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Press Conference from the President of Awesome

2011-06-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

The following is from a press conference put on by Reuben. If you didn't hear about it, you probably weren't invited. Feel bad about that, because ALL the cool people were there. Sucks to be you. For realsies.

Reuben:

Hello there people of the United States, and thank you for coming here today. It is with great sadness in my heart that i stand before you here today. I wish this could be avoided, however my mama and pappy back at the farm (and of course by farm I mean house in the suburbs) raised me right. I can no longer deny what you have all been assuming was true. So let me unequivocally say, to set the record straight: YES. All politicians are fucking dumbasses.

While it hurts to say that, I feel as though a great weight has been taken off my chest. Now before I enter into the barrage of questions let me answer one question that I anticipate:

Yes, ALL politicians. Of course I cannot speak for those politicians in other countries, but EVERY politician in the United States is a dumbass. A total dumbass.

Alright, I will now be taking questions. Yes Tom.

Tom: Can you give examples of politicians being dumbasses? It seems to be a pretty sweeping statement.

Reuben: Are you serious? (brief pause) No no really, I am asking you if that was a serious question.

Tom: um…. Yes.

Reuben: Wow. And you work in journalism? dag. Ok here are a few examples off the top of my head:
if you are a person of ANY fame and/or authority STOP TAKING NAKED PICTURES OF YOURSELF. Look we all want to feel attractive or hot. Shit, sometimes I want to be straight up objectified. But guess what? That’s YOUR shit. We don't need to know about it. And if you put that shit on the net, we are gonna find out. Stop sending gross pictures of your boners to people. Not only is it gross, but you’re gonna get caught. In all honesty I originally assumed the whole Weinergate thing was on purpose. I thought, after seeing some other humorous things Anthony Weiner had done, that he Tweeted a picture of his penis or something like it, so that he could prove that the US media is just a bunch of idiots. Instead, it turns out he is just a creep. A creep and a dumbass. Next question, Dale.

Dale: Does your new revelation that “all politicians are dumbasses” include actor/politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Reuben: First Dale, I would like to point out how TRULY offensive it is to call Arnold Schwarzenegger an actor. Struggling actors everywhere are trying their best to not give up on their entirely foolish and unobtainable dream of making a living playing pretend, and its comments like that, that make it harder and harder everyday for these sad, clueless bastards not to just end it all right now.

So to answer your question, yes, obviously Arnold is a dumbass. He ran for governor of California while having had a love child for a few years already. He’s been covering it up his ENTIRE political career. This means he was a dumbass BEFORE he even got into politics.

The only way he could've been more of a dumbass was if he unsuccessfully ran for president, twice, and ran for vice-president, and the whole time he had an affair with an aide, who then had a kid, that he made another aide claim was his. And then he denied it a bunch, but eventually got caught. Oh, and then his wife gets cancer. And dies.

Dale: I assume you are referring to John Edwards.

Reuben: What?

Dale: I assume you are referring to John Edwards. You just listed the events of his life from the last couple years.

Reuben: wait… are you….you're shitting me right? I literally just listed the shittiest things I could think of, in no particular order. That actually happened? Someone actually did all that?

Dale: yes. John Edwards.

Reuben: whoa, wait…. The hair guy? HOLY SHIT! How have we not tarred and feathered this asshole yet? Wow. Do I even need to take anymore questions? Obviously these people are assholes. Yes, Sam.

Sam: Does this statement include former politicians, and people who have shown interest in the presidency?

Reuben: yes, both Sarah Palin and Donald Trump are dumbasses. Look the Paul Revere thing was an honest mistake. it was and easy screw up to make. i often forget blatantly obvious historical facts, like which side won in the Civil War, who was Hitler?, and how many fingers and toes do i have?

But trying to pretend like you were referencing a barely known fact about the guy is an obvious ploy. You screwed up Sarah, and you should’ve just said so. But do you know why you didn’t? because you are a dumbass.

Sam: What about Trump?

Reuben: I commented on him already.

Sam: No you didn’t.

Reuben: wait for it…(long pause)

(let the record show that all at once the present members of the press gasped and covered their noses)

Reuben: There we go. One final question… Sandra.

Sandra: While this has been an interesting look into the junior high-like scatological humor that is most likely running around your head every day, you still haven’t really explained why you think all US politicians are dumbasses. The people of the United States have a right to know why.

Reuben: Ok, I’ll try. To be a politician in this country you have to believe in the system that runs it. Sure, you can say “you need to be in the system to change it”, but that doesn’t change the fact that you think the system itself should be in place. Also it’s a totally shitty argument. You could probably change the KKK from inside, but how about instead, we just get rid of the KKK?

To be politician in this country you have to believe that majority rule is the best way to get things done. You have to believe that one person should make sweeping decisions for a whole town, let alone a state or country. You have to believe that the forefathers of this country were anything other than wealthy, racist, misogynistic, genocidal elitists . You have to have never ever read a history book. You have to look at the Electoral College and say “yeah that makes sense”. You have to know that the Supreme Court has no oversight other than themselves, and that they stay in power for life and say “What could go wrong?”. You have to change what you believe to one of two paths, no matter how much you think they both suck, and mock people who want to start a third party. You have to convince people that your opponent is a child molester while you personally cured AIDs, cancer and acne before the age of 10. And most of all, you have to honestly believe that you personally are better at making choices for people then they themselves are. You have to believe that everyone else is a dumbass, but you are not.

Thank for your time and God Ble..

Sandra: (interrupts) Will you consider running for office?

Reuben: (long pause) No, because the only thing worse than a dumbass is a smartass.

Thank you and good night.

Lets Burn This Mother Down! oh wait... we already are.

2011-04-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

i hate earth day. i really hate it. so much.

why do i hate earth day? where do i start? well first, remember when you were little and you asked your folks "there is a mother's day, and a father's day, so why is there no kid's day?" and they were all "because EVERY day is kid's day" and in your head you said "bullfuckingshit."? remember that? well here is the thing EVERY day should be Earth day. the fact that every day we don't take minute to realize how insane it is that we are alive on this rock flying through space, and that this rock has just the right amount of everything to let us live, is crap. total crap. Every day should be Earth day. which really means that NO day should be Earth Day. we shouldn't have to pick a day each year to be like "oh right, pollution sucks, or something".

there is a reason Captain Planet sucked as a TV show. its because we shouldn't have to be told that saving the earth is cool. it should just be known. it should be part of our mindset from a young age, the same way breathing is. we shouldn't have to have a pale body builder in red underwear and a green mullet to let us know that shitting where you eat is a bad idea.

As we all know, Earth Day is a day where we make ourselves feel better about being the most destructive inhabitants on the face of the planet, by wearing the color green, and maybe even thinking about possibly starting to someday if we're in the right mood, and we've got nothing else going on, finally start reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Or not. i mean i think i got the basic idea on Wikipedia, so.... no need to read that actual book. plus i totally know what she is gonna say. so..yeah.

but i am getting ahead of myself. For those who don't know, the US Earth Day idea was started by a senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson. the story goes that he saw an oil spill was disgusted, and decided that Americans needed to learn and talk more about the environment. I realize that it is hard to believe that a politician saw and oil spill and didn't automatically blame the other political party, or start justifying it, or looking for blame, then saying "SEE!!! this is why we should have nuclear energy!" but i suppose it could've actually happened this way.

since then, (for the most part) we have celebrated Earth Day, at some point in April. nobody can really remember when. What does it mean in the US to celebrate Earth Day? who fucking knows. i still have to go to work. Some other holidays i don't have to go work. But i guess the Earth just isn't as important as say.... a lost Italian captain with a soft spot for slavery and genocide. Some things truly do deserve a national holiday.

Sometimes on Earth Day there are concerts (using large amounts of non-renewable energy) to celebrate the Earth. Sometimes washed up former Vice-presidents, and other famous people give vague talks about change. great. thats SUPER helpful. but has it changed anything? not really. Celebrating the wonderous miracle that is the planet we live on by putting on shitty concerts, and buying "green" goods, is like celebrating the sacrifice of someone's life for the sins of all humanity by pretending a gigantic rabbit with a basket lays colored eggs filled with diabetes for children to search for.

well i am sick of being the only one at the party who is in a bad mood about this shit. so in honor of one of my least favorite holidays i would like to present the jury with these fun party pooper ideas, that hopefully will ruin your Earth Day:

the recycling symbol is a corporate logo.
thats right. that 3-arrow triangle we all know and love, and have on our fair-trade hemp t-shirts we paid $40 for are no different then the Coke symbol. see back in the day, the mess of empty bottles from soda, juice, etc was dealt with by the producers of these products, not the consumers. Bottlers used to use glass bottles, not plastic, for their products and then would collect them when people were finished with them, take them back to the factories, and reuse those bottles. after all, they PRODUCED the trash, so shouldn't they take care of it? however a wave a change happened with bottlers, and soon they pushed the responsibility of dealing with this trash onto the consumer. they started talking about civic duty of consumers, and soon recycling the trash was OUR job, not theirs. Reacting to the first Earth Day, the Container Corporation of America held a contest for students to come up with a logo to "raise awareness of environmental issues". the now famous triangley-arrow thingy was created by a college student. and the rest is history.

The Crying Indian is a Fake and a Corporate Stooge.
we've all seen it. the classic ad and billboards of the (non-desrcipt)Native American crying as he sees trash being thrown on the ground. or floating on a river. or both. well guess what people, i've got 2 mind bombs i'm about to throw at you. number 1: the Native American in that PSA was Sicilian-American. Not even a teeny bit Native American. nope. He lied about it pretty much until he died. whoops.

here is the other fun fact: that ad was made by Keep America Beautiful, a corporate front for greenwashing. as documented in Heather Rodgers' brilliant book Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, KAB was created in response to the (dirty, hippie) state of Vermont's attempt to outlaw disposable containers. All of the sudden the national conversation was changed from "why do we have all this awful plastic?" to "why aren't you people putting the trash in the trash can?!?! do you like it when Indians cry?!?! you heartless bastards!!!" and the next thing you know, we're all talking about litter and not the fact that companies are producing toxic products for us to consume. awesome. also they get some of their funding from Sherwin-Williams, the "paint the world" people, with the most depressing logo ever, of the earth getting dumped with a bucket of paint. KAB also gets funding from Phillip Morris, the death company. so.... do i need to say more?

Recycling is a load of crap.
ok, hold up. its not COMPLETELY a load of crap. the idea of reusing and recycling things is not a bad idea, and should be encouraged. However, one thing recycling does do, is take everyone's mind off the idea of consumption. "we can consume as much as we want, because the when we are done with the plastic, glass, metal etc. we used, it can just be recycled, right?" this also, as mentioned before, takes the pressure off of producers. they're not creating waste. "they're creating recycleable material. and maybe even GREEN JOBS!!! can you even imagine?!?!"

now some of you are probably saying "ok, but we have all these bottles, and we need to do SOMETHING with them". this is true. but if we never address the fact that we continually create these things that are detrimental to the environment, bad things are gonna happen. the mindset of recycling cuts out the part where we talk about why the hell we have all this plastic and metal, and paper to begin with.

and then there is this: recycling often isn't even recycling. boom. mind explosion. assuming you separate all your this from your that, there is still the question of how much of the stuff you put in that adorable blue bucket that you put on the street (again, assuming your city/town has a recycling program) ends up actually being recycled. Recyclable materials are essentially a commodity. there are some that are more valuable then others. and as usual, when money is the bottom line, we get screwed.

"but wait" you say, "Free Market yada yada, and people will make the right choices when money is involved, and Barry Goldwater and stuff, and something else about markets." ok, i'll play this game. even though deep degrees of poverty and a huge gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" should pretty much have made us all realize that this line of thinking is NOT WORKING. but whatever, lets do this. people will do the right thing because its monetarily in their best interest. sure. so lets try that out. here is a quote from the lovely Discovery Channel explaining it much better than me.

"Unless you follow your recyclables through the entire process until they're made into new prodcuts it's impossible to say for certain if your materials are actually being recycled. But, logically, the reason you can feel assured that most of your recyclables actually get recycled is because they have a dollar value."

great! i guess we've got nothing to worry about. except here's the thing, Elizabeth Royte in her fantastic book Garbage Land, does actually follow her recyclables through the entire process, and guess what? *spoiler alert* LOTS OF SHIT DOESN'T GET RECYCLED. it gets trashed because its useless to the companies that buy recycled commodities. either its such low quality that its impossible to recycle, or its more expensive to recycle it than it is to produce new stuff. of course its never brought up what sort of environmental repercussions there might be from producing new stuff. its more expensive to recycle, and so they don't. which proves what is implied in the Discovery quote: its all about money. and when its all about the money, we get screwed.

at best, only 50 percent of what gets thrown in the recycling bin actually gets recycled. and since that percentage looks pretty small when you realize how much we don't even throw in that bin, things start to look grim. even if half of the new stuff are made from recyclables, you still have the other half that we need to make from somewhere. and as things get recycled, their quality downgrades. so eventually that recycled bottle can't get used, and ends up in a landfill. but thats ok, because landfill's aren't that bad right?

Landfills Will Murder Your Children. Seriously.

Even the hardest of hard hearts must kinda pause for a moment when thinking about landfills. "So... we take all this disgusting garbage and toxic mess... and then we bury it. in the ground. ok...um... then what?"

exactly. then what? one of the main problems with landfills, is that eventually they fall apart. it might not be in my lifetime, but it probably will be in our kids' lifetimes. the idea behind landfills, is that eventually someone smart enough will figure out how to deal with all that nasty shit. because we can't burn it. well, we can and we have, but the awful smoke from burning trash looks terrible, and is toxic, and eventually towns and cities don't like the idea of inhaling that stuff. so more and more that option is going away.

we could send it out to sea. but then this happens.

so looks like its just landfills. however most landfills in the US are under private contract. you can't go visit them, to make sure they are following regulations. In Gone Tomorrow, Rodgers talks about how landfill linings are what keep the toxic shit from getting into the dirt and the water. so they've got it covered? awesome. but not really. see, private company has a contract with the State for say 75 years. the lining lasts 100 years. meaning when the company is done with its contract, the responsibility is now on the State, or more likely the local people. when that lining wears away, and people start getting sick from their water being contaminated, nobody is responsible for it. fun stuff, right?

Al Gore is a Turd.
Not literally. but certainly in a lots of ways, he is a poop. There are tons of reasons why Gore is not quite the environmental leader we assume/wish he was. but i just want to focus on a teeny tiny bit of his film. Since many people were really moved by An Inconvenient Truth this is a hard pill for a lot of liberals to swallow. Its not that the facts in the movie were wrong, or that it should be that hard to believe that a guy who had Joe Lieberman as his running-mate cares AT ALL about us. its really that fun little bit in the end of the film where after feeling like we are screwed for 90 minutes, he lists all the wonderful things we can do to lower our carbon emissions. i certainly felt better. i almost wrote my CongressMAN. almost. almost. however what he fails to mentions is that if EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the US followed the guidelines at the end of the film, the carbon emissions for our country would only drop 22 percent. to have a real effect, the WORLD carbon emissions, not just the US of A, BUT THE CARBON EMISSIONS OF THE WHOLE WORLD, need to go down 75 percent. What Gore's guidelines do is instill a false sense of hope, that shouldn't exist. He makes us believe that all we have to do is buy the right lightbulb or shower head things will be great. don't STOP buying, just buy green stuff. no need to change our consuming culture. just "go green" and everything will be ok. well it won't. so stop falling for this shit.

You can cause an environmental catastrophe, and a year later nobody cares.
British Petroleum. you sly motherfuckers. Not only did you DESTROY the gulf, and pretty much the entire coast of Louisiana, but you got paid 10 million dollars to do it. and yes that is more than the entire budget for the Environmental Protections Agency. Hats off.

Saving the Earth is Against the Law.

Sometimes people take the shit humans do to the earth personally. sometimes people get pushed to a point where they don't want to feel helpless, and want something to get done, and since they have read history books, they know that waiting for the State to fix things is not very productive. So sometimes they feel the need to act. Sometimes they protest. Sometimes they get in peoples' faces about it. Sometimes they try to stop people from possibly bringing a species to extinction and thereby changing the entire biological balance of the ocean, and really the world. Sometimes they free animals that have been tortured. Sometimes they burn shit down. however they rarely, IF EVER, hurt people. but they are still considered terrorists in many places. and then they get sent to jail. They are terrorists and BP gets 10 million dollars. figure that shit out.

Holy shit we love Oil!
i mean we REALLY love oil. if you are reading this on a computer, wearing clothes you did not personally make, then you are literally enveloped in oil and the products of oil. Oil dictates everything about how we live. and guess what? at some point we'll run out.

you know what? instead of me talking about it, just watch Michael Ruppert drop some knowledge.

Now, Michael Ruppert may be nuts, but at this point, the people who are considered sane aren't making a whole lot of sense to me. also, that clip sums up what would've taken me forever to write down, and no doubt i would've peppered with tons of curses, so just watch the clip, ok?

honestly i don't even care anymore. Wear green on Earth Day. do the neighborhood trash pickup. buy some locally grown whatever. make yourself feel good. because that is all Earth Day is about. making ourselves feel good about something we are totally sucking at. its failing the math quiz, but having our mom's still have Dunkaroos and YooHoo waiting for us when we get home. We know we don't deserve it but when she asks us how the test went, we lie to her and to ourselves, and say "i knocked it out of the park!" so she lets us go watch DuckTales. and while TV takes away the pain, and we sit, filled with fake joy at our success, and stuff 7 different types of high-fructose corn syrup into our crumb covered mouths, we have a moment of clarity. just a quick one. a little moment that passes, where we think "oh wait. i was lying to myself". and for a second you realize that those Dunkaroos , that neighborhood cleanup, that local broccoli, those energy saving light bulbs, that Prius, that shorter shower, those fair trade sustainable recyclable whatevers, don't mean a damn thing.

happy earth day. go drink your fucking YooHoo.

All The News That's Shit To Print

2011-02-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

So believe it or not a few people have told me that they missed my blog. So I have decided to grace you sad bastards with my genius again. This is a joke. Nobody reads this. Assholes. Anyways since my last blog entry, shit has gone DOWN. No joke. Shit has literally gone down. I have IBS.

Looking at my blog I realized that the last time I wrote something was August. It is now February. This is just unacceptable. My genius should be shared monthly at the very least. Frankly I think most people would be living better lives if my inner monologue was just pumped into their ears via some sort of mouth to ear sound pumping… thing. Shut up.

The last thing I wrote about was the “Ground Zero Mosque”. And as we all know, 6 months later, this is still a HUGE news story, proving the skeptics wrong: the media does NOT sensationalize stories for a news cycle, and then never report on them again once they’re no longer “fresh”.

Since I am at work and don’t have time to write a well thought out blog, and I going to give my adoring fans the next best thing: a quick not-thought-out rundown of the events of the last 6 months, up to today. What does this mean? It means you didn’t need to read the paper or watch the news for the last half year, because everything you needed to know will now be told to you via the curse-filled rants of sad, slightly overweight office rat. Way to waste your time. You could’ve spent that time doing anything else. But you didn’t you wasted it. you wasted minutes, nay, HOURS of you life. You’ll never get them back. That time is gone. Those moments of your life are dead to you. Moments you could’ve spent making art, reading literature, playing music, playing games, making out with a hotty, sitting in the woods, conversing with the universe. But instead you spent time reading and/or watching the news. And the whole time all you had to do was wait until early February and catch up on the last 6 months in 5 minutes. Sucks to be you.

So here it is, the rundown of all the news that mattered since August:

August:

1.)about ten days after my blog post, Glenn Beck has a rally to restore honor to something or something. Nobody who isn’t an asshole cares.

2.)President Obama announces that combat in Iraq is over and everything is awesome now. Around 50,000 American troops decide stay there for fun. I mean since combat is over, that must be why they're still there. Right?

3.)Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is released in theatres and is universally praised as the best movie ever made, ever. The movie proceeds to kick your ass, then your face, and then you assface.

4.)A guy reads a book about a talking gorilla and takes hostages at the Discovery Channel. Then the cops kill him. The news media interview the author of the gorilla book, marking the first time in 2 years they have interviewed someone who wrote something other than a book on why or why not the president is a socialist.

September:

1.) religious people ALMOST burn a religious book of other religious people. For some reason the media doesn’t equate this with Nazis. However healthcare still equals Nazis.

2.) The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell gets blocked in the Senate. John McCain plans on celebrating this, but by just thinking about it, he breaks his hip.

3.) Stephen Colbert testifies on Capitol Hill for something. People with a bug up their ass get all uppity about it, saying that his testimony mocks Congress, the US government, and the political process in general. Everyone else is like, “uh..yeah, no shit.”

October:

1.) Rahm Emanuel leaves to White House to be an asshole somewhere else.

2.)Despite the fact that it is 2010, people still celebrate Columbus Day. What the fuck?

3.) Christine O’Donnel, a Delaware Republican candidate for Senate, learns the hard way that if you dabble in witchcraft and wizardry of any kind, it will come back to bite you in the ass. Unless you are The Boy Who Lived. Then shit works out. Although you lose your parents and like half of your friends. But whatevs. You’re Harry Potter. You’ll get over it. wait, what were we talking about?

4.) NFL quarterback Brett Favre continues a long tradition of men who don’t understand that sending a woman a picture of your genitalia, is NOT an appropriate way to let them know you want to go steady.

5.) After over 2 months of being trapped in a mine, Chilean miners are finally rescued and brought to the surface. They are not paid for the time they were trapped and “not working”. That’s not a joke.

6.) Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert host the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on the National mall, finally proving what many of us have known for awhile: Liberals are just as annoying and stupid as conservatives. And with that joke, i lose everyone who reads the Huffington Post. taadaa!

November:

1.) the San Francisco Giants win the World Series. It is one of the lowest viewed major sporting events in recent history, proving that people love an underdog, but not when they are from a doomed city of Godless sodomites.

2.)The Republicans win control of the House of Representatives via the midterm elections, because people still think voting enacts change. For real! People STILL think that?!?!

3.) Former President George W. Bush releases a book, which means, assuming he actually wrote it, and therefore read each word as he wrote them, former President George W. Bush has ACTUALLY READ A BOOK. My mind just exploded. (Welcome back Huffington readers!)

4.) Prince Williams get engaged. Intelligent people everywhere are baffled by the fact that England STILL HAS PRINCES??!?!? Its ok though, he did have to prove his love by fighting a dragon, and beating a serf to death.

5.)North Korea gets all “North Korea” on South Korea.

6.) Bristol Palin proves she is the most talented member of the Palin family by placing second in a televised dance competition. Dreams really do come true.

7.)Tom Delay get convicted of being a total shit-head. Also for money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. But mostly for being a shit-head.

8.) President Obama gets his ass kicked in a basketball game, and gets stitches. Liberals try to think of a way to blame Dick Cheney, but can’t. …which is exactly how Dick Cheney planned it. dun Dun DUN!!!!!

December:

1.) President Obama totally sells out and keeps the Bush Tax Cuts. Obama then reminds everyone that he already sold out by joining the Democratic Party in the first place, and taking part in American politics at all, so this really shouldn’t be a big deal.

2.) Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks gets arrested for sexual assault. Assange then wishes he had assaulted the women in the US, and not Sweden, so that instead of going to jail, he’d be going to the Superbowl.

3.) Elizabeth Edwards, former wife of full-time asshole John Edwards dies of cancer after a six year battle. Everyone with a pulse wishes a horrible horrible death on John. Seriously, fuck that guy.

4.) Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is finally repealed with the signing of the “We’re Running Out of People Who Are Willing To Get Shot At In Afghanistan, So I Guess Gay People Aren’t As Icky Anymore” Act.

January:

1.) Tunisian protesters start something that might change the world as we know it. in the background Billy Joel’s “we didn’t start the fire” constantly plays. Freedom and Billy Joel. It’s a combo that will never fail.

2.) I have a birthday. Other than my family only 5 people wish me a happy birthday. If you were not one of those 5 people, fuck you.

3.) Obama gives the State of the Union speech, an annual speech where the most powerful person in the world tries to pretend like they know what the sort of state their country is in. And since they make triple figures, have the strongest military ever at their command, and live in the most heavily guarded house in the entire world, they usually know whats going on with the rest of the country. they can "relate". Also, newly appointed speaker of the House John Boehner (its pronounced Boner. deal with it) cries a shit ton, and it gets all over his spray tan. Its pretty weird. He's like an aging Ken doll.

4.) Protests in Egypt make other world leaders wonder will happen to them when everyone else figures out this is all bullshit. Then they poop themselves. Its hilarious.

And there we are. We all up to date. Yes I skipped some pretty big stories. Some, because I thought they were too stupid to mention. Others, because they were too heartbreakingly awful for me to make jokes about. I’m an asshole, but not that much of an asshole.

So yeah. You wasted your life reading the news or something. That was the joke right? I can’t even remember. I don’t even want to post this anymore. Oh well.

and yes, that is a picture of me punching news in the face. i know. totally badass.

Jihad Me at Hello

2010-08-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

Did you hear?!?! OH THE OUTRAGE!!!! Muslims terrorists want to build a shrine of the 9/11 attacks on the White House!!! And since Obama is a Muslim he doesn’t mind!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO AMERICA?!?!??!?!?!

Ok ok, so that’s not quite true. But Muslims Extremists, who hate the US are trying to build a mosque on GROUND ZERO!!!! NOT IN MY LIFE TIME ASSHOLES!!! These colors do NOT run! However the do take brisk walks.

Ok, so actually some Muslims, want to build the equivalent of a Muslim YMCA a couple blocks from Ground Zero.

But still… TERRORISM!!!!!!! Look out!

Are we still at this point where pathetic jingoism is a mainstay in the vernacular of the average American? New polls from some college you've never heard of probably say yes.

For those of you who don’t watch Fox News, there is a proposed Muslim Cultural Center being built 5 minutes from the Ground Zero site. However it keeps getting reported that it is a Mosque, and it’s actually ON GROUND ZERO. Now first of all if this was true, I wouldn’t care. But it’s not true. It’s not a Mosque. There is a Mosque in it, among many other things. Not that any of that should matter. I'm just saying, if a Target shows up in your neighborhood, you can't really say that there is a new record store in town. its just happens to ALSO sell records. Just trying to be fair and balanced here. Speaking of fair and balanced, Fox News reported that 64% of all Americans think the Cultural Center shoudn't be built on Ground Zero. And they have won! because as i mentioned before, it was NEVER planned to be built ON GROUND ZERO. ever. it’s a couple blocks from Ground Zero. Not on it. I know some people who live about the same distance from Ground Zero as this proposed building, and they don’t tell people that the live on Ground Zero. Just because I work near Fenway Park, doesn’t mean I’m Youkilis.

People from all over the accepted political spectrum have weighed in. Everyone from Republicans to Democrats to… well really only those two, have been able to voice their opinions on the news. Sarah Palin said some stuff, and so did other guy! And also whats-his-face! Even President Obama has voiced his opinion. Of course many people think it’s not his place to comment on the matter. Yet they think it IS their place to comment on it. interesting.

So of course the issue with this whole thing is that Muslims, in the name of their religion took down the towers, and therefore the idea of other, different Muslims setting up a place to hang out anywhere near the site, is just too much for some people to handle. after all, can you imagine being attacked by someone and then having them set up shop in your country? it would almost be like how the US military has army bases in ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY WE'VE EVER ATTACKED. thankfully there haven't been any problems with them yet.

But this whole debate is really making me think. And you know what? The slaughter of large amounts of people in the name of a specific God, and then putting up houses of worship and community in the areas that those slaughters occurred, IS pretty offensive. The idea that so many people died in the name of one religion just seems so terrible and inhumane. This shoudn't be allowed ANYWHERE! So let’s start taking down EVERY CHRISTIAN CHURCH ON U.S. SOIL.

I’m serious. I will be behind the banning of this Center in NYC, if every other House of Worship on or near a site of slaughter and genocide is taken down first. Which honestly is probably everyone of them. We like to pretend that Europeans showed up on this land, and then slowly the Natives just disappeared or assimilated. nope. we killed them. most of them actually. nations of them. Just because a very small minority of Native Americans are making a killing with casinos, doesn't mean the score is even. The forced "Americanization" of Native Americans is well documented and was widely celebrated until last the 60 years or so. Many Native religions' practices weren't even considered legal until 1978's t00-little-too-late American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

The talk about the Muslim Center being insensitive to the victims' families rings hollow when one looks at how Native Americans are STILL treated today. Leonard Peltier's prison sentence isn't very sensitive. Reservations having the highest per capita poverty rates in the country isn't very sensitive. Not to mention Manifest Destiny. Not to mention,when families of 9/11 victims called for no invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, called for the US military to leave both countries, nobody listens. Isn't it AS insensitive to ignore the 9/11 families who choose "to trust in our principles rather than cave to our basest fears".

Or is it that sensitivity isn’t really the issue? Is it more that many Americans are fear-based, un-educated bullies, who want to have their cake and eat it too. It couldn’t possibly be that the idea of any other religion than Christianity getting a leg up in this world is too much for our fragile egos to take. “But Islam is so violent.” sure. It’s a religion. But looking at the history of this nation, can we really feel so high and mighty? After all, I believe there was Bible verse that said (and of course i could be paraphrasing here) "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone. otherwise, shut the fuck up."

Something like that.

Captain Planet gets his ass kicked

2010-06-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

so in case you aren't aware, the world is falling apart. let me rephrase: humans are are tearing the world apart. let me rephrase again, humans from western culture are tearing the world apart. there really is nobody else to blame. are wolves tearing the world apart? no. they're just getting shot to shit by Sarah Palin from her helicopter. and by the way, if that doesn't SCREAM cheap shot, nothing does.

I don't know if you've been paying attention to the news surrounding the BP oil, or trying to jam scissors in your ears every time you hear about it out of despair, like i have; but as it turns out things are not going so great. more to the point, we're screwed. i've always liked george carlin's bit about how we always talk about saving the earth, but honestly the earth will survive, humans are fucked. i think climate change, war, and dumb shit like this huge oil spill make that pretty obvious. however the question remains: how many other species are we gonna take with us?whats your bet? 200? interesting you should say that, because here is a fun fact: 200 species of plants or animals go extinct EVERY DAY. wanna blame that on anybody besides humans and our so called "progress"? who? is it the fault of sea lions? maybe oak trees. how about eggplants. eggplants and their growth and expansion are causing the extinction of 200 plants and animals every day. hmmm…. nope still bullshit. its humans. always will be. at least until we "go dinosaur" and disappear and nature decides to evolve another species into dominant territory. by the way, my bet is on squirrels. i can see it in their eyes. oh the want you to think they are just collecting nuts, but deep down: genocide.

wait, no. thats still just humans.

anyways, back to the environmental catastrophe of a lifetime. who's lifetime? certainly not the shit-tons of animals already dead from getting covered with oil. their lifetimes are over. its cool though. its not like sea turtles are supposed to live a long time. and frankly pelicans were getting a little to high and mighty for my tastes and its nice to see them taken down a few pegs. and by taken down a few pegs i mean smothered in oil, dying with their skin melting off. but who cares right? its not like they are human. its not like the earth is a complicated system that is interconnected. its not like the death of an ecosystem will effect people. its not like we all completely in denial. completely. in denial. 100%. its not like thats whats going on. at all.

speaking of denial, thats the first thing BP did when the Deepwater Horizon exploded; deny deny deny. everything is fine. nobody died. nothing happened. i wish i could have been there for that exec meeting at BP where they are trying their hardest to find a way to spin this. "ok… can we somehow blame illegal immigrants? is this in anyway the fault of taxes?" and then one guy is like "to get the liberals on our side, lets blame Halliburton!" "Good work Jones!" this of course would have to be scrapped, since there is no way to specifically connect illegal immigrants to the spill and tax cuts for oil companies are approved by sellout liberals AND conservatives. the Deepwater Horizon actually HAD contracted Halliburton…but c'mon who cares about that Cheney shit anymore, right? its not the last administrations fault its this one's. unless we are talking about 9/11. that was ALL clinton. and carter. not reagan though.

from denial we move to blame. and as always, blame never lands on "us". it never "our" fault. its always the ~fill in the blank~ 's fault. for instance, the Conservatives blame Obama, while trying to shake the embarrassing mantra of the 2008 RNC “Drill, Baby Drill!”. Yes, they actually chanted that. i remember it because i remember watching the RNC at an apartment in DC saying "who the hell is Sarah Palin? and then 40 minutes later, saying "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! holy shit! THATS MCCAIN'S RUNNING MATE?!?!?!" little did i know the joke was on me.and the rest of the world

but still… really? her?

Glenn Beck is actually planning on doing a one hour piece on the the irony of the whole "drill baby drill" situation. i'm joking. he just gonna continue to be awful.

The Liberals blame Bush, or Cheney, or Blackwater, or if possible James Dobson, conveniently forgetting that Obama has been ok with environmentally harmful crap from day one: offshore drilling, “clean” coal, nuclear power, its all good according to Captain Hopenchange. i have a vivid, then blurry memory of Obama talking about the awesomeness of offshore drilling at a state of the union. vivid, because it enraged me, blurry because i took a shot every time he said something vaguely inspiring, but not pertaining to the point. or reality. or facts. but yeah,CHANGE and stuff. and we did something about healthcare..right? wait, did we? did they already vote on that? was that the thing with that plumber guy? wait no… hope…something about hope? didn't we…. don't ask, don't tell… no they're still working on that. hmm… i'll think of it.

but it never takes long to move from catastrophe to utter stupidity. for instance, Obama has called for a sensible energy policy. and by sensible i mean apocalyptic. while realizing that we need to wean ourselves from the addiction to oil we have (a epiphany that even George W. had, so its not saying much), he has decided that weaning ourselves off oil really means killing ourselves, by "... tapping into our natural gas reserves, and moving ahead with our plan to expand our nation’s fleet of nuclear power plants."

i love how he calls our abomination of nature's key to existence a "fleet". i wonder what sort of quote he'll give when, NOT IF, but when we have a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster with a nuke plant in the US. "we need to halt slow down our dependence on world-destroying nuclear power. the key is now lots and lots of hamsters in wheels." lets just hope hamsters haven't been one of the 200 a day by then.

but don't worry all you Whole Foods liberals out there. i'm done trashing on Obama for the moment. so no you can feel comfortable again. no need to think about the idea that the Democrats and politics in general are a placebo to make you feel like you are doing something while the world falls apart. give some money to that non-profit. buy that t-shirt made from organic hemp. buy something fair trade. but no matter what, spend money. lots and lots of money. because thats progressive, right?

speaking of delusion, lets talk about the Conservatives again. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisana has recently called for a repeal on the ban of offshore drilling. that right. the state so far most affected by the oil spill, wants to open up the possibility for more oil spills. why? because the original oil spill has impacted the Louisiana economy so much, that they need the extra money from the new oil. let me repeat that. the solution to the problem, is more of the problem. now thats some sound thinking. thats up there with "the reason the hate us is because we have so many troops in their country. so to make them not hate us, lets send more troops to their country. weird that didn't work. WHY DO THEY HATE US!?!??!?!"

its gets better. both Texas governor Rick Perry, and Oklahoma House Rep,Tom Cole have said that the oil spill was an act of God. which god they meant, is still in question. my bets are on Odin. that bearded fuck has been pissed since Zuul dissed him at the inter-faith mixer at the Applebee's in Malden.

but here is the moment we've all been waiting for. the Queen of Lowered Expectations would not stay silent during the tragic time for out country. as always, Sarah Palin had something inspiring, patriotic and uninformed to say about the matter at hand. She knew who was really to blame for the BP oil spill: environmentalists. i really don't know how to joke about this one, so i'll just lay it out. her reasoning for blaming environmentalists for the oil spill, is that the only reason we were offshore drilling in the first place, is that those tree hugging hippies blocked us from drilling for oil in the Alaskan Nature Preserve, so we had to do offshore drilling. and therefore, it is the environmentalists fault. what a terribly unintelligent human being.

by the way, Sarah Palin also accused Obama of being in the pocket of big oil. this is true, he along with every other president of the past 50 years has been a flunky of the oil companies. here is the funny part about Palin saying that. Her husband, Todd, used to work for BP. he actually worked for the company responsible for this mess! its not like he worked for Texaco or some shit, and she can be all "Texaco is great, is that British Petroleum, thats the problem" Her husband actually was employed by the problem and she wants to convince us that OBAMA has ties to the oil companies. maybe i've been wrong about her and she just gets this whole "PR" thing better than anyone else. just say something with no factual backing, wave a flag, something negative about the mainstream media (not mentioning of course that you actually work for the most popular news channel in the states), say something offensive about immigrants, something about "our" forefathers, wink and you're golden.

ok so enough with politicians. lets talk about the company that started this all. BP. hey did you know that BP stands for British Petroleum? well it does. so now you know. and knowing is half the battle. However a few years ago when "going green" got cool, or at least profitable, BP spent a very large amount on revamping their image. the end result was an ad campaign that used the initials "BP" to stand for "Beyond Petroleum". the meaning was the since we all know that oil is gonna run out sometime soon, BP is committed to finding new solutions other than oil for energy. but here is the best part. to this day, BP has spent more money on the "Beyond Petroleum" campaign itself (meaning ads, PR, rebranding etc.) than actually working on moving beyond petroleum. these are the people now in charge of cleaning up the gulf. i do not feel secure.

wanna know another reason i don't feel secure? it was recently released that in the response plan that BP had on file for such distasters specific to the Gulf of Mexicoas like Deepwater Horizon, one of the experts to contact for dealing with the effect on wildlife was Professor Peter Lutz. guess what? HE"S DEAD. no not from shock over the oil spill. i really don't know how he died. however i do know that he died in 2005. 5 FUCKING YEARS AGO! nice contingency plan.

luckily the plan also lists how to deal with the effect of oil on such animals as sea otters, seals, walruses and sea lions. i love sea otters. they are amazingly adorable animals. so while i'm glad that BP has a plan to deal with the effect of an oil spill, specific to the Gulf of Mexico, on sea otters, and their friends seals, sea lions and walruses, i'm a little worried about the fact that BP doesn't know that NONE OF THESE ANIMALS LIVE IN THE GULF OF MEXICO! who the hell does the research at BP? do they not have wikipedia? isn't this a billion dollar corporation? who let the dogs out?

Environmental catastrophe is terrible wherever it happens, but the US population rarely if ever notices. the only reason we give a shit now, is because it’s in our backyard. We have exported our problems for so long that we don’t know how to react when it happens to us. It was the same with 9/11. The very idea that someone would attack the US is out of the question. That’s why many people are still seething with anger over the 9/11 attacks, but can’t understand why the majority of Iraq hates us even though well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians are dea because of us.

Exporting suffering while importing benefits is what keeps our U.S. society going. We don’t have to deal with labor disputes like we did in the 1920’s because we’ve shipped all the cheap labor somewhere else. We don’t see the 14 year old child sewing our jeans, we just see how great our ass looks in those jeans. We don’t see the massive deforestation in South America, we just see that coffee table that really pulls the room together. And until recently, we didn’t see the negative side of drilling for oil, just that sweet ass car, or shiny new computer, or amazing piece of crap, or whatever else. But now we can’t turn away. actually we can. and we do. you are about to. but don't worry. everything will be fine. worst case scenario is what? the local ecosystem is permanently damaged? the oil gets pulled into gulf streams and spread throughout the ocean? the oceans become toxic? the basis for life as we know it is changed for the worse? we all die? the earth heals itself?squirrels become the dominant species?

maybe. sleep tight.

seriously though, can Louisiana catch a break?

Holy Shit.

2009-12-03T11:09:00.000-08:00

Religion. what a fun topic. nothing brings out more foam at the mouth from everyone than religion. be it believers or non-believers, everybody gets riled up talking about religion. i feel no need to attack religion itself. plenty of smarter, cleverer and British-er people have done it before me, so really there is no point..

However personal takedowns about specific people... yes that is my cup of tea. There are so many public figures involved in modern religion today that it seems almost silly to pick on one specific person. i should also be upfront and say that i think if you meet one person who claims to be of a certain belief system, and you can't stand them, it doesn't mean that everyone who has similar beliefs are also jackasses, or that those those beliefs themselves are bad.

So... with that said... today i want to talk about a man named Mark Driscoll.

Mark Driscoll is the hip, young(ish) leader of a church in Seattle called Mars Hill. Mars Hill is named after the famous Seattle candy flood, when the Mars Bar factory exploded and sent melted chocolate every where. most of the chocolate gravitated towards one area and when it solidified, it made a hill of Mars Bar chocolate, or "Mars Hill". I might be a little off on some of these details, but that is basically it.

Driscoll has gained notiriety over the last couple years for being a bastard. I'm sorry, i mean pastor. He is part of a growing movement to make men in the Christian church become "Real Men". Not that sissy hippy shit that people like Shaine Claiborne, Rob Bell and Jesus Christ talk about. He has often said that too many churches have been "chickified". Being a former member of a frat, i'm not sure he knows that "chickified" is not a word. But to his credit, making up things can be fun. imaginary friends, alter egos, god; imaginations are wonderful things!

Here are some of his beliefs that he preaches:

homosexuality is a sin, but so is sex before marriage or outside of marriage. marriage is specifically for a biological man and a biological woman.

women may not be leaders in a church, i.e.: pastors, priests, reverends, etc...

women may not ask a man on a date.

the man is the head of the household and the woman is subservient to him

a man may not be a stay at home dad.

yup, all that and looks to.

an issue he often talks about is how there are not enough young men in church. and so his approach has been to make church cool. while preaching he often wears hip clothes like a t-shirt with Jesus at a set of turntables, or Paul hitting a woman.

Being the patriarch that he is (a wife, 5 kids and counting) one of his main messages is that men need to stand up and be men. men men men. stop being not-men, and be men. He says that the church loses men because its feminine, and there are too many girly things in it. for instance, here is an actual quote from this guy:
"The problem with our churches today is that the lead pastor is some sissy boy who wears cardigan sweaters, has The Carpenters dialed in on his iPod, gets his hair cut at a salon instead of a barber shop, hasn’t been to an Ultimate Fighting match, works out on an elliptical machine instead of going to isolated regions of Russia like in Rocky IV in order to harvest lumber with his teeth, and generally swishes around like Jack from Three’s Company whenever Mr. Roper was around."

thats a real quote. he said this. to people.

part of the hilarity of this Sports Center reject's message is that even his incredibly offensive definition of "real men" is not an actualization of the stereotype itself. the idea that WATCHING Ultimate Fighting Championship makes you a real man. just watching it. not actually fighting, but watching. he can't even take this masculine stereotype to the level of participation and say that men should be fighting. being masculine is watching other people do stuff.

He does make a good point about Christianity becoming too feminine. when i think of this religion with a male God, male Savior, mostly men speaking from the pulpit, a rule book that says women cannot preach or be leaders and should be subservient to their husbands, my first thought is : whoa, there are way too many women here! what is this, a maxi pad convention? let play some fucking HALO 3!" and then i high five some dudes. after all, bros before ho's.

His claim in a youtube video that church is too "feminine" because "all the innovative dudes are home watching football, or they're out making money, or climbing a mountain, or working on they're truck", begs the question; is he a pastor or the PR guy for SPIKE TV? seriously, after watching a bunch of his sermons, i kept waiting for him to say, "and now what we've all been waiting for; girls jumping on trampolines!"

what is innovative about ANY of those activities. nothing. none of those activities are innovative. they aren't bad activities to take part in per say, but innovative? making money? CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN? look, i love hiking and climbing. its really fun. but its not innovative. i mean its practically the opposite of innovative. people have be doing it for hundreds of thousands of years. oh whoops, sorry i mean 6 thousand years.

even if one gives him the benefit of the doubt and says he is making the point that truly innovative PEOPLE often aren't encouraged the right way, and often settle for less than they can achieve (and that is really stretching it) its a terrible point within his context. Innovation is exactly what the people he criticizes are doing. Encouraging people other than men to preach, accepting LGBTQ members into their communities, addressing poverty, criticizing capitalism are all (for Christianity, which isn't saying much) pretty fucking innovative. But Mark Driscoll doesn't actually want innovation, Mark Driscoll wants the 1950's.

Believe it or not, we have even gotten to the offensive part. In 2006 when mega-church leader Ted Haggard, a staunch opposer of gay rights was (surprise surprise) called out on having "relations" with a gay prostitute, Driscoll stepped up to point out the obvious cause: Haggard's wife.

I'll let the poet himself explain this one:
"Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors' wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness."

Ah yes, because the reason men cheat is not because they are untrustworthy to begin with, addicted to power, don't respect women, live in a culture that encourages it, or can't deal with the often unrealistic expectations of monogamous life and don't have the guts to have an open relationship or at least least discuss these problems with their wives. no no no, the reason men cheat, is because their wives have gotten ugly. or fat. or fat and ugly.

thank you Mark for showing the us the light.

here's a fun nugget i pulled off his wikipedia page:
"There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity."

plenty of things to say, but only gonna say one: "I cannot worship a guy I can beat up". um... i thought the thing about Jesus was that he could get beat up? i mean wasn't there a hit movie a few years ago that was nothing but Jesus getting his assed kicked for 2 hours? isn't that supposed be the whole fucking point? maybe not. after all im just a "self-righteous blogger critic of Christianity".

Dricoll was also featured on a debate on ABC. the name of this debate was... i can't believe i am saying this...."Does Satan Exist?"

this was an actual debate. on TELEVISION. "Does Satan Exist?" Four people actually spent an hour in front of a live audience debating whether or not there is a guy named Satan, and if he is king of hell. and people watched. it seems like a bad skit. the whole time i was waiting for Deepak Chopra to be all, "and so the existence of Satan is not provable because LIVE FROM NEW YORK, ITS SATURDAY NIGHT!!!!"
but that never happened.

In Driscoll's opening statement of the debate, he had this to say on the subject:
"Satan was an angel who rebelled against god. In so doing led an insurrection. Other angels followed him. Our first parents (Adam and Eve, NOT STEVE!) joined that rebellion, and ultimately that is the cause of moral evil. it is rebellion against god."
he then followed up with, "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

Driscoll addresses issues like atheism by not actually addressing it. During a segment of a recent sermon, Driscoll threw the usual "isn't the idea of no god really scary" routine at the audience, while not addressing the scientific realities of hard agnosticism or atheism. I have heard this and seen this before. instead of dealing with with the actual idea of is there a god or not, people go straight to "well i would really prefer to live in a world where there is a god." this is all nice and good, but doesn't change a damn thing. i would love to live in a world with genuine equality. but genuine equality doesn't exist just because i want it to. and if i am gonna criticize those who believe that genuine equality DOESN"T exist, i sure as hell better have a more thought out argument than "because if it doesn't exist, that would suck."

the most offensive bit of his sermon on atheism, is his notion that suicide is the likely end for someone who doesn't believe in his god. i feel no need to make a joke about this, but only to say in my personal experience on the issue of suicide, Driscoll's assessment could not be more opposite of the truth.

Mark Driscoll is just some person in Seattle. I shouldn't really care about people like him if i disagree. But unfortunetely i do care. Mark Driscoll makes me embarrassed to be a man. Hell, Mark Driscoll makes me embarrassed to be a human. He is everything i have ever thought was wrong with religion, which is why i don't bother anymore. As the book of Revalations says:

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Mark Driscoll, he was a total assclown and Hell followed with him"

Your Life: the video game!!!

2009-11-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

Do you remember when you could play video games and not have to worry about...well anything?
video games have always been a nice form of escapism for me. be it the girl in junior high who didn't like me, or the pain from knowing that girl didn't like me, or the nightly sob-fests from thinking about the girl who didn't like me, video games could always step into my sad little world and say "why are you crying? you're not a loser! you are a gigantic toad carrying a battle axe!"
or maybe it would say, "the teachers think you aren't smart? thats interesting, since you just SAVED THE HUMAN FUCKING RACE FROM ALIENS!"
or "nobody likes you? well too bad for them, because you just put a whole bunch of colored blocks on other colored blocks to make them disappear!

for whatever reason, my life is just not as exciting as video games. if a video game was made of my life, it would be called "Sad Guy" .

it would consist of only one level, where each morning i would wake up at the crack of noon, take a super long pee, eat something left over from the night before, tell myself i should read, but actually go online for a fews hours where i get depressed about how everyone else's life is more exciting than mine, watch TV, eat more food, drink some beer, fall asleep. sounds riveting right? and here's the best part of the game: you never win, you just do it over and over until you turn 40 and then wonder why you're not "punk" anymore.

if only there was a way to play a video game, and then live that out in real life....

there is a way!!!! at the THE ARMY EXPERIENCE CENTER!!!!!!!

thats right, at a mall in Philly you can have the experience of both playing video games, AND throwing your life away, AT THE SAME TIME!!!

in this high-tech facility, you can test your patriotism by getting into a real HUMVEE on front of a huge screen and shooting at "the bad guys". How will you know that bad guys? they're the ones with the guns, obviously. unless they show up at an Obama rally, then they are just normal citizens exercising their rights, to be assholes and get on the news.

but don't forget, just like in the real Army, if you shoot civilians, you lose points. not that those points actually mean anything. just like in real life, nobody counts how many "civilian lives" or "points" get taken away by the US Army. so not a real big deal. but still.... try not to aim at kids, ok?

what's this? we can get into a helicopter?!?!?!? and shoot people?!?!?! AMAZING!!!!!!!!

oh wait i forgot...its just a video game. poop.
But is it?!?!? After all the helicopter does have the illusion of being at a height where you can't actually see who you're hitting, but at least you know you're killing people!

But i thought real soldiers were gonna be here. i want to talk to actual heroes! Well guess what ya little statistic?!?! the AEC is fucking chock full of recruiters who are desperate to get some kid to sign his life away just as long as they themselves don't have to go back to that god-forsaken land! YAY! America!

and the best part? the soldiers are dressed like they work at Best Buy, because nothing says "real american hero" like khakis and a polo. Kids aren't stupid these days, they know when they are being sold something. But luckily they don't know when they are SELLING something. like their souls.

Sure this all sounds cool, but I'm someone who is more influenced by famous people. well guess what?!?!?! the AEC has had some famous visitors as well! random-ass NFL players showed up to play video games against actual soldiers at the " Which of us are Worse Role Models?" Tournament.

Also, Playboy model and 2008 "Cyber Girl of the Year" Jo Garcia stopped by the AEC to once again let girls know that while they technically are allowed to enlist, we'd all really prefer it if they'd just remain sexual objects.

but here is the most exciting part!

everyone who goes to the AEC has the option of taking the "life of a solider" tour. if you're wealthy, you get to take the "life of a commanding officer tour". if you're gay you get to take the "killing kids is ok, destroying countries, no biggie. and yet somehow in this day in age we just can't wrap our heads around this whole "gay" thing" tour.

on the "life of a soldier" tour, you follow the life of "Jimmy" a kid who just wanted to go to college, but didn't have the money. you start in a mall, where Jimmy is cornered by Army recruiters. There, they tell him that (if he lives) the army will pay for his college (if he lives) and set him up for life (if he lives), and give him the job training he needs to succeed, if in fact he lives.

in the next room of the tour, Jimmy says goodbye to his parents. its quite emotional, and a Creed song plays in the background while Jimmy walks away. from there you get to see him humiliated at boot camp, where angry pieces of shit yell at him and call him "faggot". after his spirit is gone, he learns how to become an emotionless machine. during this montage, "Eye of the Tiger" plays. soon he is deployed to a country he has never heard of fighting "rebels" he has never heard of for reasons he doesn't understand. the "rebels" turn out to be normal people from the town he is deployed to who just want to live in peace. but he kills them anyway. in SLOW MOTION! during this "Hey Hey We're the Monkees" is played. its very "art-house"

after being redeployed several times, Jimmy comes home to a family he doesn't recognize, a world he can't relate to, and a life he doesn't want.
at that point, the tour speeds up 30 years and those on the tour are brought outside to the alley behind mall, where they can see IN PERSON the real-life Jimmy, collecting cans in a shopping cart. the recruiters then let everyone know that "We take care of our Vets! but not actually"

but speaking of real American heroes, the AEC is screening the live-action movie "G.I. JOE: the Rise of Cobra" tonight!!!! for FREE!!! it stars that guy from the mummy, that guy from that dance movie, that guy from "Brick" who should know better, the British girl who can't act, that guy who who was in "Inner Space", one of the Wayans brothers, and that guy from the Acura ads! its a veritable who's who of people nobody gives a shit about!

i know what you are all saying, "that sounds great!!!! i want to join the Army!" but this is a big decision. and you really need to think about whether or not you want to be a hero, or a commie piece of shit. those are you choices.

no pressure.

go joe!

best movie ever

2009-09-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

An idea popped into my head the other day and i want to share it with the world. I often look at other people's lives and experiences and think "damn. my life is boring, everybody else is waaaay more exciting than me."

now while this is factually accurate, its not really healthy. and so i have been wondering how to get over this. and i think i have it: pretend my life is a movie.

hear me out. in real life, when you tell your Temp agency that the one area you don't want to work is the government, and the next place they assign you is the US Courts, that is terrible. but in a movie its HILARIOUS! what's that you say? unbeknownst to you the project they made you work on the whole time turned out to be a racist program with the specific intent of railroading undocumented immigrants into prison? thats awful! oh wait its in a movie? FUNNIEST FUCKING THING I'VE EVER HEARD! you obsess about wanting to lose weight, yet your diet regularly includes beer, pizza, and ice cream? CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE SPECIAL FEATURES!

it doesn't have to be depressing though. think about when there is a character you really like in a movie. they've been through some shit, right? they worked some terrible jobs, but made the best of it, right? when i think about my worst job ever, now i laugh. but it took me about 5 years to do that. it was at a movie theatre by the way. well actually its tied with the 1 hour i worked at a phone bank before walking out after hearing the 3rd person in a row call a certain current president a nasty word that starts with "N". and no its not "nincompoop"

Maybe you should imagine your life is like a TV show. The Office is one of the biggest shows on television and everybody's life on that show SUCKS! i mean sure pam and jim, blah blah blah, but lets be real: Jim has "cheater" written all over him. and eventually Pam is gonna blame Jim for her failure as an artist. but for now, its adorable!

the most important thing about your movie is that you HAVE to be the main character. this may sound arrogant, but if you start thinking of yourself as a side character it will end badly. "but wait, you're saying, what about all the side characters in movies who are great?" Doesn't matter. Sure nobody wants to be Jon Favreu's character and everyone all want to be Vince Vaughn's character in "Swingers", but for real, the character must have 27 STI's at this point. plus its so '96 to treat women like shit. Trust me, you need to be the star of your movie. The trajectory of the star is soooo much different than that of the sidekick.

For instance if your life is the 1985 film "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" and you are Sarah Jessica Parker, well done you! you will go on to have a successful life writing a column in the newspaper, buying lots of shoes, and hanging out with women you secretly hate, but pretend to be your best friends. also you marry Ferris Bueller.

However if your life is the 1985 film "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" and you are Shannen Doherty, woe is you. you will be forever known as the annoying high school kid who left a terrible show about annoying high school kids because you couldn't get along with the other annoying high school kids. you'll drink alot. you will go on play a witch on a show with other washed up actresses, and host a reality show on the Sci-Fi channel. also you will be the worst part of a Kevin Smith movie, which is saying something.

Being in you own movie is even easier now that everyone has iPods. you can have a soundtrack to your life, while you are living your life. if you are worried something terrible is about to happen to you, like someone is chasing you or broke into your house, just change your music to something happy, and i'm sure everything will be alright. but not something TOO happy, because then maybe your movie is one of those sketchy horror movies where they play over-the-top happy music while someone gets murdered. like the opening scene to "Deep Red". shit is disturbing.

now i know what you are wondering, and yes Jude Law does play me in my movie. Denzel Washington is my best friend. Judi Dench is my love interest (shut it, she rules) and my dog will be played by a bear.

also i can fly, have super strength, and know how to make a mean falafel.

No sir, you are the one who is the liar.

2009-09-15T07:25:00.000-07:00

So.... i don't know if you know this, but prior to Kanye West interrupting country music's latest attempt to kill itself, there was another outburst all over the news. On Wednesday september something something blah blah blah, President Barack Obama was delivering what some might call an incredibly important speech. Others might call it an hour of my life i'll never get back. During this speech, he said his health care plans would not provide care for illegal immigrants, or as the Native Americans used to call them "Europeans". It was during this fateful statement that Congresswhiteman Joe Wilson from South Carolina yelled "You lie!"

As soon as this was yelled, the room went silent, and Obama stood there staring at the camera. The camera panned to Michelle who looked to be on the verge of tears. and then the president of the united states just broke down and cried, saying "you're right! oh god what have i done?!?!?!" and from then on, no presidents ever lied again. the end.

so joe wilson yelled, and and everyone freaks outs, saying its super disrespectful. however to be fair, in South Carolina its considered disrespectful to even allow black people in the same room as whites, so really Wilson is a progressive.

Since this moment in really boring political history that won't matter in 2 let alone 20 years, Wilson has become the face of a movement. the rich, white, male face of a movement. I speak of course of the Tea Party or "rich whites who don't mind their neighbor's kids being killed for a lie, but sure as hell aren't gonna pay for that kid to be able to see a doctor" movement. i hesitate to call it a movement, but technically what i am about to leave in the toilet is a movement, so i suppose it fits.

But now that Wilson is the poster boy for things i don't care about, i figured i should give him something he really needs right now: attention.

So we all know what Wilson said to Barack Obama, but here is something you might not know, Joe Wilson's real name is Addison Graves Wilson! so right out the gate this guy is a liar. Obama should've been all "oh really ADDISON? i lie? at least i didn't change my name to "joe"! Shit, my first name sounds like a martial art, my middle name was a dictator, and my last name rhymes with a terrorist, and i got elected president of the united states. So tell me who's the liar Addison Graves Wilson sr.?!?!?!"

but obama didn't say that. and thats why the terrorists win.

but here are some other facts about joe wilson i know off the top of my head (aka wikipedia):

In 2002, Wilson was discussing with Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) the possible (but not actual) Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or as the whole thing is now called "the mistake that we should never be forgiven for. ever."
Wilson flipped out on Filner for implying that the US sold Saddam Hussein chemical weapons back when...well back when we were in fact selling Saddam Hussein chemical weapons. Wilson later had to apologize, but i totally bet his fingers were crossed when he did.

once again to be fair, Most americans didn't know about Wikipedia until 2004 , so its totally ok that i'm a college drop-out and i know more about US foreign policy than an elected congressman.

Remember Strom Thurmond? Al Sharpton does. Strom Thurmond was a racist, segregationist senator who was elected and re-elected time and time again in, you guessed it, SOUTH CAROLINA! YAY! well, as i'm sure you all know now, it turns out that despite giving the longest filibuster (by a senator) in history to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957,Thurmond had an secret child with his black house servant. This child, Essie-Mae Washington Williams, decided to wait until Thurmond died to reveal this to the world, which is REALLY unfortunate, because Thurmond lived to be 100 years old. This seems to be one of the truly sad ironies of our time, because if Thurmond had lived just 6 more years, he would've lived long enough to die from a heart attack from seeing a black man become president.

so what does this have to do with Wilson? Well when Essie-Mae revealed herself to be Thurmond's child, Wilson "publicly doubted" this, which is a nice way of saying he called her a liar on the news. Its not entirely clear if he yelled out "YOU LIE!" in the middle of her statement or not. Maybe he was saving that nugget of rhetorical eloquence for primetime. He then said that whether or not she was Thurmond's daughter, she should've kept it to herself, because it was just a big smear campaign to taint Thurmond. This is ironic since Thurmond was in fact a taint.

The family of Thurmond then announced that it was in fact true, Essie-Mae was Thurmond's child. So Wilson apologized. Then he said he STILL thought she shouldn't have revealed that Thurmond was her father. this is just silly. you can't apologize for something, and then just restate right afterwards and have that be ok. you can't say "i'm really sorry for calling you an asshole, but in my defense you are an asshole." thats not an apology, thats a lie, and as we all know, Joe Wilson doesn't like liars. although, apparently only if they're black. and not actually liars.

ok, now back to present-time Joe Wilson. you may think yelling "you lie!" at the president on national television would have a negative effect on someone's political future. But, within 48 hours of the incident with the president, Wilson received $750,000 in donations. which goes to show you just how fucked up this whole system is. may the circle be unbroken.

So if none of this matters, and nobody is gonna remember it in a year, why do we spend so much time on it? Why does the news cycle endless babble on about meaningless political minutia? To keep our minds away from the 2 wars (that we know about) we are fighting and shouldn't be? To keep us from ACTUALLY coming up with a solution to health care, like... giving people health care? to keep us from asking "how long until we just tear this fucker down??!?!?!"

come to think of it, those are all really good points. shit... why aren't we talking about this stuff? and why OH MY GOD CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT KANYE DID?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?! AND WHAT THE FUCK, PATRICK SWAYZE IS DEAD?!?!?!??!??!?! FIRST FARAH, THEN MICHAEL, NOW "THE SWAYZ"? LIFE IS JUST SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO UNFAIR!

nobody puts baby in the corner.

Mad as hell, and probably gonna take some more of it!

2009-04-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

to be entirely honest i had something totally different planned for this blog today. but it has come to my attention that today is not just a Wednesday. today is TEA PARTY DAY!!!

thats right everybody, its time to get together and get pissed, REALLY PISSED! why? is it that we are still stuck in a war that we shouldn't have been in, in the first place, on top of which we have countless numbers off military bases around the world where we are not wanted? NO! ok, is it because we still support israel 100% despite the fact that they are attempting to destroy all of Gaza and wipe out the Palestinian people? NO! shit...ok, well how about the fact despite the efforts to shut down Guantanemo, prisoners are still being tortured there? NOPE! um...the fact that there is mercury used in High Fructose Corn Syrup which is in practically everything our culture eats, and the FDA doesn't seem to care? NO WAY!

ok i give up, what are we pissed about?

TAXES!!!

ok, sure, taxes suck. i'm with you! taxes should be abolished, because honestly the only way the State thrives is to feed off of taxes. DOWN WITH THE STATE! DOWN WITH TAXES!!! DOWN WITH....what?

oh, you don't want the state to go away? but without the state there is no taxes, so shouldn't that mean... wait, you just want lower taxes? well that won't really change much but i guess i'm on board. after all over 50% of all federal taxes go to the military death machine, so...

wait, its not the military budget that you have a problem with? no i don't really know what a "welfare queen" is, but yes, i suppose they do sound like terrorists.

Socialism? well i wouldn't go as far as the call this socialism, since the literal definition of socialism has nothing to do with this...

ok, you all get it. my joke is over. Today is Tea Party Day. It is a chance for people with way too much money in the first place to get out there and complain about the government taking their money. Because after all dissent is patriotic, unless its against the war...or the president...specifically the republican president.

The "party" has been promoted by such typically boring rightists as Michelle Malkin. Malkin as you may recall pushed for a boycott of Dunkin Donuts, after DD's spokesperson Rachel Ray wore what is known as a keffiyah in a Dunkin Donuts commercial. Sometimes keffiyahs are worn in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Other times, they are just a fucking scarf. Had Malkin done any research should would have found out that other than apparently being a flag for terrorism that should be the reason to boycott a donut stand, keffiyahs are also issued to US soldiers in the middle east, as they are commonly considered one of the best types of coverings for some of the bizarre types of weather over there.

so that gives you an idea of who is leading the Tea Party movement.

I'm all for tea parties. Me and Freddy my stuffed dog/imaginary best friend have awesome tea parties all the time. but they involve listening to Andrew W.K. and high-fiving Freddy. Freddy is awesome.

By all means, go out today and protest. get pissed. I'm pissed! i made zilch this year, and still owe the stupid-ass State money. it sucks. but so does war. so does destroying the earth, so does torture, so does hate, so does patriarchy, so does capitalism.

are you pissed about those things too?

Because it comes down to this: if the only "injustice" that brings you out the streets to protest; if the only thing that makes you wanna throw a brick through a window; if the only thing that makes want to stand up and say "i'm mad as hell, and i'm not gonna take it anymore!" is that taxes are too high... you're probably an American.

VIVA POOP!

2009-04-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

remember the good old days?

no? good, that's because they never existed. the sooner we admit that our country wasn't birthed out of some beautiful collection of past philosophies, and benevolent trials and errors to form our most great union, the sooner we can fix this pile of poo.

our country's guidelines (the declaration of independence, the constitution, the bill of rights, the idiot's guide to patriarchy) were all written by rich white men. now this may not seem like a big deal, because everything our society has been based on in the past couple hundred years has been run by rich white men.

but here is something you might not know: while everything was run by rich white men, rich white men were in fact NOT the only people to live on the earth! i know i know, pretty shocking. i personally all assumed that the entire earth was made of white men, until God decided one day to make women out of some ribs.

i mention this only because i personally find hard to believe that these men who "founded" our country had the interests of anyone other than themselves when they whipped out the quill and starting writing some scrolls.

these men who owned slaves and found no need for women to be a part of life other then cooking food and looking pretty (two things i'm awesome at). these men who slaughtered a nation of people because of "manifest destiny". if you are new to the term "manifest destiny", it comes from the original Latin phrase "manifesto destino" which translates to "genocidal self-entitlement".

because when we say "founded this country", what we really mean "tricked, diseased, and murdered the former inhabitants of this country." this is the history we all know, and yet nobody seems to be too bothered by it. i mean i don't know anyone who thinks that its good that a nation of native americans were slaughtered, but very few people seem to think about it too much. for instance, when was the last time you thought about it? a while ago? thats because you are a shit head. but don't worry, so am i.

think about this: we showed up and wanted the land. we killed the people on the land and took it. ok, so why can't we do that now? i'm not advocating murder, but frankly rent has been way too much for me, and i don't see why if murder and theft of land is good enough for our forefathers, its not good enough for me. why can't i cap my landlord and take his shit? oh right, jail. well i guess if the forefathers went to jail, then so should i. what? they didn't? they got to be presidents and statesmen? they died rich and in big houses? interesting.

now you maybe saying "reuben, it was all so long ago! i know it was awful, but why can't we just let it go now. its been over a hundred years!"
to this i will reply by paraphrasing the legendary Bill Hicks, and just say that i will stop talking about this, when other people stop talking about Jesus. Because honestly if we are talking about shelf-life on issues... well i think you get the point.

look, i am not saying that Thomas Jefferson didn't love his kids. Or that George Washington didn't care about nature. or that Adams wasn't the best kisser in the commonwealth. I am sure they all had good intentions. But good intentions only get you so far. and cruel intentions is a crappy movie with Reese Witherspoon.Not that we can claim to be better. After all our modern leaders have taken the murderous leanings of our former founders and turned destruction into an art.

Within the first 5 days of his presidency, Barak Obama had missiles shot into Pakistan killing 18 people. And he's the peace candidate.

i think the part of the problem is best summed up by former President George Bush , when he was still vice-president to our Lord and Savior Ronald Reagan. When the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian passenger plane killing 290 civilians, he was asked if he would apologize for the action. to this he replied "I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy."

ok, that was the president. of the united states. that wasn't some guy you got into an argument with in Poli Sci 101. that was the president of the united states. he's "not an apologize for American-kind-of guy". nope not him. he's more of a invade-Panama-and-Iraq-then-leave-both-countries-worse-then-when-he-found-it kind of guy.

he doesn't care what the facts are? really? because in high school i didn't care what the facts were. now all day i ask people what size latte they want. he got to be president.

so i know what you are thinking, "reuben you must lead us to a better tomorrow! become our president, our king, our emperor!" but i am sorry to say, i'm not gonna take the job. it doesn't pay very well, and you have to be a complete asshole to do it. but don't cry, for there is hope. now that you have gotten over the disappoint of me not becoming president you may wonder, "but if the constitution and all that other crap is illegitimate, what document should we base our society on?!?!"

anything. like seriously anything. Clifford the big red dog. everyone poops. goodnight moon. i mean why not, right? for instance, try this out; in Clifford the Big Red Dog, do they ever call slaves 3/5 of human beings? no? Alright! we're already doing better than the constitution!

i honestly think you could build a stable, non-hierarchical society with kids books. try a book like "everyone poops." think about that statement itself "everybody poops". we all poop. everyone of us. from sea to shining sea, everybody poops. you can ask someone "do you poop?" and they would say "why yes i do!" i'm getting chills right now!

Because even Clifford the big red dog (or maybe Tintin) would agree that we need to smash the state, but until then, maybe we can at the very least open up the dialogue about why we use arcane, racist and sexist documents to form our society, that were written by men who most likely didn't have the interests of the majority in mind when they wrote it. Maybe if they had read "everbody poops" they would realize we are all equal and all have the right to party.

except people from Rhode Island. fuck Rhode Island.

Robbing the rich to give to the incredibly rich

2009-03-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

the absurdity of the whole Bernie Madoff scandal is almost too much to deal with sometimes. in case you read the actual news, or just don't care about this stuff, let me summarize the case for you:

1.)rich asshole tricks other rich assholes into giving him money.
2.)rich asshole steals all of that money.
3.)other rich assholes get mad and send the first rich asshole to jail for the rest of his life.
4.)poor people wonder when the fuck anyone is gonna notice them.

that is pretty much it. Madoff is no doubt a jerkface for doing what he did, but the way the media is portraying him is as though he is the first rich person to rip people off. far from it, Madoff is just one in a thousand sketchy-ass rich dudes, who take people's money. the big difference here is that he stole from other rich people. big mistake!

as we all know, rich people are placed on this earth from god, to make us feel bad about ourselves, and try harder. they also stimulate the economy and spend money which then "trickles down" all over us normals, and then finally just sorta slowly drips on the homeless. as we bask in these golden showers of minimum wage and "tax cuts", the rich also make t-shirts with catchy phrases, like "honk if i'm paying your mortgage" and "i'd rather be waterboarding" and the ever-popular "Reagan is dead and i can't get over it, because although i was barely alive during his presidency, i imagine his reign was a free-market utopia where all was made Right, not the terrorism-committing, Iran-Contra corrupting, Grenada-invading cluster-fuck that it actually was."
that shirt is my favorite.

now, you may wonder "but reuben, you are really smart and attractive, if this we whole Madoff business doesn't matter, why are you even talking about it?"

to which i reply, "shut up."

i make 8 dollars and hour which for where i live is barely over minimum wage. do i really care that some rich people are pissed over losing more money than i'll ever see in my lifetime? no i don't care. what i care about is that the stupid-ass news cycle can't stop talking about it.

because meanwhile the Pope is a freaking idiot (surprise surprise), Louisiana cops shot and killed an unarmed 73 year man, and something about AIG that i don't really understand is going on.

so why do we spend so much time on Madoff? maybe its because we know we'll never really get the big fish. so we put all of our financial frustration onto one guy, and and say he's to blame for everything. we know we'll never get the corrupt sculptors of this system,(they are long dead and gone) so we settle for no even second best. just some guy most of us had never heard of before the scandal, because the big fish always gets away.

this is Ollie North all over again. this is Scooter Libby all over again.

this is why when someone steals clothes, or food or other necessities, the blame is always put on the person who stole. we never ask why they needed food, or clothes. we never ask what is stopping them from having these things, so that they had to steal them.

so the next time you read about the Madoff and you get all pissed about it and find satisfaction that he is going to jail, just remember this:

1.)there are a million rich people out there right behind him waiting to screw you over.

2.)you'll never be that rich, because the hierarchical system we live by won't let you.

3.)you're basically screwed and if the most socially-minded thing you did in the past year was "vote for Change" maybe you are part of the problem.

4.)pay no attention to me stealing you television while you read the news.

on a side note, i do not hate rich people. i simply have issues with the validity of monetary wealth and its power and have felt this way ever since reading the landmark supreme court case of Hood, Robin v. Nottingham, Sheriff of.

Losing My Hair/Mind/Dignity/Patience

2009-03-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

the world is burning, people are dying, wars are being waged and to top it all off i am losing my fucking hair.

thats right, i said it, all those things are happening, but worst of all i am starting to lose my hair. on the top mostly. which sucks because i won't get that sexy receding hairline that turns into "The Jason Statham" that actually make someone look mature and badass.

nope, not me. i am starting to lose hair right in the middle of my head. so i look like a freaking monk. and i got plenty of good things to say about monks, from creating wine, to those semi-interesting chant albums. but one bad thing about monks is their stupid-ass haircut. its like a disc of skin surrounded by hair. its awful.

now i'm not there yet, but its coming. i know it. its starting to thin. so best case scenario is that it never gets any worse, and for the rest of my life people will wait til i excuse myself for the bathroom, and then say, "is reuben losing his hair?". and then my partner will have to say "um...kinda. its been happening for a while. but he is SUPER sensitive about it, so dont bring it up, ok?" and they'll say "oh of course not! never! i mean it doesn't even look bad or anything."

but then the next time they see someone i know they'll say, "oh my GOD, reuben is totally losing his hair!"

so thats the best case scenario if it stays where it is. but if it gets worse, i have really only a few choices:

1.) shave my head. not really a choice for someone who is as white as me. it just looks bad. i did it once, and i guess it wasn't quite as bad at i thought it would be, but i kinda look like a soccer hooligan. but not in a good way. kind of in a "the dumb soccer hooligan who break bottles on his head" not in a "the cute soccer hooligan with heart of gold, who succeeds in life" way.

2.) keep it short. there are several ways to do this. with this method, those who see me from the front will never know i am balding. maybe my hair will be brushed down to give a "i used to be emo, but now i call it indie rock" look. or maybe i will flip the front up a bit to give that semi-faux-hawk, sort-played-out-but-still-works-at-frat-parties-look" either way none of this will matter because when i turn around, it will be a shock for everyone. a huge uncomfortable shock. like at the end of The Crying Game. im not gonna spoil the end of The Crying Game, but lets just say its a huge shock. so thats pretty much how people will, screw it, at the end of the movie you find out that the woman who is the romantic lead turns out to be a man. and when i say you find out, i mean you see his penis. needless to say, its shocking. i don't want my bald spot making people think of penises.

3.) grow it long. so this method is kind of the "suck it" to your genes. its basically saying "you're gonna take some of my hair? fine i'll just grow the rest out till everyone kinda just looks at me and say "really?"" this look is also known as "the michael bolton circa early 90's." hippies can pull this off, but really only because they are hippies. hippies get away with large amounts of awful fashion choices strictly because they are hippies. sadly i am not a hippy and don't own enough tie-dye grateful dead shirts with those dancing bears to qualify for the team.

4.) the comb-over. i feel like i don't really even need to explain why this is bad.

so, those are pretty much my options. now some of you might have already lost your hair, and you are thinking "reuben, seriously stop being such a baby. its not a big deal. its just hair. i got over it, so can you." but you know what? piss off, just because you have dealt with it, and are fine with who you you are, doesn't mean i have to be ok with this.

because look, i hate my job. i am overweight. i have an obscene amount of body hair. i went to college for 5 years, have no degree, and owe about $30,000 in student loans. i no longer enjoy playing music, skateboarding or making films, 3 things that i have loved in the past. my personal political/moral/religious/anti-religious beliefs make it almost impossible for me to really connect with people. instead i get into conversations where people look at me blankly before realizing that, yes i was serious, and no, they don't want to talk to me anymore.

on top of which the world is burning, people are dying, and wars are being waged. thats right, the world is burning, people are dying, wars are being waged and all i can do is complain about my fucking hair. which make me feel like shit. people have no food. people are literally dying the second i write this, and you read this, and all i can do is talk about my hair.

statistically while you read this someone died, someone was born, someone was murdered, someone conceived, someone was crippled, someone was raped, someone was shot, someone was stabbed, someone fought, someone loved, someone hated, someone laughed, someone cried. all that happened while you read this. while i complained about my hair, all of that happened. that was going on and all i wanted to do was complain about my hair.

and all you wanted to do was read about it.

welcome to my hell.

spreading the wealth and what that means.

2008-10-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

i must say that frankly all the people freaking out over Obama's remarks about spreading the wealth or redistribution of wealth is surprising to me. when it comes down to it, i don't really understand how people can come off so obviously greedy. we're not talking about communism or socialism. i meant, we're not ever close to those ideas. we are are talking about a tax plan that won't effect the majority of America. when we talk about wealth i suppose there are a few different definitions we should clear up. some might think of wealth as excess money, more than is needed.

i wonder if Obama had worded it differently if people would have been so bold in jumping on it. had he said "we need to spread the food around" or "we need to spread the medicine or affordable housing around" would people still be able to come out and act on their worst impulses? would people in america be ready to admit to themselves and the world that they are selfish and don't want others to have what they have? when we say wealth, what are we talking about? do we think that the government is going to come and take away our car and give it to someone else?

is it too much to ask that those who have been privileged with "wealth" help those who have not?

there has always been a class war, and the fact that McCain has finally picked up on it, is encouraging. what is not is that he thinks it is a war waged on the upper class. the war has existed as long as there have been those with power and money, and those with none.

there is not a poverty problem in the world, there is a wealth problem. the problem is not that the man on the end of my street has no food. the problem is that i have more than enough food, but won't share any with him.

spread that wealth around mofo.

Coulter-rific!

2008-05-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

So as everyone knows, ann coulter is a horrible person. she is full of hate, and is a facist, and blah blah blah. Being on the left and hating ann coulter is like being on the right and having a flag on your porch; cliche. but lately i have found something i like about her;

i think secretly, deep down, ann coulter wants to be a standup comedian.

in the past, she has made remarks that were supposed to be funny, and overall she tries to exude wit when appearing on TV shows. she usually fails, but hey, nobody is perfect. She has also made the complaint that while Sarah Silverman has said the word "fag" and gotten away with it, Coulter called John Edwards a "fag" and people were offended.

This got me thinking. Why on earth would Coulter choose Sarah Silverman as the name to even out the supposed injustice done to her? I mean really think about. Famous, and now dead, conservative voice William F. Buckley called people fags. Shit, he called Gore Vidal a fag on several occasions. So why on earth would Coulter think to first go to Sarah Silverman as her get out of jail free card? Why indeed?

The reason I keep coming back to is that she really wants to be considered a comedian. Because it really can't go both ways. You can't be a pundit AND a comedian. It just doesn't work. Not to mention its much easier to go from comedian to pundit, than the other way around. just ask Al Franken. or even someone like George Carlin.

Carlin is a favorite comedian of mine, especially now that he is older, and more pissed off. But when he goes on news shows and debates pundits about whatever issue they bring up, he blindsides them by being smarter and more articulate then they are.

Jon Stewart did this on his now legendary appearance on Crossfire. He showed up and they assumed he was gonna make some fart jokes and leave. And instead he verbally neck-punched them across the floor.

When comedians get serious, it works. When serious people try to get funny, it rarely works.

This is why Coulter's indignation is just so ridiculous. If somebody like Sean Hannity decided to go into the Patton Oswalt's "The Poetry of Pornography" bit in the middle of Hannity and Colmes, he would not be able to recover by using the defense "but Patton gets to say it!"

All this is to say that i have been reading Coulter's column lately, and it seems as though she is really trying to break into comedy. She recently compared Obama's "the audacity of hope" with Hitler's "Mein Kampf". Obviously she is either just being a shithead, or she is trying to be funny and shocking. but it isn't coming off as either.

while conservatives might have politics down to a science, liberals OWN comedy. i don't think this because i am left of center. i think this because its just the truth. I don't think Larry the Cable Guy is a unfunny because he is conservative, i think Larry the Cable Guy is unfunny because his jokes are shit. I don't think Coulter is unfunny because she is a facist devil-woman. I think she is unfunny because she doesn't think out her jokes. Her big punchline is just a shocking statement. She calls John Edwards a fag, and thats it. not setup, no follow through. i mean if she really wanted to go for the joke, why not call Edwards a fag, and then make a joke about his wife looking like man or something. i mean has comedy really gotten to the point where the punchline is calling somebody gay? no, comedy isn't there. it has moved past that. which is why Coulter needs to freshen up her act. so as a follower of good comedy, here are some suggestions for her:

1.)If you are gonna be offensive OWN IT.
nothing is more sad then seeing somebody say something super offensive and then backtracking. everybody knows Coulter is a cold-hearted demon, so she might as well take advantage of it.

2.)self-deprecation
for all the shit-talking, you'd better be able to take a few yourself. so why not take a page from the final scene of 8 Mile, and make fun of yourself before anyone else can.

3.)curse.
sorry, but its true. clean comedians are not funny. its not that not swearing isn't funny, its that limiting yourself isn't funny. also, if you curse you can open yourself up to a whole NEW type of offensive. for instance you can make fun of Edwards and not alienate your gay fans by instead of calling him a fag, calling him a "fucking asstractor". nobody knows what that means, AND you were offensive. well done you!

4.)make sure your jokes go deeper.
anybody can make a joke on the surface. a comedian goes below the surface. one of my biggest problems with the film Team America: World Police, was how unfunny the second half was. The first half was supposed to make fun of Conservatives and the second half was supposed to make fun of Liberals. The problem was not that it made fun of liberals. the problem was that is made fun of liberals BADLY. if you are gonna make fun of Michael Moore, and your biggest punchline is that he is fat, you need to start over. I mean really, I've enjoyed some of Michael Moore's stuff, but c'mon, of all the things you can make fun of the guy about, you go after his weight? weak.

5.)Realize that people will always hate you.
i am constantly shocked when Coulter gets on TV and then is mortified to find out that the entire country does not agree with her latest hate-filled rant. Quite often after this Coulter loses her cool, and loses place, and therefore has lost potential fans. Admit that what you said was vengeful, hateful speech. and explain that this is only because you are a vengeful hateful person.

so here it is, you read it HERE first. if Coulter becomes a standup comedian, i will take full credit. Don't be surprised if she does. Also, Anne Coulter is gay.