Tuesday, December 31, 2002 :::
 

2002.....That was fun, let's do it again.

Thank you to everyone who visited Nosebleed this past year. It is consistenly the most visited portion of my website. Now, if I could only figure out a way to post to it more often. I will strive for about 5 new posts in January and maybe set a goal for myself of a minimum of 5 posts a month. As I draw closer to the completion of my first novel much of my time and mental enegry is spent second guessing myself and trying to convince myself I am not the worst writer to ever try to tell a story.

I appreaciate everyone's e-mail and support.

::: posted by Mike at 11:38 AM

Wednesday, December 11, 2002 :::
 

The Hell-life of a Hanger-On

For as long as I can remember there have been hangers-on. We had them in Kindergarten. We had them in elementary school. In fact, we had them in every grade of my publicly funded education. They were props. They had no meaningful input. They were moths on the lights of the action, whatever that action maybe. These people were never a part of the social equation in that they never added or subtracted to the end result. In the final analysis, they were limelight fodder like those idiots who sit behind home plate during the World Series on their cell phones trying to “be seen” by the knucklehead on the other end of the phone. They have no bearing on the pitch type, pitch speed, angle of degradation, odds of the ball getting hit, and the result of the hit or miss. They are simply just in the background.

As I got older I realized that the Hanger-on is as much a part of society as Starbucks and the Religious Right. There is no escaping them. You show me some video footage of something that is barely newsworthy and I’ll show you people milling around in the background that have no substantive input to the scene. It is almost that the Hanger-on is a culture in and of itself.

Case in point: the Rap video. Go ahead and spend a few minutes watching a channel that plays music videos. Doesn’t even have to be Rap, per se, it could be anything termed as either Urban or Hip Hop or Urban Hip Hop. The prevailing characteristic you will notice is the abundance of total random people just standing around trying to be seen by the camera. No matter what the situation (pool parties are popular as are club scenes) there always seems to be a massive population of folks just standing around. Who are these fucking people? Do they have jobs? Did they produce this song or arrange it? Maybe they are part of the team that helps the head rap dude pick out which oversized basketball jersey he is going to wear that day or which yesterday song they are going to totally rip off and rap over? But it seems to me that there is no way that one rap or hip hop act can gainfully employ that many people.

Ok, I am bored talking about this. You get the point. Don’t do Drugs. Stay in School. Hangers-on are destined for a moment in life when they take stock, evaluate what they have contributed to the world, and realize all they have to show for their years on the planet was .58 seconds of half their face appearing on a Snoop Dogg video.

::: posted by Mike at 3:18 PM

Monday, November 11, 2002 :::
 

Jesus Loves Me, This I Know…Because The Man With The High Christ Quotient Told Me So.

Billy Graham was in town recently and traffic in the vicinity was bad. This speaks more about the sheer number of people who wanted attend the function than it does about the hopelessly obsolete infrastructure that our local campaigning political hopefuls were railing about. Texas Stadium was full of them, these people who wanted to hear the word of God from a man and in a place that promised something a little better than their local church’s house blend of the Spirit and the Word. This got me to thinking about me and about how my consumerism mindset makes it impossible for me to be regaled and enriched by serious God talkin’ that is transmitted through a 60,000 watt sound system. In a word: Ratings. I need ratings.

I think it’s high time we finally get our shit straight in this country and figure out a way to categorize and appraise our religious talent. Think about it for a moment. Who are the Yankees or the Red Sox most likely to award a multiyear contract for centerfield to, the guy who looks good in the uniform and can speak intelligently at a press conference, or the guy who can hit for average from any hole in the line up and is a category leader in OBP, RBI, and SB? Or what about a bank or credit card company. Who gets the loan or the preferred rate, the people who look like they can pay back the obligation, or the ones whose score the best against proven criteria. This kind of appraisal is at work all around you: in our financial instructions, in the entertainment industries, and even in the most personal areas of our lives. It’s everywhere…everywhere but religion.

We’ll call it a Christ Quotient. I don’t know precisely the intricate details of how we’d do this just yet, but so far I know that the higher your CQ the better your post. Higher CQ members of the clergy get the posh gigs like Pope, host of satellite-linked Televangelist programs, or Stadium Revival Preacher (including book sales, cable syndication, general merchandising). Those who sport lower CQ will be responsible for Christian Book Store opening ceremonies or missionary work in countries with perennially warring factions and a lot of flies. The lowest CQ holders will be assigned to deep-south Ku Klux Klan revivals, UHF Televangelism programs, and lobbying in Washington D.C.

Let’s say you study and graduate some type of program of practical theology (practical as opposed to theoretical theology that worships God a woman or that robot from Lost In Space- The DANGER WILL ROBINSON one- or experimental theology that uses the Hammer of the Heretics, science, to genetically engineer a clone Christ from DNA extracted from skin flakes taken from the Shroud of Turin). This gives you an initial CQ of 50. Not too bad…something to build on. Now you have your entire life in the clergy to improve your CQ. For example, here is a list of point additions and subtractions that could affect your CQ and possible job posts in the future:

: + : Proven ability to tie-in scripture to modern-day dilemmas and personal crisis: 5 points.

: + : Public speaking skills that challenge the worshiper’s pre-conceived notions, engaging them to consider the big picture of the Word: 11 points.

: + : Capped and extra-whitened teeth for that million dollar “God Loves You” smile: 3 points

: + : Your church hosts visions of The Virgin Mother: 100 points.

: + : Paying for hookers in Vegas and calling it a “study of human depravity”: -22 points.

: + : While counseling teens on the suicide hotline, only really trying to save the girls who “sound hot”: -9 points

: + : Recording sessions in the confessional or the Prayer-line and then weeding out the particularly juicy ones to digitally re-master and post on your anonymous “naughty preacher” website: - 14 points

: + : Living you life consistent with the teachings of The Lord Savior Jesus Christ: 8 points.

: + : Counseling worshipers in the way of God without strong-armed scaremongering and intimidation about burning naked in the center of a hell-lake of fire and agony: 62 points.

: + : Referring to Satan or Antichrist as one bad hombre: - 4 points.

: + : Being Jesse Jackson: -1,111.8 points

: + : Taking advantage of your position of trust and integrity by defiling children thereby robbing them of their innocence and then trying to hide behind the protection of the very institution whose name you are defaming: - all points = GAME OVER

These are just a few that come to mind. The official rulebook would cover a much broader range of point allowances and deductions such as social activism, taking the points against a non-secular team, trading on margin, the accusation of all things not affiliated with your beliefs as being cults, and many others.

The way I see it ratings are crucial. Many people put tremendous stock in how many stars a film has or the direction of expert thumbs yet they will put their eternal soul in the hands of any charlatan that comes along claiming to be a man of God, many times not even asking to see some ID.

A nationally adopted system of ratings will help put the common man at ease once again with the institutions that have alienated him for years. Ratings will bring better talent, better paying gigs, collective bargaining, and possibly churches with retractable roofs and digital quality sound systems for enhanced worshipper experience.

::: posted by Mike at 10:54 AM

Thursday, October 31, 2002 :::
 

Idiom of Idiots: “Well, Chuck, we went out there and gave a 110%”
(also titled: Impossible Percentages)

This goes out to all of the professional athletes. This is a special message to all the Generic Business Guys. To professional sports coaches, sports commentators, and sports writers. This is a tailored message to every person who has ever thought of their efforts and pursuits as something greater than they were and, as a measure of that effort, assigned it some impossible percentage.

Simple math is my favorite kind. If you worked eight hours of an eight hour work day, you have worked 100% of your work hours. But if you work, say, ten hours, guess what? You have worked 100% of a ten hour work day. You don’t get credit for what is normal or common place such as “eight hours is a typical workday”. You did not “give 125%”. If you had it within you by way of stamina or were forced in the name of circumstance, what you achieved represents your maximum output. “Potential output”, “historical output”, and “standard output” are all just variables that are mathematically impossible to define and do not belong in the equation anyway.

Percentages are intended to compare two numbers or variables to one another to gauge differences or changes in relation to each other. When speaking about exactly ONE item (and a non-numerical item at that) such as Effort, it is impossible to realistically calculate a percentage.

So, to you coaches and sports guys that “went out there and gave 110% to get that victory” I say this: the effort you expended in the pursuit of victory was adequate to secure said victory and the total amount of planning, execution, and exertion is a whole unto itself which equals 100%. Your opponents who lost didn’t lose as a result of “giving 90%” or some sub-100 output. What they gave was 100% of what they gave. See…it really is simple math.

::: posted by Mike at 2:52 PM

Wednesday, October 30, 2002 :::
 

Let Loose The Crakin!! (if that’s O.K….I mean, I don’t want to cause any trouble!)

By now we have all been beaten to death with talk about Iraq and pending military action. I know I am. In fact, when I heard that President Bush took some time on Monday to call Emmitt Smith and congratulate him on breaking the NFL all-time rushing record, the first thing I thought was “great, President Bush has found time between advertising a war no one gives a shit about and running the US economy into the fucking dirt with good ole’ Republican know-how to call a football player. Fan-fucking-tansic!”

For a while, TV was all things Sniper. We had Sniper updates and Sniper Profiles- all from “expert profilers” who turned out to be wrong, wrong, wrong- and we had interactive maps, education in short-range assault artillery, and even footage of housewives saying that they were scared to take their kids to school (everything they said touched with the preamble “I’m a mother…” like that somehow legitimizes or gives higher status to their opinion.) But anyway, it was better with a Sniper on the prowl. Not so much for the poor folks he shot, but for CNN who was even getting a little bored reporting the same non-news bullshit about Iraq.

But now the Sniper is caught and other than the media orgy where third-grade classmates talk about their intimate memories of the Sniper, that story is pretty much done. Now all there is to do is talk about the legal obstacles to be overcome when you have too many lynch mobs and only one neck. Oh, and letting the families of the victims get some much needed privacy. So it won’t be long until focus is placed back on that tired old dog, Iraq, and our president that fumbles around seeking permission to put it to sleep.

I often wonder if there will come a time in my life where I don’t equate situations- both great and small, social and personal- to scenes from the movie Clash of the Titans.

In one scene in particular, Zeus, played by the late great Laurence Oliver, tells Poseidon to lay waste to a city. For reasons that now escape me, Zeus was not pleased. Zeus wanted them to suffer, he wanted them to hurt, and he wanted them to die. So, Zeus turns to the master of the deep and he says, “Let Loose The Crakin”…the Crakin being a multi-armed, undersea-dwelling bringer of destruction. The important thing to note here is that Zeus didn’t ask for the pollsters to rate public sentiment. He didn’t debate and justify his plans with every half-rate god on Mt. Olympus. He didn’t even ask his wife’s permission. He just made it happen. He knew that there was ass that needed kicking and he let loose the dogs…or Crakin as it were.

Now I don’t think that Pres. Bush should have that kind of unilateral military authority to wage war on a whim, but I do wish we’d either fight or shut the hell up about it. All this talk about Iraq is going dull my mind, shorten my attention span, and possibly keep CNN from identifying and dwelling on the next big villainous thing.

Come on George…just let loose the fucking Crakin and let’s get on with business.
click here for the sound clip.

::: posted by Mike at 3:29 PM

Tuesday, October 15, 2002 :::
 

Critical Beauty

I had a conversation with a co-worker the other day that taught me something.

First, some details about the participants.

There was me…and her. I am, well, me. No further explanation needed. She is someone I barely know. We have had, all told, about 5 conversations over the near two years we have worked in the same building. Most of these conversations have been around mistaken identity or the hardships of finding love in this, the modern world. I won’t explain any further.

The conversation was about, believe it or not- as we work for IBM, computers. I had a report, she had a customer, and after little more than 3 minutes we established that my report would not help her learn anything about her customer. The exactness of my report’s inabilities was clear. But then my attention shifted to her as the individual rather than her as the co-worker.

Let me just say she is a pretty girl. No need for expanded or far-reaching adjectives or adjective-laden metaphors. She’s just a pretty girl. But I have always thought she ranked among the world’s worst caliber of pretty girl…the kind that knows she’s pretty and brings that as a term and condition of interaction and conversation. In the few times I have been around her I could feel her scanning me over, searching for indications, either through words or body language, that I accepted her terms and found her to be pretty. Traditionally she would not be what I would consider “my type”. What she found on her scans of me, I’ll never know.

I noticed she seemed out of step, not dialing into her normal sense of self, sidetracked. I asked if she was O.K. I asked out of concern. But I also asked because she is pretty and pretty has made me a victim more often than not. She explained briefly about a situation with a guy who had apparently done something. My lack of details is intentional. The short of it is he did this without having met her in the flesh. They talked on the telephone, or the internet, this friend of a friend, and they forged a bond. But when it came time to prove the concept of this anonymous relationship, something fell away.

The pretty girl explained to me that she was, while not saying the word hurt, hurt. She went on to say that if he actually laid eyes on her then he’d realize his mistake. If he saw her dressed up to the “going-out factor” he would collapse into a pile of sad rubble. That while she might look good here at work (something she was confident in), she was so much more a force to be reckoned with when not toning it down for us knuckleheads here at work.

My response was this: If it takes a guy seeing your beauty to realize you should be a priority, when he’s already had a chance to get you know you as a person, as a mind, then is this the kind of guy that you really want to make you a priority? She didn’t respond. The conversation ended.

After she was gone I thought a little about how critical her beauty was. About how very crucial it was to the definition of her self-concept. Being seen and celebrated for her mind, for her passions, for the things that transcended flesh, it was all secondary. If her initial terms and conditions were not met, her pretty not validated, nothing else mattered. As I thought about this I remember pitying the pretty. Aside from being pretty I think it important to note that on these 5, or however many, occasions we have spoken I really have seen an interesting girl behind the pretty. Maybe it is because I am married, maybe it’s because she is not “my type”, but whatever the reason, I can attest to life-signs behind the curtain of cosmetic shine.

I wonder what it is about the culture we live in that makes pretty the most important points worth scoring. Granted, that initial attraction has to be there, but it is never the sustainable power that propels our relationships forward.

I’ve never been pretty. I know this girl doesn’t think I am pretty. So I wonder what she will think when she realizes her best shot will be with unpretty guys like me who have the ability to look beyond and the courage to reject her terms and conditions.

But that’s not my problem.

::: posted by Mike at 12:46 PM

Monday, September 30, 2002 :::
 

The Illusive Minority

Watching football on Sunday is an education in American culture. If you read Nosebleed on a regular basis you have no doubt figured out that I draw quite a bit of my observational firepower from commercials. And this makes perfect sense. The idea of a commercial is to entice a consumer to buy a product they a) don’t know about but need/want it, b) know about but don’t know they need/want it, or, and usually, c) know about, know they don’t want/need it, but some slick graphics, techno soundtrack, and members of the opposite sex in revealing clothing woos them to rush out and buy it…sometimes on attractive terms of credit.

Given this goal, it would stand to reason that the best setting for this type of message would be either the life that we know everyone (targeted demographic) lives, or the life everyone (targeted demographic) wishes they lived. Basic stuff, isn’t it? When you’re selling minivans, you show suburbia ripe with young couples and young children doing all the things that young suburban families do. When you are selling toilet bowl cleaner or diapers you show housewives with dirty toilets and babies that look as if they have dirt asses. It’s all nice and neat where product A appeals in both function and feature to Consumer A and so on and so forth up the alphabet of products and buyer groups. Then along comes the beer companies.

A lot of people drink beer…millions and millions by my precise and mathematically flawless count. They are both men and women. They are every height, weight, shape, color, religious denomination, sexual orientation, and ethnicity not to mention differences in preference, consumption frequency and consumption volume. This is a very broad demographic indeed. So with a target demographic of so conglomerated a consumer base, why the hell do 90% of all beer commercials feature young and beautiful people doing things of considerable interest to a heart-pumping music track? There are ugly people who drink beer. There are old people who drink beer. And God knows that there are boring people who drink beer. But for some reason, every time an ad company goes into a meeting to pitch a campaign it goes something like this:

Beer Executive:What sort of fresh ideas you got?

Ad Executive: Well…picture this. Hot girls in skimpy outfits…

Beer Executive:Right….

Ad Executive: and some semi-muscular guys engaging in youthful play…snow mobiles and hot tubs could be involved.

Beer Executive:Good, I’m with you…

Ad Executive: And there’s a band…a motley gang of tattooed hooligans with amplified guitars and ski caps.

Beer Executive:What else….

Ad Executive: That’s it….and they all have your product in their hands or in - what we call in the industry- “suggestive proximity”

Beer Executive:Wow! You guys are geniuses…

Somewhere, though, I’m sure they exist. This is not just some orchestrated 30-second fiction resulting from in-depth consumer analysis, grueling casting calls, and intricate set design. Somewhere in the world there are sects of young, good-looking, sexed-up, beer-drinking party hounds that have their own soundtrack and never ever wear a full compliment of clothing. They might exists in your very town…unless your town happens to be overrun with average looking worker drones with a few extra pounds covered by clothes that are hopeless out of style. But I am sure it exists, this illusive minority of excess privilege where the party is always set to full speed and the beer is always cold. Maybe I have to drink 6 beers a day to find them and 12 beers a day to be them. Maybe not…

::: posted by Mike at 3:26 PM

Tuesday, September 24, 2002 :::
 

Knowing When A Game Is A Game.

I don't think I do enough to express the joy I feel when I watch Mexican Television. There are few things that I enjoy more. Here’s why:

The passion, fire, and volume of the Mexican Actress is that of every woman I have ever dated, but with twice the cleavage, three times the salsa music, and (even thought I do not speak a word of Spanish) many times the comprehension. I know when lust is lust, when a fight is a fight, and when a game is a game. That is more than I can say for any relationship I have ever been party to. This includes my marriage where something like vacuuming the carpet is not a household chore...it is a proclamation of my love and respect for my wife, her feelings, and her place in my life.

::: posted by Mike at 8:57 AM

Tuesday, September 10, 2002 :::
 

The Ugly Brochure.

Angola is a country roughly twice the size of Texas that is located in Southern Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean, between Namibia and Democratic Republic of the Congo. It has been in a perpetual state of warfare for the better part of 25 years.

The above represents the whole of my knowledge about Angola without the benefit of research. These are just things I have picked up over the years. It occurred to me however that I have almost never seen or heard anything about the country where the country’s name was not preceded by the word war-torn. Reporters have never said “…insurgent forces of rebel armies in Angola,” or “…economic disarray in southern African states, such as Angola,” without adding the modifier of war-torn.

So it occurs to me that I don’t know too much about Africa or the conditions of the African states. I know that AIDS has reached pandemic levels. I know there are “war lords” that are the ruling body in many areas. I have a friend named Foziah who is from Kenya who has given me some insights and taught me Hujambo is “hello” in Swahili. But that rounds out the bulk of my knowledge of modern Africa. And because of what I read and hear about Africa, and places like Angola, I am not likely to visit anytime soon.

But there is that possibility that Angola is the most wonderful place on the earth. It could be perfect climate, beautiful and tropical landscapes, populated by gentle and loving people who make hospitality there life’s mission. But I would never know because I will not go there. I won’t go because the word on the street is that it’s dangerous, and contaminated, and all the other things that the word war-torn implies. And who am I to second guess what the reporters tell me. They say it is a downtrodden hell hole infested with poverty. Why should I go searching for beauty in a place like that when I can walk the eroding beaches in Waikiki elbow to elbow with thousands of strangers who over-paid for the same vacation?

I know it is not the fault of the reporting media that Angola is treated like this. Common sense tells me that Angola is not the place of wonderment I described, but it does make me wonder about the words we use in tandem so much that they almost become meaningless without their unnecessary counterpart. How the words change the meaning or the perception of the meaning. How the words we continually associate with things eventually taint or mutate whatever that thing started out to be…

As for tourism in Angola I will say this. Poor Angola…never learned that you attract more bees with honey than armed conflict, civil insurgence, and volatile political regimes.

::: posted by Mike at 3:17 PM

Monday, September 09, 2002 :::
 

ABC's Secret Weapon Against Apathy On Foreign Policy: The Ex-girlfriend

There was some possibility early on, but I think it safe to assume the odds are slim that in my lifetime I will become a tyrannical dictator. I can see it though…a law of the land that is ruthless- a perverse and self-serving form of justice, my boundless sense of God-ordained rule, and an unforgiving and unyielding standard of loyalty. I can picture my palace, my armed guard, and the wealth and favor of my republic’s natural gifts used to serve my own fiendish ends. Not a bad brand of make-believe to help sail through the monotony of Quarterly Sales Analysis meetings. What a sweet, sweet dream. Then the foreign media trots out the ex-girlfriend and it all falls to shit.

ABCNEWS.COM is reporting the story of Saddam Hussein’s former mistress, now a defector living in secret and in fear for her life in the U.S. You can hear about her story, her mortal fear of Hussein, and her need for anonymity when she goes on live television being broadcasted to millions and millions of Americans.

Now I am not trying to defend Saddam’s right to privacy. If an ostensibly reputable news outfit like ABC thinks it a journalistically sound maneuver to broadcast to the American public that Saddam is a “Viagra-crazed sex-addict who loves watching a home theater double-feature consisting of The Godfather and video of his enemies being tortured,” then I am O.K. with that. I celebrate their right to determine what is newsworthy. And at a time when the current administration is campaigning like hell for permission to fight a pre-emptive war based largely on speculation and principle if the absolute best ABC can do is drudge up decades old pillow-talk as their contribution to the cause, then God bless those people. They are the news professionals I trust their ability to gauge the benefit of the stories they report.

This is a very tabloid-style move on the part of ABC, you have to admit. But I can almost see what made then stoop to this level. For weeks the Bush Administration has been dispatching their best and brightest to the Sunday talk show circuit armed with snazzy sound-byte rhetoric about the defense of freedom and circumventing Iraqi hostility but the American public just doesn’t seem to care. There is still no great call to arms and people seemed more likely to passionately discuss the upcoming season of the Sopranos than they are to demand the head Saddam, world opinion be damned. So ABC decided as the last ditch effort to get America’s attention that they would call in their secret weapon: The ex-girlfriend.

I have my share of ex-girlfriends, many of which are regular visitors to this site. I don’t mention them all that often and they don’t seem to want to e-mail me that often, so a very comfortable dissociation has occurred. But I can tell you that with the exception of one or two, depending on them as a credible source of information about my past behaviors, motivations, feelings, thoughts, or ideas would be a laughable misadventure for all involved. And even with the two whose perceptions I would deem trustworthy, I wouldn’t even consider their recollections to be accurate enough for dissemination on all public frequencies. That is the nature of the man/woman relationship. She left me for reasons that defy all legitimate reality and I left her because she was a narcissist with no accountability for her own actions. You see, polar opposite motivations for the exact same break-up!

They don’t write anymore and they don’t call anymore, but bet your ass if I was elevated to the status of dictatorial foreign power these girls would come out of the woodwork. Forget about my violations of human rights in an effort to cleanse my country of non-conformists, it would suddenly be all about how I only wanted to have sex during re-runs of $64,000 Pyramid and only when kittens were being mutilated in the next room. The storm of my malevolence would evaporate into partly cloudy skies of diluted threat.

Perhaps this is the intent of ABC. Maybe the attempts by the media to drum up support for a war they will make millions in ad revenue covering have fallen short to the point that Saddam Hussein has to be demoted from a death-manufacturing dictator to the mentally unstable ex-boyfriend. This is all just part of the devolution that must take place to demystify this figure that is busy plotting to kill your children hours before you have your first cup of coffee.

::: posted by Mike at 3:12 PM

Tuesday, September 03, 2002 :::
 

Space Remains Boy Band Free!

Somehow, before I had been awake for 7 hours today I heard 3 times that one of the N'SYNC boys had been expelled from the cosmonaut program of the Russian Space Agency!

Two Quick Points:

1) It saddened me that we live in a time where this constituents news that is worthy of repeated broadcast.

2) I am happy the Russians and doing their part to curtail the growing tonnage of bullshit drifting in space.

::: posted by Mike at 3:58 PM

Wednesday, August 14, 2002 :::
 

::Idiom of Idiots::

“In the Foreseeable Future”: I have been hearing this one quite a bit lately. In fact, I think this gem is used regularly by anyone who is asked to comment on a time frame where the answer is “Fuck if I know…” Listen for it in congressional testimony, press conferences, or television interviews.

Note: The future is never ever foreseeable. That is why it is called the future. If you could see what was going to happen before it happen, they wouldn't call it the future, they'd call it television. The future is a collection of events and acts that have yet to occur. No portion of the future, be it 10 minutes or even 10 seconds, is foreseeable. There might be things we predict will happen, or there might be strong indicators allowing us to estimate certain happenings, but at no time can we see anything beyond the here and now which is dawning and expiring at a steady and unstoppable rate.

This phrase has been brought into popular usage because it is more comforting to hear mild and meaningless predictions than it is to hear an expert tell you that they have no clue what happens next and that life, yours included, is a crap shoot where split-second circumstance battles statistical inevitability for control of the body count.

::: posted by Mike at 12:48 PM

Friday, August 09, 2002 :::
 

: : Idiom of Idiots: : (the intro)

This is my first post since returning from my vacation/wedding/honeymoon break. While I was away I took copious notes on elements of society that needed mention, or explanation, or severe criticism, but I don’t think I will share any of those now.

What I’m going to do is to start what will be a recurring element of Societal Nosebleed. I call it “Idiom of Idiots”. This is going to be about different phrases or words in popular usage that I think are, want for a better word, stupid. These are phrases that are thrust from the mouths spit-polish opinion producers then adopted by intellectual invalids who then carry and disseminate them like a virus, passing them off in streams of borrowed dialogue. And all the while they never stop to examine the phrases they are spewing forth.

Examples:

“Terrible Tragedy”: How many times have we heard this since last fall? Take note…tragedy is a word that has its own built-in intensity. It does not need a modifier to illustrate degrees of its meaning. There is no such thing as a Happy Tragedy or a Whimsical Tragedy. Tragedies are bad, bad, bad. A tragedy is not thing that requires any modifiers whatsoever.

“At This Point In Time”: I have two problems with this one…one solid and one esoteric.

Problem One (solid): Is it too damned hard just to say “right now”. This doesn’t sound more eloquent. This doesn’t sound more enlightened, or more intelligent. It’s just using too many damn words in an attempt to sound all these things.

Problem Two (esoteric): Referring to a point in time is faulty because as soon as said point in time has been clearly identified for the purpose of illustration, said point will have already elapsed and become the past. So, for one to refer to “points” in time, they must continue to identify the point continuously until time as we know it expires. This makes for a long press conference. This all assumes, of course, that you believe in time as a liner element of physics and creation and is not as an unmoving, immeasurable, concept without meaning and structure.

So that’s the gist of it. That is what the new segment I will occasionally post will be all about.

Enjoy.

::: posted by Mike at 2:14 PM

Wednesday, June 26, 2002 :::
 

The Vacant Lot…in the Center of a Twisted Hell of Pride and Complication

Admittedly I am an idiot when it comes to foreign policy. Understanding the dynamic of a world gone berserk with economic crisis, clashing religious ideology, and the comparative costs of Big Macs on the global stage has never been my strongest area of competence. If asked why the people of India and the folks in Pakistan are deadlocked in a battle with each side flexing the muscle of potential of nuclear attack I would register a blank stare, issue the idiot’s anthem of “Idunnoh”, and return to humming the theme song to I Dream of Jeanie. And questions about ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, Warlord dictators in the Sudan, and land disputes among French wine producers would all likely garner an identical response save for my choice of TV theme song (alternate favorites include The A-Team, Street Hawk, and the Fall Guy). This has made comprehending the current state of affairs in the Middle East difficult for me.

I love breaking things down into exaggeratedly simplified metaphors. I think I have a talent for it. So over lunch yesterday with two friends I posed a metaphorical hypothetical to my friends in an effort to simply my understanding of and the subsequent conversation about just what in the hell in going on in Israel and how it affects me. It was a cute story. It was about me and Nick and how we hated each other and raised our children to hate each other and each of us had different religions, different standards of living, and each of us were claiming ownership of a vacant lot down the street where nobody lived. I went on to say that in an effort to make Nick concede ownership of parts of said vacant lot, I trained my children to blow themselves up at his family picnics and other densely populated family gatherings. As further filler I even brought in that the mayor of the “Big City” – a city that Nick and I didn’t even live in- not only recognized Nick’s family as a legitimate member of the area community, but also gave him aide to withstand the pressures from me and my neighborhood cronies.

My friends Nick and Brennan are smart guys. They can and will discuss most topics with enlightened enthusiasm so they indulged me. It wasn’t too long before I realized that even when you take this Middle East ordeal- one that pre-dates the lot of us- and you try to break it down into simple terms the terms become just as much a cluster fuck of complicated ideals as when you started. So I resolved myself to not understand and to be OK with it.

So I don’t mind anymore. I don’t mind if I cannot reconcile my thoughts when someone straps a block of C4 to themselves and takes out a bus at rush hour. I will cease to wonder about how people deal with going to lunch and wondering if the guy sitting next to them is going to squeeze the trigger and turn himself into a flaming pretend-martyr. And from now on I am not going get tense when President Bush makes noises about validating and granting state status to a group of people whose main contributions to the world are politicians that wield questionable powers and fire-breathing terror troopers that use the corpses of innocents to draw out the borders of their new state. It won’t bother me anymore. It is best just to not care.

::: posted by Mike at 11:17 AM

Thursday, May 30, 2002 :::
 

Well you say it's your Birthday

I am two years shy of the perfect age. I have always thought 30 to be the best age. As a kid I remember that all my sports heroes seemed to be 30, all the cool movie guys were 30, and all the older cousins/siblings of my friends that had leather jackets and cool cars were 30. It just always seemed like a cool age. So now, on my 28th birthday when the thought of getting older should make me cringe, I am just as I was when I was 17…wishing I were older. I cannot imagine I will be so different of a person when I am 30. I will probably have the same job, live in the same house, and drive the same truck. But somehow- with the help of a cosmic anomaly many shades beyond my feeble perceptions, I will be cooler. It won’t matter that I don’t like the music on the radio, it won’t matter I can’t understand why the hell things that are the current fad are popular, I will still be cool because I will be 30…don’t try to make sense of it. Just accept an increase in my cool factor and let’s move on.

Speaking of moving on….

Against my better judgment I am going to talk about something I probably shouldn’t. I am going to do it because the whole purpose of my website – it says it right on the front door- is to be a rudimentary from of therapy where I bare my mind and invite people...no, where I dare people, to judge me.

I found out a couple of years ago through back channels and sources of questionable repute, that an ex-girlfriend got married. Wait, that is not exactly the right wording to give the necessary weight to the situation, AN ex-girl friend does not signify the depth of importance that this girl had on my life and my mind. In the interest of saving words while imparting the true gravity of the situation, let’s just call her THE ex-girlfriend. Let’s do a little backstory to add some color to the illustrations.

I could write an endless stream about her but let me just say this: This girl was the guiding light of my young life. She stirred within me passion and fear in such a torrent that everything else by comparison was expendable and ordinary. In so many ways ours was not as much a meeting as it was a collision borne from the precarious, depending on slight coincidences and chance to even happen. From such an early point I realized that I loved this girl. It would be turn out to be the hardest and most broken love of my life. There was a period when things looked as if they were finally going to work themselves into alignment, where we would battle through the shifting terrain of growing older, but when people grow up fast they grow apart even faster. So shortly after it all began it came to a very unspectacular end. Though I moved forward, I ached for years.

I think that I had the heart of the romantic working against me. It was that or the persistence of denial was getting the best of me because beyond the end I believed she loved me. I believed that she loved me in that same feverish brand of blind-to-the-facts love and that eventually our worlds would collide again, only this time would be more permanent. This time old enemies would be permanently put to death, lies would be forgotten, and a new course set. But time proved my theories of collision wrong and to this day we have not spoken.

It wasn’t long until I reconciled my feelings about the event and moved forward with my life as best I could. I started dating Kelly, I started a working path that led me to where I am today, I started going to school, I began to focus on my writing, and I made myself a life that many could envy and one that was built on the very site where I had crashed and burned. I have done all right. I love my home. I respect my job. And Kelly and I are due to be married in a beautiful ceremony just outside Edinburgh, Scotland in six weeks. I love Kelly in such a wonderfully different way. She was built for the adult me, the 30 year-old me. I have long escaped the emotional trappings of my first love affair with the “girl” of my dreams even though she still visits them on occasion.

So here is where the backstory comes front and center. The information provided to me told me that the girl got married. I was past the point where that information hurt me. In fact I remember being very happy for her. I remember thinking that if there was one thing I wanted for her more than anything it was to know she was just as loved by someone as I was by Kelly. I knew she had fought a tough road to get there and I was proud of her. Then I saw the part that bothered me. The date of her marriage was my birthday. That was the only part that hurt. I didn’t think it was malicious, I didn’t think it was some sort of stab at me because honestly, that would mean that she not only remembered that it was my birthday but that she was willing to schedule the events of her life as a big “Fuck Off Mike”. We didn’t part on such bad terms.

So I think about it. Only once a year and only for a few moments, but the morale of the story is that I think about it. I don’t know if I should be ashamed or thankful. Should I be ashamed that I still have tiny anchors rooted in the deep silt of that faraway place when I was very much in love, or should I be thankful that I have a reminder that even though things in life scarcely work out like we plan, there is still hope that we get what we need at exactly the time we need it.

Maybe I will figure it out when I am 30...I will be cooler then.

::: posted by Mike at 11:07 PM

Friday, May 24, 2002 :::
 

Desserts as a Metaphor for Marital Fidelity

I was at an education function the other day at the Omni Hotel. It was an all day session with lunch provided. They served salad with ranch dressing, two different kinds of cold pasta, clam chowder, and baked potatoes with all the sides. At the end of the table were about 5 varieties of cake desserts.

I went and sat at the table with my group. I kept telling myself I would abstain from dessert. I am getting married in less than two months and the last thing I want to do is go on a sugar binge and start an addictive cycle. And don’t kid yourself, one piece of spectacular dessert could do that and all the desserts looked spectacular.

My buddy Nick decided on the pie that looked, smelled, and – according to Nick- tasted like a Snickers Bar. I love the Snickers Bar. But someone else had gotten the carrot cake and said it tasted just as good. Then there was the Quintuple Layer Deep Chocolate Fudge Cake. I went from abstinence to plotting the consumption of desserts in a matter of seconds.

It was at this time that I realized that dessert is very similar in theory to attraction, and sex, and temptation that a married guy (girls too…) might face in life.

You find a flavor that works, that you are crazy about, that you think could be the dessert you eat after every meal for the rest of your life. But based on what I know about desserts, they are all deceptively delicious looking, and there is little problem choosing one you really want. But half way through the experience you might find it is not as sweet as advertised or your tastes have changed. While you might have started out with the American Standard Apple Pie, you could later discover that you need the Cream and Oreo encrusted Chocolate Pie to make more filling your dining experience.

I pondered this as I approached the table o’ desserts. Which would I choose? Would I play it safe and go for the dependable and comfortable carrot cake, or do I take my chances with the more unpredictable and exotic Snickers Bar Pie? Then there is the sexy and visually demanding Quintuple Layer Deep Chocolate Fudge Cake…what to choose. What choice makes me happier, more fulfilled, a better Christian, a better man?

I’ll tell you the choice I made in a moment.

When I got to the table I already had a good idea about what I was going to do. I examined my options once more, weighed them in that unforgiving scale of righteousness and morality, and even thought what a shame it was that just 5 minutes before I was flowing over the brim with Self-assured Abstinence and that now I was too far to turn back. I wondered if I would make a terrible husband and father one day because of my inability to avoid the tempting dessert table…

My Choice: I took the Snickers Bar Pie…AND I took the Quintuple Layer Deep Chocolate Fudge Cake. I was going to try them both in moderation like any good bachelor would do. I sat there, consumed, and even shared a little with my tablemates. The funny thing I found was that the Snickers Pie was too rich and the Quintuple Layer Deep Chocolate Fudge Cake was all presentation while offering very little substance. I made the choice, I succumbed to temptation, and I regretted the choice. And to make matters worse I immediately was envious about not only my other buddy Jim’s single slice of carrot cake, but that he enjoyed it twice as much as I enjoyed my half-fished desserts.

But keep in mind this is only a Metaphor. The choice in cakes and pies is not indicative of future responses. Or so I hope.

::: posted by Mike at 8:23 AM

Thursday, May 23, 2002 :::
 

“It's been a long time since I rock and rolled”…..a very, very long time

I saw a commercial for Cadillac the other day that showed a very conservative looking car driving through very unspectacular landscape. The backing music was Led Zepplin’s “Rock and Roll”. My god how the peace and love generation has grown-up. Gone are the days where love is free and all you need is love. It now only exists in a sort of awkward nostalgia where the anthems of that youthful movement of open minds and open beds are used to hock material wares to the flower children that are no more.

Been a long time, indeed.

::: posted by Mike at 10:18 AM

Friday, May 17, 2002 :::
 

The Long Tall Sub-Zero Shadow

Being a Kennedy must suck. Seeing as our country was formed in diametric opposition to monarchy in any form, we have never had a royal family. But a certain portion of the human dynamic is given to idle chitchat about celebrity and fortune, so to fill the void left by a lack of a recognized national lineage for all the rabble in serfdom to live vicariously through, we were given the Kennedys.

The press loves to report about them as much as passion-thirsty-housefraus love to talk about them. If someone has a familial connection to the Kennedy line- even if it takes an advanced degree in experimental and theoretical mathematics to understand it- the media is all over it ignoring that the guy’s real name is Slimpkee and referring to it as “The Kennedy ______ Case” just because this guy’s aunt was married to the son of the nephew of the guy that used to mow RFK’s lawn back in 1956.

We all know that martyrdom breeds magic. I think that were John F. Kennedy allowed to serve out his term(s) he would have done it in a very unspectacular fashion. But for some folks the only difference between being a rich boy from Massachusetts whose father sold his soul to the devil and an charismatic leader of promise and god-like virtue is a screaming bullet to the back of the head. Such is the case of JFK…and while he fell, his image and hype stood taller and straighter leaving a shadow that was 150 degrees below zero over the entire Kennedy landscape. Even RFK taking a slug to the guts couldn’t overshadow the image of the big brother; in fact his death just went to further illustrate the woes of a family that lost its favorite son.

I always thought that the worst job in the country was being JFK, Jr. The money, the family name, the pictures of him as a toddler saluting the passing flag-draped corpse of his fallen father, all of it didn’t seem worth it when compared to a lifetime of artic temperatures dogging your every pursuit. His magazine was a joke he fooled himself into believing was a business venture when all he was really qualified for was to be the poster boy for privilege and tragic nostalgia. And as a final lesson in never escaping the shadow of his sainted father, he even died in a fashion unspectacular by comparison. Which brings us to the sister and the catalyst of this rant.

The other day in USA Today I saw that Caroline Kennedy has published a book. But rather than making a go of it alone and trying to make a name for herself, she took to the shameful act of coattail riding that the children of icons often do. (NOTE: not just kids do this…speaking of Kennedys, just ask Teddy how the name has helped). This is the kind of thing that Sean Lennon does too. Incapable of defining themselves outside the scope of their parent’s image, they attempt to re-craft some original concept. The end result, however, is that the concept remains unchanged and it is they themselves have been retooled into a lower quality facsimile of the original artist. It is pathetic.

Her book is called “Profiles in Courage in Our Time”, based on her father’s over-patriotic fodder with a similar name, in fact it is so similar that if she wasn’t a Kennedy she’d be sued for plagiarism. Don’t buy it. Let the Kennedys die an anonymous death so that one day people might remember that the JFK, RFK, and Joe Kennedy were not the patron saints of America. They were liars, adulterers, and overly ambitious sinners just like the rest of us.

I am bored with writing about this.

::: posted by Mike at 2:25 PM

Friday, April 26, 2002 :::
 

Look Honey, We're Not Such Losers After All

Last night on Primetime or Dateline (or one of their high-gloss, over-dramatized, constantly-claiming-responsibility-for-enacting-social-change equivalents) I saw an interesting look at two married couples who allowed their lives (arguments) to be videotaped so that it might help fellow married Americans everywhere realize that marriage is hard work and they are not alone. Normally I would continue down the list of my finite number of available channels in search of Mexican Soap Opera or Mexican Game Shows...or anything Mexican really, but seeing that I am less than three months away from my own marriage, I thought I would watch and hopefully learn something on the way.

The lesson I learned: people who don't like each other should not be married. People who don't trust each other should not be married. People who have let time and life change them into unlike and incompatible people should not be married. People who have different goals, sex drives, passions, prejudices, fantasies, and baseball teams should not be married. Time and time again these people would fight and time and time again they would flee only to regroup and reenergize for the next fight. And every fight had to do with the same issue...they didn't love the same things.

It was about 15 minutes into this when I realized that the purpose of the study was not to teach me or instill in me better skills to cope with the argumentative nature of male-female relationships. All of it, the grainy fly-on-the-wall video footage, the seemingly compassionate and renowned psychologist, and the interviews with the participants watching their willing destruction of their marriage on a 20" television...all of it was intended to make Mr. and Mrs. Television-Americana - who live perpetual denial about the troubles of their own marriages- feel better. It was a device to throw the spotlight of dysfunctionality on someone else and as a result Mr. and Mrs. Television-Americana feel better about themselves.

Most people are cowards who fear change and will endure the brunt of a hogshit hailstorm if it means not having to face change, even if the change would be the best thing for them. That was the biggest lesson of the program.

::: posted by Mike at 2:37 PM

Tuesday, April 09, 2002 :::
 

A Lesson From My Toothpaste

I always buy my toothpaste ahead of the need curve, meaning before I am folding, pushing, squeezing, and forcing the last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube, I already have a brand new one on stand-by ready for action in the war against funk. The other morning I did that thing that I do right before I get to the end...I reached for the new tube. I wasn't out of toothpaste in the old tube, in fact, using rough math I figured I had at least 2 or 3 days of proper dental hygiene left in the tube...but I reached for the new one. Something inside the reflexive center of my brain told me to grab the new one because the new one was, well, NEW and NEW is better.

This is not strictly limited to toothpaste, mind you. It also goes for gallons of milk, bottles of beer, sexual partners, foreign policy, and re-runs of the A-Team. We like the newer one better, even if there is still life and legs left in the old one. It's not because of advertisements that promise new things or improved things, it is not because there is anything to indicate that the newer is better, it is just that thing in our heads that says we need the new thing because we had the old thing and our life would be better, more livable, or more complete if we fill it with new things. This transcends morning/evening rituals and assorted toiletries; it’s about being human.

I think it takes a stronger person to finish one tube before starting another. Maybe not happier, or more fulfilled, just stronger.

::: posted by Mike at 3:34 PM

Monday, March 04, 2002 :::
 

The Greatest (Imitation) Generation

Over my lunch break I saw that CNN was covering with the RETURN OF THE HEROES. By this I mean they had a camera crew out in San Diego waiting to interview naval personnel that just got back from points beyond. It was the most uninspiring 30 minutes of television since Ellen came out and turned her show into a hell-pit of overwrought and cliché gay jokes.

In the never-ending pursuit to place the mantle of Hero on even the most unspectacular of our citizenry, the camera crew broke up “hug chains” of families who haven’t seen each other since before this whole war got picked up by all the networks for the Fall Season. Once the naval soldier was pried from the loving embrace of his wife and the child he’s never seen in person, the vapid newsman with capped teeth and the unjustified sense of self worth asked him a string of the most pointless questions that have ever been devised…ever.

NEWSMAN: Can I ask you a few Questions?
NAVY MAN: Well I kinda wanted to see my family and…
NEWSMAN: Great! I must say…back after the War. Are you glad to be home?
NAVY MAN: Yeah, sure.
NEWSMAN: What was it like being it that hotbed of unrest and hate-inspired warfare against our nation’s principles?
NAVY MAN: Well, we just sort of drove around the ocean, read poems about crisis by a fourth grade class from Pond Scum, Florida, and then came home.
NEWSMAN: My God, the sacrifices you have made for our country. You ARE a Great American Hero

This is an abridged version, but you get the idea.

I guess the media still has this amazing hard-on for the WWII generation. I know this was supposed to be a modern facsimile of those images of our boys coming back from fighting the hated Huns, pouring into the harbors looking for streamers to run through and girls to impregnate. Well, this didn’t even come close. It was just a convoy of 19 year old Hispanic kids coming back from a journey where the worst thing they’ll remember happening is that one Wednesday morning problems with the supply frigate forced them to have baked beans for breakfast, and the flatulence in close quarters that ensued.

Great Generations are crafted and molded by a world under siege where dictatorially energized superman, beaming with nationalist empowerment, grip the seams of the world and twist at it causing countless lives to fall into that breech. They are not made by dramatic filler music that backs a slide show of heart wrenching photographs meant to make the rabble feel noble. Keep in mind that a real war is a war where the causalities number too great for each to have its own feature on the evening news.

::: posted by Mike at 1:33 PM

Saturday, February 16, 2002 :::
 

The Month of February

This month, as many people in America know, is Black History Month. I've recently been pondering the signifcance of it. I mean, I know it's to make people aware of the struggles that many black people faced in the past, and to acknowledge their accomplishments. What I don't get is why a whole month is devoted to them. I think that teaching about the history of segregation, and those famous words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s are important. I just don't understand why it is that Black Americans get a whole month recognized. I'm sure it has something to do with America making it up to the black race for past cruel and unfair treatment. My question is, "How long do we have to apologize for actions that most of white americans never even engaged in?" Also, "Why is it that younger black americans think that we owe them for what they never had to go through?" I think that America needs to stop Black History month for the simple fact that blacks have voiced their anguish of not being treated fairly, but if you think about it are they really treating other cultures fairly? I hate how we single out blacks as the only ones to have felt prejudice. We only seem to recognize them as the only part of an American culture that has suffered.

I grew up as a child in the eighties, watching cartoons about friendship and loving everybody. I watched cartoons like: The Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, the Shirtails, and the Get-Along-Gang. I think that they were great cartoons for children because they all dealt with differences and learning to appreciate and care for others. So, when I think of Americans I tend to see every color of the rainbow. I don't look at it as Black and White. I loathe the perception that Blacks were the only group who had hardships in the past. I will say that blacks had to face discrimination for a longer period of time, but does that justisfy more recognition? I don't think so. Almost every ethinic group who came to America had to face discrimination. Granted, none were subjected to slavery. With that in mind, it leads me to another observation: that many people seem to think that just because you are white your great, great, great, great grandfathers were slave owners. That is highly unlikely. In a college history class I took the professor had a statistic of the amount of whites that were slave owners. Referring back to my notes, I had written down that:
1.) 75% of Southerners did NOT own slaves
2.) of the 25% left over 88% owned 25 or less slaves
3.) and the 12% were wealthy plantation owners

I think too, that people don't take into account that even white ancenstory is from all different places, and that many came over here after slavery had already been abolished. Even light skinned cultures were subjected to unfair treatment, for example: the Irish, and the Italians. Also, many Asian cultures faced obstacles as well. Since Sept. 11th the latest we as a nation realize is those from Arab nations.

Now, I'm not saying that every black person believes what was previously mentioned is true, but I do feel that a majority do. My experiences with people have led me to believe that what I had said to be true, when it comes to the Black and White thing. I certainly don't expect anyone to agree with me. Prejudice is a nasty trait that we all carry, whether we are conscious of our biases or not. We must learn to tolerate differences. Lastly, I want to say that the point that I'm trying to make with all this is that we shouldn't celebrate one culture that is in America. America is a country of many cultures, and to acknowledge one, instead of the many that have contributed to making this a great nation is quite discomforting to me.

::: posted by Anonymous at 4:15 AM

Thursday, February 14, 2002 :::
 

The Histaminic Perfume of Obligatory Sentimentality.

There is a competition afoot today here at work. At regular intervals women pass by my desk, destination: the front security desk to claim their birthright. It has been going on since about 8am. Almost every woman in my unit prancing up to the front desk in response to a call that has come in that they have a package. They go in anticipation…did I do an adequate enough job of making him realize the living hell his life will be if I don’t get the most obnoxious floral arrangement in the building, nay, in history? On their return they gloat and float back to their desk, each one the hero of the moment, each one dancing to a backing track of ooooos and ahhhhhs from the fellow females celebrating the capitulation of the weaker sex that allowed themselves to be hijacked into showing some love. As the day has progressed the title of Queen of St. Valentines Day has been passed around more than a sex video of a make-believe lifeguard and Rock and Roll Drummer. They display on the tops of their file cabinets just who has the man that loves them the most as indicated by the size of the arrangement (size = cost, you see). The air in this place is thick with allergens. My eyes and nose have been runny and irritated all day. And all because my fellow man can’t figure about a way to be worth a damn the other eleven 14ths of the year.

Riddle me this St. Valentine, if everyone I talk to says that Valentines Day doesn’t mean anything to them, who the hell is buying all this worthless shit?

I must flee the building. The last Queen-to-be just passed my desk on her way to collect a menagerie of love made up of flowers, and balloons, and streamers, a spotlight, a fully armored Panzer Division, and a life-sized heart-shaped replica of the fucking Hidenburg.

::: posted by Mike at 4:33 PM

Saturday, February 09, 2002 :::
 

W.W.J.D.?

Ok Kids,

For those in the back of the class that haven't been paying attention...

If posed with the question of What Would Jesus Do?? please note that any answer not beginning with, ending with, or including lengthy descriptions of crucifixion, torture, crowns of thorns, and the whole grab-bag of insufferable agony, is wrong, wrong, wrong.

The tenants of widely practiced Christian doctrine are all about what Jesus did do, not what he would do in any given situation. This goes especially those situations that are ultra-modern (heroin at the Marilyn Manson concert; sneaking out on a school night to attend said concert) and would task the comprehension of a zero-century mind, earth-born master deity or not.

::: posted by Mike at 9:17 PM

Friday, January 25, 2002 :::
 

“American Taliban” and other silly word arrangements.

The media is at it again with a new attempt to further homogenize our language into convenient, bite-sized terms for mass dispersal into a news-hungry market. Today’s example: John Walker Lindh, The American Taliban.

That name is rather silly. I know that it fits well in the news ticker. I realize it is generally descriptive of an American that embraced the ideology of our sudden enemy. These points are not lost on me. But in an effort to assign a catchy label of irrefutable association, the powers responsible for loading the pellets into the gerbil feeder just failed to make any sense this time.

I have come to learn two simple lessons since we went to war (term used loosely, falling down around your ankles loose).

Lesson One is that we are the good guys. We are the global crusaders fighting an incessant battle that has become, since the softening of global gung-ho support, thankless work. But that is what we do. We go to Somalia, to the Balkans, and anywhere else where the iron fist of justice is needed to {insert self-congratulatory, patriotic jargon here}.

Lesson Two came earlier on when we learned that the Taliban was our enemy. Many of us learned this at the exact same moment we learned what the Taliban was. And we learned this because they invited the boogieman over for a terrorist slumber party. They were our enemy not because the years of nefarious and inhumane treatment of women under the regime, or because of their contribution to the global herion trade that kills kids right here in River City (ya got trouble), but because they harbored a man who killed “our” innocents. It was all rather sudden.

It’s like being introduced to the new guy at the office, Bob we’ll call him, and then being told that Bob is the embodiment of all the malevolent savagery in the world and, as an added bonus, is diametrically opposed to your existence. That’s going to make staff meetings suck! So, if Bob is your new inter-office arch nemesis the chances of you identifying any part of your life in terms of The Bob are slim.

So, these two lessons having been learned, I find it a spectacularly erroneous to combine two competing and unlike descriptors that are the very antithesis of one another to enjoin thoughts of a specific and fabricated concept. It is just absurd. But it plays well in the press because it is a fast sticking label to get the rabble up in arms about the traitor in our midst.

John Walker Lindh…Traitor to America. John Walker Lindh…Turncoat for The Taliban. But John Walker Lindh…American Taliban? It just sounds so half-assed. He was a fighter (if you want to glorify his contribution to call him that) for the Taliban, yes. At some point, though, the press should have chosen to pass a verdict in the court of public opinion stripping his public identity of its citizenship, calling him the enemy, dispensing with the high drama of an American youth caught in the middle of a diplomatic crisis, and moved on to more productive matters…like Gary Condit, man eating sharks, Anthrax, or tribute poems/songs written by grade-schoolers or bartenders and dedicated to all the American Heroes.

SIDENOTE DENOTING MORE SILLINESS:

Why is it that sometimes when we encounter a figure in American culture that we want to vilify or scandalize it is necessary to use the full name? Examples:

John Wilkes Booth
Lee Harvey Oswald
James Earl Ray
John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Bobbit
Mark David Chapman

::: posted by Mike at 3:27 PM

Friday, January 18, 2002 :::
 

How The Flame Broiled Whopper Cured My Case Of The Blues.

Let me advance two provisos to the statements I am about to make.

Proviso #1 - I am a white guy who grew up in the middle-class suburbs of a predominately white city, in the South, in the late 70s early 80s. I do not claim to have any insight into the meaning- whether presented or inferred- of Blues Music. Like George Carlin said, “White people got no business singing the Blues. It’s the job of the White man to give people the blues not sing them.”

Proviso #2 - It seems as if I have watching quite a bit of TV lately. I normally will watch about 2 TV shows a week and those are usually recorded for later viewing. This means I usually get to skip over the commercials. And the commercials are sometimes entertainment unto themselves. The commercials are the playbook of the America Hype Machine. I did an earlier post that was centered on commercials. I should be embarrassed about going to that well again in such a short period of time, but given the limited powers of observation I possess, I kind of have to run with what I got. I am not prone to apologizing for my shortcomings.

With that out of the way, let me talk about something I saw that was troubling.

B.B. King is recognized the world over as the ultimate example of a Blues Player. He has all the prerequisites that a man should have if he is going to bellow convincingly about being blue, having the blues, or getting the blues. He has a voice that sounds like he has told the story of his misfortune countless times, he has a trademark guitar named after an old lover (which no doubt gave him the blues), and he is a black man that looks as if he has been passed down in perfect condition from generation to generation as a spokesman for hard times upon his people. The whole package is inspiring, even to a dumb white kid like me.

All of these things, when acting in concert, amalgamate the intangible attributes of a man and a movement into a soulful and powerful expression. “The thrill is gone…the thrill is gone away.” When you hear it you can feel the thrill actually leaving.

Time makes you accept things as a given. I have learned in my life a few truths that travel down irrevocable paths. The Coyote, no matter what innovation or scheme employed for the task, will never catch the Road Runner. The Trix Rabbit will never, not even with his ability to speak the language, get a bowl of Trix. Mariah Carey and I will never share a meaningful bond. And B.B. King will always have the Blues.

Then a strange union occurs.

An advertising firm whose sole reason for being is to present to the world the message that hamburgers are the center of a well balanced universe, joins forces withan on-in-years Blues performer that realizes that the blues don’t pay as well as product endorsements. The offspring of this marriage is a commercial ad placement running nationwide.

In the commercial B.B. King strokes Lucille and sings a catchy, upbeat tune. Life is great. Alarm clocks are flying, B.B's smiling, disembodied heads is superimposed over a cartoon sun, BB sits in the bottom of a cresent moon, and everything seems hunky dory. It is as if the Blues are a thing of myth and fantasy. But to me it was a little sad. In a matter of a 30 second spot I got to see the Chancellor of Blues University sell out the integrity and bastardize the meaning of the cause.

Damn right I got the blues!

::: posted by Mike at 3:04 PM

Thursday, January 17, 2002 :::
 

A return to normalcy . . .

I was leaving work the yesterday and in doing so I walked past the big TV’s that line my path to the door. Perhaps IBM thinks that having its hallways lined with massive television screens keeps the workers informed, I don’t know, but they are always on and they are ALWAYS tuned to CNN.

Usually this is a good thing helping me stay in touch with the current state of activity in the country. The folks at CNN take the trouble each morning to paste up a banner above their churning news ticker that displays what America is doing at that particular moment. Never before Sept. has the attitude and activity of the nation been so easily summed into short catchy phrases that are picked up and shamelessly imitated by the media at large. First it was AMERICA UNDER ATTACK. Then, after said attack, we graduated to the level of AMERICA IN CRISIS, then we sent some soldiers to a region where the prominent suffix is “stan” and it became AMERICA’S NEW WAR, or its alternative AMERICA AT WAR. So you see, walking by these TVs does a lot for my general knowledge of current events.

Yesterday the BREAKING NEWS (words that had briefly replaced the latest descriptor of America’s engagement) was a school shooting. I only briefly saw the images before I was out the door but it looked common fare for that sort of thing: helicopter shots of the school from the air, throngs of people gathered about crime scene tape, flashes of crying teenage girls. I don’t intend to sound callous about this, but since Columbine this has proven to be the standard formula of production value devoted to the school shooting.

As I pondered this on my way to my truck I felt as if we are taking a much-needed step towards normalcy. That is not to infer that normalcy is a particular better thing, but it is a more comfortable thing. You see, when teenagers are shooting up the high school there is a stir of debate and condemnation of certain facets of our modern life, but at least we are not afraid. We vilify the culprits, we pity the victims, and by the next week we file it away under the heading “tragedy” and move forward.

My soon-to-be wife is a schoolteacher and a return to this type of normalcy is disconcerting to sat the least. I can say, however, that it is absurdly relaxing to know that her odds are decidedly better surviving the day against the threat of some heavily armed fifth grader looking to exact vengeance for imagined wrongs. Back when I thought her school could get hit by a 757 or taken out with a mid-range ballistic missile I was afraid. But this perceived cessation of terrorist hostility makes me feel better. And if the mentally unstable, low-achieving children of America have moved on enough to take up arms and resume their attack on kids who wear better cloths or get dates to the dance, then maybe we should all take the cue.

I never thought I would feel comfortable living in a place where to fear the children was a welcomed relief. But here I am.

::: posted by Mike at 1:46 PM

Tuesday, January 15, 2002 :::
 

Speaking of commercials that undermine your faith in a progressive society....

I was enjoying a much-needed break from my plans of global thought domination the other day. I must have been watching a TV station that derives most of it's advertising revenues from professional wrestling and re-runs of Hogan’s Heroes because every commercial that came on had subject matter that fell into one of three areas: Personal Injury - including but not limited to attorneys, chiropractors, and psychic faith healers-, Weight Loss, and Debt Management.

I can understand the Weight Loss ads. There is no question we are a fat society. We have all seen the news reports on the Dan Rather Comedy Hour. The ones that use as their backdrop a sequence filmed by a camera crew that was sent out into the wilds of America with the expressed intent of finding morbidly obese people so they could film them from the neck down. Makes for good shock television. This is a given.... a sugar-addicted, super-sized, drive-thru, sedentary nation that wants to lose weight while they sleep. No arguments of any weight (pun craftily intended) can be fashioned to battle this fact. Water is Wet, America is Fat. Next issue.

An area where repeated exposure has bred in me a sense of acceptance is the Personal Injury industry. I have become desensitized to that industry because it has never felt it necessary to build an image that contradicts the blood-sniffing, ambulance-chasing, doctoring-for-profit image portrayed in its commercials. There is one such commercial in my area where The Texas Hammer (formerly The Tough Smart Lawyer, formerly The Tough Texas Lawyer) promises that, without even opening your case file, he can tell you are entitled to money for your pain. There is no shame and no spin doctoring. It is simple. Someone hurt you, or came really close to hurting you, or maybe had a dream one night where they hurt someone that looks a lot like you, therefore you should not be penniless and in anguish. In fact, they are so singlemindedly indifferent to you that they don't even bother with that false bullshit sentiment that says they care about you. They don't even mention you unless it is in the context of litigation settlements. They have the doctors and chiropractors that are experts in the treatment of "soft tissue injuries" that sometimes take days, weeks, or even presidential administrations to develop. You have to wonder about an industry whose entire Equal Opportunity statement is made by flashing the words "Se Habla Espanol" on the screen. As I have said, I am used to it.

Now we come to the Debt Management portion of the program. I have admitted that we are fat. I have admitted we are susceptible to the shyster lawyers and the charlatan doctors. But I cannot admit we are poor. While a bulk of our economy is a lie propped up by credit debt and dependent largely on the opinions of the media, I cannot bring myself to admit that we are poor. We don't save. An embarrassing percentage of the population lives paycheck to paycheck irrespective of income. We are cash strapped. But we are not poor. The problem is and always has been the effective marketing of things we don't need but are convinced we cannot live without. Then we have our hobbies, and our obsessions, and finally our vices. Add it all up and we have five bucks in our pocket with 10 days until payday. People live way beyond their means and arrange to pay it out at loan shark rates. A dinner for two becomes equal to buying a controlling share in the restaurant. It is a ploy to keep the masses occupied. I know this, you know this, just about everyone knows this. But it doesn't change.

This commercial I saw the other day forged into new territory. It told the viewer that even though they were fiscally irresponsible, and even though they were criminally bankrupt, it wasn't their fault! They were not spendthrifts caught in the spell of mass-market commercialism: they were VICTIMS OF CIRCUMSTANCE. Can you believe this? Victims of circumstance? Perhaps my compression of cumulative terminology is lacking, but wouldn’t someone who went to work one morning and got caught in the crossfire between Catholics and Protestants be a victim of circumstance? Or what about someone who goes in to have their appendix removed and instead gets a honkin' new pair of tits, victim of circumstance? Unless that circumstance is permanent suspension of reality in all matters pertaining to real income and victimization is another way of saying bold and stupid self-affliction, I don't really see how someone who charges $30,000 worth of silly string and trips to Chili's could be coded as a victim of circumstance. In the name of a product that I cannot begin to ascertain from the vague nature of the script, this commercial is trying to convince people that their problems and burdens are not their fault.

So to sum up: we are fat, injured, and apparently poor, but only because of a mass societal conspiracy that feeds on our disposable income making us property in a new era of slavery.

I know, I’m not buying that shit either.

::: posted by Mike at 2:36 PM

Wednesday, January 09, 2002 :::
 

So I'm driving to work and I hear a comerical for a job fair, but it's not the normal job fair where the local supermarket is looking to get a fresh load of stock boys or a start-up dot com is looking for cheap labor to overwork and abuse. It was for (and I'm not kiding here) The United States Secret Service.

I would like to think that the men and women who protect the body of the most powerful man in the world didn't pick up the appication at the local Community College. If I didn't sleep durring the day I would go and pick up an application just to see what the questions are but I 'd also sit over in a corner and watch the caliber people who come up ( also I think this covert move would impress the guys working the stand). My predection would be a 60/40 mix of ex-milatary and underpaid cops, but also over zealous guys who have seen way to many action movies who would come walking up in the classic billy bad ass stance, slicked back poney tail and an issue of Balck Belt sticking out of the back pocket.

And that's another thing, what poor bastard low man on the Secret Service totem pole get stuck working this table. I bet it's the screw ups who were watching the Bush Girls last year.

But if any folks in the goverment come across this little posting can you please find some outstanding young people in the armed services who desirve a promotion rather than people who listen to late night radio and decide that they just can't stand another day of fliping burgers.

::: posted by Anonymous at 3:45 AM

Monday, January 07, 2002 :::
 

*sniff* *sniff* ...hmmmm. ...smells familiar. I haven't been around in a while but that doesn't mean that I don't care.

I sit here at the computer table on a cold, windy January night, marveling at timing. It seems only fitting that I should be the first to inflict myself on this blog in the new year as I was the first to kick it off back in 'ought-one. Here goes.

Ruminations On New Years

Please note that I wrote new years, as in a year that is new rather than New Year's, as in Eve. Another year has clicked over on the calendar, but does anyone stop to realize that a new year clicks over every day? Every day is a year later than it was last year. For example, today is the new January 7th and tomorrow will be the new January 8th. Pretty cool, huh? Yet, I don't see anyone getting shitfaced and silly on January 7th eve. That's kind of a defeatest attitutde, don't you think? I mean, what if we welcomed each day as if it were a new year (which, as illustrated before, it is)? Admittedly, I wouldn't want to throw a party every night but I would like to have the same sort of good feelings every day that I do on New Year's Eve and Day (Goldschlager shots notwithstanding).

Believe me, I'm very aware of how un-MetalCat I sound. This is as odd to me as it is to you. I guess I can explain this differing perspective by the fact that the traditional "new year" for the calendar coincides with a new year for my life, too. My birthday is January 2nd so I'm getting birthday wishes before I've even written the date for the first time, usually. After one reaches a certain age, birthdays cease being all about selfishness, presents and drinking oneself into oblivion. ...and you, you know you're out there somewhere toughly disagreeing with me and saying, "...I still drink myself into oblivion and act selfish on my birthday - that's what it's all about!" You know I'm right. 2001 showed me my mortality in no uncertain terms. ...and I'm not talking about The Event, either, although it was sobering, to say the least. I'm a worrier, by nature, and I feel that 2001 brought me to a new level of maturity in that I'm not as concerned so much with other people - I'm concerned with myself. I feel like I did a lot of growing this year and in a weird, disturbingly perky kind of way - I'd like to feel like I grow a little bit each day now. ...or at least take stock each day and recognize the growth. 'Cause each day is a new year.

The next time you hear from me, I'll have something to bitch about so feel free to remind me about this growth that I'm talking about.

::: posted by MetalCat at 9:45 PM