he’d come home to Jekyll or Hyde.  When I say that my grandmother (actually both of them, but more so my Dad’s Mom, who was within running distance) saved my life many times, that is an understatement.  I know Mom probably didn’t appreciate Grandma’s interference (when she was aware of it) but it was Grandma who stormed the principal’s office and kept me from getting the hell beat out of me waiting on the bus.  It was Grandma who took me to the Dr. and stayed with me when I was sick with rheumatic fever.   It was Grandma who gave me a safe place to go when my sisters and/or the neighborhood kids were looking for someone to pummel again.

I will say that Mom’s unpredictability set me up to deal with future coke-head bosses pretty well though.

Given what they had to work with, it’s a miracle that I am vertical, gainfully employed, and not a serial killer.

Needless to say, I have spent several years in various types of counseling- some more effective than others.  The first counselor I went to, when I was 13-16 was tolerable.  Better yet, it didn’t cost my parents anything for me to see her because she was a family friend.  I learned fairly quickly the answers she wanted to hear- no, I’m not going to kill myself, yes, I am thinking positive today (retch,) but truth be told more than anything I appreciated getting out of school early every other Tuesday to sit and pretty much just shoot the shit.  Because she was a family friend, I don’t think she believed me when I told her that my oldest sister was a sadist and a psychopath, but by that time my oldest sister was so much more interested in whatever money and assorted favors she could extort from the boys that she didn’t have much time to waste torturing me.

The second counselor I went to truly wasted my time and money.  About a year after Steve-o was born I was having panic attacks and full-blown PTSD, as well as I was going through a rather nasty separation and divorce.  I thought it a good idea to seek counseling because I truly was freaking out.  The only thing she did after a couple of sessions was to tell me to buy a copy of the book Codependent No More and wished me happy trails.   In hindsight I think it was because I had shitty insurance and she was afraid she wouldn’t get paid.  I got really cynical about the whole counseling thing after that, and figured that mental health must just be too lofty a goal.   So I decided to just deal with life the way I’d always had since I’d become an adult: chain smoking, binge drinking whenever I could, obsessive overwork, and indiscriminate liaisons when I could get away with it.  I was a Ruthless Bitch, and that worked for about seven years- until my physical health really started to go south.

Thankfully my path necessarily changed because of my health failing.  By the grace of God I got back into a relationship with Him and got involved in a church.  Also by the grace of God I gave up smoking.  I went to a counselor for a couple of years who wasn’t in it to either bullshit me or rip off my insurance company, and learned some helpful ways to navigate the way I’m wired and to deal with my past (which is an ongoing project.)  I also acknowledged that I have inherited and organic tendencies toward anxiety and depression that require medical treatment and medication as well, which has helped me deal with PTSD and work beyond it.   It’s a journey, not so much a destination, but I would have to say I am mentally healthier now than at any point in my life, which is almost scary.

I registered to vote on my 18th birthday- for what it’s worth.

This year is another year in which I not only have to be careful not to get caught up in the rhetoric (which is easy for me to do) but I feel as if I have to stand back and look at the election with a pragmatic eye.  Voting for a third party or a write-in, i.e. Ron Paul, Mickey Mouse, Ron Jeremy, Dennis Kucinich or even posthumously, Ronald Reagan, effectively is a vote for Obama.  Staying home and not voting is also effectively a vote for Obama, and it would also take away my right to bitch about him should he be re-elected.  And I am going to bitch about him, re-elected or (hopefully) not- believe it.   I would rather have fire ants poured down my underwear than to be complicit in re-electing the worst president ever, and I state for the record that Obama is The Worst Ever.  Even if I include Pierce, Buchanan, Wilson, Harding, Nixon, Carter and Clinton, Obama takes the Worst Ever prize hands down.

I’m still not a huge fan of Mitt Romney.  The last truly good president this country has seen is Ronald Reagan, and sadly, he’s been in his grave for eight years.  But even though Mitt is no Reagan, I can think of FAR better choices to be sitting in the Oval Office than Obama.

Sheena, the mentally challenged Husky.  Bonus: her birth certificate is just as contrived as Obama’s, but it’s a little more creative.

Ron Jeremy

Karl Pilkington (yes, he’s a Brit, but hey, BO didn’t have to be a citizen!)

The guy on the Quaker Oat box

Satan

Just remember, folks.  The people who voted for Ross Perot bought us 8 years of Bill Clinton.   That was bad, but Obama’s a million times worse.  As much as I hate the adage, “choose the lesser of the two evils,” what do you do when one of the choices is overwhelmingly odious, the other one is less odious, but still not quite good?  <Sigh…>

Satire is Not a New Art Form, Anti-Smoking, and More Victorian Death Ephemera

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This is as good as anti-smoking propaganda gets- from 1870, no less.

Smoking was just as nasty then, it’s just everyone died from other stuff before they could live long enough for smoking to kill ’em.

The longer I’ve been an ex-smoker I absolutely hate the smell of tobacco smoke.  I don’t have much of a sense of smell, and I’m surprised I have that. Even so, the one thing I can always smell is cig smoke, even from far-off, which sucks.  Why can’t I smell peonies and lilacs in May, but I can always smell some inconsiderate bastard’s cigarette?

Perhaps it is cosmic payback for back in the day when I used to smoke at my desk- and it was perfectly cool to be inside, at work and hot-boxing smokes at the same time.   I’m sure I had to annoy someone with my two-pack-a-day habit of hot boxing 120 menthols down to the filters.  My car ended up smelling like a dragon’s colon- because the first thing I would do when I got in the car was light up.  The first thing I did when I quit smoking was pay the detail guys- dearly- to get the cig smell out of my Celica.  It was nasty, and the inside of the glass on a 2000 Celica is not the easiest in the world to get clean- especially the back glass.

She just might be Hitler in drag, spreading the clap.  You never know.  Had to throw that in there. Public service announcement from 1943.

Yes, I am still fascinated with Victorian death art which is macabre, and I should find another hobby, but there is so much cool stuff out there – and not always dealing with the subject of death- which is public domain and is a lot better artwork than I could ever come up with.  I can scribble with Sharpies and that’s about it.  But the Victorians not only did some awesome artwork, there was some pathos there.  It was more grandiose than it should have been, and just plain treacly sweet, which made it cool.

You could get in trouble big time for displaying this in a public school.  You could offend the Muslims, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the militant atheists, the Hare Krishnas, and who knows who else.

The irony here is that kids can go to public school and have this kind of drivel shoved in their faces and that’s perfectly okee-dokie:

As long as it’s not “Christian” or “Moral” in any kind of way, then we tolerate it, kids!

Then again, “tolerance” (especially as it’s defined in regard to political correctness and its associated idiocy) is the wrong word.  Tolerating something doesn’t mean we like it, and it doesn’t mean we encourage it.  I used to tolerate long-assed car rides in 70’s era cars (with no A/C, mind you) pinned in the center of the back seat between two sadistic siblings for hundreds of miles.  I didn’t like it.  I certainly didn’t encourage it.  But, being too weak to end up with any other position besides squashed in the middle, I had to tolerate it.

Tolerance- as it’s framed today- is actually appeasement, which is a very different concept.  Appeasement is the wussy position.   It’s the equivalent of feeding alligators.  No matter how much you feed the alligator he will always be hungry.  Just see how well it worked for Neville Chamberlain.  My oldest sister didn’t stop harassing me and stealing my stuff and kicking my ass just because I sat back and let her keep doing it.  She just did it all the more, until one fine day,  she took my car without permission and ran it out of gasoline and ran it low on oil.  I saw red, and took 17 years of retribution out on her in five minutes.  I don’t approve of physical violence, but something had to give somewhere, and I couldn’t keep on appeasing her any more.   Appeasement just let her know it was OK to keep on kicking my ass and stealing my stuff.  Kicking her ass taught her that it wasn’t OK anymore.

I bet Hitler got a lot of rides back in the day, at least in a figurative way. Carpooling still is a creepy thought though.  It would be my luck I’d end up with a serial killer or someone who insists on cranking up the country music. At least Hitler liked opera.

Hitler wasn’t a role model by any means, but he did have a taste for Wagnerian opera, and I can appreciate that.  I can’t say I approve of Nazism, genocide, or anti-Semitism, but Wagner did write some cool operas.  The only thing difficult about opera is that there aren’t too many operas written in English.  If you plan on going to an opera, or even plan on listening to a recording or watching a DVD, if you can get your mitts on a translation of the libretto first it makes a lot more sense.

I found a Victorian death card (these are common, and I will need to troll for some more good ones) that lent itself quite well to shall we say, electronic embellishment:

Should our current president fail to be re-elected, I’ll be printing these out and passing them out like party favors.

More Sins of Omission, Explaining One’s Offspring to Others, and More Awesome Tunes

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Old-time Catholicism is a bit masochistic, but you gotta love the artwork.  I have nothing against Catholics- some of the best Christians I know adhere to Catholicism, and I’m not going to argue the small points- other than to say that by definition I cannot be considered a Catholic because I don’t agree 100% with the Catholic Church.  Agreeing with Church teachings 100% is part of the deal.  I’ve read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and I agree with a good deal of it- but I do disagree with some key points of what the Catholic Church teaches, and I don’t agree 100% with their theology- especially what I consider to be the bizarre extra-biblical stuff like purgatory and indulgences and praying to saints.  It would be dishonest for me to claim to be Catholic when I don’t agree with everything the Church believes and teaches.  So those who claim to be Catholic but embrace some very un-Catholic and very un-Christian thought processes are effectively lying their pants off.  You either take the whole hog or not at all- that’s the way that Catholicism works.

Joe Biden: claims to be Catholic, but if my grandfather were still alive I think the descriptive would change to “Crazy as a Shithouse Rat.”  Though in the end he- and we- are accountable to God alone.

As a confessional Lutheran I don’t fall terribly far away from the core beliefs of Catholicism, and theologically I am well within the sphere of orthodox (small “o”) Christianity.   I’m not into weird stuff like God being a space alien (who knows, He might be, but I doubt it) and I don’t believe that I’m part of some elite nerd tribe whose destiny is to be spirited up to heaven in a space ship with Marshall Applewhite and company.  I’m definitely more conservative both socially and theologically than most of the people who go to my church, which does give me pause at times, and does cause me some cognitive dissonance, but there’s an important point to be made with that unease.  If I were to seek out a very literal, fundamentalist church (at one point I almost became a Southern Baptist) I wouldn’t hear any viewpoints remarkably different from my own. (I do differ with the SB’s on the subject of infant baptism, which is an important point of dissent- but otherwise I can pretty much get right on the bandwagon.)  I need to be challenged to see viewpoints that are different than mine, and I need to be challenged to be compassionate to those who are coming from a different perspective.  As a confessional Lutheran I have considerable freedom to ask theological questions and to hold differing opinions on non-essential issues without being considered heretical or completely outside the box of Christian orthodoxy.

I think we can agree: This dude was one crazy mo-fo.

I don’t like to argue theology with anyone.  I will gladly explain what I believe and more importantly in Whom I believe- and why, but I’m not going to pound anyone in the head.  It doesn’t work.  Some of my closest friends are atheists and agnostics, who likely view my faith as something archaic and quaint- but they still talk to me and there’s still a relationship there.  Jesus was all about building relationships with unlikely people in unlikely ways, so if it worked for Him, why not?  I learned long ago that the number one way to dissuade people from faith and a relationship with God is to act like Dana Carvey as the Church Lady.

Could it be….SATAN?????

I may differ even with some of my more orthodox cohorts in that I believe Satan is real and that there are real evil forces at work in this world.   But most of the ills of this world can be attributed to human beings doing what we do best- screwing up.  The sin of the Garden was not so much, “The devil made me do it,” as “I screwed up and did the opposite of what I was told.”  Is this not the underlying theme of human history?  I know it’s the definitely the story of my life.  I am an example, and a good amount of the time I am an example of What Not to Do.

A sin of omission is knowing what you’re supposed to do, but not doing it for whatever reason.  I know I should refrain from laughing at Jerry when he can’t find the beer in the fridge because it’s behind the milk, but I laugh anyway.  Technically that’s a sin of commission because I did laugh, though.  Sins of omission are more like knowing I should iron Jerry’s shirts, but not doing it because I hate ironing, and because I know it’s something his lazy ass can do for himself.  He should be happy I’m washing them and hanging them up for him, but if I were really good I would be doing the ironing thing too.  That’s the omission thing, sort of, anyway.   I should be a missionary in Africa giving out food and water to pitiful orphans, but my selfish ass is too satisfied with sleeping in the A/C and not having dysentery.  There’s always something I should be doing but for whatever reason I’m not.  Take it right on back to the old Catholic guilt trips perhaps, but there’s a grain of truth there.  I know full well I do things I shouldn’t and neglect to do things I should.  Which segues quite well into my hit-or-miss parenting.

This won’t be the last time he will be cajoled into sporting his daughter’s clothes- heh-heh!

As far as Steve-o goes I am delighted that he is remarkably normal in many ways.  He is gainfully employed, only has a couple of weeks until he graduates from college (YAY!) and is very close to Independence from the Parental Units, which in my mind is the ultimate goal of parenting to begin with.  As far as I’m concerned, I did not give birth and work myself into the ground to end up with a thirty five year old acne-ridden, obese couch jockey stinking up the basement with greasy Taco Bell wrappers whilst clogging up his brain cells with assorted online interactive video games 24/7 on my dime.   I do wish Steve-o would have listened to Mother a little more intently in regard to abstinence, chastity and so forth, but hindsight is 20/20.  I love my granddaughter and wouldn’t trade her for anything, but it would have been better if they would have waited a bit.  However, life is such that you wish in one hand, or shit in the other, and we all know which one fills up first.

The two most common elements in the universe are:  Shit and Stupidity.  Figure out how to convert either into energy, and screw foreign oil.

Today’s playlist is just as awesome as Friday’s:

“Urban Angel” from Neal Schon’s I On You

“Double Vision” – Foreigner

“Evil Woman”- ELO

“After the Fall” – Journey from Greatest Hits Live

“Somebody to Love”- Queen

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”-Nirvana

My Playlists are Awesome, and Planned Euthanasia Really Sounds Sucky- When You’re Old

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Some people (like me) absolutely adore it, the rest of the world (even some Journey fans) absolutely hates it, but Dream, After Dream isn’t your typical rock album.

I was thinking about it this morning, what an awesome collection I have of music that doesn’t suck on MP3.  Most music (with a few notable exceptions) written after 1985 sucks major ass.  That’s OK because most of the good stuff is readily available on MP3 if you know where to look (Amazon…), which means no farting about with vinyl records, cassette tapes or even CDs.

This morning started off with Don McLean’s “American Pie,” “A Girl Like You,” by the Smithereens, the amazing live version of Journey’s “Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin'” from the Greatest Hits Live album, and “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” by Night Ranger.  I’ve got the good stuff.  I  have some choice rarities- all on MP3- such as Journey’s Dream, After Dream, Journey, Look Into the Future, and Next, and Gregg Rolie’s album simply titled Gregg Rolie, (these are sort of obscure) as well as some more recognizable 70’s and 80’s fare such as REO Speedwagon’s Hi InFidelity, Supertramp’s Breakfast in America, Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell, and Rush’s 2112. 

The album art was a lot more interesting when record companies had all that surface area to work with and actual artists designing the covers.  I must say Journey’s Departure album is the greatest cover art ever:

Multi-colored motifs are not just for gay pride.  Remember that.

I have to say my favorite pic of Steve Perry on a Journey album cover is the one from Evolution:

It was 1979.  Steve Perry was wearing Spandex.  All  was pretty much right with the world.

It disturbs me at times just how archaic I am becoming.  It’s pretty bad when half the population can’t get most of my reference points.  I was thinking about the whole idea of how our society views older people.  I’m not a total fossil yet- at 43 I have not quite made it to the “ancient” category, but I’ve lived a year longer than Elvis.   (If you don’t know who Elvis was, click on the previous link.)  Elvis died in 1977.  I remember that.  A lot of my friends’ mothers were brought to tears over that one.  I wasn’t really much of an Elvis fan (I was only 8) so I wasn’t as devastated by his death as some other people were.  Of course, there are those who speculate that Elvis is still alive- but then Jimmy Hoffa might be alive somewhere too.

In 1975 there was a movie released called Logan’s Run.  I am generally not a fan of science fiction, (in fact, normally I rather loathe the genre) but I remember watching this movie back in the 80’s and thinking that it wouldn’t be so bad to be spared the indignity of living past age 30 and being “old.”  From today’s perspective (and having passed that milestone over a decade ago) that’s some scary shit.

Guess what?  Your time’s expired!

Humans have a little something called a self-preservation instinct, and it’s a pretty intense drive.  If not for this instinct, suicide would probably be so rampant that nobody would make it past puberty.  All those people who tell you that “man, if I had to live like that just shoot me,” have a totally different perspective after the open heart surgery or colonoscopy or course of chemo.  People hang on just as tenaciously- if not more so- to life at age 80 with a laundry list of catastrophic health issues than do healthy young people.  They have looked death in the face and it scares the hell out of them.

 Yeah, you’re old, but just not quite ready to die right now.

In Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail, we get to see a wonderful example of the self-preservation instinct in action.   “I don’t want to go on the cart!”  No shit.  Nobody does, and I don’t care if you’re 8 or 80.

Steve-o is always telling me if he had to give himself shots he would rather die.  Yeah, right. He might say that now but if it’s a choice between shots or death, I’m pretty sure he will acclimate himself to the shots.  I’m diabetic and on insulin.  Believe me, I am the first one to go and fill that insulin script.  Needles?  Who gives a royal hang?  Once you get used to giving yourself the shots- which really doesn’t take long- it’s just something you do, like brushing your teeth or putting on shoes.

Get used to it, you wuss.  I can think of much worse things- like being subjected to bad country music at 11 PM.

Of course, because I’m diabetic and have a nice little list of chronic illnesses I’ll probably be targeted for Obama’s death list sooner or later.  I can see it now: This one is just too expensive to maintain.  What scares me about the whole idea of rationed health care is that necessarily some people are going to simply be denied the treatments and medications they need to live.  As the program costs more and more,  fewer people will be deemed “sustainable,”  and those with expensive chronic illnesses will be the first to be assigned to die- first by neglect (hell, just make sure the diabetics can’t afford their insulin!) and eventually by force.  Maybe I’m being paranoid, (and I should never watch science fiction anyway) but I see Logan’s Run as an eventuality should socialism be played out to its objectives.

On the bright side, the old people have all the money, at least right now.  As the population ages, perhaps we won’t have such a negative view of the elderly and/or infirm.  Hell, we are almost hip. Notice that Lawrence Welk is not included in my playlists.  I’m not that ancient- yet.

Lawrence Welk, not so much.

But Ozzy’s cool.

Protect Your Unit, A Midsummer’s Nostalgic Musing, and Radioactive Waste!

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Yes, the world is this effed up.  Have the welders come out and weld your AC unit to something- like brackets encased in concrete- to prevent it from being stolen.  Air-conditioners get stolen around here for two reasons: 1. (summer) people are hot, and 2. (winter) they contain copper.

I enjoy this sign, even though the thought of anything happening to my AC unit would provoke me to acts of extreme violence.  I am glad my AC is in a place in which it is bolted to its base, and you would necessarily encounter dogs to get to it. The girls do not approve of interlopers.  Even though I don’t even want to think of some stupid ass ripping off my AC,  I still love the double entendre.  At first, until I saw the line that said “Stop Air Conditioner Theft,”  I thought it was another entreaty from the county health department to encourage the sexually promiscuous to take steps to prevent the spread of venereal diseases.

Yeah, I think even if there were such a thing as Facebook in the 1930’s, you wouldn’t want these test results broadcast on your profile.

I mean, even if your test results indicate you’re syphilis-free, broadcasting that would indicate that you’ve recently put yourself in a position to contract all the other STDs.  What about the STDs that might not show up on a test?  Or maybe you’ve caught a strange new funky one that is currently unknown to medical science?

This is sort of a Nancy Reagan campaign for preventing VD:  Just Say NO!!!!!  Especially when you don’t know where she/he/it’s been.  Hell, that chick could be a dude- and vice versa.

That actually happened to one of Jerry’s friends.  Granted, this guy is the kind of guy who would look better if he shaved his ass and walked backwards, and he has a taste for hanging out in titty bars and swilling rotgut liquor.  He was asking for waking up next to something so hideous he’d want to gnaw off his own arm to escape, so such a scenario was just waiting to happen.  Even the biological females this guy dated were, shall we say, the kind of girls Freddie Mercury would sing about.  He didn’t realize he’d spent the night with a she-male until the next morning.  I wonder what the tip off was.  Maybe he went to cop a feel and ended up with a fistful of morning wood.  Or maybe “she” was taking a whiz standing up. That might have been his sign.

I guess it depends on your perspective.

I don’t have a problem with the transgendered.  If you’re a guy and you want to go through life dressed like Joan Crawford, or Oprah, or Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, I could really care less. That’s got to be a really confusing way to go through life, though I will say in defense of trannies, women’s clothes are a lot more interesting.

Tell me RuPaul’s outfit isn’t more festive than a wifebeater t-shirt, distressed jeans, tube socks and Velcro tennis shoes!

Men also have it easier with hair removal.  They can pull off the unibrow look, or even a ZZ Top beard, so in theory men don’t have to fart about with hair removal at all.  Women, on the other hand, if they are civilized, the only hair permitted to remain is the hair that grows from the scalp, a finely sculptured eyebrow, and eyelashes.  The rest of that nasty body hair has to go, at least in my world.  Women should not be hairy.  Unless they’re Italian. Or bull-dyke lesbians.

Men’s restrooms are a lot less crowded though, and all a guy really has to do in the morning is his 3 esses- shit, shower and shave, though I would fit some dental hygiene of some sort in there.

Dudes, you are lucky in one regard.  You can whip out your wang and let it fly anywhere (though I would not recommend the electric fence.) Women can’t do that, unless they like pissing all over their own pants.

I just thought I was riding along listening to Journey, Foreigner, Metallica, Billy Squier, REM, etc.  I had no idea.  I’ll need to check the car for Hitler before I leave.

Grandma avoided the carpool thing like the plague.  She worked at the ordnance factory during the war and it was several miles from where she lived.  She managed to get by on her gasoline ration by buying a motorcycle.  Since 1940’s cars got maybe- if you were lucky- 12 miles to the gallon, a motorcycle, even those nasty old Harley-Davidsons, would have been more fuel efficient.  There wasn’t any room on the back for Hitler, either.

 I bet this ride was cold as hell in winter, but Grandma was thrifty, and I’m sure she didn’t want to ride to work with Hitler either.

Grandma never did disclose what she did at the ordnance factory.   All she said about it was that they weren’t to discuss what they were doing there with anyone, ever.  She had the fear even 60 years later- when all the powers that were are long dead-and she took that knowledge to her grave.  I do know that whatever it is she did she was paid well for it, (the workers earned up to $50 per day, depending on where they were assigned, which was equivalent to $623.34 in today’s money) and she received a small pension from the US Army every month until she died.  I have to wonder if it was hush money, but she wasn’t telling.  The rumor mill- and at least one local author- says that the Scioto Ordnance Plant was involved with the Manhattan Project and with other experimentation with atomic energy.  It wouldn’t surprise me because the location was so remote, and at that time only easily accessed by rail.

The creepy part about the ordnance factory is that the county bought part of the land back- and built a school on it.  The school got closed down when the kids started getting leukemia and all other weird sorts of cancer.  People got paranoid and called in the EPA and they did find all sorts of fun chemicals including radioactive waste, on the school grounds.

Guess what, kids?  School is kind of cancelled today.  Betcha didn’t know it, but now we have something in common with Chernobyl.  We glow in the dark too!

Maybe it is better for me that I went to school with the poor kids in town, even though I got to have the Inner City Behemoth High School Experience without having to end up in Cleveland.  The high school I went to was built over an Indian graveyard, and my parents’ house (shit, the entire east side of Marion) is built on a poorly drained swamp,  but as far as I know neither place was built on top of radioactive waste.

Another one of those things to be thankful for.  I didn’t have to go to the cancer school.  I went to the random stabbing and beating school.  It works out.

Happy Birthday Great-Grandma, Fighting Over Used Shoes, and Other Pointless Endeavors

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Great-Grandma couldn’t stand Ted Kennedy, or any of the Kennedy family for that matter.

Happy birthday to my great-grandma, who would have been 114 today, if she hadn’t died in 1992 at the age of 94.  I miss Grandma.  She was cool.  I would give almost anything for just one more afternoon of coffee and conversation with her, but you get what you get.  I’m just glad that she lived close and I was able to spend as much time with her as I did. Besides having a taste for insanely strong coffee and for discussing conservative politics, she had a collection of tabloids that would boggle the mind.  She always claimed to read them for the entertainment value.  I read them for the entertainment value too, especially the Weekly World News.

The John Deere hat is a nice touch.

Grandma also had a framed, signed picture of President Reagan which I am sure one of the twins (my grandmother’s evil identical twin sisters) ended up with.  I can’t believe the twins (who were in their early 70s at the time) had an out and out knock-’em-down, yank each other’s  hair out, fist fight over her stuff. Besides some clothes and a few nice pairs of size 8 shoes, the Reagan picture was probably the only thing she owned that had any monetary value.  If I know my twin great-aunts (and one of them is still alive-though the one who had the stroke died about five years ago) they were fighting over the shoes.  They wore size 8s too.

I have a strong shoe fetish myself- but even should they be size 7s, I’m not fighting anyone for used shoes.

My twin great-aunts’ altercation over a few pairs of used shoes and a whole lot of worthless kitsch convinced me once and for all: I don’t need dead people’s stuff.  My sisters can have it all.  I am just curious when I die (they are slightly older than me, but they are much better preserved, and will most certainly outlive me) if they will brawl over my used underwear (the bras won’t fit either one of them- unless they add a little extra stuffins,) and not a few pairs of size 7 shoes that only one of them can wear.   The oldest, who was my sadistic childhood nemesis, does well to fit her behemoth meaty feet into an 8EEE.  The other sister also wears a 7B, and therefore, my shoes fit her.

I’ll cut out the middleman and just put my old skivvies on E-Bay now.

Or, better yet, I could E-Bay Jerry’s nasty old whitey-tighties, after he’s worn them for a night of gambling, drinking and the Hershey Squirts:

Of course, there’s a dude who’s already thought of using what appears to be a soiled set of whitey-tighties as a safe.  I can sort of understand the mentality, though I would struggle with the temptation to pick out the cash and then toss the skivvies.

The replacement fridge is up and running quite nicely as of this morning.  The ice is frozen and Jerry’s Natties are cold.  Spuds is in the G&R, and all is right with the world.

The G&R still has the most awesome fried bologna sandwiches.  And cream pies.  And an original late ’80’s Spuds McKenzie.

Things that Suck #501- The Fridge Took a Dump, and #502- Drunken Assholes Smoking in My Car

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No, as much as I like the pink fridge, I can’t afford it, and Jerry would crap himself should he have to retrieve his Natties from this.  However, I don’t even think a pink fridge would stand between him and Nattyvana.

The beautiful Central Ohio area just went through a week’s worth of apocalyptic storms followed by interminable stygian heat.  Yesterday wasn’t quite as intolerable as the rest of the week, so I decided I would go to the campground party knowing that if worse came to worse there is AC in our cabin as well as in my car.

It was hot- and I didn’t stay in it too long, but I stayed long enough to munch on some fresh perch (believe it or not, Lake Erie perch is quite nice) and to sit around and shoot the shit for a bit.

Perch is good eating.  Lightly breaded and deep fried.  Mmm, mmm.

By the time I left the campground it had been a nice afternoon, though rather subdued.  Jerry had gotten his drink on pretty good Saturday night, so he was more quiet than usual.  He wasn’t able to get shitfaced yesterday because he had to drive his truck home,  which was fine with me because that meant I didn’t have to deal with driving Tipsy McNumbNuts home.  I live for the small victories.  Attempting to drive 40 miles with a babbling drunken smoking idiot flopping about in the car is most unpleasant, trust me.  It was worse when he and his (now) estranged buddy Terry used to get shitfaced and then demand I take them home at 1 AM.

Joy and rapture.

Paarrtty!!!!!  YEAH, DUDE!

Two drunken idiots, running their mouths, flopping about, smoking, waving around their lit cigarettes (intentionally or not, threatening to burn holes in the upholstery, each other or me) in one car.  I’m surprised neither one of them managed to visit cousin Ralph in my car, though they both came close.  Puke smell does NOT ever come out of car upholstery.  Neither does cat piss, which is why my mother should learn to roll up the windows on her van, but that’s another story.  I would be happy to find an effective method to keep Jerry from thinking the first thing he needs to do when he sits down in my car is light up.

I used to smoke in the car when I smoked- a lot- but by the grace of God I’ve been 10 years without lighting up myself, and now I really despise my car smelling like his ashtray.  I get him back for it though.  Since I love strong scents- they have to be strong or I can’t smell them anyway- I try to find the absolute strongest air fresheners I can find.  One of my favorites is the Chanel #5 knock-off cologne from the Dollar Store.  It probably smells like insecticide to normal people, but with my very limited sense of smell it actually smells somewhat like Chanel.  Jerry hates it even though he knows that’s his punishment for smoking in my car and leaving that god-awful smell in it as well as ashing all over it.  Jerry is not a neat smoker.  Imagine someone with tremor disorder who’s drunker than a monkey with a lit cigarette.  My car actually becomes his ashtray.

I know I smoked for years, but it’s a nasty gross habit.

So I arrive home blissfully un-stressed from a peaceful drive home- just me, the AC on full blast, and Metallica on full blast.  I go take a shower and put on some lounge clothes.  Then I go to the fridge to get some iced tea (strong, no sweetener, and a bit of lemon) only to grab the ice tray and get another shower.  Everything in the fridge freezer had melted- ice cream, (there’s a bloody disaster for you) ice cubes, previously frozen vegetables, and so forth.  Damn, damn, damn.  The irony of this is that the power never went out, the AC unit is (knock on Formica or whatever the hell that stuff is) holding tough and the cable is on.  The chest freezer is plugging away quite nicely, as is Jerry’s small beer fridge out in the foyer.  But the main fridge- the side-by-side 30 year old behemoth fridge that takes up half my kitchen, took a major puke.

I had to move the beer to save the food. Sorry about your luck.

Guess who’s got some warm Natties.

So, because I’m poor and he’s cheap, Jerry gets on Craig’s List looking for a fridge.  There were crazy people wanting $1000 for used fridges- granted they were the high faluting stainless steel ones with the drinky fountains and the ice makers and wine chests and so forth but if I’m going to spend that kind of scratch I want a new one with a warranty.  So Jerry keeps looking and happens upon a nice simple used fridge for $100- about 45 miles away.  I call the guy and tell him I’ll be there in about an hour.  When I get there the fridge is still plugged in, nice and cold.  I gladly gave the dude the money- it’s older, but a nice, clean working fridge- and he and his buddy get the fridge loaded up in Jerry’s truck.

Jerry, of course stayed home in bed, because he’s helpful like that, while I drive off to see some strange people who could potentially be serial killers, who I never met before in my life, in the dead of night, to conduct business.  I knew the neighborhood (not terribly far from where I grew up) and it was in a nicer area than where I grew up, otherwise I would not have taken the risk, (the people turned out to be most personable and cordial also) but sometimes you never know.  I arrived home with the fridge around 11:30 last night, but I did not attempt to remove it from the back of the truck in the dark by myself.  He will regret not helping me unload it last night- tonight when he has no cold beer- but tough titty.  I could care less about beer, so I moved it out to save the milk and cheese.  It’s not as if Natty is going to taste any worse warm.

Does temperature really count for much when you’re drinking canned horse piss?

Today Jerry is supposed to accomplish two things.  One is to remove the old behemoth fridge from the kitchen.  I cleaned it out- at least the big pieces and anything that might rot and stink- so the scrap guy (who is always scrounging for used refrigerators, working or not) can do what he will with it.  The other is to get the fridge I acquired last night in the kitchen plugged in and running.   Let’s see how he does with his assignment.  I have a feeling I am going to be very sore in the morning after I drag these appliances where they need to go by myself.

I get to move this son-of-a-bitch all by myself!