It's Just a Jump to the Left...

Last weekend my VCR and computer agreed on what time it was, but my alarm clock and phone did not. Who should I believe? Can’t they all just agree to disagree and move on? I guess not. I wasn’t the only one who had to deal with normally honest, hard-working electronics that were suddenly lying to me. Apparently this happened all over the place and as usual, we can blame the Government

The United States Congress has once again declared themselves masters of time and space. This mythical construct called Daylight Saving Time has been pushed back from the last weekend in Oct. to the first weekend in Nov. Thus confusing my self-updating electronics.

This is clearly a case where, once again, our politicians are in the pocket of Big Candy. The large candy conglomerates have lobbied hard for this change claiming that by pushing this arbitrary shift in space-time past Halloween, it will boost lagging candy sales. Arguing that more daylight for trick-or-treating will increase the consumption of candy corn.

This makes sense because we all know that what the average American child needs is more fucking candy. Childhood obesity be damned! Candy Corn for all! That bullshit about saving energy is just that. It’s all about the special interest Big Candy lobbying money corrupting the political process which, as we all know, is the true master of what time it is. The Sun’s position in the sky or the Earth’s orbit around it are false constructs foisted upon our society by scientific zealots out to prove that God is dead.

I have heard the arguments for and against Daylight Saving Time. I find them all equally irrelevant. The time is what the time is. Don’t fuck with it. People have been using Sun dials for thousands of years to reckon the time and I think maybe, just maybe, use of the physical universe around us as a method to determine the time might seem reasonable. But no, good ol’ Ben Franklin had a dream. This dream was to fuck with the various electronic devices of future generations such that no one really knew what time was.

There was a point in our society when we had to standardize the time because, you know, trains needed to arrive at the station when they said they would. Apparently not any more. Various States have different laws. My parents live in AZ. They don’t adhere to the arbitrary time changes. Good for them. But my State does, meaning that sometimes I am an hour ahead of them, and sometimes I am two hours ahead for them… or maybe it's the same time there that it is here. I can’t even tell any more. In other words, I have absolutely no fucking idea what time it is in Phoenix right now. Even our beloved Twin Cities was separated, not by the mighty Mississippi river, but by time itself:

“In 1965, St. Paul decided to begin its Daylight Saving Time period early to conform to most of the nation, while Minneapolis felt it should follow Minnesota's state law, which stipulated a later start date. After intense inter-city negotiations and quarreling, the cities could not agree, and so the one-hour time difference went into effect, bringing a period of great time turmoil to the cities and surrounding areas”.

Unintended consequences--you see fucking with universal constants such as the speed of light or time always has unintended consequences. If you don’t believe me just watch an episode of Star Trek. When the English Parliament was debating this issue one clever chap by the name of Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern:

"Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins and one child was born 10 minutes before 1 o'clock. ... the time of birth of the two children would be reversed. ... Such an alteration might conceivably affect the property and titles in that House."

The impact of this increasingly annoying predilection we have with changing the time around to suit our needs can have even more disastrous implications. What happens at bar close at 2:00AM when suddenly it becomes 1:00AM again? Do we get to drink for another hour. Some say yes, some say no. But what about the converse. Suddenly your late night out is cut short because some asshole in Congress has decided that regardless of what the Earth’s relative tilt and position in the solar system may be, we’re just going to arbitrarily change time… confusion over such an important issue can end in tradgedy:

“Patrons of bars that stay open past 2:00 a.m. lose one hour of drinking time on the day when Daylight Saving Time springs forward one hour. This has led to annual problems in numerous locations, and sometimes even to riots. For example, at a "time disturbance" in Athens, Ohio, site of Ohio University, over 1,000 students and other late night partiers chanted "Freedom," as they threw liquor bottles at the police attempting to control the riot.”

I propose to set the time based on you know, the time. If you really feel compelled to fuck with it, why not on the Solstice or Equinox? I’ll tell you why. Because this is a conspiracy to socially engineer the population:

"I don't really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday.)

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Stop Killing Us All

"The Superbug". It almost sounds like something really cool, like a tricked-out VW Beetle or a wicked-awesome crime fighter. But it’s not. It’s an antibiotic-resistant staph infection that is killing people. In clinical terms, a Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria.

“Well how the hell did that come about?” you ask. Overuse of Penicillin. Doctors prescribe it for the sniffles now. Overprotective mothers throw an absolute fit every time little Johnny runs a temperature demanding that doctors prescribe a litany of antibiotics.

“But I want to keep my children safe. What’s a manic, obsessive, paranoid insecure mother who has tied her entire self-worth directly to the physical and emotional health of her perfectly healthy child to do?” Bingo! More antibiotics. Let’s all immediately go to Wal-Mart and buy a case of anti-bacterial soap, Clorox anti-bacterial wipes, anti-bacterial toilet bowl cleaner and anything else that kills 99.9% of all germs.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Frankly I don’t think anything that kills 99.9% of anything is a good thing. But the problem here is that we are creating entirely new classes of diseases. Bacteria have been around for a while now. They have had millions of years to evolve into highly efficient killing machines. But apparently that's not enough for some of us. Rubbing every surface of your home down with anti-bacterial wipes is like exposing Bruce Banner to gamma rays. But instead of a giant green asshole with indestructible pants, we end up with invisible silent killers that propagate by the trillions in a matter of hours.

Thanks Mom. Because you want to keep your kid from getting a head-cold we all have to live in a world where touching absolutely fucking anything can kill us.

Sub-Prime Mortgage Fiasco

I am sick and tired of hearing about this sub-prime mortgage crisis. But I have a perspective on this that I have not heard anyone discuss. First, we need to stop blaming mortgage brokers for this in its entirety. Granted there is plenty of blame on their collective shoulders, but it doesn’t rest exclusively with them. Don’t worry. You still get to blame the banking industry as a whole.

As with most things that are catastrophically wrong with our country, the blame lies squarely with two segments of the population:

• President Bush
• The Banking Industry

I think the analysts and talking heads are missing something critical with their analysis of this issue. The increase in foreclosure rates is due (in my opinion) in large part to the changes in the bankruptcy laws sponsored and pushed through by Bush a couple years ago. I am not surprised that people have missed this connection. Frankly, most folks who analyze the markets and have a voice in the media don’t really think about bankruptcy in real-world terms. It’s just not something they can personally relate to. You see, I am one of those people. I have one of those high-risk, low-interest adjustable rate mortgages. I have gone through bankruptcy and financial hardship and had to make decisions about whether or not I could keep my home. So let me weigh in on this issue from the perspective of someone who’s been there.

Forget the macro-economic conditions that affect long term interest rates, declining wages, increased health care costs blah blah blah. Forget the pie charts and the graphs that depict the ever increasing rate of decline of the American economy and way of life. Instead, let’s focus in on a typical real life scenario for a minute and maybe the issue will become clear.

First, I don’t buy in to the idea that everyone who selected this type of mortgage is ignorant of what they were doing. Not everyone in this scenario was taken advantage of by predatory lending practices—at least not by their mortgage broker. Of course, there’s plenty of that going around, but some people simply analyzed the situation they were in and made a choice that at the time made sense for them. Let’s say you lose your job, get cancer, have an accident or are going through a divorce but want to keep your house. In the divorce example, in order to separate that asset from the marriage, the person keeping the house needs to re-finance on their own. In that case, you may not know for how long you can keep the house or what your job situation is going to be in 2 years. In that case, a 1.8% adjustable rate mortgage for a period of time lowers your short term costs until you can get back on your feet, find a job and settle in to your new life. So, in that case, an ARM makes sense. But here’s where that breaks down…

I think most folks can actually afford to make their mortgage payments. That’s not the problem. It’s managing the other debt you acquire while making a life transition that’s the problem. People end up in a scenario where they are using one of their 9 credit cards to pay the minimum monthly payments on their other cards. I’ll detail out the cycle in another post, but suffice it to say, the end result is a consumer with a mountain of high interest debt they cannot pay. The only way out of that catastrophic event is typically bankruptcy. Remember, you don’t lose your home in a bankruptcy; you can still keep that, your car, your TV etc. What you lose is the mountain of usurious debt piled on by predatory lenders outside of your mortgage company. If you can unload that high interest (28%+) debt load, you can pay your mortgage and make a fresh start and once again become a productive member of society who still owns a home where you can raise a family. It’s the path to redemption for people who’ve hit a bump in the road of life.

Well it was.

Not any more my friend. Along comes a change to the bankruptcy laws. Now it’s damned near impossible to get rid of that debt completely, you are still under the thumb of these predatory credit card lenders making escape from the cycle of usury impossible. When that minor interest increase to your ARM comes around adding that extra $100 a month to your mortgage payment the result is that you try and try to make good on your debt, always deciding who to pay this month until finally you’re overwhelmed and you lose everything.

So it’s not as simple as blaming people for entering into bad mortgages, or mortgage lenders for making risky loans… it’s the other egregious financial pressures placed on people who’s lives get turned upside down that are the real problem here. From the credit card company that jacks your interest rate up to 30% because you miss a payment, to the bank that charges you $180 in overdraft fees for checks totaling $20. That’s where the true burden is and that is what's causing this collapse.

You want someone to blame? Just go to the nearest bank branch and point your finger at the guy behind the counter. Even though it’s not his fault directly, he is as close to the problem as you’re likely to get without an armed escort.

Democrats Can't Win in 2008.

Some of you have heard me say this before, but something happened last week that is forcing me to say it again. The Democrats cannot win in 2008. There are myriad reasons for this, all of which are direct corollaries to why some people think they can’t lose:

“Anyone in support of the unpopular war in Iraq cannot win.”

Wrong. I’ll wager that come Oct. 2008 this war will be rounding out the bottom-end of the top ten most important issues the typical undecided voter is concerned with. The Republican’s have a whole year to spin this back to a “favorable” position… which is exactly eleven and a half months more than Carl Rove would actually need.

“America is so fed up with Bush and he is so unpopular that anyone even associated with a Republican can’t win.”

Wrong. The people who say this are partisans. They define themselves as belonging to one party or the other. The majority of voters in this country identify themselves as “independent”. I put quotes around that because what they mean is that they will vote for either party’s candidate… not that they vote for independent candidates. They don’t know the difference between those two things.

We are sick of being deceived and lied to and told that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11 or the war on terror(ism).

Wrong. Most people actually believe the lies. I don’t have the time right now to reference the polls, but they are out there for the industrious reader.

We’re ready for a female or black leader (read Clinton or Obama).

There it is. You can forget all the other reasons above because none of them matter. The real reason the Democrats can’t win is because they will almost certainly choose to nominate one of two candidates:

1. A black man whose middle name is Hussein and whose last name rhymes with Osama.
2. A woman that most women hate and don’t respect.
   

“Oh but Scott, I think the American people are smart enough to see past that obvious B.S. There are enough enlightened, non-racist and non-gender discriminating Americans to overcome that kind of obstacle.”

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You’re wrong. You’re wrong. You’re wrong. So very very wrong.

Last week I was listening to a radio show… my favorite non-political talk radio show (The Mischke Broadcast) and I heard a black female caller say something I will never, ever forget. I’ll do my best to quote this:

Caller: “I would never vote for that black man. Obama. Ya know why? Ya know what his middle name is? It’s Osama! That’s right. That’s why black people don’t like him.”

Host: “Is it, is that his middle name? Let’s find that out. (to assistant) Find out what Barak Obama’s middle name is for me.”

Caller: “That’s what I heard.”

Host: “And that’s why you wouldn’t vote for him? I mean my father’s middle name was Hitler and I think he was a pretty upstanding citizen.”

Caller: “I’m not voting for nobody named Osama”

Host: “It’s Hussein. Barack Obama’s middle name isn’t Osama. It’s Hussein.”

Caller: “Well whatever. Same thing.”

Host: *chuckles*

Think that one through. Not only does this woman not know anything about the candidate, but she is making snap racial decisions (a black woman mind you). She can’t distinguish the difference between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden and Barack Obama. Just like the polls indicate most Americans think Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. Listen, the number of Florida voters who voted for Bush in 2000 who thought he was his father was five times higher than the margin of his victory. They didn’t even know who the hell the guy was. But they recognized the name: “Yeah, OK, I know that guy. Let me just punch this hanging chad out like Mike Tyson punching a hole through the innocent face of democracy itself.”

I challenge you to randomly ask women you may consider your typical, average undecided voter (find someone who calls themselves a small “i” independent) what they think about Hillary Clinton. I have done this. The answers range from: “She’s a bitch.” to “I couldn’t vote for someone who let their husband cheat on them.” to “I just don’t like her (see the previous two responses)”. Women don’t respect her. And I’ll let you in on a little secret… most American men don’t feel comfortable voting for a woman because, frankly, they have such a low opinion of their own wives.

There are enough redneck, backward, uneducated, racist, sexist, ignorant morons in this country to fill a… well to fill a country--a country somewhat smaller than Canada and slightly to the South. I hope I am wrong. Really I do. Because there is a part of me, albeit buried deep deep beneath a crusty exterior of pragmatic cynicism that really wants to be wrong about this. Kind of like the feeling I get every time get pulled over for speeding: “I bet this cop will cut me break because I wasn’t really going that fast or endangering anyone and he can see that I don’t have a very nice car and probably can’t afford an expensive ticket.”

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong…

Suck for a Buck? Fuck Off.

This weekend I enjoyed what was probably the last patio night of season at my local watering hole. I witnessed something that has been bothering me for years. The bachelorette party. Frankly, it’s disgusting. What is it that drives otherwise dignified women to carry around giant dildos in public, wear strings of necklaces with little penises on them and tape suckers to their t-shirts declaring proudly that you can “Suck for a Buck.”?

“Last fling before the ring!” Bite me. Your fiancé must be so proud.

This isn’t intended to be an indictment of all bachelorette parties, or all women for that matter. But there is something unique to this event that stirs a particular class of women into a group of uninhibited, obnoxious, self absorbed, attention-seeking whores with a sense of entitlement the size of a small moon. I mean, aren’t there male strip clubs for this sort of thing? No. Because what they seek is not sexual in any real way. What they seek is attention—from everyone. I am trying to come up with the male equivalent here. Perhaps someone can help. Perhaps the male equivalent is pretty much how men act all the time without the need for an event to justify the behavior… but I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a group of men running around with vaginas and boobies taped to their shirts walking up to every woman in the bar demanding a dollar for some candy that’s duct-taped to their asses while throwing copies of Penthouse all over the table.

This isn’t limited to a specific age group either. I’ve seen this behavior in groups ranging in age from 20 to 50. What is the deal with demanding money or free drinks from strangers because you’re getting married? One group was in their 30’s. Most of these women were already married. The combined value of their wedding rings alone was probably on the order of $75,000. If they’re that hard up for cash maybe they shouldn’t have asked their husbands to fork over 3 months’ salary to buy those diamond monstrosities obtained from exploited South African laborers.

There were two such groups who entered the bar last Saturday night. They arrived in a party bus (one painted entirely pink) and invaded the bar like a barbarian horde--literally pillaging. Now I know what Iceland felt like when the Vikings arrived. I have news for you ladies. The reason men buy you drinks and generally spend money on you is because we are hoping you will have sex with us. Now, you’re getting married. The chances of me getting into your pants have gone from 1% to zero. You’ve now past the threshold of usefulness to the average male patron. Once you put that ring on, you’re about as welcome at the bar stool next to a guy as the old man who smells funny and wants to talk about how the Vietnam war was part of a larger conspiracy to fund the military industrial complex ultimately culminating in the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem in order to bring about the second-coming of Christ.

Not very welcome.

You’re not cute. You’re not funny and at this point you’re not even worth trying to sleep with. So please take your “suck for a buck” lollipop, shove it up your ass, get out of my face and let me drink my beer.

It is NOT okay to...

Spit.

Sorry, it just isn’t. In particular there are two places it’s specifically wrong to spit:

1.) The bathroom
2.) Everywhere else

I swear to all things holy and just that at least one full third of the adult male population spits directly into the urinal in public restrooms while relieving themselves. What the fuck is this compulsion about? I am not the only one who can’t figure this out.

What's with the spitting in the urinal?

All of my coworkers spit into urinals?

Men's bathroom habits

I could go on. The point is, this is a universal phenomenon for which there is absolutely no excuse or explanation. The only reason to be spitting anywhere near a bathroom is because you’ve been vomiting so hard that you are actually bleeding from the eyes. If that’s you, I’ll give you a pass. Let me be clear about to whom I am referring here. These are the habitual spitters. These are people who walk outside and immediately start spitting. Then spit again. This goes on about every 15 seconds. I'm not even sure they are aware they are doing it. They can carry on a conversation with their spitting brethren alternating their spitting so that a steady stream of spit is constantly flying around and building up on the sidewalk.

Back to the Urinal Spitters.

“But I need to spit, so isn’t it better that I do it in the urinal?” Fuck you. You do not NEED to spit (with the exception of the aforementioned bleeding from the eyes scenario). You don’t sit at the table in a restaurant and spit on the floor or in a spittoon or in a little plastic cup, you wait until you are outside or in front of a urinal. Once there, let the festival of unnecessary expectoration begin. You are capable of controlling this so exercise a little self-control and dignity and behave like a human who is cognizant of the fact that we live a fucking society. Not everyone in this society is happy to wade through a river of your saliva.

My God. Who are these people?

There are some generalizations and stereotypes I would like to make specifically relating to the "Urinal Spitters" (you know who you are). Obviously the Urinal Spitter is a man. Though rare, I have seen women habitually spit outside, but never at a urinal. So this is a guy thing. There also seems to be a racial component to this. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a black, Asian or Hispanic man do this--this is a white guy thing. Once men reach a certain age this compulsion seems to fade. I see very few of America’s greatest generation spitting into a stream of their own urine. So the universe of common violators are white males typically ranging in age from 20-40. Of this universe I estimate that fully half are wearing baseball caps. If under the age of 27 these baseball caps are turned backwards. As men age the baseball cap tends to start turning itself forward. This demographic tends to be outwardly social but often displays a high degree of self absorption indicating they mimic the behavior of others in order to “fit in” (hence the identical baseball caps). Finally, with this display of spitting at their pee, I can only assume that this is an attempt to somehow show dominion over their own urine. Disturbing. Do you know what this profile is? Who else fits this profile? Go on, you’re thinking it…

Serial killers.

Yes. The bottom line here is the next time you see some 26 year old jock with an Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt and a Minnesota Twins baseball cap spitting at a urinal, you should immediately call the police. He is only one expectorating step away from going on a homicidal rampage.

P.S. - Failure to adhere to acceptable etiquette practices can have disastrous results. See: Male Restroom Etiquette

Your Participation Required

As a result of writing this blog I’ve realized that there are a few words in the English language that I almost yearn to use more often… “yearn” being one of them. Here’s a partial list of words that I don’t hear often enough:

• Conundrum
• Nonplussed
• Ennui
• Chagrined
• Umbrage
• Shenanigans
• Doppelgänger
• Confound
• Supercilious
• Tomfoolery (Thanks Michael F.)
• Screed (Thanks Michael F.)
• Rigmarole (Thanks Marc Conklin)
• Grandiloquent (Thanks Patina)
• Davenport (Thanks Sarah)

I’ll add to this as the days progress. This will serve as my online repository of words I should use more often.

Anything to add? Please remember, your participation is mandatory.

Who's Stupid Now?

I like to watch the TV news with the volume all the way off. Not because it’s too depressing, but it’s more fun that way. Like a game. However, this game is becoming increasingly boring. You see, the challenge is to try to figure out the content of the story by just interpreting the images and the expressions on people’s faces. It’s an exercise in perception. But something has gone terribly wrong over the last few years. There is simply no challenge any more.

Last night I saw the headline, “Duck Hunter Rescued” flash atop the screen. Immediately I began asking myself the questions: “Where was he lost? How long had he been missing? Was the rescue daring or intriguing in some way?” This is just the sort of story that is fun because I have no historical reference for the participants or the situation. I mean, it’s not like a story where Bush is on the screen and I have to guess whether or not he is doing or saying something stupid. This one could be a real puzzler.

I was excited.

The next shot is of two guys sitting, press-conference style, one guy with his mullet flowing freely and one wearing duck hunting camouflage gear. “Who rescued who? I ask myself--forgetting for a moment that at least one of these guys actually dressed up in duck hunting gear for the purpose of giving this interview.

Camo guy looked very serious, he was obviously the rescuer, while mullet man was obviously the idiot who got lost. But how was this rescue effected? Then a slow, menacing zoom shot of an old Nokia 6010 cel phone lingered on the screen.

For the love of all things holy.

So this is it. Some idiot wanders into a field and some other guy sees him and uses his cel phone to “rescue” him? This was the “news”, the big dramatic story. How banal. What does this say about us and our news? Have we gotten so stupid that anything more complicated would not be possible for the average viewer to follow or understand?

Of course.

But the underlying issue here is much more sinister. We have officially lost the ability to discriminate between the routine and the extraordinary. Everything is equally important. Equally newsworthy. “Girl falls down steps and skins knee” is just as compelling a headline as “Iran nukes Israel”. I don’t blame the media for the ever-increasing dumbing-down of the news or TV in general. I don’t believe there is any conspiracy to create a country of idiots who run around buying bacteria-killing toilet paper at Wal-Mart and selling hamburgers to one another. Trust me, if people didn't watch it, it wouldn't be on. The inescapable conclusion? We’re stupid.

I'm not sure if we're getting dumber or if we were always this dumb but much less obvious about it. Maybe it's that we're no longer ashamed of being dumb. I just don't know. Maybe that's because I have also become too stupid to think my way through the problem. I am not sure of that either.

I feel a pattern coming on.

All this has the makings of a classic philosophical conundrum. "If a tree fell in the forest and no one was there to hear it, except for some functionally retarded duck hunter, would it make a noise?" The answer is yes. But it wouldn't be the noise of a tree falling. It would be the noise of some mullet-headed hick screaming in pain because he tied the tree to the bumper of his '96 F150 pickup to try to move it three feet to the left so he could build a better duck blind, thereby forcing the tree to fall on his truck crushing the can of Budweiser he had tucked in between his legs directly into his testicles.

If Charles Darwin were alive today, I would simply sit him down to watch the news and say: “Nice theory. So how do you explain this one Chuck? How come these people keep procreating?” He would remove his glasses with a pained expression and rub his temples while shaking his head and repeating… “Where did I go wrong? Where did I go wrong?”

Please -Check Here- to be Judged

I just hit my 90 day status as a new employee. This means I now have access the 401K, insurance programs, etc. This also means I have a bunch of new forms to fill out. I am routinely confronted with forms--as are we all. Forms for new insurance coverage, warranty claim forms, new customer forms, account registration forms, new credit card application forms… the list goes on. Especially online... websites of all shapes and sizes have forms. But since I have been divorced I have noticed a part of the form I never paid much attention to before: "Marital Status".

As someone in the marketing business, I understand the drive to know your demographic. But are there really more than two states of marital status? You are either married or you are not. Right? Why does my bank need to know I am divorced in order to grant me access to the online bill pay system? Isn't "Not Married" a sufficient answer? I can see this if you are registering for an online dating service (really the only circumstance under which you might actually lie), but I just want to see how my 401K is doing.


Dear Anonymous Automated Online Form Generation System,

Mind your own fucking business! Listen, I am not particularly embarrassed about the fact that I am divorced. It wasn’t my idea. I feel I kept up my part of the “for better or for worse” contract. But it’s not something I am proud of either. It’s called a “failed marriage”. I was part of that. I was part of the failure. There’s no way around that one. Thanks for the reminder asshole.

Where’s the fucking check box for: “Married, but unhappy about it.” or “Married, but my husband is cheating on me and we sleep in separate rooms.”? Where’s the box for: “Re-Married for the 4th time because I am too emotionally needy to forge a life comprised of mutual respect and dignity.”? I’ll tell you where that it is. It’s in a database field filed under “None of your God damned business” – right where my divorce papers should be.

Like it or not there is a stigma about divorce in this country. I cringe at every late-night car financing commercial I see:

Bad Credit? – No Problem!
Bankruptcy? – No Problem!
Divorce? – No Problem!

One of these kids doesn’t belong.

In other words: “Are you a loser? Have you failed in the game of life? Are you a lazy, stupid drain on our otherwise productive society? If yes, I’ve got the product for you!” What the fuck does being divorced have to do your ability to finance a car? You either have the money and the credit or you do not.

Bad Credit?
Bankruptcy?
Syphilis?
Chronic Halitosis?
Child Abuser?
Crippling Emotional Dependencies?
Convicted Sex Offender?
Or God forbid… DIVORCED?

No Problem!

Yeah? Well I have a fucking problem. You can take your self-righteous, stigmatizing, homogeneous, stereotyping form and shove it up your ass.

Love,

Scott

P.S. – Bite me Ukraine.


You see, the thing is, these forms are like a little life-synopsis. They are the digital age's Cliff's Notes of "This is Your Life". These are the daily gauges of how many times you've been around the sun, how successful you are and your relative position in the world. I used to get to that question and proudly answer: "Single! Yes that's right, I am living the single life of a bachelor on the move. The world is a wilderness of hope and opportunity and I am ready to stake my claim." Then I proudly answered: "Married! Yep, that's me--a mature, responsible adult building a life with someone and creating the foundation for a strong family." Who the hell wants to say: "Divorced! Yeah... that was pretty fucked up right there."?

I'll tell you who. Pathetic narcissists with a sense of self-entitlement that only victim-hood can validate, or self-important misanthropes that pride themselves on screwing people over to get what they want.

Can I opt out?

Unashamed

I’ve been feeling disconnected lately. Not in any real specific way, but a general sort of feeling that I am outside looking in. You know that guy at a party standing in the corner all alone next to a house plant? I’m the house plant. When this happens it tends to manifest itself in little ways. You can’t find your keys, your shoe laces break, your car’s alignment suddenly starts pulling to the left and you leave your phone on the counter at the deli. Things just don’t work right. As if the Universe is trying to say: “You don’t quite belong here right now, I’ll get back to you.”

It’s exhausting.

I was thinking that I have no energy to keep my house clean or go to the grocery store and that’s just contributing to the malaise--the ever-ubiquitous self fulfilling prophecy. But I think it’s something more than just being tired or lazy. I think we’re all tired and lazy. The difference between those that fall into despair versus those that look the universe straight in the eye and say: “Put me back in coach. I’m ready to play again!” is the concept of shame. Shame is a powerful motivator. I don’t shower in the morning because I like to smell good. I shower because if I don’t, I’ll look (and smell) like hell and be ashamed of it. Shame is what makes you go to the grocery store and clean your kitchen when it would just be easier to order another pizza. I worry that I have run out of shame.

To demonstrate to me that even these thoughts are unoriginal, unimaginative and generally unimportant, the Universe has been kind enough to deliver the story I really wanted to tell today through someone else who does it far better than I ever could. As if to say: "Hey, we really don't need your insight today, we've got it covered. I'll get back to you"

Therefore I unashamedly provide this link: Time to Reflect - (T.D. Mischke's Blog is now inactive)

Read it.

Your Children are Stupid and Irritating

I went to Applefest in Bayfield, WI this weekend and watched a parade. It was your typical small town parade with a bunch of high school marching bands and 50 year old alcoholics, driving even older cars, throwing candy at the crowd. Nothing makes you reconsider your position on mandatory sterilization like a parade.

A parade is like a microcosm of our society gone awry. It’s like an overpopulated post-apocalyptic, greed-induced, anarchistic, capitalist frenzy of a freak show that makes “Beyond the Thunderdome” look like a PTA meeting. For some reason parents turn their “I’m Responsible for My Child’s Actions System” (IRM-CAS) down to zero. Granted, on a scale of one to ten (it should go to eleven), it’s usually on setting one any way. Zero being, you know, just that much more annoying.

“Oh look. Ethan is having so much fun stealing candy found on the street from other children. Just look at him spilling his oversized soda on that guy and repeatedly poking that lady in the face by waving his little plastic sword wildly in the air. See that old man in the wheel chair that got here three hours early to see his grand-daughter play in the parade just one last time before he dies? I’m sure he’s not at all annoyed by the fact that my little Ethan is now standing directly in front him with his big novelty cowboy hat blocking the view. Isn’t that cute?”

No. No. A thousand times no.

At this point many of you are chuckling and saying to yourselves: “I hate that. I’m glad my kid isn’t like that.” My friend, you just turned your IRM-CAS completely off. Trust me, your kids may be adorable to you, but to the rest of us, they’re loud, obnoxious little trolls designed to test our patience. Your kids, like everyone else’s, are self absorbed, single minded need machines with an unquenchable thirst for destruction. They’re like little Terminators, but instead of Sarah Connor, they hunt and kill the happiness of every adult stranger they encounter.

“But they’re just kids, what do you expect?” I know. I get that. Trust me, when I was five years old I couldn’t sit still for an hour or even explain, in the most rudimentary of ways, how general relativity or Newtonian physics affects our understanding of the universe. I was stupid and irritating.

Saying: “Well he’s just being a kid so it’s OK for him to scream and throw ice cream at passers-by.” is like saying: “It’s OK that I went to the playground, pissed myself and screamed obscenities from the top of the jungle gym because I was really really drunk”. It’s just not an excuse. Being a kid doesn’t somehow make you less annoying or stupid just like being drunk doesn’t make me less annoying or stupid. Trust me, I’ve seen video.

“Oh she’s so smart, she’s already reading at a 3rd grade level.” Yeah? Well I’ve got news for you… 3rd graders are idiots.

The Japanese are Fucking Hilarious!

I don’t know why, but there is something inherent in the Japanese culture that makes them the funniest people on the planet.

All I had to do was Google the phrase “Japanese Comedy” and the first thing I saw was hilarious: Elevating Loo . This is a culture worth admiring.

Remember the show Banzai? It’s not even Japanese, it’s British. But it was meant to look Japanese and that makes it all the more funny: “Interesting Penalty Shootout Conundrum! – One-legged kicker versus one-armed goalie. Who will win?!?!? Bet now.”

Awesome.

A couple months ago I spent 8 consecutive hours in a hotel room watching some show where contestants dressed up in costumes and attempted an obstacle course. Not very funny right? Wrong. Imagine some announcer yelling the play by play: “She goes for the rope-swing! Can she do it? Her daughter is watching! Oh noooo! She falls in! She brings shame and disgrace to her family!”

As a result of writing this, I think I have figured out why the Japanese are so damn funny. It’s the exclamation points!

De-funification

Today, I will post two articles. I understand the last post about the smoking ban has a lot of basic, almost knee-jerk arguments that a third grader with a plastic spork could poke holes in. It also contributes very little new or interesting to the debate. I present it however as a contextual reference for the real issue which I present now.

I want to have fun.

Frankly I am not that concerned about bar owners losing money, waitresses getting lung cancer, rising health care costs or any of the issues typically brought up. The real result of this ban is that everyone (and I mean everyone) will have just a little less fun. Most people don’t smoke. Most people in a given bar on a Friday night don’t smoke. But these non-smokers choose to go to these smoke-filled bars for a reason. That reason is fun. Smokers are more fun. They drink more, stay later, tip bigger, buy more rounds for strangers and are generally the loose cannons of our society. We like that about them. But when you hear: “I think the smoking ban is good because we have the right to breathe clean air” what they really mean is: “I want to go out and have fun like them but don’t like the consequences of smelling bad.” Sorry kids, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Yes, you may smell better when you get home at 10:00pm from that “wild” Saturday night at Bennigan’s, but I promise that you also had less fun, no matter how much you try to rationalize it.

Bars are places we go to be naughty. Yes, drinking and smoking are bad for us—that’s the fucking point. I want to be able to go to a strip club and get a lap dance and drink straight whiskey while smoking a cigar and a cigarette at the same time as I am eating a steak the size of my head.

This isn’t a public health issue or a private property issue as much as it is the opening salvo of a new kind of class war. This is a group of people who don’t like something and then use the force of the State to inflict their lifestyles onto others because seeing others have more fun than them makes them angry and regretful. Ask ten people in favor of this ban why and look them in the eyes when they tell you’re their “legitimate” reasons. I guaran-god-damn-tee you that eight of them won’t look you back in they eye when spew out their reasons… all of which rhyme with, and are, bullshit.

Minnesota Freedom to Breathe Act (Smoking Ban)

For those of you who know me, you can infer from the headline that I am about to launch into a tirade of biblical proportions. The “Freedom to Breathe Act” went into effect at midnight Oct. 1, 2007 creating a statewide indoor smoking ban. I am against this law. But rather than embark on a self-indulgent treatise about personal freedom and liberty (which I promise I will do at some point), I have decided to state the arguments in favor of this legislation and offer a dispassionate rebuttal for each.

The public health interest outweighs the property rights arguments.
This is like suspending habeas corpus or wire tapping every American because some of them might be communists. Sure, maybe some of them are. Are we really saying that second hand smoke is more important than property rights? Really? Are you sure?

Smoke-filled bars pose a significant health risk to patrons and employees.
We already have workplace air quality standards set by OSHA. I challenge anyone to find a bar (even the smokiest in town) that did not comply with OSHA clean air standards before the ban. What about loading docks, coal mines and back yard BBQ’s? The mother of all passive smoking studies, and probably the largest that will ever appear because of its enormous cost and effort, came from the labs of research professors James Enstrom of UCLA and Geoffrey Kabat of the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Published in the prestigous British Medical Journal in 2003, this 39-year analysis of 35,561 Californians found no “causal relationship between exposure to [passive smoke] and tobacco-related mortality,” adding, however “a small effect” can’t be ruled out. That’s a lot different than saying it’s the 3rd largest killer in the U.S. as some claim.

In other states, bars and restaurants saw an increase in business after the ban.
Well let’s ask the bar owners and these poor victimized servers in MN what the effects have been because it's not just the sales numbers. I quote a post from buzz.mn: “As a server in Minnesota who has worked both before and after the smoking ban, I can personally attest to the financial difficulties this has caused people in my line of work. I never see this addressed, so I'll go ahead and say this. And let me begin by saying that I don't have any hard proof and that I realize this isn't absolute by any means, but as a server you do see trends. In general, people who smoke tend to stay longer, spend more money, and tip better. Quite frankly, if smoking is keeping away people who are so uptight that they can't stand a little smoke IN A BAR, I don't want your 8% tip after you've spent the whole time complaining and trying to get money taken off your bill.

Here's the inherent problem. By and large, the vast majority of the people who really, truly support the service industry either smoke or don't really mind it. These smoking bans are aimed at the people who venture out of their town homes once a month for a glass of house wine and a chicken caesar salad. Great, you have a right to go out too. That's why there are non-smoking sections and non-smoking establishments. But those people aren't the ones who are spending real money at bars and restaurants.”
- Lynne36

This will help people quit smoking, which is good.
No it won't. As always, follow the money. The surgeon general proudly declared that no amount of second hand smoke is safe, then quit and went to work for one of the world’s largest manufacturer’s of nicotine replacement products. Blue Cross Blue Shield of MN and the state jointly sued the tobacco industry for the big “tobacco settlement”. Then we needed a health impact fee. Where’d that money go Blue Cross? There is no compelling evidence (beyond what I can only call junk science) that indicates passive smoke has a causal relationship with lung cancer or anything else for that matter. It’s a matter of carcinogen amounts. Normally our bodies can diffuse the carcinogens we take in on a daily basis because of their small amount. Passive smoke falls into this category, in much the same way as standing on a street corner and breathing in the exhaust from a Toyota Prius as it drives by. And no… it won’t cause any significant number of people to quit smoking. Trust me.

Smokers cost us taxpayers millions or billions of dollars in health care costs.
Contributions to the tax base by smokers as well as the tobacco settlement outweigh costs of health care shouldered by the rest of the rest of public. Smokers contribute more to health care revenue by orders of magnitude than any other class.

We need to protect children from the dangers of tobacco use.
What the fuck are they doing in a bar?

We have a right to go to smoke free places too.
Before the smoking bans in the metro, there was about 143 bars and restaurants (in the city of Minneapolis alone) that were already non-smoking. Statewide there were over 450 smoke-free options. So if you want to go out to dinner or socialize with friends in a smoke-free environment, take your pick.

Suburban Bovine Dysphoria

I attended my girlfriend’s 10 year high school reunion this weekend. A disappointment to say the least. There was a pretty good band playing, not a single person danced all night (with the exception of my girlfriend and I). In fact, only a handful of people even ventured more than 8 feet from the bar all night, which was around the corner from the tables and dance floor.

Essentially it was a group of a couple hundred people who didn’t like each other crowding around a bar in the middle of International Market Square. There wasn’t a single cat fight and no one got so drunk they couldn’t stand. While at the same time, there was not a soul in sight who seemed even remotely interesting to talk to. The hostility was so guarded and contained you could barely whisper and it would vanish into thin air. It was like a passive aggressive convention combined with an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting gone horribly wrong. Lame.

I was trying to figure out why this group of people seemed so boring. Then I remembered something I felt when I first moved to the Twin Cities.

This was a reunion for people who grew up in Maple Grove and Osseo. For the most part, these people all still live in the metro area. Their name tags read like a suburban sprawl guidebook: Burnsville, Hopkins, Maple Grove, Fridley, Apple Valley. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you where these suburbs are. I’ve lived here 18 years and I still have no idea which direction Apple Valley is from Minneapolis.

I am speaking to you suburbanites now. Help me understand this bizarre phenomenon. What makes you think that you are somehow different from one another? Like you’re from different cities and as a result have a unique identifiable culture?

You don’t.

You are all from the same city. The city is Minneapolis/St. Paul, or better yet the Twin Cities. That’s where you are from. Not Maple-Pine-Grove-Park-Valley-Dale. You’re about as different from one another as two cocker spaniels from the same litter. Sure, maybe one of you has a brown spot over the left ear, but when you get together you just drool, run around in circles and wreck the furniture. I’ve never seen so many people drop their drinks and then walk through broken glass in my life.

For some reason however, this stratification seems desperately important to you. Maybe it started as high school rivalry. I don’t know. I don’t even pretend to understand it. It seems that without someone from a different suburb in your midst you have nothing to say. As though, being from the same suburb means you all share the same script and therefore have no need to read it to one another. The point is, when you get a group of people together all from the same suburb, they turn into cows. They huddle together on one side of the field, drink miller light from a bottle, and occasionally shit on each other.