I Hate The Holiday Spirit

They say you should get into the "spirit of giving" but what they really mean is you should have the "spirit of buying." I don't like that. I don't see what any holidays have to do with giving gifts. Certainly, it's different for birthdays. Happy birthday, congratulations on being alive. You really hung in there. I would like to reward you with this gift of "Footloose" on Blu-Ray. And it's also different for a baby shower. Good luck going through hell to pop that brood out into the world. You are really achieving something here because 310 billion people feels kind of lonely, but by the time you have your fifth kid, I think we should be seeing a nice full number, like maybe 650 billion. Let me reward your blind selfishness with this toaster from P.C Richards. I painted it pink in case it's a girl or a gay. And it's one of the pre-recall ones, not the new childproof ones. So, you know, fingers crossed.

Is that wrong? Am I just an Ebeneezer Scrooge? In one way, yes, because I am an insufferable grouch, but in another, more important way, I am not because I don't even have Robber-Barron-caliber wealth to fall back on, like he did - contrary to what the friendly yuletide bastard named 'Ivan' who robbed me last night might have you believe.

And if I was just like Scrooge I certainly would not repent and change my ways just 'cause some jerk-off ghost showed me my gravestone. This is something I don't get about Dickens' heart-warming, corporate-backed tale of redemption, kindness and a triune god. I don't really buy Ebeneezer's character. You are telling me this misanthropic, rheumy-eyed old fig spends his entire life profiting off of cheap labor and lucrative merchant contracts from the King, hoarding his wealth and shunning that good ol' human-love-n'-kindness (thanks, Ivan for showing me the light) and then turns around and throws it all away because a walking sex-sheet showed him that he is going to die alone.

Seriously, Dickens? So let me get this straight. Scrooge goes through life as a callous spendthrift, has no family or friends, treats his workers like Moors and hates the crap out of carolers. But he never once considered that the employees to whom he pays a shilling a month for hard labor have families they can't provide for, or the fact that when he dies there will be no one to mourn him and if he is remembered at all it will be only as "that guy who refused to give me a Christmas bonus and I couldn't buy my daughter a gift so she died of pneumonia the next day." You are telling me the guy just didn't think about that?

Well, to be fair, no that does not seem to be the case. In fact, the three ghosts had to drop in and scare the living shit out of Scrooge before he would even deign to recognize the misery his misery had caused. And keep in mind it took three fucking ghosts! For your average Joe one ghost would pretty much do it. He'd be pissing his knickers and doing anything the disembodied voice in the trees told him to do. But this hard-ass merchant required three ghosts! Seems to me the moral of the story is getting out of hand.

In the end, the Ghost of Christmas to Come teleports Scrooge like 2 weeks into the future to the site of his own grave and says "listen, asshole, if you don't straighten your shit out, no one's going to weep at your funeral, and you'll be buried here in the criminals section with all the robbers, rapists and government employees." And this, finally, scares Scrooge out of his wits. He just marches on back to the present and opens the faucets of illicit funds and ill-gotten gains, changing his entire map of emotions, the stolid, impassive snobbery that defines his very character.

So maybe that is Dickens' message to me. No one loves a hater. You are miserable because you make others miserable, if you make others happy then you will be happy. Spend your paycheck on Best Buy gift cards - they really need the business and your co-workers will appreciate it. Or something to that effect. But I am not convinced. In fact I think that what happens at the end of "Christmas Carol" is a sham.

Scrooge doesn't change his ways out of the goodness of his heart or some supernatural influx of holiday spirit. He does so because he is and has always been a greedy, selfish bastard. I mean, when he sees his pigeon-shit grave he isn't thinking "Man I should have been a good person so I could've maybe lived a happy life before this shit happened," it's more like "Man I better grease some wheels before I die or no one will put flowers on my grave and they'll talk shit about me until the end of the monarchy. Plus, if there are ghosts then there sure as shit has got to be a god, and I know he's going to kick my ass big time." And that's just it - the ghosts didn't show him the right path, just reminded him of what he loves most - himself. He isn't overflowing with holiday spirit, only concerned with what people will think of him when he's pushing up daisies. The ghosts taught him the most heartwarming lesson of all: You gotta cover your ass.

Likewise, we can take it at the value of the story's religious undertones and say that maybe he has come to believe in an afterlife and just really wants to score enough mitsvah-points to have a baller time in heaven. And you don't get an eternity of slut-service for being a Scrooge.

Whatever the real reasons may be, as you can see, the driving factor here is the spirit of selfishness. And now that I myself see that, I must say, I am beginning to really appreciate the holiday spirit now. I thought it was about some bullshit love, caring and brotherhood-type emotional package, but it's not that at all. It's about being a dick your whole life, then 'repenting' at the last possible moment, it's about looking out for numero uno, even if that sometimes involves buying turkeys for people, and it's about god's first commandment: "better late than never." I can barely believe it. I have actually learned something despite myself. And, like Ebeneezer, I have really come full circle and something has changed. Truly, big thanks is due in order of importance: Myself. Dickens. Triune-god.

I Hate You (The Greeting Cards)

Happy Touchdown, fellow holidayers. As you may already know, I live for the holiday season. Unfortunately Hallmark is crap. No one makes real world greeting cards anymore. They seem to always be unspecific, unrealistic and saccharine. Don't you just want to say what you think? But where do you get such tailor made rubbish? Nowhere, that's where. Instead, cerebrate with me and these fine greeting card ideas:

Happy Birthday!

Live it up while you're too young to have regrets.

                                                                     

Congratulations!

"I just wanted to send you this exaltation!"

                    
Joy to the World

"Don't get stabbed on your tip"

Get Well Soon!

"Sorry to hear about the botched colonoscopy."

We Heard You lost your job!                     . 

"So we got you this tie. To go with your other tie"

Glad you got off easy!
 

"Lame! Next time hire that fag from Mission Impossible."

Sorry you're feeling down

"Y2K: No special occasion necessary"

Our Condolences!

"But at least you're not pregnant, right?"

Happy Anniversary!

I'm sorry your god is a dick.

It's A Boy! 

Thanks for propagating the human race.

Happy Easter!

Yep, it's still as terrifying as you remember.

Happy Graduation!

But you'll never live that down.

Merry Christmas! 

Stuff your stockings with Americana.

.

I Hate Thanksgiving

It's that time of year again. A time to take a few moments and give thanks for everything you have that Somalian children don't. Just slow down for a minute and appreciate everything in your life that makes living in the "Land of the Free" a glorious thing: universal healthcare, true social equality and upward mobility of the lower and middle classes,

And other things you find in the trash

You just can't beat that. But what is this holiday we call thanksgiving all about? I was thinking about this earlier today on line at the Duane Reade, and as coincidence would have it the answer dawned, as if by providence, when I stepped up to pay. The rotund urban gentlewoman at the register asked me if I would kindly make a donation to fight diabetes. I informed her that I would have to regrettably decline, even, I fear, to the detriment of support for her future malady, and demurred at her obviously well-informed judgement. She made a point to exclaim: "But Mr. it's only a dollar," to which I replied, "no thanks." But she was as persistent as the fungus on my left foot and made an effort to play on my more altruistic sensibilities. With bile audibly rushing up her windpipe, she barked, "not even on Thanksgiving?" Now here I admit, dear reader, that I was touched. Touched and, not to mention, disgusted.

Not that disgusted.

Not the least for which to think that this inner-city bovine really cared for a cause she has yet to be a victim of, or that she might in fact believe the money goes to where her managers attest, but at the very least because it seems she thought she knew what the Thanksgiving spirit was all about. Once again I was obliged to inform her that, sadly, after purchasing a $12 pack of smokes and a $7 holiday-sized bag of peanut M&Ms, I had but $1 remaining with which to wipe my ass, and that, as an American, that is a privilege I both reserve and relish. I had to conclude, by her incredulous expression, that she was the wiser, more enlightened one, of us two; even if- or just because- she is a mother of two.

"If there's one thing my 16 years have taught me it's, like, temperance, or whatever?"

But and so, this experience caused me to pause. For I too thought that I knew what it was all about. As I awoke this morning and made my pre-work preparations I gave my silent thanks, as I do just about every Monday morning, for all these things that make my life worth living, these things that prove, insurmountably, that I live in a great country. In my thanks I thought of how lucky I am, we all are, to be a part of a world in which everything we dream is possible (if not probable); a world in which a little planning, hard work, and four years at Bard will garner such sweet lifelong rewards as all the hormone-enhanced turkey you can eat at outdoor heifer-contests, which curiously look a lot like a family reunion, an openly jury-rigged political system, which masquerades as something I've never heard of called "Democracy," and 99% of all the poverty, which - I have to admit - feels pretty good to be in the majority for once. There is truly nothing like being an American and free.

If you haven't heard, the nightlife is a blast!

So the question is: why exactly do we do this thing each year where we sit down with our heretofore neglected extended families and celebrate a holiday which basically brands Americans as self-righteous imperialists? If I am understanding the history books correctly (which, by the way, my children are absolutely forbidden to read), Thanksgiving is an event where the settlers ordered the head-honcho Natives to prostrate themselves before their conquerors and lay down a feast so they could thank them for exchanging all their valuables for pox-blankets, giving up their women for raping and their villages for pillaging and, finally, for letting the English straight-up move in on their turf and take all and everything else worth taking. And in exchange the Natives were presented with buckshot and golden roasted Turkeys:

"Taste the humanity."

It must have been a monumental celebration. Probably similar to the one I have with my family, except we get our turkeys ready-made from Costco and after-hours Pictionary invariably turns into an unmediated family therapy session. But on that original day they must have had some real fun and, no doubt, fewer forays into grandma's coke-fueled past indiscretions. I imagine that original conversation went something like this:

ENGLISH: "Jeez guys thank you so much for throwing down your tomahawks, signing the treaty and cooking us this bitchin' dinner. We really were pretty damn hungry, as you know, because most of us are conquistadors with no experience in farming. I have to say we were like this close to sailing back home."
NATIVES: "Aw, you fellas are some jokers. I mean it's either that or get slaughtered, right? I mean come on!"
ENGLISH: "No we mean it guys, all joking aside, this is real solid of you all to be such good sports as you've been. Our great great grandchildren are really going to appreciate this moment when they're tearing down your natural paradise in order to erect a society almost exactly like the one they'll be revolting against."
NATIVES: "Hey what comes around goes around. And you can quote us on that."
ENGLISH: "You know, you guys are class acts, seriously! Tell you what, when this is all over and there's barely any of you left, we will totally apologize for all this, and mark my words, when the Reservation life has got you down, come to us and we will talk to you about something called casinos."

"#Check out this Mexican hottie rocking Ed Hardy."

What breaks my brains is the idea of the evolution of a celebration. I am no philosopher, philanthropist (see above) or philatelist, but I am just wondering: how did we get from a 1620's Plymouth to a 2000's Macy's Day parade. Isn't there some kind of crucial disconnect there? Something just doesn't seem wholesome:

"This gout is fucking killing me!"

I bet there is more to the holiday than what I have described. And I am dead certain there is more to it than we find, each year, at the bottom of a bottle of Absolut and a family-sized box of bon-bons. But in the end, though, I guess it doesn't really matter what you believe. It doesn't matter if you know anything about the origins of your celebration, the unspoken cause of your revelry or the message you are sending your kids when they accidentally read the inscription below the picture in that non-creationist textbook they are expressly forbidden to read. And it most definitely doesn't matter if a cretin looks down on you for not being a humanitarian on the anniversary of the first war crime in the history of the "Land of the Free." As long as your USD's get where they are going. Stay tuned for my yearly Black Friday death-toll announcement in your local papers.

I Hate "Convenience"

What is this thing we call convenience? Is it just another misleading term we use in place of the less consumer-friendly but no less technical term "circle-jerk"? Is convenience just a trick of the trade? When thinking about the term the first thing that comes to this depraved Ameri-can mind is the convenience store. Sometimes we call them Dollar-stores (where a dollar will buy you exactly nothing). A trashy little place usually owned by Bangladeshis who stuff it full of every food, household and miscellaneous "why-the-hell-not" item you might or might not ever need. Is it really convenient though? I guess if they dropped the euphemism and called it what it is, a lot less people would care to be seen shopping there:

Soon to gain statehood.

The "convenience" part comes in because you don't need to waste precious time walking down the block to some outdated "specialty" store, since everything is available to you in one convenient pile of junk. The proprietors probably figure that the more "convenient" they can make it for you, with 12 odd aisles of pure unadulterated kipple, the less likely you are to shop anywhere else, and that way the quality of the product doesn't really matter, since you're already here and there is no need to ever shop around for better stuff. You might object that convenience store prices are pretty good, but that's because you never shop at real establishments any more.

"Can I interest you in some childhood Diabetes?"

You will notice that the term also applies to things that are decidedly not convenient. Like those fees charged by ticketmaster, your school, your bank and other for-profit institutions. But Mr. Hater, you might be saying, those convenience fees are in place so we can drain our bank accounts without leaving our sweat and powdered-sugar-soaked gaming chairs. But you know, that's not helping your life right now. You should get out and walk some. And just remember those fees are only convenient for the payee. You, the payer, as a rule, can pretty much go fuck yourself.

In any case, luckily, some things are actually engineered for real convenience. Lefty-specific products, for instance. I mean where would you be without that lefty shoe-horn, lefty corkscrew or lefty jock-itch-cream? This is necessary and functional stuff and, I don't mind mentioning, this has inspired me to release my very own line of lefty classics adaptations - classic novels of the 17th and 18th century, edited for kosher and transcribed to read right-to-left for our dear Jewish friends.

"Wish I could read."

We here in Canada's underbelly are all about leading the world in convenience. Furthermore, I am told we happen to be "leaders of the free world." While I have yet to see this so-called free world personally, I will say this to our credit: you know this country is great when it absolutely creams the competition in all convenience-oriented contrivances. Where else in the world can you make a living touting crap that no one really needs? To name just a few- fish foot-spas and face-lifts; sub-prime mortgages and "luxury" tract-housing; junk-food and fitness franchises; MMORPG's and social-networks; walkalators and Segways:

If only there was a better way.

This trope is an old one, but I will restate it here: In an effort to ease our lives with technology and time saving contrivances, we have become dependent on them. Think about it. You will work your ass off to buy the thing, lets call it car, so you can save time and energy and use it to get to work. But now you are working to feed your car and that infinitesimal time and energy you just saved has gone where? What will you do with that time except maybe work overtime hours to be able to afford a tank of gas. Maybe you can spend that time watching Kiefer Sutherland's mounting impatience and disbelief that a simple plot-line can be stretched so goddamn thin.

"I can't...can't change the channel! It's got some kinda voodoo on me."

Point being that "convenience" is a misnomer. It's never really that convenient when you think about it. And you're always paying for it in one way or another. Sure driving to work is convenient but then you have to pay the tolls, guzzle gas and deal with parking. Sure it's more convenient to medicate your kids instead of reasoning, guiding or beating them senseless, but then you are screwing them up down the line and they probably won't be in a good position to take care of you when you are too frail to get into the shower by yourself. And sure it's easier to rant about the things you hate instead of trying to do something meaningful in order to bring about some kind of change, but, well- I don't have an answer for that one- and I certainly don't want to inconvenience myself by trying.

I Hate Halloween

8pm on a Monday in New York Shitty. It is Halloween and I am wondering where all the festivities are. Makes me wonder if this holiday has finally bit the bullet. A part of me says "I sure hope so." That would be the grumpy old man part of me. But at the same time I am wondering what's happened? I may be too old to play dress-up, but I must admit I still enjoy seeing all the freaks.

Well, alright, so my crippling agoraphobia ensures I won't be within three or four miles of the parade, but I have well-placed cameras all over the city and I like to watch. Anyway, like I may or may not have said, it's Halloween and I have seen exactly one costume. This makes me sad. Now I am thinking about the few times I was down at the parade and all the clever crap I saw. I think this calls for a short list. At the risk of leaving something out, here are the main costume-types you will see at the Halloween parade:

                                                        1) Skanks

Clone wars: you lose!

The first and most ubiquitous costume, you will notice is, necessarily, the least original. This is the sexy-"whatever" costume. You've seen them: sexy-"Supergirl," sexy-"Wonder Woman," sexy-"Condoleeza Rice," and on and on. This is the costume that hasn't been clever or original in years but shows as much skin as possible without getting you arrested for being a dirty whore.

On the other hand it's a good thing, you know, because when you're picking pockets or rubbing up on people's bums at the parade, it is helpful that all the real cops are distracted by photo-snapping sexy girl-cops who, for whatever reason, can't get over the novelty of this practice. Real-cop + sexy-cop = fucking brilliant photo op!

                                                        2) Fruits

Funny? You think this is funny? I was born this way!

Next is the inscrutable social-commentary costume. Personally, I appreciate the deep thought that usually goes into these costumes, provided the wearer is a sentient being and not a mannequin in the window at American Apparel. But honestly I can't tell with this one. Is this ironic self-reference or self-referential irony? Is this clown wearing a hipster costume or the other way around? I am thinking this guy simply cut the sleeves off his rare vintage clown sweater and now he is just a sad sack.

You will probably see him walking around the city, looking just like this, for weeks after the parade. He will appear nonplussed but don't be fooled, on the inside he is secretly gushing at the genius of this monumental social statement.

                                                        3) Jocks

"I curated this myself."

Next, a personal favorite, is the artisanal costume. Now, when I hear that something is artisanal, I take this to mean it was "composed" by a master craftsman, utilizing years of learning and experience, and through many man-hours of intense work, finally bringing to fruition a product of unparallelled achievement, and would probably sell for "Dubai-money" on the open market. If only said craftsman weren't staunchly opposed to everything capitalist (with the exception of said craftsman's trust-fund). Example: "Yo Tod, did you check out that new artisanal sloppy-joe place? Yea bro, check it, they run it out of this über-vintage VW bus and each sloppy-joe is like totally curated by hand! Yea, the dude who owns it is throwing this mega party at his loft on Delancy."

But, alas, upon closer inspection, it appears to be a rather lazy, unrefined artisanal cardboard box. The people you'll usually see wearing these are either impoverished adolescents (who don't belong in the bar after dark anyway) or arrogant juicers who ride the assumption that the schmuckery of their costumes will be ameliorated by their "epic" personalities.

                                              4) Everybody Else

"We are all beautiful...in different ways."

Lastly, but unfortunately not leastly, is this costume. This is one of the most common and most popular costumes ever. It is so popular that I see them everywhere long after Halloween has ended. This costume, known  colloquially as the "Asian-Face" costume, must have started like all things viral: someone had a great, original idea, "exhibited" it but once and then it spread like wildfire - completely uncontrollable and out of hand.

But this year I have seen practically none of these, begging the question: Where is the respect for tradition anymore? In an effort come up with an answer I did a little digging into the history of the holiday. What I found literally horrified me way more than any 80's horror flick ever did. It seems that Halloween is not actually a legitimate holiday. Apparently what we are celebrating here is merely a bastardization of long-gone pagan rituals such as Pomona, Parentalia and Samhain, except without the redeeming practice of human sacrifice. Talk about a disappointment.

So then why do we celebrate this nonsense holiday? Is there a secret society of malicious dentists behind this national travesty? According to a cursory interweb search on the subject, yes. Yes there is:

"I call this one the bone-tickler."

The interesting thing is that no one much cared for Halloween or the rituals associated with it. Seventeenth century Protestants were denouncing Halloween as a foppish, unorthodox muckery of their great fun-loving religion, the Puritans of early New-England, superstitious witch-hunters and early robber-barons that they were, shat on it as well. And it's no wonder. Only in relatively recent years has this fiendishly leftist holiday had anything to do with free candy or girls in slut-skirts. It was not until the rowdy red-nosed Irish and Scottish migrated to the Americas in the mid nineteenth century - and, owing to their serious case of the drunk-munchies and whimsical love of adultery - did Halloween finally establish itself as the windfall of all candy and, not to mention, lingerie-as-outerwear manufacturers everywhere.

First pimp in the candy biz

So why are we so crazy about this dumb holiday? Might it be our pent up desires to run proverbially amok, get crazy on sugar and food coloring, get drunk and publicly make asses of ourselves (sure go ahead and pretend you don't do that daily)? Do we feel the need to costume ourselves in cleverness (see above)? Or get trapped for forty-five minutes in a roiling sea of sweaty paper, plastic and cardboard-box-covered people just to get a glimpse of some befeathered morons dirty-dancing on a shitty float in the shape of a giant tombstone before finally succumbing to heatstroke and vomiting into a cross-dresser's leather corset? Well, come to think of it, maybe that is just reason enough.

I Hate Space Aliens

I have always had this quirky idea that if aliens came down from the stars to find our bacteria-ridden little rock that they would stick around a while to observe us. They would hang, discreetly peeping with high-powered telescopes, checking out the patterns of our behavior, laughing at our Jew jokes, commiserating with the tribulations of our poor, besieged slumdog-millionaires, face-palming to the horrors of American network-television, fleering and jeering at our economic policies, and, finally, convening amongst themselves to work out the best way to vaporize all the stupid, hairy bipeds without doing too much damage to their new colony.

"The missus said don't come back without a souvenir, so uh nobody eat this one, OK?"

And that's just fine with me. If they really took the time to check us out and, in the end, judged the human race not worthy of its place in the universe, well then, who are we to disagree? But I hope they will be fair in their judgement and not dicks like you might expect. I mean we have much to offer, don't you think? I hope they will not eat or enslave us without considering our achievements as a civilization. So to enumerate just a few:

First off, our advanced mathematics and understanding of the logical consistence of the universe - resulting in some pretty ballin' technology, not to mention some killer Sudoku. When it comes to calculating up to nine integers, you can't beat the humans!

Then there's our bitchin' grasp of science and medicine. We are constantly making breakthroughs in these fields, leaping ahead with a rare, brutal force, thanks to our insatiable love of blowing shit up and waging biological warfare.

"Great, now I don't even have time for my midday espresso!"

Similarly, our art really reveals our intelligence and inherent speculative, spacial, and emphatic reasoning. Our ability to collect and synthesize thousands of years of thought and practice and then just toss it aside in favor of some regressive, reductive garbage is, in my opinion, a distinguishing factor of our cultural genius. Like the cave scratchings of 35,000 years ago, which told the story of a pre-linguistic society - revealing their histories, innovations and habits  - the scratchings of today really speak to who we are as a people:

Art imitates life, or something to that effect.

Then we have our music. There are few things more telling about a history of a culture, a history of the evolution of mankind, than music. From medieval minstrels to Victorian composers through today, you can really see how music has evolved our minds, enriched our souls and left an everlasting mark on our identities as humans:

There is no way we will ever regret this.

It's all about betterment and brotherhood, you know? And that is, I would have the aliens understand, the defining factor of our race. The oneness, the spiritual and physical uniformity of man. But also individualism and diversity. Yeah, we've got all that crap.

Which brings us to our faith - and this is really at the crux of what we are - the thing that keeps us going through all the constant war, famine, economic distress and alien invasions. Nowhere else will you find a stronger willingness to believe, a more unyielding, headstrong, stubborn-to-the-grave vision than in mankind's capacity for faith:

Seriously, we'll believe in anything.

It is a large part of how we can persevere through it all: Natural disasters, genocides, Emmy award ceremonies. We have the faith and conviction to overcome these tribulations. And this is what, it seems to me, our alien visitors will come to understand by their observations. You just can't fuck with the human race. I mean it. No one can screw us over any worse than we have already. Just try to top us, we dare you!

The only possibility that gives any real cause to panic is, as some would have it, that the aliens are already among us. This is the theory: that the aliens have been with us from the beginning. Watching, waiting, judging and biding their time until the swarm descends to deliver the final rapture, as it were. Don't take it from me. This theory has been making the rounds for years and, if I may say so, it seems to carry some weight:

Spandex is the new Mantel.

If this turns out to be the case that aliens have always been among us then - call me an optimist if you will - I just hope they have learned from us. I hope they have seen these things that make us incontrovertibly human and experienced the great overwhelming joy of being alive: the sophistication, the grace, the monumental beauty of a sunrise, the excitement of a dolphin-poaching; this is my hope - that the aliens will empathize with us and feel for the first time ever a little human emotion called love:

"Sure toots, of course I'll marry you!"

 
And, in seeing the light of our achievements, the exhilaration of our perseverance, in living amongst us as humans and playing that sweet game called life, I am confident that the aliens will spare us. In fact, I am so confident that we can just go ahead and drop our long-inundated preconception that these space aliens are here to be assholes and extinguish the human race. No. The judgement's in our favor, people. And that, dear reader, is my guarantee or your money back!

I Hate Adolf Hitler

No I mean it, I really do. Sure he's sweet, wholesome and everybody loves him, but that just peeves me more. Everywhere I go people are talking about this Adolf Hitler person. "Why are they being so hard on Adolf Hitler?" they say. "Why can't they just leave Adolf Hitler alone and let him live a normal life like everybody else?"

Well let me tell you something: People should be prosecuted for their beliefs. Even if those beliefs are actually incidental and have nothing to do with who they are. You might be innocent; you might even be the greatest thing since Manga Liz Hurley, but I want you to know I do not approve and, by the way, even if I am alone in saying so, screw you Adolf Hitler!

Now, you may have read the story in the news a while back about this kid. It's a real hard-luck case when some airhead bureaucrat forgets to stamp the papers to "volunteer" your parents for compulsory sterilization, and then this happens:

"In case you don't get the hint, we're not here for candy."

But then, luckily, providence shines down and your deadbeat parents ostensibly renounce their Neo-Nazi roots, announcing that the swastikas adorning your house and their bodies from top to bottom are a form of expressionist urban-chic. Which, admittedly, makes it OK. But it's too late 'cause guess what? Your name is still Adolf Fuckin' Hitler!

Sure, the best thing about my nitwit religion is you get absolved every time you confess to the pedo in the box, so, you know, pretty much license to kill, right? But even so, everyone blames the parents for their own sins and it's difficult - as a nation of insatiable consumer- cum- auto-fellators- to live that kind of thing down.

Still though, why does everyone love this kid and hate the parents? I say, give freely to this kid the same hate you so generously afford his parents. Or don't you think he might live up to his name?

Come on, inhale! Don't get all G.W. Bush on me.

The fact is this kid is going to grow up with a serious superiority complex. And that's just unhealthy. He's going to want birthday cakes with his unholy name on it and I am pleased to report that at least one openly trailer-trash-friendly supermarket is standing up and saying "No thank you, Mr. Hitler:"

[The ShopRite also refused to provide a blank cake for the parents to place little Adolf’s name on the cake as well, saying only that they “We believe the request … to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolf Hitler is inappropriate.”]

I firmly believe that every American has the right to a reality-check, such as: many professional journalists flunked grammar, also as well as in addition to: most newsroom editors don't actually do anything. Furthermore, as an American, you should get used to disappointment. And that begins at an early age with the proper societal reinforcement:

Just one bun-in-the-oven short of the American Dream

But perhaps I am being to hard on the poor kid. By this point he is just about old enough to understand a thing or two about how royally fucked he is. Unfortunately for him, as a dependent, he cannot yet legally change his name to John Wayne Gacy Campbell. It's a hard-knock life, you know? All the other kids at the foster center school are teasing him behind his back and the rare brave one goes and tells him to his face, spilling the beans. How is it going to be for this kid when he reads his name in the "dickhead" section of the history textbook or finds himself playing Wolfenstein on the wrong side. Will he a be a sad-sack, lonely-heart, searching endlessly for his Eva Braun? Will he be feared and despised forever?

"Daddy, why are people always saluting me?"

Yes, it is tough when your name is Adlof Hitler. Your name will be censored in every yearbook, and you may have to leave that space blank on job applications. You will never be able to get your taxes done by a professional. And good luck trying to purchase that engagement ring. You will never make it to MTV's top 10 countdown or get approved for a car loan or sign your name for that co-op apartment in Williamsburg. Your life will be a hard one. I should have been more considerate. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways, Adolf Hitler. You have my apologies, little guy. 

I Hate When Futuristic Movies Go Too Far (Or Not Far Enough)

These days futuristic movies are all fast-forward, high-tech, next-level-nightmares. Packed with intrigues, explosions, "clever" one-liners and, consequently, steamy sex-scenes. They keep you exited, amused, queasy, and help affirm, by contrast, the fact that you are living in a wonderful Oz-like world where nothing bad, such that might result in nuclear war or white-slavery, ever happens. Each new movie tries to outcock the last by touting a harsher dystopia, a more oppressive government, a more complete nuclear wasteland, an ever more strange and dangerous society of people with false forms and noxious minds:

Won't you join us, human?

In the face of all this it is comforting to see that as late as thirty years ago Sci-Fi flicks depicting a wild unlikely future world still contained chintzy domestic scenes in which wallpaper was still all the gaudy rage, fashion was ass-backwards and the woman question was treated with the same subtlety and finesse as, say, the colorful world of Disney characters.

While I personally find narrow-mindedness refreshing, my lawyer-monkey advises me that I am walking on eggshells here with regards to potentially getting sued back into the stone-age (copyright: I am already writing the screenplay for that one, people). In compliance, I will make no further reference to the woman question:

I'm freaking out here! Is this how Buzz Lightyear felt on his first mission?

But and so, the question you might be asking is: did filmmakers simply not have the foresight to predict all kinds of crucial developments our current society has the luxury of taking for granted? Were they so preoccupied with the good old tropes of nuclear-winter, robot-apocalypse and doomed space-adventure that it did not occur to them that there might come a time for radical advancements including, but not limited to, home decor and the evolution of the modern domicile? 

You want I should raise my kids in this house?

No. It is clear now that those filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing. We can look back on their visions of endless white glass surfaces, psychedelic blinking lights, dials and wigwams as far as the eye can see, girls in plastic dresses, ludicrous robot helpers, oddly anachronistic language and  improbably futuristic architecture with smug sagacity, but I believe they were telling us something vital about ourselves. Namely, no matter how progressive, original, heroic or urban-cool you regard yourself you are nothing but a slapdash, backwards, poorly conceptualized tool:

I bet you're wondering were I holster this puppy!

But that is the way of the modern world. We want and need to fool ourselves. We do it every day when we roll out of bed, tamp out our Clove on the vintage armoire, beat it to the sound of Ra Ra Riot, gaze lovingly into the mirror, smile and brim with confidence at the complete package: bed-head, Elvis Costello glasses, vintage Twisted Sister t-shirt, checkered suspenders, denim cut-offs and suede wingtips; grab the Mac, our 'rents bought as a gift for moving to New York on our mission to become an "independent person," and head over to the local Starbucks where we proceed to not purchase anything and agonize for six hours about how to complete our most profound blog-post ever.

It seems to me that futuristic movies of the past have attempted to alleviate our modern minds - help us to forget the stress we feel upon realizing that we accidentally wore socks with our loafers or showed up to Occupy Wallstreet after all our friends have already grown bored and given up - and distract us from the really depressing problems of the day:

"I sicken myself?"

At the same time you might wonder if some of those movies went too far. Was it too optimistic to expect that by now there would be flying cars stuck in flyway traffic-jams, blocking out the sun's rays, robo-Jews selling us diamonds or doing our taxes, clones running amok, or a co-op of space-yuppies kicking it old-school on a Martian golf-course?

Has our society begun to stagnate since right around the advent of the interweb? Have we been too anchored in politics, war and silly hairstyles to make that long-promised push into the future? Or has it always been this way? The research, technology and funds always lacking because there were more important things in which to invest? Hell, had they not landscaped just one of those artificial archipelagos in Dubai you'd be trolling space-blogs in space-Starbucks right now. Am I right?

This is gonna really hurt once gravity kicks in!

No. It is clear to me now that we are right where we need to be. And so, dear reader, I hope you have learned the crucial lesson here is do not ask too many questions. Just be happy with what you have to be happy with. Thanks for listening. I will leave you with this: my final thought.

I Hate Toothpicks

Have you heard of these pointy mouth-prophylactics? Seems like everyone and their mothers are walking around with these internal-injuries-waiting-to-happen hanging from their gobs. Now, if you happen to be one of these winsome mouth-breathers, don't get upset - you should be relieved to hear that this season getting rushed to the ER after a fine meal is totally in. It's the new digestif.

It's just that when this sort of practical-seeming implement becomes an accessory - a veritable facial-appliance, if you will - that I feel it is my duty as a seminal bloggeur to declare that humanity is officially gotten out of hand. Are you going for some kind of look here? As in "look here, just in case you haven't noticed, I've got some half-masticated beefsteak in my mouth. Wanna bone?"

Plus, just think about how many trees are felled each year to help you make yourself look like a douchebag in public. Why not get with the times and invest in a sustainable resource: 

 Scorpions are nature's toothpicks.

OK, so toothpicks are handy on the go. I know what a bother it is carrying dental floss around in your pocket. If only someone would come up with some sort of carryall to conveniently store it in a visually appealing and secure way alongside your iPad, novelty glasses (when not in use) and maybe a hook for your fedora or other urban accessory. Until that great day dawns, however, you can always tuck it inside your oversized Euro-hipster neck-shawl.

Certainly, as with any great invention, the wunderkind who first mind-farted this whole toothpick concept probably figured he hit on something revolutionary, something to change the world and make life worth living. But he did not foresee this:

Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me! 

The wonderful thing about dental floss is that you use it once and throw it away. Or, barring that, toss some Cheerios on it and sell it as an artisinal urban accessory. Fortunately I don't have to deal with this toothpick dilemma personally since, due to my authentic Euro-style grille, the spaces between my teeth are large enough to allow easy access via my very own 'Converse' brand shoelaces.

This approach may not work for you but it works wonders for me as I have discovered the secret to cool: look like a goddamn slob. In fact I have removed all laces, zippers and buttons from all my clothing, footwear and neck-shawls. Exit mature-looking, well-groomed, well-adjusted loser; enter urban-chic slanty-haired, retro-douche winner. The future is looking outa'-sight!