Birthday Wish

Would I be judged harshly if I said that the only thing I wanted for my birthday was about 50 years of rest in a bed with my wife and a catheter?  Fuck it.  I don't give a fuck if I'm judged harshly.  I want 50 years of rest in a bed with my wife and a catheter for my birthday.

Dumb and Packing

There are at least two armed security guards who are stationed at my office at all times.

I sit about 6 feet away from one of them.

Today, I overheard him saying that he doesn't have a high school diploma, and that the current job market doesn't want people with high school diplomas.  The current job market favors those with GEDs.  He also mentioned that he only needed to have a third grade education in order to qualify for carrying a firearm.

I enjoy knowing that the people who are licensed to shoot other humans are not required to know how to write in cursive, read books without pictures, or multiply or divide basic numbers.  I'm certain that they will have the best judgment of whom to shoot.  I already feel safer.

Angetha's Helpful Words

Angetha called her workers to her office.

"What you all need to do," she said sternly to the group in front of her, "is work quicker.  You need to make sure your reports are written faster and are more accurate.  This will help your processing time.  And that's what I'm trying to do!  I'm trying to help you!"  And she slammed her fist on her desk, as if she wanted to beat all her workers in the room.

The workers left Angetha's office, feeling as if they had been yelled at.  They went back to their offices and started writing reports.  Most of them, however, had no idea about how to improve themselves.  She simply said to do it faster.  But I'm working as fast as I can.  And I write all my reports as accurately as possible.  What, does she think I'm actually writing an inaccurate report on purpose?!  Without knowing how to better themselves, the workers continued to perform at the same level as they did before Angetha's meeting.

So Angetha called her workers to her office again.

"I told you," she said, angrily spitting her words as if they were daggers, "you must increase your processing time.  None of you have increased your speed or accuracy!  And we just had a meeting about this!  What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"It would be nice if we had some assistance with how you would like us to increase our processing time," said one of the workers.  "I heard you last meeting, but I don't know what I could do to increase my speed or accuracy.  I'm doing the best I'm able to do."  Angetha's silence made the workers words seem so small, as if they had been lightly tossed into an enormous chasm that Angetha had just created with her muted hatred and fury which was evident on her face. 

"You don't know how to do your job?" she asked the worker.
"I know how to do my job..."
"So you ought to know how to do it quicker."
"If I'm already working as quickly as I can..."
"We trained you to perform at a certain level.  If you're not able to perform at that level, this might not be the right place for you."
The worker stopped talking.  His job had inadvertently been threatened, and with the country in the middle of an economic recession, he couldn't afford to be out of a job.  He had a family dependent on his job.  So he allowed himself to be publicly humiliated and berated by Angetha.
"As long as you work here, you are required to meet certain guidelines.  When those guidelines aren't met, then that means we need to have a talk.  And I know none of you want to have a talk.  So just make sure you get your reports written.  And don't make any mistakes."

The workers went back to their offices.  The talked with each other.  They tried to discover a way to write faster than what they were already doing.  They tried to discover a way to become more accurate.  But they were already doing their best.  And Angetha wasn't giving them any assistance with how they could change to better their situation.  So even though they wanted to better themselves, they were completely powerless to do so.  And they were destined to return to Angetha's office for more talks about how they weren't performing as well as they should.

And later that year, Angetha wrote a report.  "My employees are deliberately delinquent.  They do not wish to perform at a suitable level of work.  We have had several meetings, and they have not responded to direction."  Angetha sighed as she sent her report to her boss and hoped that her new batch of employees would be better than this last bunch of degenerates.

I Must Be An Asshole

My iPod plays the theme to the TV show "The A-Team".

I'm shot back to a time about 20 years ago when I had been hired for an intense, summer program where actors built sets and performed in 5 of 7 shows to be performed over the course of 3 months.  It was a fantastic time, and two other guys and I would sing these delicious harmonies to the theme of "The A-Team" and "T.J. Hooker".  It was a really great memory.

So I went online and found one of the guys on Facebook.  Sent him a message, letting him know that I was thinking pleasantly about him and hoped he was doing well.  I sent him a friend request.

I then found the other dude on Facebook.  Sent him a message, saying about the same thing, and wishing him well.  Sent him a friend request.  Then I checked out his pictures. 

One of his pictures is with a man who used to be a great friend of mine... until he admitted to me that he had slept with one of my college girlfriends after I had broken up with her and she went to his apartment immediately and told him that I had broken up with her and she wanted to sleep with him to hurt me.  There's so much about that sentence that bothers me, but what I'm left with is a friend who slept with a recent ex of mine to help her hurt me.  That's not somebody I want to hold dear anymore.  So I stopped corresponding with him.  The last time I saw him was at his wedding, which I was in.  He asked me to be involved in a 3-way with himself and his wife.  I declined.  He told me about my ex-girlfriend and said that it had been gnawing at him ever since it had happened years before. 

I thought about what my two A-Team friends would think about me not communicating with them, or my Ex-Girlfriend Fucker.  I imagine that they must think me to be an asshole for just disappearing.  And I'm the jerk for not telling my Ex-Girlfriend Fucker that I was angry with him.  I'm the asshole. 

And I remember people sending me friend requests on Facebook that I ignored.  I didn't want to be friends with those people, because they weren't my friends.  They had tried to hurt me.  They hadn't apologized.  I didn't want them as friends.

Then I thought about me being that person who had hurt people. 
I hate thinking that was me.
I guess I must be an asshole.
Fuck.

"There Won't Be Enough Lifeguards To Help Everyone!!"



A person is drowning.  In a few moments, that person will have fluid fill their lungs instead of air.  In a few moments, that person will die.

Some people will try to help that person.

Some people will try to get out of the way so that others can help the drowning person.

Some people will yell at the drowning person, "Learn to swim, ya bum!  You're cluttering up the pool with your talentless body!  Quit dirtying it up for the rest of us!"  These people might even chastise those who are trying to help the drowning person.  They might even suggest that if the lifeguard helps the drowning person, then there will not be enough help to go around when other, more deserving people are in need of assistance.

Now try to imagine this scenario in terms of our current health care debate.

There are many people who would not help those in need, and one of the reasons for not helping those in need is because it would, somehow, hurt others.

I believe it is a sign of severe mental illness, perhaps a kind of psychosis, to hear the sentence, "I want to help people," and have it altered in your head to mean "I want to hurt you."

Redistribution of Fondue

I read an article today about "The Buffet Rule".
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/class-warfare-republicans-blast-obamas-buffett-rule/

The Buffet Rule, as it's being called, is an economic proposal coming from President Obama which comes from statements made by Warren Buffet, one of the wealthiest men in the world ($44 billion net worth according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett).
Buffet has said that his secretary makes $60,000 a year and pays 29% in taxes. Buffet makes $46 million a year and pays 17% in taxes. Buffet has suggested that the wealthiest Americans should be taxed more. Obama's "Buffet Rule" states that those people making over one million dollars annually should be taxed at the same level as middle-class Americans. In other words, Warren Buffet's secretary gets taxed 29%, and Warren Buffet gets taxed 29%.

What's interesting (read: fucking stupid as fucking hell) about the article I was reading is the following post. A user by the name of "irishrose" posted this response to the article about Obama's economic plan to help get America out of it's financial hole:

He [Obama] just wants to take everyone’s money. First it will be the millionaires, then the working class, then the poverty class. He is trying to turn this country into a communistic nation. What he needs to do is give credits to all the companies that have their money offshore so that they will bring it back to the US

Posted by: irishrose September 18, 2011, 11:39 pm 11:39 pm

So the thought is that we should reward those businesses that have left our country?

Maybe I'm just too stupid to understand the reasoning put forward by irishrose. Lemme think about it for a second.

I have a business.
I move the business.
The country where I had the business gives me money.
At which point, my thought is probably, "You're the dumbest fucking country in the history of ever!"

Maybe I'm not giving irishrose enough credit. Maybe irishrose is suggesting that we give incentives to companies that have moved away in the hopes that they will come back and save us all with their money and jobs. So rather than simply just handing away the credit, as irishrose is actually suggesting, the credit would be given to companies once they return to the US, which might be what irishrose intended. If this is what irishrose intended, I will go ahead and say "your welcome" for being able to interpret your intentions and turn them in to actual communication. If this is what irishrose intended-- giving credits to companies who return to us after leaving us-- I would say, fuck that noise! Let's put it like this: there's a woman named USA, and she is married to a man named Corporation. Corporation leaves USA, causing USA financial difficulties. USA then writes a letter to Corporation to the tune of, "If you come back to me, I'll suck your dick." Corporation reads this letter calmly, as he's already getting head from some chick he met in his new country, as well as having several small boys licking his asshole, and he thinks, "USA sure is stupid to think that they have something I want or need. I was there before, and I left for a reason. That reason is that chicks and small boys in this new country are sucking me off and cleaning my ass with their tongues. If USA really wanted me back, she would do let me fuck her in the ass. So maybe I'll try to fuck USA in the ass. Boy, I love all the power that I have!" Then Corporation lovingly pushes a small boy inside his asshole, because he enjoys the sensation of child-struggles on his prostate. And then he eats a cigar and laughs.

Or another way of thinking about it:
Your child does something you don't approve of.
So you reward that child???

What the fuck is wrong with you, irishrose?! You retarded fucking piece of shit! People like you should be crucified and slaughtered publicly! Your parents and children should be murdered with dull, metal objects to help insure your Monumental Dumbness doesn't pollute anyone else!

I don't understand why people are so stupid.
I don't understand why people would be outraged about everybody having the same tax rate.
I don't understand, and I feel like this nation is headed for a meltdown. We're going to collapse on ourselves, like the top of a fountain of water, and those who are struggling will have nothing to lose, so why not revolt? People are going to fight to survive, and there's a big difference between surviving and going without your Pilate's class. There are people who are starving, while others are throwing away huge portions of food because their kids asked for white chocolate, not milk chocolate for the chocolate fondue machine we got for Easter, so we had to go out and buy another 85 tons of chocolate. Big difference between starving and chocolate fondue. And while I'm not a fan of the term or concept "redistribution of wealth", I am a fan of everyone pays to play. You wanna play, you have to pay. And right now, millionaires aren't paying. And they're taking the government to court in the hopes that they will continue to not pay.

That just made me think-- hey, don't raise taxes on the rich. They don't have to pay any more taxes than anybody else. But if they don't pay taxes, they have to be deported. I mean, why should they get what this country is offering when they're not paying for it? And, obviously, the theory of these large corporations being "Job Creators" is a fucking load of fuck. If it was true, then they would have actually created jobs, which they haven't. So fuck them. And fuck everybody. And fucking fuck!! FUCK!!! FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!

Art and Whisperplay

My wife is an artist. A really good one.

She sold a set of nesting dolls on the internet last week, and she just completed them yesterday. The boys and I took a look at them, and then we reported to the living room to tell her how awesome they were.

My 15-year-old leaned over to me and, playfully, whispered so that everyone in the room could hear, "Hey, your wife is a really great artist." He leaned over to his mom and loudly whispered, "Hey, you're a really great artist." I leaned over to him and loudly whispered, "Hey, your mom is a really great artist." He leaned in to me and loudly whispered, "I know." In the middle of this playfulness sits my wife, smiling hugely, rightfully proud of her work and warmed by the adulation of her family.

That was a good thought I had just now.

Gun.

Yesterday I had a desire to buy a gun.

I'm a pretty big pacifist-- Gandhi is a rather large influence in my life-- so recognizing the desire to own a handgun was a pretty big shock.

I guess I'm still feeling like buying a gun. If they were any cheaper than they are, I might actually get one. And there are two children in my home. There are so many reasons not to own a gun. And yet...

I found myself feeling like the world was coming to a head-- where people were unwilling to accept that there were other people on the planet, other points of view, other ways of looking at something. And when you apply pressure to an environment that will not flex or accommodate or adjust to changing conditions-- even to ACKNOWLEDGE that other conditions might exist-- it makes for a volatile situation. And I imagined the streets filled with mob-mentality crazies, eagerly shooting anyone they could and eating their flesh. Looting their houses. Then shooting more people. And then raping them, and shooting them again. And my boys' father (reportedly) has a small arsenal of semi-auto and full-auto guns, and that man is crazy. Like dangerous-crazy. And he's not alone in this state. Everyone here has a gun and they're more than eager to use it on anybody. My state legislature passed a law making it LEGAL for licensed concealed gun owners to carry their firearms on college campuses. I live in a place that desperately wants to return to the days of the Wild West, where it's ok to shoot people in the streets. I live in a place filled with dangerous, fundamentalist, gun-owning psychopaths. Gun owners want to kill.

So here I am imagining my family being attacked by crazies with guns. And I suddenly became really protective. And I felt stupid. If I'm able to see into this possible future, why would I not protect my family as best I can against this threat. If I do nothing, when the crazies gun us down it will be because I didn't want to protect us enough. I did nothing because I wanted to stubbornly stick to my beliefs that people can talk about their feelings, and that will be enough to resolve any conflict. But I don't really believe that. I believe when you get a whole bunch of rednecks who don't believe there are any correct thoughts other than their own, and they are ready and willing to kill people, I don't think they would slow down even for a second if I tried to reason with them. They have no reason.

There was a part of me that hoped this desire would go away with time.
It was only yesterday that I wanted to buy a gun.
It's today and the feeling isn't gone.
In fact, I went so far as to ask my gun-loving 15-year-old his personal opinion about the gun that I have in mind to buy: a Glock 19C.
Accepting that I'm a pacifist as he has, his face crinkled with worry as he asked me why I wanted to know, but then said it didn't really matter why, and told me that the Glock 19 was generally considered a good gun: reliable, durable, accurate, easy to handle, and 9mm guns are often thought to be overall better than .45 caliber guns, as a .45 can be unwieldy and tough to shoot and hold, whereas a 9mm has almost as much stopping power as the .45 without the size, bulk, weight and recoil. I could see the concern on his face when I asked, so I didn't pursue the conversation at all after he finished talking and we both let it drop.

That look on my boy's face is another reason not to get a gun.

And yet...

Cigarettes Quiet The Retardo-Noise

I suddenly had a really strong desire to smoke a cigarette.

I haven't had a cigarette in over 6 years. I quit cold turkey and haven't had any serious problems staying smoke-free. Often I will remember smoking. I'll even go through the motions of miming smoking a cigarette. But when I start to think about it, I start to remember the negatives, primarily that the last several cigarettes I smoked didn't taste good at all. That was the big turn off for me-- they used to taste great, and when I actually decided to quit, they started tasting like shit.

My strong desire isn't a craving. It's not anything I'm really worried about. But when those moments arise in my life-- the moments where I think that I want a cigarette-- it makes me pause to wonder what it is that has made me want a cigarette.

I wonder what it is that is making me want to smoke today?

Maybe it's all the stupid people in my state that I'm dealing with on a daily basis. Or maybe it's my inability to focus on the non-stupid people that get drowned out by the constant Drone Of Stupid emanating from the mouths and minds of the Retarded Masses I teach and work with every day.

Maybe it has nothing to do with any of that.

Maybe, as my wife loves to say, it's because I'm tired.



...I'm going with the Stupid People Theory...

"Game Over, Man! Game Over!"

I teach acting classes to adults. I encourage them to contact me outside of class with any questions they have. I tell them I have a Facebook page, and they can contact me through that site if they would like.

The more I friend my students on Facebook, the more I realize I'm teaching a group of people who love to shoot guns and use the term "Obamacare" without embarrassment.

It's sorta like joining a social club, only to find out later that you've become a member of the KKK. And what's even more awkward, you're black. And you're getting paid by them.

I now know what the landing party from Aliens was feeling when their motion sensors told them that they had been completely surrounded by creatures and were about to die.

I Want To Help You vs. I Want To Hurt You

I might be missing something, but if I want to help somebody, it's different from saying I want to hurt somebody else.

For example, if I say that I would like to see everyone in America have affordable health care, I'm not saying that I want to take away health care from those who already have it. Or that I want those who are providing health care to suffer or go without payment so that others can have affordable health care. They're two completely different thoughts.

Which leads me to this thought--

"I don't want you to free the slaves! If you do that, then who will harvest my cotton?!"

Seems to me, the only time you're going to be offended or threatened by helping another human is if you've enslaved that other human and you know you shouldn't.

Today's Pictures of My Life

And yet...

...with all this work stress...

...I still seem to find the time to browse the internet at work, looking for pictures of how stressed I am at work...

...i'm fucked up...

Juvenile Jokes

Last night, my 11 year old says, "Say Idaho in syllables."

It's been a while since I was an 11 year old, and I'm trying to figure out what he wants me to do, so I follow the instructions to the best of my understanding.

"Idaho, in syllables."

"No," he says, smiling, "say Idaho in syllables."

It takes me a second, but I eventually catch on. I smile back at him.

"I. Da. Ho."

[for those of you who still don't get it, he was having me say the phrase, "I'm the ho." A "ho" is a shortened form of the word "hooker". So, he was making me say that I was a hooker. Ha. Ha. Ha.]

He giggles. I giggle. My wife giggles. My 15 year old giggles, despite himself, and says (trying to sound as adult as possible), "Dude, you're so stupid." But he's laughing, even though he doesn't want to. My wife tells him to relax, and we all continue to giggle at being juvenile. My 11 year old continues. "Say 'happiness' in syllables." I smile, knowing what he's asking this time around.

"Ha..."

He grins at me.

"...Pe..."

He grins bigger.

"...cock!"

He explodes with laughter, as does my 15 year old and wife.


I think about telling my joke that's in the same vein that I picked up in college: you ask somebody to bend over and spell the word "run" three times loudly and quickly. While they're bent over, you position your self behind them as if to simulate anal sex. Then, when they spell "run", it sounds like they're shouting the sentence, "Are you in? Are you in? Are you in?!" And people laugh because they got duped into having anal sex with me.

I think about telling this joke to my family for, let's say, two seconds. I, ultimately, decide to keep it to myself. I'll say "cock" in front of my kids, but I won't tell them how to humorously simulate anal sex in joke form. Even I have my limits.