****Warning - This Blog includes an extra dose of "Shove It Up Your Ass." Yes, this is a key ingredient in most of the blogs on this page but I believe the chef had a case of the shakes and accidentally spilled the bag***
Well ladies and jerks, its been one of those days...err...weee...MONTHS for me. That's all I can say. Did you ever wake up and have a pretty positive notion that everyone ELSE woke up with the intention of kicking you in the nuts and pissing on your head when you're laying on the ground cradling them? Okay...little extreme but the visual sure kicked ass.
Here's a little secret that only a few people close to me know. I operate with what is known to me as the "Bus List." This is a constantly-changing, very extensive list of people who I wish would walk out on the street and a bus would magically fall from the sky and land on them. The folks in the top ten are under the Bus Bounce Addendum. If you're a member of this special group, the bus would squash you, take a huge bounce, and then squash your entire family (pets included...and yes, hamsters count!).
Its true. The list exists. If you need to ask if you're on the list, chances are you're there. Its an honor...i know.
I don't want people out there thinking that all you have to do is piss me off to get on the list. If that were the case, God would be tossing buses faster than a jet-powered beaver. It would be raining buses. Religious freaks would be rewriting the bible, only there would be none left because the SEPTA transit system would be parked firmly on their internal organs.
My bus list is reserved for special folks. Folks who have gone that extra mile to make my life difficult. Example you ask?
Ok.
I am lucky enough to have one of those neighbors who has completely NOTHING to do with their time. This person has made a point...no no...a QUEST to completely police the neighborhood against any out-of-the-ordinary noise, movement, occurrence, etc. I've had numerous "conversations" with her about the fact that even though she lives 300 yards away from my house, and my dogs are LOCKED in a cage when we're gone, and the windows are fucking shut because the A/C is on, she can STILL hear the dogs barking. Matter of fact, she says they bark constantly....just bark bark bark...all day long. She was less that chipper about the fact that, while we were talking, none of the dogs barked. Or she'll bitch that my cat suns itself in the street. I mean, I know what a menace to drivers these ferocious felines can be. The other day, my cat lunged from the bushes and dragged a minivan off the road. We're still looking for the spare tire...*bows head in silence*
Just so you don't think I'm crazy...she's inflicted her nightmarishly garish anti-pet initiatives on my other neighbors. I was informed by my next door neighbor that she's been writing down the names of people who take their pets to the school yard across the street to run. I'm not sure what she plans on doing with that list, but I don't think she's using it for next year's christmas cards.
So there is a good example of #27 on my Bus List. She hasn't made the Bounce Addendum yet but I"m sure she's working on it. I wish people like this...people who feel that everyone should conform to THEIR way of thinking or face the consequences, would just go cram a bike up their ass. There is always someone who has a fucked up opinion and they're sure as hell going to share it with you. And usually its someone who has no god damn clue what their talking about. People telling us how to parent our children. People telling us how to cut our grass, wear our hair, do our jobs, write our blogs, worship, play, walk, talk. But, i can guarantee, you turn it around on them and you better watch for the fireworks.
I basically just want to be left alone. More than anything I just want to be left alone to do what i FEEL like doing. I don't want to be told that I should be more social or that I should trim my goddamn hedges or play less rock music and more pop music or whatever. I am me...you are you...we're all different and we're not going to fucking conform to what some dipshit who can't adjust to other peoples quirks thinks we should conform to. That is what makes us so interesting. And if I don't FEEL like going to church or hanging out at happy hour or be Captain Happy and smile like retard at people I can't stand or wearing Tommy Hilfiger then so fucking what? It doesn't make me worse of a person.
But What does that SAY about me as a person? Who the hell cares...by the way, I'm number 38 on my own bus list.
Well, Michael Jackson, better known as Kiddy-fingers McSicko, got off. Got off on ALL counts. ALL OF THEM!!! I have to say that I am quit disappointed. Not that i knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was guilty but DAAAYUM he's a creepy mofo. Anyone who takes joy in just SLEEPING with young boys has a few bats flapping around in their belfry. Plus, c'mon folks...he's pretty much the Crypt Keeper's younger brother. LOOK AT HIM!!! At any given moment i'm waiting for his face to fall off only to reveal a tiny guy in there pushing buttons and pulling "moonwalk" levers.
It all goes to show you that being a celebrity in the United States is akin to being a member of a Royal Family in any other part of the world. So many celebs have been released from heinous crimes that a normal everyday schlub would be sent packing for. Robert Blake, OJ, Michael Jackson (more than once)...think if your neighbor was accused of diddling a little boy or shooting his wife or strangling the neighborhood goat...do you think there would be any chance in HELL of him getting acquitted? I'd bet my left ass cheek that the guy would fry.
ahhh the joys of technology....cell phones, computers, wireless networks, instant messaging, TIVO, blackberry devices. All designed to do one thing...make our lives more convenient. And boy oh boy has it ever. I can sit on my fat ass infront of my televisoin with my cell phone, cordless phone, laptop computer (with the groovy wireless NIC card), and watch my TIVO recorded programs any damn time I want, all the while sending text messages from my phone and e-mails across the internet. Hell, if I didn't have to piss and eat I could probably camp out there all damn week. Now all I need is one of those Star Trek thingies where I just tell the machine what I want to eat and it magically appears. I bet thats coming though....i would be money on that.
Cripes, I don't even know why I need to go to work anymore. I am one of the MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of jerkwads who jumped on the bandwagon of the Information Technology boom. You've all heard the commercials..."
The average Microsoft Certified Technician makes over $90 Cajillion a year...what are you doing with your life you lazy deadbeat slob?" So through the miracles of modern day technology I can jump on my companies network and literally do almost anything I could do while sitting in the office.
Which brings me to my point. Technology may be designed for convenience but in a truer form, its alienating us from each other. I can honestly say that me, being the super social guy that I am (thats a joke), would much rather send an e-mail than talk on the phone.
When was the last time you or I actually wrote a letter (birthday cards do not count!). And i'm talking bust out the pen and paper and start scratching away. The only time I write a letter is when I'm pissed off. And usually they are on those little yellow sticky notes and they say something to the effect of "learn how to park your fucking mini-van, you spot-hogging slob."
I mean, think back to when you were a kid (and if you're younger than 20 then just stop thinking cause you don't count for this exercise). Remember the stuff we had as a kid? My house had one of those HUGE busted ass color televisions that was encased in the wooden cabinet with the speakers built into the sides...the damn thing looked like coffin television...all dead all the time. But if that wasn't bad enough, the thing didn't work so we had a smaller Tv stacked on top of it. To the coffin TV was basically the origin of what we know now as the entertainment center.
And we didn't have cable. Oh no...no no no...we had one of those gigantic TV antennas jutting from our roof. On top of the coffin-tv-entertainment center was this box with a large dial. WHen you turned the knob in any one direction is would start rattling and kachunk-kachunk-kachunking and amazingly the antenna on the roof would rotate until the TV station you were trying to get would come in a little clearer. Now THAT, my friends, was technology. At any given moment I expected that box to explode or the antenna to fall from the roof and impale someone as it crashed to the ground.
The only thing that is keeping us all from being complete shut-ins is one thing: Alcohol. Thats right...we go out...we get drunk...and then everyone is our best friend (or our worst enemy depending on what type of drunk you are...but its still human contact, right?).
What a sad world it will become when we're all sitting in our living rooms wired into our tvs and cell phones and food replicators and we're guzzling the latest low-carb beer and sending an instant message to some other dingbat in Flatbush, Idaho to tell them how great they are and what a best friend they've been over the last 2 weeks. When Instant Messages and e-mails replace the "drunk dial" (which i'm particularly fond of) I'm punching out.
Good Gravy, look at the cob-webs in this joint! Okay okay, I'm a slacker. WAAAAAAAAAAAY slack...so what's been going on with you? The weather is heating up again here in my part of the world. I'm in that certain mode where I feel like I"m doing a million things at one time but not getting a single damn thing done. Its much like that feeling of running on a treadmill. You're running your ass off, sweat is pouring down your face, you're legs are burning...Yet when you stop running you're still in the same place as when you started.
Its been a weird year so far, hasn't it. The world goes racing past us at break-neck speed and every once in a while it reaches out and smacks you in your face just to make sure you know who is in charge. But that's what makes life a little interesting. Its what makes the good times feel a whole lot gooder (yeah, gooder...So what?).
For those of you interested, my comic strip "Union Avenue" turned a year old at the end of May. This is a fact that pretty much blows my mind...To think that I've managed to come up with 313 comic strips and I'm still coming up with new scenarios. Thanks to everyone who has been reading. (visit www.michaelwitmer.com)
You know, there are a ton of new albums out or coming out...Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Beck, Fishbone (live album!!!), They Might Be Giants, Oasis, System of a Down, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Stevie Wonder, Maroon 5, Huey Lewis & The News (not kidding), Billy Corgan, White Stripes, Ringo Starr....
And you know what the sad part is (at least for me)? You'll barely hear any of it on the radio. Yeah...You might catch a glimpse of a single or something but for the most part...No.
I'd like to start getting people's comments on things up here...I've been throwing around the idea of opening up a myspace.com site so we can share tunes and stuff like that but for now, I'm a dedicated blog honky.
SO anyway, I wanted to come by and drop a line. I'm going to try and get things stirred up again with my normal tirade of bitching. It will be good fun...right?
