I Hate RAPE

I apologize in advance for the serious nature of this installment. But sometimes you have to man up and talk about the issues, you know? Really, just get with it and stand up against something in the world that is wrong. I mean so wrong that it hurts to live. With shit like this going on it's no wonder we are a piss-poor war-torn nation. I am of course talking about RAPE. If you aren't in that enviable group called Know: Retarded Ass People Everywhere, or RAPE, is the newest social aphorism, if you will, purportedly evolving out of the best qualities of Yuppies, Hipsters and Cryps. RAPE is simply all over the place right now and shows no signs of diminishing within our lifetimes. The movement is being aggressively promoted by the PTA (Promotion of Television for Assholes) towards the next salient level of public gratification. We have finally gone beyond reality T.V and into...you guessed it...Reality. 

Stop RAPE Now!

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I Hate "Made in America"

There's no arguing that America is great. At least not when you're sitting across from a confederate flag-toting, gun-running biker wearing face tats and a leather jacket broken in with skeptics' blood, "Mead in America"[sic] finely etched into the side of his skull. Let the record show that we advise you to not argue. But just between us, I have a "beef" with certain aspects of this American-made malarkey.

"I am gonna desecrate the shit outta you after prom, girl!"

 
Just to touch on the aforementioned "beef" I need to bring up certain issues. Mainly: everyone says buy American-made because it's better. Part of the reason - and this is legitimate - is that when you buy domestic you are ostensibly supporting what little manufacturing we have left (read: artisanal douchebag accessories) and by extension the livelihoods of our own people. Which is fine, I get it. The best part of it all, of course, is that just about everyone up and down the line takes a cut. From indentured teen to teamster. Everyone gets a slice. Name one thing more patriotic than that! Assuming the wealth gets circulated internally and the union guy isn't just running off to snag Sony flat screens (yeah, actually they fell off the back of a truck but the packaging is so good you'd never know it), there shouldn't be any kinda problem there so mind your own business; but then you have to look at the flipside. To do that you go way back into the history of manufacturing and not too far down the beginning of unionization. Now it just so happens I was churned out of the American school system (yeah: pride) so unfortunately don't know the Hatter's Union from a hole in my head. But I do know that labor unions, like every other once-great idea to come around and revolutionize the world (Yes we Ameri-can!), was not long untainted until soon enough some brave entrepreneurial bloodsucker got the bright idea there was balls-deep profit to be made on other people's hard work. I'm not saying all the good work done towards labor equality since the late 19th century isn't good, just saying that honestly, come on: who didn't foresee the corrupting potential of that one?

"It's about family, unity and lining up in height order just like
we practiced it or you get another smack on the mouth, Tommy!"

So, yes do buy domestic if you can. No, that starred 'n' striped bikini is made in Indonesia, not Indiana...Ford what? But, if you don't already know, all this skimming off the top hurts the companies you hold so dear. How can any large company afford to operate domestically with all these hands in their pockets (land tax, competition, redundancy, minimum wage, asbestos abatement)? Both skimming internally - and externally as government taxation, which is just plain wrong. Why do you think they moved their plants overseas in the first place? And don't say China has better Chinese food. Think about it: Halliburton is as American as it gets and a few years back they've had to pack up and move to slumdog Dubai. Where is the justice in that? But I have good news. We are beginning to turn it around. Yeah we persevere. Well, not with manufacturing, anyway, but the food-truck industry is on fire!

"Psst...hey sugar tikka, meet me over there for a most ironic stabbing." 

Now as irony (or god, if you swing that way) would have it I happened to notice, just as I was typing up this screed with my thumbs, that Prezbama stopped over at a Milwaukee kipple factory on his way to Wallmartland, Wisconsin; rolled up his designer Italian cuffs and glared at the crowd for half an hour while behind him projectors flashed the words "Made in U.S.A" and "Top Priority" and something called "Insourcing" in bacon lettering on forty-foot screens. When the 'speech' was over his aides used supersoakers to shoot cola into the grateful and expectant gobs of applauding natives. 

"How many times I gotta tell 'em no fat chicks in the audience?"

The one statement he did make using sound-words was, and I quote: “It would take 20 years to change the school system to train manufacturing workers.” Seems like the idea is people "often are not properly educated for positions in manufacturing," which to me sounds counter-intuitive. But then again I'm not a Chinese but an Ameri-can, and like I keep telling my teachers my homework's been repossessed.

"Angel of what?--No, no I'm just the Repo man."

No, actually it sounds like he is defeating his own argument here. But in any case, my feeling is that if you're not equipped to bolt shit onto other shit for twelve hours a day at the assembly line without losing fingers then you're not equipped to vote. I mean when I think of jobs in manufacturing - in sectors other than aerospace and robot army - I think, hey isn't this what everyone and their daddies in every flee-bitten rat-shitten town ever used to do straight out of high school or prison? Anyone can read an order form and, let's face it, you already gained expert hand-eye coordination when you started sneaking off with your old man's sticky old Playboys. Whose idea was it to put the option on the table of changing the school system to train workers for manufacturing jobs? You're not fooling me. We are way more than 20 years behind other countries in curricula which require half a brain so don't talk to me about setting back the little chilluns' whatchacallit intellectual development another deuce for pocket-science.

I Hate the Post Office

I have done business with many different post offices and I can honestly say I have never encountered one that I liked. Which is strange, you know, because when you think about it even the worst establishments will have their model outposts, places where they do it just a bit differently - go out of their way with regards to service in an effort to distinguish their location as "the best" - and it works, somewhere in the world. You might hate Subway's sandwiches but then you find one that is just right - so much so that it lets you overlook just how terrible their sandwiches are - and it's refreshing, so you go there again and again.

"For the last time - I don't want mayo on my goddamn hamburgers!"

Not so with post offices. They just get worse every time you step foot into a new one. Every time you change your identity and hitchhike over to a new city with a substandard stance on pedophile registry and walk into a post office where you've never been before it's still and truly the worst place you've ever been. And this is a place where you go in with a potentially 2 minute transaction that winds up taking at least 20 minutes. You walk out a changed person. And not in the beneficial way where your childhood traumas and criminal records are magically wiped clean, but in a prison shower kind of way. In fact studies have shown that post offices are second only to prisons in how powerless, compromised and violated they make you feel. Basically the opposite of what the t.v spots would have you believe. You know the ones: closeup on a customer's beaming face as he hands over a package; the postal worker's perfectly white grin and warm, welcoming demeanor as she takes it and completes the transaction without once breaking eye contact. In fact I have never seen a government worker smile. Never. 

"I make so much more money than all you bitches!!"

Now here I will contest that I have been to the far and away worst post office you have ever seen and it is located in the Dominican Republic of NYC, USA. And, keep in mind, I live in a fairly progressive, well-off place. It just so happens that the specific neighborhood of this place is not so progressive or well-off. Now the post office in question is housed in quite a large building. Which is good because it is always packed like a sardine can full of sweaty hippos. Any smaller of a space and there would be injuries. Like you'll see from time to time on the subway during rush hour. I mean if you walked in with asthma, bronchitis or a mild cold you would almost surely die of asphyxiation.

First class is the only way to go.

If you went there in the middle of the day you might just turn around and go home because all the gates are decidedly drawn down over the long sooty windows. It's like they don't want your business at all. But the masses are not fooled. The lines are long, and start at about half past 8 or about 1 hour before the clerks start working, and tend to stretch all the way back to the front door, snaking in on themselves like diabetic paper clips or crop circles if crop circles were made up of rheumy slack-jawed inbreeds. All too often you come through the door and find yourself right at the very end of the line. And then everyone turns around to look at you cross, as if they've never seen a white person before.

"You want stamps with that?"

Near the entrance is the automated self-serve postage machine. You can buy stamps and mail your parcels without standing on line. It rarely gets used though due to two primary factors. One (1) The size of your package must fit into the maw of the parcel box, which is tighter than a Bell-Air girl on vacation in Baltimore, and this, of course, greatly limits your choices. Especially during the holiday season for your annual mass-mailing of handmade Sybians. And two (2) Who the hell knows how to use computers anyway? Seriously, these people can't even figure out the most user-friendly, talk-you-down, touchscreen, foolproof, 1-braincell-or-less human interface machines. This is why the bank ATM's are the second worst place to find yourself in my neighborhood. But this, dear reader, is the quintessential American Dream. And it's a goddamn nightmare.

The American Dream: Freedom to be yourself.
(And everybody else can go fuck themselves.)

Now, I consider myself a moderate and patient person. Call it an evolutionary byproduct of being a wimp. But encounter me at the post office and I'm a Hell's Angel. i.e: Don't fuck with me at the post office. The post office, like the DMV is a goddamn time warp. Every minute feels like ten as your eyes bore a hole into the backs of old ladies standing at the teller window, speaking a language the teller simply does not understand. And god forbid I have to pee. Because when I wait on the long snaking line for 20 minutes before finally the morbidly obese 50-something career postal worker with the lisp declares in his disinterested monotone that I want the other long snaking line for my issue I am about ready to bite someone's ear off.

"Keep that crazy SOB away from me;
he's been inside a government facility!"

I must say this about bureaucratic due process in general, governmental institutions in particular: the funny thing is that everyone always complains about how the bureaucrats are rude, disinterested and offensively ugly and how every miniscule issue becomes an exercise in downright idiocy, but what you don't figure - and this is my one concession on the topic - is that part of the reason the bureaucrats got this way is that customers just like you are rude, pushy, impatient, haughty and stupid. Please Note: As in nature so in government, equilibrium will eventually be reached.

Truly, a meeting of equals.

There will come when this rant will be far and away obsolete; a generation which will no longer know the trials of waiting in line for their mail as if they have nothing better to do, never boil with rage watching the teller behind the 6 inch-thick glass make his way carefully over without their package in hand, taking steps like a prowling alley cat, never face-palm discreetly when they realize they're standing behind a flock of old women who don't speak English and wish to purchase a dozen money orders. Just like the present generation will never know a time without internet or reality T.V or paying at least twice what their shitty apartment is worth in rent every month. Truly, we live in an age of rusty patina.

I Hate Siblings

Lately I have been thinking that I really hate siblings. This is a new feeling for me as I've previously always wondered what it would be like to have siblings. A brother or sister to console, confide in and control. A little human fodder in the war with the folks. Someone to blame when the fish turns up dead on the living room rug or the dog is found frozen in the treehouse unable to get down or the cat is discovered ground up inside the lawnmower. (I was a problem-child). Anyway, you need siblings to be there for you when you have no friends, or when you have problems the folks can't know of. You need them to just be there, really. This had always been my reasoning. After all, is being an only child not the loneliest thing in the world?

"This nuclear winter has been the loneliest nuclear winter."

Now, you might say that, on the contrary, it's not so great, that siblings can be a pain but let me tell you this; being an only child comes with its own set of problems. You get all the attention from your folks. There is always extra money to buy you whatever you might want. There is never fighting over who gets the bigger slice of cake, the nicer toys, the defter beatings. No, it's no charmed life. You are sure to grow up an entitled, self-absorbed douche-bag. Having experienced none of the adversity of competition, of deficit for every little meaningless thing, griping every step of the way - without some bullshit to fight over - it's such a bore. Would it not make life that much more interesting to win the prize than to be spoon-fed indiscriminately? Otherwise you are sure to be a spoiled snot-nosed brat:

"Yo check it out, dog, that bird is all angry and shit!
..Nah I got this shit nigga, and what did I just tell you about touching my shit?"

And that is part of the reason why I have always wanted brothers and sisters. Because I respect the value of closeness and the intimate responsibility of consanguinity. I have family values coming out the ass. Plus, it's not healthy to indulge a kid. Without rules, borders, beatings and the occasional Ambien-laced Hot Pockets so mommy and daddy can get it on in private, the kid is bound to get out of hand - over-privileged, self-obsessed, insufferable, armed with nothing but a one way ticket to Maury's maladjusted couch of televised scorn:

"And your producer promised me one snack of my choosing, so..."

It is well known that a large family with many children helps develop - technically speaking - a high degree of "can-do attitude" and "go-for-it gusto" due the extensive support structure resulting from the intimacy dynamics of a dozen dumb-ass kids who look just like you and refuse to shut the hell up all the time.

"This year our stockings accept personal check and money order only."

These kids are going to be hard-headed, contentious bastards. And that is exactly what it takes to make it in today's world. You can just tell they will grow up real fast. You have to develop a certain resourcefulness to beat out your siblings and excel in the world, especially when your mother is a cold-blooded, poison-lipped, opportunistic gremlin who spends all your hard-borne welfare money on face-lifts and holiday-themed lingerie. You've got no choice but to murder...or band with your countless siblings and start "making it," for instance, by churning out iPhone apps to pay for food and clothing or by charming the bell-bottoms off of suburban America:

"Get happy or you and me we're gonna have big problems."

But, recently, I have been thinking maybe I don't have it so bad. As I said, I've come to hate the idea of siblings and I can't quite pinpoint why. I think part of it is that as an only child, a parent's energies are always focused on you. You are the only one there to teach, to nurture, to blame for ever being born and derailing a burgeoning career in broadcasting. You get all the benefits of your parents' undivided attention. I know what you are going to say, but before you go dismissing this all as "white-people-problems," consider this:

Humans think they're so goddamn smart!

But the best part is that, as an only child, you get to pass high-handed judgement on other families, to look down on their motley of smelly kids. You see all the siblings roll into homeroom period in identical T.J Max outfits, smelling like Pall Malls and Clorox Bleach. You see them at lunch sadly removing identical pastrami sandwiches from identical greasy brown bags. You snicker at their quaint adversity and quietly laugh at their collective misfortune. At least they have each other, right? What a joke. Better to be alone than a sad clone. In the end, all that matters is that you are one of a kind. You go home and cry alone in your room and no pipsqueaks barge in to confront or distract you from your well-deserved angst. Everything is better when you don't need to share or explain.

"Hey you don't see me crying, fag."

 You said it Fonzy! Everyone else is fags. You are one of a kind. Now go show us how to jump the shark.

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.

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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.