State of the Disunion

Tonight is the last time President Bush gets to tell us that the State of our union is strong. I for one, am sick of the lie. Just once, I’d like the President to walk down the congressional aisle, soberly ignore all the people reaching out to him, stride right up to that podium and say: “My fellow Americans the state of our union is… well, how should I put this? Ummm, we’re fucked. My bad.”

The most annoying part of the State of the Union Address is when they have these planted people in the audience that are supposed to be representative of the typical or (more often) the extraordinary American who has overcome adversity and still manged to capture the American Dream. There’s the widowed 24 year old black woman with newborn twins whose husband just died in Iraq but she is still supportive of what he was doing and will, herself, soldier on. Or the octogenarian who still works 3 jobs even though he’s got lung cancer and is missing a foot. These people are meant to inspire us to believe the lie. I always feel sorry for them. They always seem to have this expression on their face like they know they’re being used, but somehow they got tricked into this like a crack addict gets tricked into prostitution. It’s just... dirty.

Since this is his last State of the Union Address, I’d like to see President Bush pull out all the stops and give us examples of what’s really going on:

“My fellow Americans, tonight I stand before you humbled. Things have not really being going according to plan. For example I met a young woman from Omaha Nebraska named Michelle Nelson. Michelle works hard and plays by the rules. She finished college with honors, got married and had a son. Sadly, the $60,000 in student loans combined with the $20,000 in high interest credit card debt forced her and her husband into a sub-prime mortgage which has now doubled. Money got tight, the fighting never stopped. Her husband started drinking when the bank forclosed on their home. Some health problems forced the couple to seek emergency medical care and their combined insurance denied the claim forcing them into bankruptcy. Which, of course, has been changed during my administration to make it almost impossible to declare, thereby closing the only real avenue to financial recovery. Michelle couldn’t be here tonight. She killed herself 3 days ago. But her orphaned child, now a ward of the state, is here and looks forward to seeing his daddy again when he completes his 4 year prison sentence for drunk driving.”

May God continue to bless the United States of America.

Shut Up and Take My Money.

There is an employee of a Blockbuster Video near my house who really cares about his job. Simply put, he’s passionate about renting movies and signing people up for their Rewards Program. That sounds like a good thing at first glance, but trust me… it’s not. All that good will and intent has somehow manifested itself into a pathetic, awkwardly enthusiastic stage persona. When he puts on that little blue shirt he is “in character” he’s… “on” for lack of a better word. It’s an ugly, transparent performance. Imagine the smarmiest, most predictably pedantic used car salesman you can think of, then give him the brain of 14 year old girl and put him in the body of the “comic book guy” from the Simpsons.

There you go.

Now you’re getting the picture. I suspect a shiver just went down your spine. “Hey how ya doin’? Cold enough for ya?” “Oh sorry we’re closed… JUST KIDDING! Ha ha ha.” “Hey, I see you’re looking at older movies, you should be on our rewards program.” This fucking guy. He pushes that God damned rewards program like a crack dealer. It is high pressure sales of the lowest possible order:

Me: “No Thanks.”
Blockbuster Guy: “But ya know, it’s free to sign up and you could get one of those movies today for free.”
Me: “I Think I’ll pass.”
Blockbuster Guy: “Are ya sure, because looking at your history, it could have saved you some money. It’s a really good deal.”
Me: “I’m good.”
Blockbuster Guy: “It just takes a minute to fill out the form.”
Me: [silence]

I cringe every time I see him and always try to get in line at the other register because, I don’t want the fucking rewards card. I’m sure it is a great deal. Yes, I understand that with my rental history you could have saved me $5 already… I simply don’t give a fuck. I want to take my movies and get the hell out of this bright, obnoxious store. A few weeks back, I was standing in line behind 2 other people at the “other register”. There is never a line at his. He told the next guy in line to “Come on over.” “No waiting, aisle 2! Ha ha ha!”. The guy looked over at him and said something that almost restored my faith in humanity:

Guy in Line: “No. I think I’ll stay here. I don’t want to deal with your sales pitch.”
BlockBuster Guy: Oh c’mon, I won’t give the sales pitch.”
Guy in Line: “No, I think I’ll just wait here in this line… I don’t want to deal with you.”
Blockbuster Guy: “Guess I did something wrong.”
Guy in Line: “Yes.”

My hero.

Then Blockbuster Guy told the next person in line (an older lady) that she should come over to his register and in his unflappable way repeated his earlier call: “No waiting, aisle 2.” She just looked up and shook her head at him. Then he looked at me and I did the same. It was a mutiny. We were four people deep at this register waiting for the quiet, 16 year kid to scan our DVD’s and let us be on our way without a word.

We were rebelling against, not just this guy, but the whole false sense of urgency and consumerism that pervades the place. I realized then that we were all pissed about being there in the first place. We were all mad that Blockbuster has pretty much driven out all the competition leaving us with little choice. We felt guilty and dirty for contributing to the downfall of Western society and this guy… this poor guy was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

For one brief moment, four complete strangers united. I live for these moments. We banned together and said: “No more bullshit. Not today my friend.” It was a small victory that came at the expense of this guy’s ego and severely undermined his sense of self worth.

That made it all the sweeter.

Mini Me

OK, so you may have noticed a serious drop in content being produced by your’s truly. It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s just that maybe I don’t love you all that much. In reality, I’ve been busy so I wanted to take this opportunity to provide my mea culpa and present to you my new shiny 2007 Mini Cooper "S" - actual photo.

Yes. I finally bought a car. If you know me, then you know how long long long overdue this event is. But the stress of this effort, combined with an abnormally vigorous work schedule over the last week has left me spent.

This car rocks. I had forgotten how much a new car can really invigorate one’s life… almost like a (pun intended) new lease on life. Things look more colorful, people smell better and one can drive around town comfortable in the knowledge that you just don’t give a fuck about all those assholes out there. Suddenly, I’m above it all.

Wanna race?

Today is Broken

There’s something wrong with today. Am I the only who noticed this? My universe seems to be functioning within the manufacturer’s tolerances, but everyone else seems to be having a hard time of it. Well, not everyone. There is a group of people out there who always seem to walk on the edge of complete confusion. Most days these people somehow muddle through. You know the type, they get on the elevator without knowing which floor they are going to beforehand, then look at all the buttons in a perplexed, panicky horror. They just don’t think ahead enough. It’s as though they took the advice to “live in the moment” just a little too literally.

It doesn’t take much to send these already confounded folks over the edge. Usually a personal problem is the culprit. As such, their cataclysmic collapse into chaos goes generally un-noticed by the rest of us. But every now and then, you see it occur en masse. That’s when you know the day is broken. There’s just something wrong with the universe and the fragile state of their condition cannot withstand it.

Today I witnessed the aforementioned elevator problem. How exactly do two people get on an elevator, watch the doors close and then not know what to do next? I’m reasonably certain they have used an elevator before. How the hell do you not know that you need to know the floor number? I mean, isn’t that pretty much inherent in the concept of the elevator in the first place? Perhaps we need to put up large placards that read: “Warning! To use this machine, you must know why.”

On that same elevator ride, a different person moved their fingers around the buttons for at least 10 seconds searching for the “6” button. For a building with only 6 floors, that’s a pretty long time. He was articulating his thoughts as he searched… moving his index finger in circles over the panel of brightly lit buttons: “Where’s six? Ummm. Six? I can’t find six.”

IT’S RIGHT FUCKING THERE... NEXT TO FIVE!!!

I saw a woman struggling to open the door to the entrance of my building. She tried and tried but the door would not yield. I watched this for a while. After failing she attempted to think through her problem. She looked around for help, peered through the glass door. Looked up at the sky for a bit (perhaps hoping for some divine intervention) and after a long pause… she tried the same door again. You see, it’s a double door. There are two doors in this entrance, one of which is always locked. It never occurred to her to try the other door. So she was forced to stand there outside and wait for someone to come out. She simply gave up. The quandary with which she was confronted was simply too difficult.

Then there are all the occurrences of the little things, people not watching where they are walking, people spending 5 minutes negotiating a 45 point parallel parking maneuver only to see that they parked in front of a fire hydrant, and more generally just a lot of people walking about with their mouths open, looking nervously from side to side like a chipmunk in an owl sanctuary. I don’t know how these people get through life perpetually confused but they seem to manage it. They seem to have survived to adulthood somehow. But all it takes is for the day to be a little off, the universe just not quite right and it all falls apart like the Picaso-inspired house of cards that is their daily existence.

It must be exhausting. The world must look completely different to them. Colors, shapes and numbers must all blend together into sameness. It can’t be easy. Imagine trying to make change for someone when quarters nickels and dimes all look like silver pennies.

"Hi." -- "No."

One of my favorite little foibles is something I call the “Assumptive Response Error”. This occurs when two or more people are in a common, typically unimportant and often perfunctory situation. It goes something like this:

Person 1: “Have a good night.”
Person 2: “You’re welcome.”

Person 1: “Hi there.”
Person 2: “Just fine, thanks.”

That shit cracks me up. I see it all the time. My favorite (and something of which I myself have been guilty) is:

Person 1: “Happy Birthday.”
Person 2: “You too.”

There are very few instances when this is actually an appropriate response and I’ve never seen twins do this.

I was thinking of this yesterday evening as I walked down 1st Ave. If you’ve ever been out and about down there during the evening there is no shortage of beggars. They have a large array of sob stories and sales pitches to try to cajole you out of your spare change. But you can always tell when it’s about to happen. It was during one of these brief exchanges when I realized there is actually a version of the Assumptive Response Error that is not, in fact, an error at all:

Bum: “Hi there.”
Me: “No.”

You Got Served

There I was, minding my own business, not a care in the world--sipping away at my beer with two elbows resting comfortably on the bar. I look over to the “dance floor” of this little St. Paul bar and see a single form twirling and dancing the night away. I pay him little head other than to note the commitment he has to his art. He really really liked to dance. Not necessarily in a gay way, but let’s face it, probably not a straight guy. We can’t dance… at least not like that. There were people milling about seeing much the same spectacle as I with about the same level of interest. And then it happened. I saw something I had thought I would never see. I assumed, like most of us, that I would live my entire life and never have the opportunity to see it. You go through life hearing about things that happen to other people in other places and you really don’t believe they happen at all. It’s an urban myth, a legend, the stuff of poorly written Hollywood movies. But there it was, unfolding before my eyes… a real life, honest to God dance-off.

I shit you not. Someone got served.

This was not some hum-drum feigned attempt at humor. This was not a couple of gay guys capitalizing on the kitsch of the concept. This was not even what you would expect from a Minnesota dance-off where, let’s face it, this sort of thing is just too public, too “out there”. No, this was a sincere, intense competition initiated by… well I’m not quite sure who initiated this. I know little of such things. Perhaps the guy dancing alone is the initiator. But as this scene unfolded the voice of Howard Cosell entered my mind, giving me a vivid and colorful play-by-play of the action:

"There he is. Guy 1. Dancing the way only he... can... do it.
But wait, a challenger has stepped into the arena.
Guy 2 confronts Guy 1. Face to face, nose to nose the intensity of their expressions tells the story. This battle royal has… just… gotten… started.
These two gladiators of the dance floor are destined to make history tonight.
With an outstretched set of hands Guy 2 makes his challenge and performs an eclectic set of hip-hop maneuvers reminiscent of a young Lynn Curtis Swan.
Guy 1 snubs him! He turns away from Guy 2 seemingly uninterested in engaging him in this contest. A move he deftly performs with the grace and poise of a well practiced warrior… of… the dance.
Could this be over before it has even begun?
Guy 2 has moved away. Unable to claim victory he looks as though he has given up. His movements languish as he exits the dance floor in disgust.
There will be no victory tonight. No challenge worthy of his talents
But hold on just… one… minute!
Guy 1 is back in action. He moves swiftly to the edge of the dance floor spinning Guy 2 around on his heels.
Oh snap!
They are at it again. This time it’s personal and it’s for real.
We are watching a no-holds-barred clash of the titans of dance."

This goes on for the entire length of the song. Back and forth these two guys go. Taking turns aggressively showing their “steps”, getting in each other's face, and generally "dance-fighting". This was singularly, the most awesome thing I think I have ever seen.

As for who won this contest? I think it’s safe to assume that any time you witness an event of this kind… everyone wins.

P.S. - I just cracked myself up by saying "Oh Snap!" alound in Howard Cosell's voice. Try it.

Can You Make Change for This?

Last night I watched the latest New Hampshire Republican and Democratic debates replayed on CNN—it was a double-header. I was reminded of a baseball game from my youth. I was perhaps 5 years old and went to see the Twins play a double header against the Yankees. Sure, I got to see Reggie Jackson play… but the Yankees kicked the crap out of the Twins. In other words, while there were moments of excitement and even a sense of inward admiration for some of the players, in the end, I felt let down, betrayed and utterly nonplussed by the whole affair.

I won’t bother to replay the events of the Republican debate because I already posted an entry from one of the previous debates (Friday, November 30, 2007) and it was, more or less, the same as this one… a 2 hour long “who can be the biggest prick” contest. So, in the interest of equal time, let’s talk about the Democrats.

Watching the Democrats debate was like watching a four-headed monster from a Godzilla movie who’s only power is to secrete a substance that smells like desperation. As a result of the Iowa Caucus and Obama’s victory which the media claims was a contest between “experience” (Clinton) and “change” (Obama) these people are falling over themselves to be the next change agent. In fact, the word “change” was used a total of 59 times by the candidates in this debate. Clinton being the heaviest user at 23, with Obama and Edwards weighing in at 15 and 14 respectively. Bill Richardson obviously cares the least about “change” with only 7 mentions... not that anyone gives a fuck about him.

At one point during the change debate all four candidates started shouting about "change" passionately over each other for about 8 seconds. I don’t think there’s a word that describes the sound of four people stammering simultaneously but it sounds something like this: “bing-im-a-butbutnow-shwagun-makes-mikshaw-helf-a-flinger-mush”. There’s your new onomatopoeia for 2008.

Watching four career politicians (none of whom have been in a high elected office for very long) debate who can bring about change versus who has more experience is like watching two seventeen year olds fight through their divorce. They had no business being married in the first place and they sure as fuck don’t know what they are talking about now.

As I did with the Republicans, here is my handy-dandy guide to help the discerning reader make their choice in 2008:

Candidate Summary

- Hillary Clinton is a self-important, passive aggressive know-it-all.

- Barack Obama is fluffy, feel-good blow-hard in over his head.

- John Edwards is a self righteous robot lacking original thought.

- Bill Richardson is… well, irrelevant.

The highlight of the night was watching the transition moment between debates when the Republicans left the stage and the Democrats entered. They were all on-stage together and were cordial and shook hands… almost hugged each other. It was actually kind of nice to see. Until George Stephanopolous (that smug little prick) made his observation that the real question was who would kiss Hillary. Aside from that bit of nonsense, the thing I noticed was how Obama came out and practically made out with McCain then strode right past Fred Thompson like Paris Hilton snubbing Nicole Ritchie after a particularly nasty cat fight.

Awesome.

War--What is it Good For? Everything Apparently

Like Douglas MacArthur, I announce my triumphant return. Malaproposition was on a brief hiatus over the last few weeks as the Holidays and their subsequent ridiculousness occupied a substantial amount of my time. But I have now returned, and have a rich landscape of topics from which to choose.

Where to begin? I spent the Holidays in Phoenix with my family. It was nice to see them and I always enjoy spending time with them in spite of being in Phoenix... not my favorite city. It’s ugly, new, everything is the same color and everyone there is from somewhere else—there’s just no sense of community. About the only thing I dislike more than Christmas itself is having to cope with it in Phoenix. Which brings me to today's topic:

The War on Christmas.

Bill O’Reilly is a dick. Let’s just get that out of the way. At one point I thought perhaps he was just misunderstood and maybe he really is a reasonable guy who does his best to tell the stories that people need to hear. So in the interest of reaching out to my fellow man I read one of his books.

Yep. He’s a dick alright.

This War on Christmas is, more or less, his invention. But here’s the great part, in his own words the War on Christmas is:

"…all part of the secular progressive agenda to get Christianity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square. If you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs, like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage, because the objection to those things is religious-based, usually."

My God… that’s the most sensible thing I think I have ever heard anyone say. Bill O’Reilly just prescribed the cure for pretty much all of America’s problems. We must kill Christmas. I call for an immediate mobilization of what’s left of our military to execute a shock and awe campaign against this holiday. We should hand out portable SAMs to citizens in case that fat fuck Santa happens to be flying by… that home-invading, child fondling prick has to be stopped.

War on Christmas? Are you kidding me?

Jesus Christ.