The Noise

The Noise

How long do we spend in the silence? 
Not long.
I wonder what’s in there?
In the gaps between?
If I stay in the silence will I come to an end?
Could I explore there forever?
Is it like space?
Would I float?
I don’t spend enough time there to give the silence more than a cursory glance.
If I don’t look for the silence I never notice it.
It’s blotted out by the noise.


Oh, there’s tons of stuff there in the noise.
The noise has information.
Lots and lots of information.
Market reports, planes crashing, fashion trends, babies born, people dead.
The noise can be hypnotic.
The noise is welcoming.
The noise is a snake charmer. 
Dance to its song!


Follow me, says the noise.
Don’t want to know about world news?
Come over here and listen to your favorite band.
Tired of looking at the bad stuff?
Here’s a picture of something cute.
Not feeling sugary? 
Well over here is some spice for you.
I’ll always keep you entertained. 
I’ll always be with you.
All you have to do is turn me on.
Most of the time you don’t even have to do that.
Just don’t turn me off
And I will keep you distracted.


I love the noise.
It makes me feel full.
It makes me feel useful.
It occupies the wee hours.
It keeps me from unpleasant thoughts.
The noise will always be there for me.
Without the noise I get
Lonely.
Bored.
Restless. 
Without the noise there is silence.
Without the noise I feel empty.
But
If I ever stayed in the silence long enough,
I wonder if I might realize,
It was the noise that made me think I was
Full
It made me think I was being
Useful
It made me feel like I wasn’t
Forsaken
I just didn’t have time to realize 
It was lying to me.

Don't Own These or You are a Massive Tool

This post is inspired by the first product you will see on this list. I'm all for creativity and innovation, but there is stuff out there that is stupid to such a colossal scale that I have to wonder just how long humankind has been peeing into it's own gene pool.

I'm pretty sure when I was a kid that when I wasn't running around in my underoos with a blanket tied around my neck pretending to be Superman, that I probably wore my sister's bathrobe backwards out of sheer boredom at some point. I didn't like it then. Now, as an adult with still a smidge of self-respect left, I'm positive I wouldn't like it.

Aren't robes open in the front to allow free movement of the legs? Not only does this design flaw increase this product's ranking on the dumbassometer, but, unlike a robe, it doesn't end above the ankles. It flows down past the feet to the floor. Seeing as how I think this thing is probably sold mainly to the chronically cold elderly, isn't this a lawsuit waiting to happen? I can see hoards of hollow boned elderly shattering hips across our great nation when they get up to grab one of their seventeen cats, and they trip over the hem of this thing. On the other hand, if you've ever been hospitalized and just happen to like the feel of an open backed hospital style gown, then this product may be for you and you can wear it with pride...schmuck.

I'm pretty sure if this thing worked anywhere near as well as the ads and videos claim it did, then they wouldn't have had to give it such a weird name to garner attention. Just like when I originally saw the Bad Frog beer commercials. As soon as I noticed they had to put a frog on the bottle label with it's middle finger raised, I knew the product would suck. Thankfully I was able to satiate my curiosity when a friend handed me a bottle and I didn't have to insult my own intelligence by buying any of that swill myself. It couldn't have tasted any worse if they had brewed it with Lindsay Lohan's venereal drippings.

In the day and age of free internet pornography that is more plentiful than inbreds in West Virginia, is anybody really so desperate for a view of hypoallergenic polyfoam stuffed breasts that they will buy this? Oh, but that's not all young sailors! These are Iboobs. Yes, speakers for your Ipod that you can rest your head on while snoozing away the evening hours listening to the dulcet tones of Zamfir, King of the Pan Flute.



Erm, eh...wow. If you can't manage to walk from your car to the entrance of the multiplex without having to get out of your car in cold weather and put on this inconvenient mockery of a useful product, then you sir are beyond pussywhipped. Either you are too much of a daisy to withstand the cold for the hand-in-hand walk or you are just begging her to take advantage of your incredibly weak personality like the U.S. government took advantage of drunken Indians. One more point, if you make it through your walk in the park and don't have your ass handed to you by every man that still does have a pair, then you were just lucky. Just because you lived through that crazy game of Russian roullette you played that one night you spent too much time in your darkened dorm room listening to Pink Floyd, doesn't mean you should play the game again. Sooner or later your gamble is going to come up craps. If I see you wearing these, I will punch at least one of you in the face and it is quite possible I might have to punch the both of you. I'm not violent by nature, but I cannot tolerate the children seeing wussification on such a craptastic scale. It sets a bad example.




I can see someone owning one of these runny nose egg separators if it was made by their weird Uncle Herman out in his shed where he turned his niece's old easybake oven into a makeshift kiln. The only reason they keep it on the shelf is they are worried that Uncle Herman may react in some sort of violent fashion towards their dog involving a weedwhacker and pungee sticks if he thinks his gift wasn't appreciated. If you don't have a weird Uncle Herman and you own one of these, you are now uber-douche material and far, far more comfortable with bodily fluids and functions than even the most jaded doctor of internal medicine has any right to be.

Well Shut My Mouth!

Had an absolute blast last night. Met Kim's friends and got along with them both better than fine. I don't know how they got along with me. You'll have to ask them about that.

That Styx concert I didn't care to go to, well, we couldn't get tickets so I wasn't bummed about that. It did create the dilemma of what the hell were Kim and I going to do while her two friends were in the concert hall which was attached to the casino that we had eaten dinner in. Too bad there is no way to turn stale cigarette smoke into a viable energy source cuz I know where there is plenty of it.

Anyways, ten minutes into the concert an ex-student of mine wandered up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy tickets to the show. So for half price I got to see the show with Kim. Somehow not paying full value for tickets made the idea of going to see a band I didn't care all that much about seem more palatable. Wifey had a good time and so did I surprisingly. I may not be totally into Styx, but there is something very cool about seeing people who are a master of their craft perform. A very tight set and let me tell you, those boys can still play even if they are one step from a wheelchair. Tommy Shaw, the lead guitarist and co-vocalist was a pleasure to watch as he really seemed to simply enjoy being there. I've seen some other 80's bands in the new millenium and some of them can come off as looking a little pissy that they aren't still hitting platinum with every thing they do, but these guys seemed to enjoy being there and enjoy each other so it was very good.

After the concert we hooked back up with the friends and commenced to bullshit the night away. It was very cool as I hadn't been out of the house for anything more exciting than grocery shopping in a couple months and it was a most necessary departure from the last few yawns of weekends.

I just felt I needed to post a follow-up to my last post. Now that I look back at it, I do come off and some kind of massive tool. I guess sometimes good times sneak up on you when you least expect it. I really need to keep more of an open mind.

It's nice to get caught by surprise sometimes. This was one of those times. Glad I went instead of going to the fights which I hear were fairly boring anyways. There will be other times for Jeff and I to get together. We are severely overdue for some sort of complete explosion of immaturity the type of which only seems to happen when we get together. I just hope we don't have to wait until summer for it.

Later all.

The River

Thursday, January 29, 2009


Man, I have bad luck. Not the I-was-born-with-spinabifida-so-bad-I-can’t-tie-my-shoes kind of luck and not the my-father-was-an-abusive-alcoholic-and-I-saw-him-sodomizing-kittens-when-I-was-four-years-old kind of luck either, but bad luck nonetheless.

A month ago Kim asked me to go to a concert with her and her two friends, neither of which I have met. I agreed as I have encouraged her to go out with her friends and now that she was heeding my advice, I figured part of my obligation was to be willing to meet some of these new friends.

Sure, I’ll go to the concert. Who is playing?

Styxx

Styxx, you mean the pretend rockers from the eighties that I couldn’t stand even when they were popular back then? The band whose idea of hard rock is Mr. Roboto?

Yes

Great. Can’t wait. Say honey, where’s the Drano. I’m feeling thirsty suddenly.

This isn’t so bad. I’d rather pluck my eyelashes out one by one with a dirty set of vise grips, but not too bad. I haven’t been out in a long time and just getting out for some drinks even with what will hopefully be a brief concert in between drinking sessions might just still be fun somehow. I have resigned myself to a good time. All is fine right?

Last night my buddy emails. He recently built a bar in his basement. He’s purchasing the UFC. Not A UFC. THE UFC with BJ Penn vs. Georges St. Pierre as the main event. This would be the grand opening to the public of this bar. Cigars, free beer, free fights, lots of cussing and shit-giving by a male only crowd excited with bloodlust. No bitches to worry about wrecking things.

“Ewww, is that a cigar? It stinks.”

So does your pussy, but you don’t hear me complaining.”

It would be one of those nights for the ages. I would wake up hungover with a sore belly from laughing and a sore throat from talking too loud all night. Alas, I gave my word. I am a man of my word. I shall go meet the wife’s friends who I’m sure are fine folks. I shall clap at the appropriate denouements between renditions of “Grand Illusion” and “Come Sail Away” that have simply not withstood the test of time. I will give an obligatory Wooooo! every so often to make it seem like I’m not pooping the party. And I will not think of my friends, at Jeff’s inaugural fight night, laughing, toasting, telling tall tales, and laughing some more. And I’m sure they won’t think of me either. If that last line sounded like I’m jealous. Yeah, well I am.

I have bad luck.

Got No Reason

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

In today’s newspaper I read about a support group being formed. A support group for short people. Now, as a guy who has been through counseling before, I don’t want to disparage support groups in general. I am a big fan of the therapy of listening and talking, but we’re not talking about the typical dwarf/midget/little person support group. Those people are tragically small and no matter if we call them disabled, disadvantaged, differently abled or whatever, they definitely had to begin their life marathon 100 yards further behind the starting line than the rest of us. The support group I’m talking about is for women 5’ 2” and under and men 5’ 7” and under.

I hope I’m not the only person in the world who asks this.

Really? I mean really?

A group for people that fall under average height? So they can share the trials and tribulations of being short? I’m sure I’ve heard more ridiculous things in my life, but not too many. Apparently this isn’t just a local phenomenon either. They are part of a national organization, NOSSA, which stands for National Organization of Short Statured Adults. Is it just me or does this sound like a MadTV skit?

Don’t people have enough real problems in their lives without being convinced that they have more things to be pissed at fate about? One woman is quoted as saying, “When I go to the grocery store, sometimes I have to ask somebody to get something off the shelf for me.”

WAAAAAAAA! You poor, poor put upon girl you! Not that! You need to go to a support group because sometimes you can’t quite reach the top shelf! Man, that certainly makes those kids starving in Africa, or the homeless freezing to death on the sidewalks look like a bunch of whiny pansies. I mean after all, there was that day you had to ask a clerk or passerby if they could hand you a box of Lipton Cup-a-Soup. How did you get by, lady? I probably would have just ended it all right then. Who can live with humiliation on such an atomic scale?

For the record, I’m short enough to qualify for this group. Right at 5’ 7” I’m tempted to join just because I know there won’t be anyone at the meetings taller than me and I can bully all the little people around. “Oops, my pen rolled under that table. Hey shortcake, mind walking under there and getting that for me? You, yeah you over there…the little one…no…no…the littler one….yeah you, did you know I’ve taken dumps bigger than you?”

I’ve never been a bully. Never had the mindset that making other people feel worse would ever make me feel better. These folks though, if they don’t deserve it then I don’t know who does. Everyone wants to be a victim. Everyone needs someone to feel sorry for them and if no one does…then we’ll make something up. This country is turning into such a nation of wussies, whiners, and attention whores that I just can’t stand it.

That’s it! I’ll form my own group. The Association Against Wussies, Whiners & Whores! The acronym will be AWWW and AWWW will also be our motto. It will be heard everywhere we go. We’ll meet once a month and give each other assignments on how to belittle folks who make up their own tragedies for attention. The first assignment will be to stand outside the short people meetings and mercilessly mock them in the same vein as the old fatherly adage of “What? You’re crying? I’ll give you something to cry about!”

We’ll swipe their keys and hold them up high over their heads and make them jump for them. AWWW, wassa matter….can’t get your keys? AWWW, c’mon…try a little harder.”

We’ll call them humiliatingly inappropriate names.
“Hey Stretch! How you doing Big Guy? Well look at Long Tall Sally over there. What’s up Stilts? AWWW, what…you mad a us fow making fun of ooooo?”

We’ll play Randy Newman’s “Short people” song and point at them and laugh. We’ll all have T-shirts on that say “You must be this tall in order to ride.”

We’ll make fun of them until we end up being scathed on Oprah. We’ll taunt them until they weep. Until their children are even shamed by them. We’ll run ads in the paper to make sure their friends know how inadequate they are because of their shortocity. We’ll basically just make their lives miserable until….well until they actually do have something to cry about.

Game Show Ideas for the Sophomoric and Twisted

Game Show Ideas for the Sophomoric and Twisted


I’ve always been disappointed in most game shows for not going quite far enough with the exception of the Fear Factor and let’s face it, I’m just not that amused watching people eating spider eggs by the spoonful. So here is my hurriedly concocted roughed out ideas for game shows.

Pick the Bitch
We bring in couples that have been dating a minimum of one year, a selection of their friends, and a few strangers. We reveal to one of member of the couple that the other is cheating on him or her. The person that has been cheated on, then must pick from a lineup of the friends and strangers the one that their significant other has been fooling around with. Every time they miss on a guess the prize money goes down. For fun and added drama, every once in a while we’ll bring in a couple that has been totally faithful to each other. If they figure out that their partner has been completely faithful to them before they get to the pick-the-bitch stage they get all the money.

How classic would that be? Everyone once in a while a couple that was doing perfectly fine and was perfectly faithful to one another would be brought in and invariably one would go through the entire lineup guessing which one her man was cheating with, only to go through the entire lineup and find out that her man, indeed had been faithful, but since she failed at guessing early that he was faithful and went through the entire lineup unsuccessfully guessing who he was sleeping with, the couple gets sent home with no prize money and a delicious feeling of mistrust and betrayal anyways. I predict high ratings for this one.


How Much is That Doggie in the Blender?

We get a gigantic blender and put someone’s beloved pet in it. Every time the contestant incorrectly answers a trivia question the speed on the blender goes up one notch at a time. If the person successfully gets to the end of the questioning stage and their pet is still alive, then one final stage is left. They can keep their prize money and keep their pet alive or they can exchange their prize money for what is in the briefcase, but if they take the briefcase, the blender activates to puree speed. One final, kick in the nuts, would be that there is a 50/50 chance the briefcase contains $100,000 or more dollars in cash or it has some completely useless prize in it like bellybutton lint from Ernest Borgnine or maybe a commemorative teaspoon from some Grand Canyon tourist stop.


Would you Rather Think of the Newlywed game mixed with Fear Factor. The spouse has to decide what her partner would rather have done to them.
“Mrs. Smegma, do you think your husband would rather be caned, forced to eat maggots, or use his testicle to set off a mouse trap?”

Then the husband would get a chance to pick one for the wife and if he deemed that she picked the worst possible trial for him, then he could either take the high road and give her the easy task or go tit for tat. “Mr. Smegma, do you think your wife would rather shred ten pounds of lettuce with a carrot peeler, eat a pint of Haagen Daas, or be urinated on by seven randomly chosen hobos? What’s that? You are picking the hobos? Excellent choice!”

Current Playlist

How is it I've made it to the ripe age of 38 and this is the first time I've ever actually listened to this song?


The Asshole Song sung by George Jones

Well I was drivin' down I-95 the other night
Somebody nearly cut me right off the road
I decided it wasn't gonna do any good to get mad
So I wrote a song about him instead
It goes like this...

Were you born an asshole?
Or did you work at it your whole life?
Either way it worked out fine
'cause you're an asshole tonight

Yes you're an A S S H O L E...
And don't you try to blame it on me
You deserve all the credit
You're an asshole tonight

You were an asshole yesterday
You're an asshole tonight
And I've got a feelin'
you'll be an asshole the rest of your life

And I was talkin' to your mother
just the other night
I told her I thought you were an asshole
She said, "Yes. I think you're right."

And all your friends are assholes
'cause you've known them your whole life
And somebody told me
you've got an asshole for a wife

Were you born an asshole?
Or did you work at it your whole life?
Either way it worked out fine
'cause you're an aaaass...hole tonight