Archive for the 'Life' Category

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Moving On

Published on July 18, 2007 in ..The Dude and Life. 1 Comment

Well I live in Kingston NY, can hear trains regularly throughout the day and night, have Time Warner cable as well as problems getting hot water. I have creepy neighbors below me, my privacy feels limited, I can’t sleep well or cook here for some reason, I’m spending too much money, can’t watch my TV when I want, am 40 and single and I’m middle management.

So what the fuck happened?

As you may have read below (or is it beside now?) Bob and I have moved. Tomorrow is Bob’s birthday. Wish him well won’t you. They feel like Deathday’s to me now. Actually many days are feeling that was lately. Not that I don’t like the new digs. I do and I don’t. I’m not sure. I’d gotten set in my ways i guess. I didn’t move from Yonkers/Bronx to live in the Ulster County version. It’s like reading Batman comics my whole young life and then having to move into the Tim Burton version as an adult.

A pale version indeed.

Well luckily we got Christopher Nolan to redeem that franchise on film. Hopefully there will be a Nolan of Kingston.

Or maybe I just won’t be here long. I don’t know. Moving was rough but will be a bit easier with the elimination of a monument of a desk and an ancient weightlifting machine that I spent hours sawing through. Not that I want to do it again. Bob, Brandonicus, and Shelly really came through and were a huge help but I wouldn’t want to ask it of them again too soon.

I’m on vacation until next Thursday when I’ll be returning to take some of my boys to a Mets game.

The Mets are not that good.

Let me just get that out of the way right now. But I do have SNY in hi def now as well as YES which I didn’t have at all. So now I can see the Mets be sucky that much more clearly and I’ll report all that I see to anyone interested. I may watch some Yankees too just to hate with clarity.

Cable hi def doesn’t look as good though. I think they’re compressing the signal or something. All that On Demand stuff is kind of cool though. They have 80′s videos available at touch of a button.

Bangles take me away!

Anyway it’s amazing how much more lonely and desolate sirens, horns, trains, and dump trucks can be as opposed to the edge of the woods in Woodstock. All state of mind I guess. At least I’ll have just a 3-5 minute ride to Barnes & Noble when I head over there in an hour or two.

Hey now, hey now don’t dream it’s over.

I hear the sirens in the distance again. Must be Crack time in the hood. At least I’m 15 minutes closer to Manhattan.

I have that going for me.

Which is nice.

Things I Believe

Published on June 17, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life and Lists. 4 Comments

I may not be a religious man but I have faith in some things. Here are some of them. If you’re looking for some “I believe the children are the future,” icky sweet goodness stop reading.

I believe:

Biology is partial destiny.

Yellow lights are no deterrent to speeding up.

There can’t be enough funny things said about how stupid George Bush is.

It ain’t easy being green.

The Mets never had a chance this year.

Tony Soprano is alive.

Most vitamin and mineral supplements are a scam.

Moving is scary.

Mormons make other Christians sound sensible.

Rosie O’Donnel is the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler.

Living and dying alone in Kingston N.Y. would be extremely upsetting though it’s been done before.

When your life becomes full of more turmoil and loneliness people like Paris Hilton and my last girlfriend start seeming allot more attractive.

Carlos Beltran is no 3 hitter and has no Baseball heart.

When a woman turns 21 she should have to have sex with 40 year old single men as a form of sacrifice and coming of age. Sort of like public service.

Ballplayers should dive more often.

Love is a battlefield.

The Transformers will disappoint me.

That if we could all get pleasure implants most would and there would be alot less creativity in the world.

Charlie Pace died a good death.

Studio 60 is an addictive show and I will mourn it properly in two weeks.

Every rose has its thorn.

Girls should wear Baseball caps more often.

Insurgent native terrorist/freedom fighters will always find creative ways to not be occupied and to kill those that try and occupy them.

Doing a Bionic Woman remake before a 6 Million Dollar Man one is taking feminism and ladies first a little too far.

John Cusack in a Stephen king movie is an event.

People should drive the speed limit. At least.

The forces of reason are marshalling.

Hillary and Rudy should run together and alienate the entire country except N.Y. city.

Not enough kids are named Floyd anymore.

Women’s buttocks in a pair of jeans are a diabolical thing.

I should be paid to read more.

Retroactive abortion legislation should be passed and the practice started by taking a wire hanger to Karl Rove’s skull by route of his mouth.

It is a frightening and unavoidable fact that if this were Logan’s Run I’d have been sent to Carousel 10 YEARS AGO!

Often the line between us and Chimps is embarrasingly thin.

SUV and Hummer drivers should pay more for gas.

Woodstock has cast me out like a leper.

I understand some more things about her now that I feel unmoored.

We need to go easy on the super hero movies.

The Mets will undoubtedly lose again Sunday night in the Bronx.

I know why the caged bird sings.

Ulster County needs more sidewalks and elevators.

Everyone is the good guy in their own minds.

Happiness is hardwired.

Paul McCartney should probably stop now.

It’s kind of cool how Jerry Falwell went with hardly a notice. Guess they weren’t such a majority after all.

The dude abides.

Don’t Stop Believin’ is one of the greatest songs ever written.

Everyone surrenders sometimes.

We should be eating stem cells for breakfast by now.

Laughter is healing.

Barnes & Noble should be open all night.

People who took precautions for Y2K should have to pay a paranoia tax to the rest of us.

I should have went for it with Sandra in that bathroom when I was in 8th grade and things would have been allot cooler.

I was right in not getting a cell phone all those years.

Something will be lost.

I believe I’m done for now.

Ill-literates Need A Home

Published on June 6, 2007 in ..The Dude and Life. 0 Comments

As has been advertised for months Angry Bob is indeed moving from his long time Green St Kingston home this July. His roommates have already found a place. He is searching. What was unexpected is that your truly needs to move at about the same time. I was not prepared for this odd coincidence. Combined with recent job changes this is far too much change in a short period of time. I have been here for 10 years. The new landlords suck and while acknowledging our quality tenant status they have made it increasingly impossible to stay.

I guess what I’m saying is, anybody out there got a house or apt for rent?

Turns out Bob and I may move in together. My dad would be part of this as well since he must go where I go. But there isn’t much out there that wets the appetite. I’m used to the serenity and isolation of Woodstock now. It seems so long ago that I lived in the Bronx. I’ve grown spoiled for being surrounded by wooded areas, a lack of wandering gangs of aimless youth, my own parking space and the sound of crickets fucking at night.

I’m not sure I can go back.

But alas, i have little choice.

Who in the name of sweet dancing Moses says alas anymore?

I do. Which is one of the reasons I should probably live in Woodstock.

But I’m priced out of the market here. No longer wanted. Spit upon.

I blame Reagan.

Part of me wants a house. Certainly fits with 3 better. Part of me wants another apartment complex like I’m in now except even more over the top. Something like Stony Run in Kingston or Lakeshore Villa in Port Ewen. I got an application from Lake Katrine apts today. It’s right down the road from work. These complexes both compel and repulse me. On one level they remind of of vacationing resorts. It would kind of be like being on permanent vacation. On another level though these places have a certain Stepford quality that kind of creeps me out.

I feel a bit guilty for being drawn to the sequestered air of the places. They can be like a community unto themselves. Isolated pockets of like-minded beings protecting each other from the chaos outside the gates. I just get the feeling sometimes there’s an X File lurking in there somewhere.

But then again what’s wrong with a little order and cleanliness in my life? If you can’t get it at home you have to start looking for it at work. Or soliciting hookers. And those are two things I’ve never done and hope to never be reduced to doing.

Although that’s not really fair to hookers.

Servicing the public for 30,000 years.

They’ve stood the test of time. Just need to clean it up a bit. Make it more respectable and you get a higher quality woman. It’s just biological. No different than furnishing concert and contruction sights with Port O Sans. When you gotta go you gotta go.

But I digress.

We need a place. I’m supposed to be out by July 15th. That in itself is a problem since most places want someone in by or on the 1st. It’s bad enough paying first, last, and security I don’t need to pay rent on 2 places the same month. My current landlordess wants a security though we’ve been here 10 years. That annoys me on a fundamental level.

Let us know if you see something decent out there or we may be crashing at your place.

You don’t want that.

Side note:

The Prestige is an awesome movie. Probably my favorite of 2006. Or 07 so far considering that’s when I saw it. Christopher Nolan rules. I’d like to speak on this more but I don’t have the energy right now. Magic at the turn of the century. lots of reason and mysticism subtext. Some nice twists as well. Just a real good movie.

Pan’s Labyrinthe was also good. A little trite in areas but still a nice film and amazing visually. Apart from the subtitles. See these movies if you haven’t already.

Also say Knocked Up in theater last week. Funny. Silly. But funny.

I hear there’s a movie about Pirates out. Haven’t seen it. It scares me how bad and how much of a let down Transformers and The Simpsons has the potential to be. I hope when they come out I’m not living in the streets cradling my father who draws his only sustenance from my teet as i rock back and forth calling myself Rose Of Sharon.

Brother can you spare a dime?

I Had A Dream.

Published on May 19, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life and Television. 0 Comments

And it was about Lost.

Specifically about the final moments of the finale.

Actually I had a series of vignettes going on as I slept last night/this morning. Different scenarios for the hyped “game changer,” at the end of this weeks episode titled “Through The Looking Glass.” I got to thinking about possible “we’re through the looking glass here people,” moments the title suggests with the artist formerly known as Brandonicus last night. The combination of that, my slavish devotion to that old time religion known as TV, a discussion about how our jobs as managers are far less important to us than Lost, and my complete and utter lack of a sex life all added up to the grand achievement of my life:

Being able to watch TV while sleeping.

Because that’s what it felt. Sort of a combination of watching it and being there.

Meta Hi Def.

Maybe I’m finally achieving my full potential as a human being. Being able to make TV in my brain even when I’m not watching it.

I don’t remember all the possible game changer moments I dreamed but I know there was a few. The one that stands out is the one where The Looking Glass idea figures literally. It’s not just that title but the fact that last week we had Alex and a white rabbit and the hatch schematics seemed to have the logo of a rabbit. All this was making me think of Alice down the rabbit hole and that through the looking glass moment being put out there and what would constitute one.

The one dream I remember goes something like this:

In the final moments of the episode Charlie enters through some kind of portal on The Looking Glass station. When he emerges he is laying beside Claire in a bed shortly revealed to be in England. Aaron is there as well. The two of them are married. Somehow, I don’t remember how, it is revealed that they are no longer on the island and that somehow Desmond’s time trip has contributed to altering the timeline so that Claire and Charlie were never on the plane yet somehow met.

Now i know this isn’t going to happen. It makes no sense. If Desmond altered anything it should have happened already. There is no magic mirror to walk through on the LG station. At least their better not be. It would be ridiculous for everyone on the island to just forget Claire and Charlie were there.

That’s not my point.

My point is I’m dreaming about TV!

I rarely remember my dreams and when i do they’re usually not vivid. Yet I remembered Lost finale dreams and Charlie through the portal was vivid.

I am both excited and concerned with this development in my life.

But I have always thought the time and reality thing was being played with here. There are far too many clues and suggestions for that not to be the case. From Sawyer reading A Wrinkle In Time, the Mittelos anagram, Desmond’s back to the future/delusion episode, and more. So i’m going to say that the game changer has to be some confirmation of the time angle. Will Penny show up 30 years older with more technology Sayyid doesn’t recognize? Will we find out no one but Ben ages on the island? Will past, present, and future collide in some way that shows us they are fluid within the shows mythology and possibly existing as different possibilities? Like Shrodinger’s Island?

Probably none of the above.

It will probably be disappointing whatever it is.

But I’m stoked about it. And I’m hoping to create new series in my sleep as possible mid season replacements for all the networks but Fox.

And CBS. They canceled Jericho which was getting good and was a very realistic look at the good and bad of a post apocalyptic segment of America.

So no dreams for CBS.

ABC doesn’t deserve my dream content what with their whole Disney relationship but they and NBC have some good shows and will give the contents of my dreams the chance Fox and the sci fi channel probably wouldn’t.

I may give HBO a crack too but they’ll have to give me a free subscription.

I don’t dream for free.

Another Great Day For The 2nd Amendment.

Published on April 17, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life and Politics. 4 Comments

33 dead in Virginia. Once again the cowards best friend, otherwise known as guns, enable some fucked up loser to destroy numerous lives. Guns: Artificially giving power to the weak, courage to cowards, authority to nobodies, and command to the pathetic for hundreds of years. God bless America!

Unlike some right-wingers I don’t want to selectively decide which parts of our constitution to keep and which to expunge or alter. Keep the damn bloody 2nd Amendment. But as far as I’m concerned the NRA and the God, guns, gays crowd who make it harder to make and enforce laws to at least make it harder to get a gun than a pack of cigarettes or limit the kind of guns available to ones that can’t take out entire crowds of people, are culpable parties to massacres like todays at Virginia Tech.

Now apparently this idiot today, and I do have sympathy for whatever about his life and our culture made him an idiot, but he is nevertheless an idiot and piece of garbage; this idiot today didn’t use an AK-47 but he did have a semi-automatic whose remarkable flexibility and talents make for some sweet, easy, and numerous killings. Plenty of mass shootings in this country have used guns that no human being without horrid intent and a bloodlust without bounds should ever need to use. And it’s a safe bet this murderer today got whatever gun he used without much effort or vetting.

These people aren’t even half a day dead yet and you have Republicans like John McCain making statements in support of the 2nd Amendment. Even Bush said through a spokesman “There is a right for people to bear arms,” hours after the massacre. It’s like a defense mechanism stemming from their guilt automatically popping up before anyone even gets a chance to bring the issue up. And make no mistake about it the easy availability of guns in this country is a byproduct of the political right and the sources of financial and voting supports they’ve aligned themselves with. And yes, the religious are part of that voting and ideological block. Just one of their many contradictions.

But you hear the stories about the individuals killed, guys like Ryan Clark who, all reports from classmates say, was an upstanding, kind, talented guy with a very bright future, and you have to wonder if any of their wonderful traits mean as much to some people as their right to carry a gun. Or whatever sick rush or twisted thrill they get out of it. It’s just sad how all those wonderful character traits that Clark possessed are nothing besides a weak minded piss-ant with a gun. In the end that gun has more power to alter the world than all the best traits or intentions. I find this tragically sad and morbidly telling.

And as far as I’m concerned all the gun manufacturers who have engaged in disreputable activities for years to assure their products reach the streets no matter what and who or for what purpose, every politician who has let themselves be used by these manufacturers and their political brothers in intent, even movies that glamorize endlessly the easy and cool use of semi-automatics, and yes the Bush administration that has supported legislation along with Congress to grant manufacturers immunity when the guns they make and get to disreputable dealers they could stop are used on days like such as this, all of them have some blood on their hands. We have to wake up and realize everything we do, say, and think effects us all. Self-interest drives our economy and of course to some extent our evolution as a species. But we’re not so close to chimps anymore. We know better. As trite and banal as movies like Babel and Crash may be, their points are trite in part because they are by now truths that are pretty well established.

We don’t live in a vacuum and nothing we do, say, think, or believe is without effects beyond ourselves. I think allot of these people choose their allegiances for very pragmatic reasons and then shut their minds off from the degrees of separation between themselves and these decisions often tragic consequences.

I don’t want to go off on a religious rant here but yeah my old favorite hobbyhorse does apply at least a little as well. They did put Bush in office and at least indirectly support allot of malicious interests such as gun manufacturers. All while offering up their many contradictory prayers in the aftermath of this event and events much like it. I can’t help but see these connections and contradictions on days like these. Much more practical solutions could have prevented this and made those prayers needless. But once again we have that reminder of just how powerful a gun is and how weak the best of people may be in its cross-hairs.

And it happened in Pennsylvania today too. A man shot 10 girls in an Amish schoolhouse. And then like the guy at Virginia Tech, he shot himself.

Seems like these guys are getting the order of their shootings wrong.

And none of it would have happened if guns were as hard to get and as specialized as they should be. We can blame the shooter and not the gun just as we can blame the driver not the alcohol, the institution and not the religion, or the abuser and not the abuse. But every coward needs his enabler, every weakling needs his implement, and every animal adapts to their environment. The objects that make up the landscape are benign in themselves. But the ideas and intents of those that make them, market them, and promulgate them are much more malignant when they are not thought through or are products of greed and other less preferable human traits.

And in the end once again today I see a cruel reminder of just how much those bad intentions can so easily destroy and obliterate the good ones from people like Ryan Clark. All in the blink of an eye and without much effort. A lifetime is ended. A rest of a life erased like some kind of malignant time machine. What once was is no more and what would have been will never be. Strength of character wiped easily off the stage by a god damned prop.

Life in the cross-hairs.

Let us pray.

Monkey Morality

Published on March 20, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life, Religion and Science/Nature. 0 Comments

[image:238:l] In yet another strike against those who like to think humans are especially unique or answering some higher moral imperative due to our connection to god, we now have more evidence that primates also evolved the early makings of a moral system of checks and balances.

Quotes come from the NY Times:

This is not exactly a new idea. But more evidence is in and many of the groups who opposed the idea of sociobiological roots to our behavior and morality, such as moral philosophers and some psychologists who claimed this area as their own province along with religion, are admitting there is something to it.

While it’s always been apparent to anyone bothering to notice that monkey’s and apes exhibit some of our worst tendencies only writ less subtly, there are necessary conclusions to be drawn from the idea that they also possess the capacity of our best traits as well.

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Chimpanzees have drowned trying to save other chimps, rhesus monkeys have refrained from pulling a chain that will get them food after realizing that pulling it shocks another monkey. Instead they have chosen to starve. Chimps will share more food with those who have taken time to groom them or share with them. They show displeasure at being treated unfairly or disproportionately in comparison to other monkeys. They also have systems of punishment and reward. Apes have shown the ability to empathize and console.

As with our primate cousins more evidence points to all us primates developing a moral sense and reason from very real necessity rooted in our environment and need to survive. The developing reciprocity we share, though far more advanced for homo sapiens probably came out of a need for defense against other tribes or groups of not so cute chimps-early hominids and the study linked in this article indicates it came long before any religious ideas came about to justify them. [image:239:l]

Religion can be seen as another special ingredient of human societies, though one that emerged thousands of years after morality, in Dr. de Waal’s view. There are clear precursors of morality in nonhuman primates, but no precursors of religion. So it seems reasonable to assume that as humans evolved away from chimps, morality emerged first, followed by religion. “I look at religions as recent additions,” he said. “Their function may have to do with social life, and enforcement of rules and giving a narrative to them, which is what religions really do.”

As Dr. de Waal sees it, human morality may be severely limited by having evolved as a way of banding together against adversaries, with moral restraints being observed only toward the in group, not toward outsiders. “The profound irony is that our noblest achievement — morality — has evolutionary ties to our basest behavior — warfare,” he writes. “The sense of community required by the former was provided by the latter.”

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That last part gets back to what I mentioned about reciprocity and the ability to cooperate. We still see this in that capacity we have to only band together when we have a common enemy. Red staters hated New Yorkers until 9-11. Than they loved us when there was someone more threatening to band together to hate. Once that wears off they don’t like us again because were politically different tribes and vice versa. This and many other monkey traits still persist in us. This is why i have such a hard time doing some things I’ve always believed and sensed came out of a very primal place. Whether it’s not taking sides just because its geographically convenient or I’m dating the person I think is wrong, following the group, disliking someone who is a threat on a molecular-biological level, targeting the weak link at work as people often do just as they did at school, waving a flag, or many of the other examples we mostly don’t like to view in such an unglamorous light. I don’t know about you but I attain for a bit more than acting like a chimp. Cousins or not. Gorillas kill their offspring for sympathy or kill others babies to attract attention back to their baby. That’s something I expect to remember if I ever have a kid and am tempted to think mine is cuter than any others.

Think about that when you’re making decisions and I find it really casts things in an interesting way.

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Of course all of this is hard to reconcile with a god who gave us our moral sense as the religious like to believe. Or those who claim animals have no souls for that matter. One of both of these people are wrong and considering its often the same people we can chalk up another contradiction of the faithful.

Philosophers have been no less happy about the implications of this but they’re starting to get on board while still reserving room for a unique human consciousness the singularity of the human capacity to reason and do allot more with those moral building blocks all primates seemed to have evolved a long time ago.

But biologists like Dr. de Waal believe reason is generally brought to bear only after a moral decision has been reached. They argue that morality evolved at a time when people lived in small foraging societies and often had to make instant life-or-death decisions, with no time for conscious evaluation of moral choices. The reasoning came afterward as a post hoc justification. “Human behavior derives above all from fast, automated, emotional judgments, and only secondarily from slower conscious processes,” Dr. de Waal writes.

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He basically says that the emotional moral decision is made and formed a bit in the David Hume sense rather than the Kantian sense of reasoned morality, and then we make up religious justifications and rationalizations to feel good about it.

Yet another reason taking our own desires out the equation is a good idea and in my estimation an attribute of a more highly evolved way of thinking and behaving. It’s very easy to arrive at a philosophy or opinion that fits our lifestyle, economic level, sexual predilections, wants, fetishes, or past choices. Even monkeys can do that. Or at least share the rudiments for that tendency with our early hominid ancestors who speciatied off of them. It’s another to look at the greater good and judge things on the evidence. These are qualities that separate us a bit more substantially from other primates.

So the next time you’re feeling all moral remember that is not in itself enough to make you human. We should all remember we have to kick it up a notch lest our morality and good intentions be the stuff of hardwired necessity and convenience rather than something worthy of considering ourselves evolved or spiritual beings.

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Cell Phone Rules And My Solemn Vow

Published on February 22, 2007 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Life and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

I finally gave in and purchased a cell phone today. I did it mainly due to work and being an assistant manager (or Ass Man), but I also want to get some fun private usage out of this puppy so that I might continue to feel self important and popular in and out of work. So I’m encouraging all phone handy people to call me at 845 ******* even if they have nothing to say.

Even if you just want to talk dirty to me by all means call.* Even when I’m at work. Preferably when I’m at work. I want to put the ass into Ass Man and together we can do that at 845 *******. If you just want to call to celebrate me I won’t be offended and will celebrate right along with you.

Just want to hear my voice?

I don’t blame you. And I will let you hear it. Especially on weekends and after 9 p.m.

I’ll let you hear my voice m-f before 9 as well but I do have a regular phone at home and at work so lets not overdue it here since I’ve got something like 500 minutes during those weekday hours every month.

This brings me to my vow. I think there should be rules when it comes to cell phone usage. I got into some of my issues with this on a blog of mine that proved so wildly popular people were too entertained and intimidated to comment on it. Except dear Brandon of course who is not allowed to call me to talk dirty unless Lost or Battlestar Gallactica and Grace Park somehow tie into it.

But it touched on my first and most important rule. Which is to not have conversations so that everyone around me can hear me in public places.

Unless we’re talking dirty.

In which case I’ll be putting you on speaker phone you nasty, nasty girl you.

I promise not to become one of those people sitting in Barnes & Noble around others who are reading and sharing every detail of their lives as if there was no phone between them and the person on the other end and they feel they have to really belt it out.

I won’t walk up and down aisles in stores speaking so loudly everyone in the store, or even the aisle knows what I’m up to. They don’t care and I respect that about them.

The second rule that I promise to abide by is to not hold a finger up to anyone trying to talk to me while I’m on the phone. You know. Sticking up the index finger to signal they’ll be with you in a minute. Even though i’m deaf in the ear that will be exposed I won’t do that to people. This I promise.

I’m not making any promises about the middle finger though.

3rd Rule. No talking while on line or dealing with the public like at a counter at the supermarket. I won’t go through being being checked out while ignoring the person ringing up my purchase. This contemptuous crap is appalling and a breakdown of the rules of living in a society. I will not do this. No I will save my contempt for those in the public who have different political and religious views from me like our hominid founding fathers did when they settled this great land and did so without cell phones instead having to rely on witchcraft to communicate with each other.

4th Rule. I will not leave my ringer on when in a movie theater, restaurant, class, brothel, or any other place where people are trying to get a little privacy.

5. I will not spend my time when with people I know, like, or am attracted to, playing with my cell phone. This goes on far too much. People can’t keep their hands off these things in public. Stay home and play with your phone if that’s what you want to do. Don’t spend dinner with me or time at work playing with yourself. These things aren’t that fascinating. I kind of am. Get with the program. #

Rule 6. I pledge to not use the photo and video elements of my phone to take unsolicited photos of people, stick them under girls skirts, or ruin the careers of famous people with footage of them going on racists rants, dropping their babies, or any such salacious footage bound to excite the E Network.

This is all for now as far as rules. I believe these should be all be set into law. Perhaps at another time I’ll get into what the punishment should be for violating these rules.

Notice I didn’t put a rule in against talking while driving. This is because I did this on my way home an hour or so after buying it tonight. Otherwise this would have been a rule too. I’m not encouraging it. I’d prefer most of you don’t do it. I on the other hand have exceptional instincts, reflexes, and hand eye coordination and can handle this. I won’t do it in traffic though. Mainly open road. It gets boring driving you know. The cops may be able to ticket me but they can’t make you and me stop talking dirty to each other babies.*

Have a nice day.

* Women only on the dirty, dirty talk please.

#The phone is new to me so bear in mind I may play with it around you a little at first. Do not take offense. IF you are a women you may still talk to dirty to me at these times.

Are Women Astronuts?

Published on February 8, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

You’ve heard about the astronaut who stalked and kidnapped a rival for the affections of a man in mission control. Lisa Nowak got a bit nuts, donned a diaper, and drove from Houston to Florida making her the second looniest woman that I know of to ever drive a long distance to Florida with a tender innocent victim in her car. But this begs certain questions about the female makeup be asked.

Astronauts go through intensive training and testing. To make it to space as Nowak did you have to be the best, to have “the right stuff.” The women who make it are the most psychologically vetted women in our country. This means this woman should be one of the most balanced and stable women America has to offer. She’s a career woman with every reason to feel self worth and not engage in the dramas of the less successful, occupied, and talented.

And yet she stalks.

In a diaper.

And she plots murder.

I’m guessing still in the diaper since stopping to change at that point wouldn’t make sense once you passed up on numerous rest stop opportunities.

So despite all the testing, despite the career path most would envy, when it came down to dealing with seperating from her hubby and her slide off relationship in jeopardy, she couldn’t deal with it. Even on the NASA level people are plotting their exit strategies and consumed by ancient DNA operating on the mammalian and primal parts of the brain it seems. They are making sure they have a fall back option, and telling themselves it’s all perfectly justified. This goes for most men too. The whole slide off thing. Slide off is what a coworker of mine once called it. I thought it crude. But it’s what almost everyone does. But I wanted to believe a woman with a real sense of identity as a space shuttle astronaut should have, would be above this need and be able to function without her man to ground and control her.

So in this case with the loss of her husband and her slide off more into controlling missions and maybe the kidnapped woman, Nowak became unhinged. The prospect of having no man to moor her for a little while, no nest to drop her eggs in, got her primal, completely obscured a successful career, and she got all chimpanzee about things with her perceived rival.

This is some scary shit.

Of course the plus side on all this is that if women who have been to space and thusly seem out our league (I’ve never beeeen), are nutty and not worth the effort I guess those of us who have to deal with less successful ones can either gather hope that if the good and bad come in all shapes, sizes, and spectrums of society we could still get lucky. That or we shouldn’t blame ourselves for not being able to get women with greater identities and success because they’re all just nuts anyway and we never had a chance.

I Am The Ass Man

Published on January 18, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

Well a year or so again in a post titled something like My Life As A Plebian I went on about my outsider status compared to some like our own beloved Brandonicus who are part of the management cabal that fixes Super Bowls, levels cities with their hurricane machines, and arranges celebrity relationships to best maximize genetic advantages and that will keep America stupified. On some level I was ok with this although it may have a kept a distance between me and the woman I wanted who was a direct part of Brandonicus’s cabal. Hey at one time I was a fairly important figure in starting a union in that very agency where they work. I had my chances to join their ranks but wanted to stay in the trenches with the proletariat, forever grinding our bones in the machine of state that was oiled with our blood. “Remember, remember, the 4th of November, the Gunpowder plot. I know of no reason, the 4th of November, should ever be forgot,” and all that. But now I’ve gone and done it. I entered my name into the machinery of NY State’s civil service advancement system under the auspices of Taconic DDSO, took their test 2 years ago, gained enough of their soul sapping seniority, and interviewed best by 3 of their management puppateers. And the system spit my name out and asked me to be an Assistant Manager. For some reason I said yes. I took it at the same facility I left for greener and saner pastures a few months ago. I may have made a horrible mistake.

Let me first start with the title. Both of the position and this post for they are one and the same. The abbreviation of Assistant Manager is actually one of the top 3 reasons I took the position. I don’t know what the other 2 are yet though. You see, I’ll get to introduce myself as the Ass Man for Neighborhood Rd IRA at management meetings and such. And that is pretty appealing. Plus it references a Seinfeld episode. Stuff like that makes me happy. It’s a turn on.

But is it enough?

It seems like I should have those other two reasons to round out a top three.

I don’t.

Or deep down on a subconscious level I do and it scares me.

Do I want power?

I don’t think so.

Am I ambitious for advancement up the coporate ladder such as it is in the state system?

I think Boston said it best, “Now you’re climbing to the top of the company ladder, Hope it doesn’t take to long. Can’t you see there’ll come a day when it won’t matter, Come a day when you’ll be gone.”

Do i think it will win me the fair Olivia of posts past?

No. And she might be gay anyway. Either way all coincidences aside, it’s looking highly unlikely. And this is a different agency than she and our own fair Brandonicus work for.

Now in that other agency this could score me some dates. Of that I have little doubt. And theirs is a rich playing field there. But where I am now, though a much larger operation, one rife with intrigues and insleeping, the worthwhile pickings are slim and I have no interest in becoming another player in self inflicted dramas created by bored people drunk on their own mediocrity.

Am I bored and just looking for different challenges?

Now there’s an angle that may have something to it. But how long before this gets boring? Will that cause me to become one of those climbers whose entire self worth is caught up in status and position and who fight unmercifully to advance further and further up what they see as a food chain of importance and relevence?

I see these people. I know some of them. I’m not really interested in becoming one. PLus I worry this position will take time away from stuff I really like. Stuff like reading, T.V., movies, friends, masturbation, and writing.

Or it could have the effect of sharpening my instincts and honing myself in ways that carry over to those other areas. Well, not so much the TV and masturbation. I’ve pretty much honed those as far as mankind is meant to thanks to DVR and a lack of non-psychotic or attractively viable females.

Maybe on some level I think this could happen and that’s one of the top three.

What about the money you might ask?

I’m still trying to find out how that works and how much extra I’ll be getting. Whatever it is I won’t reach my final raise for a year of what the state considers a probationary period in any new position including the one I just vacated. But whatever it works out to be I’m not going to be rich. It may just pay for the cell phone I’ll need to buy now that I’m resposible for a whole facility and want to be available for emergency.

And that’s another thing. I’m responsible, not wholly, but nevertheless in large part responsible for the lives of 10 human beings. Plus staff. Not that staff’s lives will be dependent on me. But some of their well being that includes getting paid and time off without causing overtime will be on me. But those lives of the 10 guys who live there. Having to now do more than see to their well being for 8 hour blocks when I’m on the premises is a bit daunting.

And then there’s those aforementioned intrigues I left this place to get away from a few months ago. Now I can’t just ignore them. When people are getting screwed, possibly literally as well as figuratively, I have to step in and ensure that my staff, all my staff and not just the clique of favorites as decided by others before me, are being treated equitably. That could cause some head-butting that I’m not likely to be in a position to win in the near future.

So is it the schedule?

Well it’s listed as an even worse shift than the one I’m now vacating. And I’m leaving that in a place I can get time off from the vast majority of the time I want it. That might not be the case at Neighborhood Rd IRA where I’m headed. I did talk to the manager who promised flexibility that included regualr day shifts not listed as part of the way the Ass Man position was drawn up and listed on paper. And there should be chances to flex a bit and get out before the listed 11 p.m. At least when we’re fully staffed. Which hasn’t been the case there in a long time. I guess I fancy I can change that a bit. This used to be an almost impossible place to get into even for just a regular position much less management. Hopefully I can be part of getting it back there.

I do like those 10 guys I’m responsible for though they can be trying at times.

But that’s not a top 3 reason either.

So I’m still not sure why I did this. If it sucks I won’t get back my shift at Granite IRA where I’m leaving which is the only other place in this vast agency I like besides where I’m going now. Perhaps Livingston where I worked for years. Still love alot of the staff there and it’s close to home. Getting in there may take less time than Granite, but I still won’t get a golden shift for a while.

And again, this doesn’t figure to lead to dating or me being Comptroller for NY State or anything.

I was indecisive about going to school this semester and this gives me my excuse to put that off. Maybe that’s what I did it.

More indecision under the guise of the decisiveness of taking a management job I would have waffled on years ago..

Again to return to Boston:
I understand about indecision,
But I don’t care if I get behind.
People living in competition;
All I want is to have my peace of mind.

Peace of mind?

More likely piece of mind. As in what I may lose.

Change is good though. Maybe I just need some. But I also have this foreboding. Partly from being part of the machine instead of raging at it. The fear of the death of the rebel inside even if he is rebelling against whatever you got. But also I guess I feel changing this could change the good things in my life. There’s certainly stuff that could be better I’d like to change. But I’m concerned by changing the mix I’m starting a localized butterfly effect that will upset the status quo of the precarious good things like my dad’s health, my hopes of writing anything decent and instead accepting a life slowly consumed by the system, a semblance of socialization apart from the management cabal who will inevitably want me to consort in their world moving and shaking, my own health both mental and physical, reasonable financial comfort which is alfready being challenged the past few weeks, and other assorted little things which have remained quietly comfortable for a while. Things I know must change someday. But things on some superstitious level I feel I was warding off by my own lack of change.

Maybe this is something other people can relate to. Maybe I’m just weird. But I am the Ass Man and I will try my hardest to live up to that title and expectation.

Jack’s Back!

Published on January 14, 2007 in ..The Dude, Life, Television and The Ill-Literates. 2 Comments

[image:216:l] He returns to us tonight. Captain America. Our national treasure. THE Magnificent Bastard. So it’s time for more irrefutable facts about the legend that is Jack Bauer.

First off I have to admit this was harder to compile than the last post of this nature from last year. THis isn’t as funny. I may have shot my load of my knowledge of the more romantic and humorous angles of the Jack Bauer mystique. But then Jack Bauer is a serious bastard. He doesn’t laugh. That’s another irrefutable fact about him. Jack Bauer once laughed. When was that? A little day we call 9-11. Jack learned his lesson.

For funnier Jack facts check the various places that are probably still out there on the internet and my previous post here, which also features funny facts contributed by Brandonicus, Bob, and others, as well as follow up facts I’d forgotten about Jack.

Still there are other things that must be known about Jack Bauer.

Here are a few of them. If you know any, please, I implore you, for tha sake of our nation, add them here.

On to the facts:

Jack Bauer has a panic room in his home not because he needs it to hide in, but rather so that guests and household pets can get a respite from his gravitas.

  

Modern philosophers now refer to the existential angst of past decades and centuries as “Bauer shaped holes”.

Jack Bauer targets Muslim terrorists as much for their non-corporeal virgins as anything else.

When you open up a can of Whup-Ass, Jack Bauer pops out.

Jack Bauer thought Casino Royale was a comedy.

Jack Bauer has a cartoon tatoo of Allah sodomizing Mohommad on his ass.

Despite this Jack Bauer’s bare ass is accepted as a prophet in the Muslim world.

Jack Bauer serves as an expert consultant on Heroes, which was conceived as a tribute to Jack Bauer.

Jack Bauer casts no reflection in mirrors. Experts believe this to be an evolutionary adaptation
to prevent Jack Bauer from peeing himself.

Writers, linguists, and English professors everywhere now accept the name Jack Bauer as a reasonable synonym for the words and or ideas of danger, gravity, frightening, and exceptional.

As a result of the above Stephen King is revising his collective works.

Also as a result, the following statement is considered grammatically correct and understandable: Jack Bauer looked Jack Bauer as he Jack Bauered the terrorist with Jack Bauer techniques that almost made them Jack Bauer that the Jack Bauer is real.

Scientists have now added Jack Bauer to the universes other 4 forces consisting of electromagnetism, gravity, strong force, and weak force.

Those same scientists have yet to explain Kim Bauer.

Jack Bauer has a credit card with 50% interest. The interest is paid to Jack Bauer. In Bauer dollars.

Jack Bauer shoots bankers in the back of the head whenever he makes a deposit. Jack Bauer knows that something must be sacrificed in order to save.

If Jack Bauer fought the law the law would lose. This is why Jack Bauer is above the law.

Jack Bauer quit playing Football in College because he considered punting to be negotiating with terrorists.

The hostages in Iran were released in 1980 not because of Reagan’s manipulations but because the captors had learned that Jack Bauer was then old enough to travel.

Tony Bennet didn’t lose his heart in San Francisco. Jack Bauer ripped it out of his chest and forgot to show it to him.

Jack Bauer put the Bop! in the bop de wop de bop.

Oompa Loompa oopity power-hour.
Oompa Loompa’s shit chocolate when they see Jack Bauer.

There are no aliens, dragons, monsters, ogres, Abominable Snowmen, Big Foot’s, Nellie’s, Zombies, or Vampires. Thank you Jack Bauer.

Viagra was reverse engineered from Jack Bauer’s biochemical makeup.

The hole in the roof of the Dallas Cowboys stadium is not so that god can watch his favorite team as their fans like to say. It is because Jack Bauer got excited watching the Cowboys cheerleaders. If you know what I mean.

Jack Bauer is officially banned from going on Fear Factor.

The part of the phrase starting with, “The love of a good woman,” has been replaced by, “Jack Bauer.”

Axl Rose has been working on Chinese Democracy for a decade. Jack Bauer has been in China for 20 months. They now have the makings of a real Democracy.

There is no more romance because every couple now realizes that it is Jack Bauer that hung the moon and stars.

Ok that’s it for my new ones. But in the interest of serving America’s information needs I must add some of my own favorites contributions from last year.

If Jack Bauer did porn his porn name would be Jack Bauer.

Jack Bauer has tortured Tom Clancy for repeatedly putting the United States in fictional jeopardy.

Horses are no longer put out to stud. They are put out to Jack Bauer.

Jack Bauer can only be photographed with a special gravitas filter lens. [image:94:l]

Virgins exist only because they hope to preserve themselves for Jack Bauer and because Jack Bauer is very busy.

Jack Bauer was stranded on the island from Lost. He solved its riddles and got off of it in 24 hours. He did this by not pausing for flashbacks. Jack Bauer thinks reflection is for pussies who don’t have a country to save.

Jack Bauer thinks we are all pussies, but doesn’t tell us so. He has no time for small talk.

Jack Bauer was once crucified for the sins of man, died, and returned. He didn’t bother to tell anyone about it or make a big stink though.

As a child Jack Bauer tortured a fellow Cub Scout because he suspected he was a mole from another den.

A sports beverage company needed a high octane drink that gave people energy for short durations. So they bottled Jack Bauer’s sweat and called that drink Gatorade.

Jack Bauer only sweats to complete his contractual obligations to Gatorade.