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.