It’s fall. The days are shortening, the air is crispening, the colors are morphing, the leaves are falling. There is a palpable and present sense of transformation amongst us. Fall and its energy of change often inspires reflection. Many choose to pause and consider the patterns and habits of daily life and how they align with core values.
Reflection is good. Let me tell you about some reflection.
Recently I was in a public restroom. I rushed to the urinal, as the urge was strong, like a Goblet of Fire in my lower abdomen. As soon as I arrived to the porcelain wiz box, I extracted my Prisoner of Azkaban and began to unburden my internal canteen into the Chamber of Secrets before me. Mid-stream, I looked down at the plumbing in front of me, and my eyes were drawn to the chrome-plated cover adorning the water supply line. It was roughly dick-height, say, three feet off the ground, and its shiny, convex exterior reflected my wiener in an exquisitely inaccurate manner. I wasn’t even approaching a quarter chub, yet in the reflection, my Sorcerer’s Stone looked like a Half-Blood Prince! No, in fact, it was beyond that. It looked disproportionately magnificent. Mucho grande. It looked like it would be a burden to haul around.
After gawking at myself for too long in a public restroom, of course taking the time to move my body around and watch my Nimbus 2000 grow and shrink rapidly in the reflection, I Ordered my Phoenix back into my pants, a little bit surprised it fit.
As I reflect on this reflection, I see that it’s all about how we look at things. And the way I’m looking at it, I have a huge penis.
I loved Grandma. When I first learned she died, I paused for a moment to reflect on the situation. I thought about my dad and wondered how he was feeling, knowing he just lost his mother.
I’ll admit though, I wasn’t particularly sad. She was 91. The last several years of her life had been complicated by all the typical old people problems- escalating medical issues, senility, and an ongoing and semi-contentious debate over what freedoms she was still entitled to. On the subject of her driving, she was truly a menace to society who needed to have her keys pried from her stubborn hands for the safety of the general population.
Considering these things, it was, as they say, her time to go. So yeah, I didn’t feel a strong sadness upon learning the news. I felt gratitude for her, but I was at ease with letting her go.
Now, the other night, I made myself a drink. A fancy seltzer. The kids were asleep, the wife was asleep, and I decided to sit down in my cozy living room and enjoy myself. After maybe three sips at most of that luxurious drink, I knocked it over onto the carpet. Seltzer everywhere. Everywhere but my mouth.
In THAT moment, I felt profound sadness. I was hella bummed. I was genuinely looking forward to enjoying that fizzy goodness, and now, I would not.
Whether or not my emotions demonstrate it, I do actually love Grandma more than seltzer water. But I do really, really love seltzer water a lot too.
There once was a band. Its name was Squish Rat. It was radical. It was unstoppable. But then it got stopped. By what? Good question. Too much talent? Definitely not. It was something other than that, but we’ll likely never know the actual answer.
The song I’m about to share is like a charred and severed baby arm that was salvaged from the scorching wreckage of the plane crash that was Squish Rat’s demise. It’s the only recognizable piece of humanity recovered from the infernal blaze, and by that, I mean it’s the only evidence on the publicly accessible internet of Squish Rat’s existence. And yet, there was so, so much more.
The track was originally thought up around Labor Day some years back, and started off like many Squish Rat ideas- as an improvisational comedic interplay between bandmates. The topic- honoring all those laborers out there laborin’. A character named Franny was developed. She was known to make a mean potato salad behind the deli counter of a local grocery store, the quality of her salad such that she had attained cult-like status amongst customers and had possibly even transformed into a sex-symbol of sorts.
Some iconic lyrics were quickly developed, but the song was sadly left incomplete for many years. Recently, I became motivated to finish it and have it published in time for Labor Day. In fact, I vowed the song would be finished and ready to serve as the great American holiday’s anthem. Well, I did a bit of laborin’ myself and got this shit done early.
Here’s an ode to wildest psychedelic out there. This one’s also a bit more introspective, emotional, and dare I say, serious, than the other songs I’ve uploaded.
On the note of DMT, here is my semi-annual request to all my friends out there who might have access to some things: Yolo needs access to the portal. Help a Yolo out.
It’s true, I do. Not a math problem, though. I’ve already solved this particular math problem. The solution was never in doubt. I’m also not saying that I struggle with math. I get by just fine with my mathing, thank you very much.
What I’m saying is, I have a grievance with the subject of math. There is a mathematical reality that I simply do not like. I will explain my grievance at the risk of sounding very, very stupid. Upon explanation, you may think that I indeed do have a problem with math, in the way of understanding numbers and such. I don’t know, maybe I do. I will assume this risk and explain my gripe with the world of math.
This all came about when I was mixing some music I recorded in an attempt to make it sound less bad. Not sure I succeeded, but in the process of doing this, I needed to reduce the volume on a handful of tracks by two decibels. One track was set at +3.4 dB above the standard set point. Another track was set at +1.4 dB.
Ok, now hang on, think hard, and try and follow me here: for the first track, I did 3.4 – 2 = 1.4. It was now set at +1. 4 dB.
Now…. Shit’s about to get weird. For the second track, I did 1.4 – 2 = -0.4 dB.
Just kidding! I ain’t dumb. -0.6 dB, but why? Why is that the answer? I mean, I know why, because math, but why does crossing the threshold of zero have to fuck up the cleanness of simple math? I feel like number.4 minus any other whole number must equal other number.4, no matter what, positive or negative, no exceptions.
Another example. Btw, why am I giving another example? This is simple math, and it needn’t be explained again, but I feel the need to do it, just to let you, the reader, feel the wrongness of math as it is.
2.2.
2.2 + 3 = 5.2. Makes total sense.
2.2 – 3? Yeah.. that shit equals -0.8. I mean, clearly that’s the answer, again, because that’s how math works, but seriously, it just doesn’t feel right. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.
In some alternative universe with different math rules, 2.2 – 3 = -0.2. Or -1.2, or negative something.2, I don’t really know, because I don’t live in that universe, but I wish I did. Because that universe is a more perfect math universe. And with that, I’m sure everyone is more beautiful, and the boyz are surely packing substantial dong-power in their pants, because their math is better.
I recognize this whole rant is illogical. If anyone has read this far, they’re probably questioning my sanity, and the longer I write about this, the dumber I will sound.
Ah man, for real? More music? Again, I’m sorry, but quit whining, and just giv ‘er a listen.
This next track is very different from the last track I uploaded. Dare I say, it’s more in line with the soul feel of Yolo69420.blog, meaning it’s highly immature and sassy as hell.
Backstory- basically, I took this bangin’ freebee guitar lick loop, then added a thumpin’ beat and a couple other little bits. As soon as I heard the guitar and beat together, the words “sipping Bacardi in my Ferrari” came to me, and I had to run with it. The song is a bit ridiculous and fanciful, but hey, it’s fun to be preposterous. If I was a rapper, these are the kinds of songs I would write.
Last comment- I’m pretty proud of my lyrical and vocal skills that allowed me to rhyme the words famous and penis. You’ll hear it and be impressed.
I know, I know. Not what the readership is looking for in this blog, but I did, and now I’m obliged to share it. My apologies. It will definitely happen again though…
So this is a tune I almost entirely wrote with the electronic piano preset on my keyboard. I had no agenda when I started goofing around, but I kept finding little riffs, and things just fell into place. The track gives off ambient electronic vibes. Hard ones. Well, hard, soft ones, because that’s how ambient music rolls. It’s sorta Ulrich Schnaussy, if I may be so bold to draw such a comparison.
This song ain’t for you though. It ain’t for me, either. It’s For Absolutely No One.
Recently, an odd and random memory came to me. Now, my memory of the past is, by and large, shit. It’s extremely spotty. Usually when I become aware of something from my distant past, I’m fascinated because it’s like I’m recovering something lost, something so ancient that it feels like it doesn’t actually belong to me. So when this obscure memory arrived in my consciousness, I was semi-perplexed, as it seemed like a strange and inconsequential moment to remember. Or maybe it was more impactful than I was giving it credit…
Sometime between third and fifth grade, I went on a fieldtrip where we rode on a boat called a skipjack. If memory serves me correctly, these boats were used for dredging oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. Or crabbing. One or the other, or both. I really don’t remember. In fact the only thing I remember about this entire field trip is the captain of the boat. That fucking captain.
This was a special day. Yeah, I was not at school. That was nice, but that was not all. My mom had packed me a coke. 12 oz of glorious, sugary diabesity, all for the pleasure of my mouth hole. I remember standing there on the deck of the boat. The weather was shit. It was raining. Some people were miserable. Not me, I cracked my can open and was about to experience bliss, when all of a sudden…
That scraggily, redneck, son-of-a-bitch captain hollered at me and said something along the lines of, “Hey boy! Pour some of that coke here.” I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember vividly that he held out his empty Yoplait yogurt container that he’d just devoured with a butter knife and gestured for me to pour some of my coke into it. Being somewhere between 8-10 years old, I was taken aback by the request- in shock, I’d say. He proceeded to impatiently grunt and wave his Yoplait cup at me. I overcame the shock of the initial request and looked around to see if anyone else was witnessing this absurdity. No one, not a teacher or another student was in the immediate vicinity to call bullshit. Intimidated by this coke-jonesing ruffian, I caved and poured that hillbilly sack of shit some of my coke.
Now, I may be making these next details up, but as I recall it in my reconstruction of events, the captain shakily held that cup in front of me as I stingily and slowly poured my coke, trying to limit my losses. I looked at his face, trying to gauge the minimum volume that would appease him, but he stared at the coke with Smeagol-like eyes of desire. He would not be satisfied until the cup overfloweth. Though it nearly killed me, I poured until that brown foamy goodness crested the rim the yogurt cup. “Ahh, there we go,” he muttered, his desire now fulfilled. He, of course, didn’t say thank you.
I looked up the volume of a Yoplait cup, and it’s 6 oz. Accounting for the little bit of foamage, I was shaken down for at least 5 oz, nearly half my damn coke!
I’m grateful that at some point, Greek yogurt showed up as an alternative to this bullshit.
Hindsight is 20/20, and now that I’m an adult, it’s tempting to replay the situation and imagine handling it differently. If it happened now, I’d throw that bitch off his own boat just for asking. However, I undoubtedly should’ve been bolder back then. When pouring, I should’ve aggressively flipped that can over 180 degrees and foamed him out. Maybe I would’ve lost an ounce to foam, but maybe he only gets 3 oz, still a net improvement. Alternatively, if I had been a real elementary-grade gangster with nothing to lose, maybe upon the captain’s attempt to swindle me, I throw the whole coke into the bay, look him in the eye and say something like, ” Fuck your coke, motherfucker!” No coke for both of us, but man, that would’ve been legendary.
It’s all in the past though. I want to say I’ve moved past this trauma, but its impact remains undeniable. Surely, this event is the source of my perennial disdain for professional sailboat captains. They are slimy, and they cannot be trusted, and they cannot be rehabilitated! They are a scourge to society, and I will not be convinced otherwise.
To this day, every time I pop the top on a 12 oz aluminum can, my Coros Pace Pro smartwatch records a 20 bpm increase in my heart rate. Nervous excitement? Maybe partially. But I feel it down in my bones and in my loins too- a tension, an unease, a fear-the looming risk that my treasure may be plundered.
Sadly, my fears are not unfounded. There is a new shakedown artist in my life. He is three years old, and he loves seltzer (It’s 2025, we ain’t drinking Coke no more). He loves it as much as I do, and he has an ear that can hear the crack and fizz of a can opening from obscene distances. He doesn’t coerce me with brute force, but irresistible cuteness. His only kindnesses are that he’ll cheers me after his flimflam, and he usually limits his extortion to around 3 oz. However, I know his desire for more will only grow with time.
Thus, maybe that day on the boat was teaching me about life and preparing me for how things would and will always be. Nothing truly belongs to me, you, or anybody, for that matter. Do not get attached. It’s the loss of an attachment that brings suffering. If one is not attached, one cannot be hurt.
So for the trauma and the lesson, thank you, and fuck you, Captain.
Fate, I think for the most part, is horseshit. I simply don’t believe in it. Things happen circumstantially, not because of some predetermined destiny. Relationships, even incredible ones, are not the result of fate.
Well, except for one. There is one known relationship in this universe that is so right, good, and harmonious that its union is surely divinely inspired, and it’s the one between my mouth and Banana Bread. I love Banana Bread. And I mean that in a way that a parent would say they love their child. I was made to eat Banana Bread, and Banana Bread was made to be consumed by me.
The evidence is abundantly clear. For starters, we are supremely compatible. Unlike any other food I know, I have a unique ability to house an obscene amount of BB with literally zero negative repercussions. My body has a profound tolerance, no, affinity for BB. Never have I felt gross after consuming BB. The only thing I ever feel or think is More, please!
Surprisingly, I think bananas in their unadulterated state are a pretty underwhelming fruit-good, but definitely nowhere near a top-10 fruit contender. Some magical alchemy occurs when mixed with egg, butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, baking soda, and nutmeg. Something holy is produced. An end-product whose sum is magnitudes greater than its parts.
I think Banana Bread should be capitalized, purely out of reverence. If we’re capitalizing Memorial Day, how about in addition to those good men and women who fought and died, we remember how BB fought for our taste buds? And won. And yes, I think there should be a paid federal holiday too. Obvious candidates are 4/20 and 6/9.
Alas, I don’t wield the power or have the authoritayy to implement such policies. All I can do is express my love. Well, just as a symphony of taste buds activates throughout my mouth with every bite, I decided a song would be the best way to express my feelings. Since I couldn’t write a song on my own that would do this baked angel justice, I chose to rip off a song I’m fond of. Here is the original, from Coldplay, We Are KING, and Jacob Collier. It’s a simple song, of limited instrumentation, but with great vocal harmonies. The internet seems to think it’s a crap song, but I rather like it. I think it sounds beautiful and is quite evocative. It should be listened to in a peaceful, quiet environment with headphones for best effect.
Anyhow, a lovely, emotional song is just the type of song that accurately captures my feelings for BB. So I took all those lovely vocal harmonies and ripped them right the fuck outta there, and inserted my own pre-pubescent voice, along with some new lyrics. It’s poorly recorded, I know, but lo-fi is hott right now, so leave me alone. Enjoy (lyrics below):
Banana Bread
Instrumentals followed by an introductory moan Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Moist, moistest Bread
Cut a slice, let the fun begin
I take a bite, I eat the loaf
With you, no self-control
Banana Bread, I really want some Banana Bread
It’s so fluffy and delicious
It’s got bananas, it’s nutritious, oooohhhhh
Banana Bread, It’s the fucking shit, my friend
I’ll eat til the very end, ooooohhhh
Of my days, Banana Bread
Bake, bake and rise
Gold, golden-brown it shines
I cool it off, to wait, I try
Bread to my lips, tears to my eyes
Banana Bread, I really want some Banana Bread
It’s so fluffy and delicious
It’s got bananas, it’s nutritious, oooohhhhh
Banana Bread, It’s the fucking shit, my friend
I’ll eat til the very end, ooooohhhh
Of my days, Banana Bread
Instrumental outro (no moans)
As I’m talking so much hype about Banana Bread, it seems wrong to leave without posting a recipe. Here’s a pretty legit one from a blog I obviously frequent constantly- The Simply Luxurious Life. Don’t be fooled by everything else on this blog, the bread delivers. It’s allegedly the recipe for the Banana Bread made by Sparrow Bakery (a well-known staple in the Bend baked-goods scene). It’s published by a third party blog, so I can’t totally verify its authenticity, but I’ve made it multiple times, and it seems close and is truly delish. Below is the recipe copied from the blog, because no one wants to read 90% of the shit in a food blog, and they always make you scroll for what you really want. Just give me the damn recipe.
Banana Bread from The Sparrow Bakery (Bend, Oregon)
Ingredients:
7 Ripe Bananas
4 Eggs
1 cup Canola Oil
2 cup Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Ext.
Pinch Nutmeg
2½ cup AP Flour
½ tsp Salt
2 tsp Baking Soda
Directions (as written by Whitney & Jess):
This bread is very popular at our bakery and at the farmer’s market during the summer; we typically sell 150 loaves a week! I believe you will find it is an excellent gift, and perfect for company: try it for breakfast, snack, and even dessert! Some of my customers use this banana bread to make French toast, some smear it with cream cheese!
It is very important to use ripe or even brown bananas, (sometimes, if you ask, the grocer will give you brown bananas they cannot sell!). Mash your bananas using a potato masher until they are pulverized (can’t over mash). Then beat your eggs together and add oil, sugar, vanilla, and nutmeg. Mix these “wet” ingredients and add them to your bananas. Mix. Measure out the flour, salt, and soda and sift them together. Incorporate your dry ingredients into your wet using a stiff whisk. Once I feel my ingredients are well incorporated I like to stick my hands into the batter and check for clumps of flour I missed. Don’t underestimate the fun of this step – children will enjoy getting their hands wet and if there are no little ones around don’t deny yourself the pleasure! Once your batter is mixed heavily spray two loaf pans with pan-spray and evenly distribute your batter between the pans.
Bake in an oven that has been preheated to 325º for one hour. When you remove the bread from the oven immediately sprinkle it with a healthy amount of raw sugar. Let cool completely before removing from the pan – it may help to run a metal edged spatula around the edges of the pan before knocking out the bread. Enjoy it!
A good backup is the reigning champ of online Banana Bread recipes, the All Recipe’s Banana Banana Bread recipe. That’s not a typo, they include banana twice in the name. Don’t ask me why. The perpetual SEO leader, it’s always the first recipe to appear if one googles “Banana Bread recipe.” 13,302 people have been compelled to write reviews on this recipe, and it has a 4.7/5 rating. This recipe is more popular than you and I ever will be. Frankly, it’s average as far as BB recipes go, but it still makes Banana Bread which is basically always delicious, so you’re gonna be alright if you go this route.
I just counted, and there are, no lie, 21 bananas in my freezer. I’ve got work to do, so this blog has to end. Banana Bread, it’s the fucking shit my friend.
Merriam Webster defines endurance as “the ability to withstand hardship or adversity.” It’s a wonderfully nonspecific definition, implying there are endless forms of endurance.
Inspired by my wife’s recent birthday, I’d like to speak of a remarkable form of endurance I regularly witness from her and other moms.
Dare I say, I’m pretty fit, and in at least the realm of a cardio-focused activities, I have solid endurance. And this is the type of endurance that most often gets recognized and praised. However, this form of endurance ain’t shit. There are many ways one can endure, and many of them are easily as difficult as any physical endeavor.
I shall give an anecdote, and while it would be better if it were originally from me, it’s not. I should’ve lied and said it was, but it’s too late now. It’s actually from my wife. Recently, I left her at a homely if not semi-trashy lake resort deep in the woods of Oregon for several hours, as I went off to climb a mountain, a pursuit of physical endurance. Don’t get me wrong, I like this resort, it’s just not classy, or pretentious. It’s simple, and that’s cool. Anyways, when I returned to the resort to regroup with my family, my wife relayed a story of her watching a mother over several hours with her teenage son down at the lakeshore. The boy, who had some form of intellectual disability, was having an audibly great time playing down at the beach, repeatedly going back and forth between the water and the sand. His mother unwaveringly stood by for hours as he played. Always calm. Always patient. Undistracted and present with her son. She didn’t get frustrated, wishing she could be elsewhere, indulging or focusing on herself. No, she prioritized her son’s safety and happiness. She saw the joy her son was experiencing while splashing in the water, his repetitive actions followed by his same joyous responses. She allowed him to continue as long as he wished, knowing how happy it was making him. Side note: this included fact about the boy’s intellectual status sort of feels like the modern version of oldschool grandpa who always identifies if someone is a person of color in his story, but I feel like this detail is important in my case, so I will risk being the modern version of unintentionally inappropriate grandpa.
Personally, I find it hard enough to stand anywhere- a beach, field, playground, living room- for 10 minutes without devising a game or some other way to make things interesting, or requiring that we move on and do something else altogether. Often, it is me and my own need for novelty and stimulation that drives me to tell my kids what they should do and how they should do it, rather than leaving them be and letting them decide for themselves.
One must remember this is a sliver of this mom’s life that we’re discussing. This is her life 24/7 and likely has been for the last 15 years, essentially non-stop, with likely no endpoint for the foreseeable future. Of course, there are likely times of parental imperfection where she isn’t so patient, kind, or loving, and maybe she gets the occasional short break, but by and large, she is perennially there for her child and giving him her best. A mother’s endurance truly is a humbling and beautiful thing.
Maybe I’m romanticizing this mother and her steadfast commitment, but I don’t think so. I’m aware of too many cases of moms with undeniable endurance. My wife puts me to shame with her efforts. I’m constantly impressed by her ability to give herself to our family. Make no mistake, I’m a good dad, definitely above average, but I’m no mom. It’s like moms have this special hidden energy reserve of love that endlessly fuels them in the face of utter exhaustion. Dads will crumple, but moms will persevere ad infinitum.
I love my kids and my wife so damn much. And still, this is an endurance I’ll never know. I suppose I’m still too impatient and selfish. I think I have unachieved ambition within me that makes me angsty. I don’t really have a great excuse. All I know is that I’ll never live up to these mothers like my own wife and my own mom who so consistently and neverendingly give to others, happily and without complaint, day in, day out. It’s fucking impressive. They are true champions of endurance. Respect, ladies, respect.
I encountered a goose this morning. While still at a distance, but approaching its feathery ass, I could tell this thing was belligerent. The way it was postured 10 feet up on the retaining wall, standing at the edge, and overlooking its parking lot kingdom, I could sense that this bird was aggro. I think they’re having babies this time of year, so I’m assuming that was the source of its hostility.
But I saw no babies. I just saw this hoodlum goose, posted up solo, looking for trouble. The sidewalk to get into the building went right underneath le bird. The logical part of me thought, Just give the bird some space. But the alpha dog in me thought,Fuck this goose, this is my sidewalk.
I didn’t buzz the goose, but I was roughly a stop-the-spread distance of around 6 feet. I stayed on the sidewalk. Goose didn’t like that. Goose hissed at me. No lie, I was a bit startled, but I was moving swiftly enough that I escaped the danger zone quickly, and was able to avoid further escalation with the goose. I did mutter a “fuck you goose” in response to its sassy hiss, and then I walked into work.
Upon reflection, I’m glad I didn’t go toe-to-toe with goose. The goose was literally a wild animal who had no problem throwing its life away in the name of violent conflict. Had I buzzed the goose, things could’ve got physical. Could I have taken the goose? 100%, I’d whoop that goose’s ass Sunday to Sunday, but the goose might’ve given me a few licks itself. It might’ve shit on my head. Yanked out some hair. Pecked my ear. Made me squeal just a lil bit.
Despite me for sure winning the battle, because, like I said, I’d no doubt choke that goose out, these potential consequences of human/animal conflict would render confrontation a bad idea. So don’t alpha the goose. It’s unnecessary to assert one’s dominance over a territorial asshole of a bird in the name of machoism, because you might get shit on and look like a beta in the process of being totally alpha. Give the goose some space.
Well, I don’t actually know that. But it probably is. Because London is a wet-ass place. It’s always raining up in them parts.
In actuality, I’m quoting a song lyric from my latest track that I’m posting here, titled “London Rain.” What a name. Evocative. Provocative. Moody… Yes ma’am.
In all truth, I recorded this song over two years ago and never published it. I recently made a few tiny edits and figured I should throw it out there. To say I recorded it is a bit generous. This song is the result of the first time I messed around with pre-recorded loops in Garageband. Literally none of the music is written or recorded by me. I just compiled it. I suppose that makes me a composer, and I swing a baton like no other.
Of course, all the nasally vocals are me. Unfortunately, undeniably me. But yeah, the rest is Garageband. And the song is still, overall, pretty low quality. Many things could be added, tweaked, and improved. However, I want to improve at completing things and moving on. I have too many partially complete projects and a massive backlog of unexecuted ideas. Better to call an imperfect thing done if it creates the space for embarking on new goals.
It’s not a complex song, but it was fun to compose the general bones for the thing in an hour or so. This was revelatory, as I was accustomed to spending eons writing, composing, and recording all my own shitty music. Gotta say, it’s quite convenient to borrow a premade loop on occasion.
Now, as to the content of the song, I’ve never been so sophisticated to have had a foreign lover in London, but if I did, and if that naughty, two-timing lady dumped me, and I happened to be feeling really sad and/or mad about it while moping around in the London wetness, then this would be my jam.
As always, I outsourced my artwork to an AI image generator. I asked the AI to depict a moody, rainy scene in London. I then told it to add a man sulking in the foreground. I then thought about what I would personally do if I was in this situation. Probably get drunk and binge eat. So I asked the AI to create an image of a man sobbing while pigging out on a large helping of fish and chips.
Fuck you, Big Ben. She said that was her new lover’s name. What a sad man. Great hair though.How Yolo mends a broken heart.
If forced to summarize my take on our current political climate, it’s the following two words: I’m confused. Now, while I walk around at a baseline level of confusion, sometimes forgetting to breathe in air, or blink, or deliver food to the correct bodily orifice for proper delivery of nutrition, I have never been more confused, at least politically, in my life.
I don’t really know what to do with this confusion, other than express some feelings I have about it. To start, I’d like to present a hypothesis, which we will not test because that would require research and time and effort, and I’d really prefer to just ramble off my own thoughts and opinions. Anyhow, my hypothesis is that if one is open-minded, intellectually honest, and committed to hearing multiple points of view, then it is harder than ever to have a clear and confident opinion on anything.
My hunch is this is due to several factors, but most critically, the abundance of information available regarding every topic imaginable. This deluge of information comes in many forms: irrefutable facts, objective and detached analyses, biased interpretations of events still rooted somewhat in truth, blatant lies, deliberate misinformation, and every point along the spectrum between those types of information sources.
Let me describe a typical scenario where I try to make sense of some current political event while simultaneously, intermittently, painfully urinating out crumbs of Cinnamon Toast Crunch from my urethra. Wrong hole! Wrong hole! Again! I really have to remember where my mouth is… Yes, it burns! Very badly! The sugar crystals have viciously inflamed my urethral canal! Looks like I’ll be destroying my microbiome with another round of nuclear strength antibiotics, because if I get one more severe UTI, my dick and balls might just call it quits and fall off, where upon landing on the ground, my genitalia will perform a magic trick and disappear under the cloak of my tattered and wrinkled ballsack, just like Obi Wan did after Vader slashed him.
The force is strong, in my dong.
I believe I’m veering mildly off track. Where was I? Oh yeah, so I’ll read the news, probably scan some headlines. Upon doing so, I’ll commonly have an initial gut reaction to whatever political situation I’m learning about. Some may be surprised to learn I’m capable of moral or ethical judgments, but shockingly, contained within me is some rudimentary moral and ethical framework that I occasionally employ in situations like this to form a moral or ethical stance on a topic.
Next, I like to broaden the iris and see what other people and places on the internet are saying about the subject at hand. It’s typically at this point of encountering different perspectives that I realize I have no clue what I really think. In most cases on most topics, most sides of an issue have at least some valid arguments.
Personally, I don’t think I’m particularly stupid. I’m generally capable of understanding the multiple positions surrounding a complex situation. I have more trouble settling on what the correct viewpoint is, if there even is one. At risk of stating the obvious, black and white rarely exists in the world. Most issues contain at least some nuance and complexity. This calls for a nuanced perspective. Yet, rather than holding a truly nuanced perspective, most tend to only acknowledge the nuance that favors their own worldview.
Facts also don’t seem to be as useful as I once believed for the purpose of making judgments about the events in our world. That’s because different people look at the same facts and interpret them through divergent worldviews, resulting in them drawing totally contrasting conclusions.
To condense my thoughts here, in most modern political debates, I see the different sides presenting compelling, albeit incomplete and biased arguments. I’m left to reconcile the multiple points of view and draw my own conclusions, and usually, I end up confused, somewhere in the middle of things, feeling pretty unsure. Maybe that’s how one should feel about most things. Of course, in life and politics, decisions must be made, and all decisions are imperfect and compromising on some level, but a smidge of humility and the ability to acknowledge opposing but valid points of view could potentially make things less contentious.
In the meantime, I will remain confused. While I don’t like the added political confusion to my pre-existing UTI-induced delirium, I feel reassured knowing I’m at least attempting to be open-minded and intellectually honest.
Not you of course, reader. You indeed are my friend. If you can stomach this blog and come back for more, I have nothing but love for you.
But there are probably some other bitches out there who ain’t my friends. So I wrote a song for them. It’s called “I Ain’t Your Friend.” Go figure.
Realistically, I hold no meaningful or legitimate animosity towards anyone, so I had to channel the 16-year old girl within me to write this banger. Being nearly 35, I pride myself on not having catty beefs in my life. But if I did, this jam would be my anthem.
While listening, you might even think, “Wow he really tried to embody being a 16 year old girl. He even sounds like one.” Hey bitch, that’s just my voice, and I can’t do anything about it.
Also, notice the dope artwork created for the track. Understand that ChatGPT gave my cheap-ass a three image generation limit on my free account. I thought this result was appropriately corny and juvenile for the song, so I went with it.
3/5/25 Edit: I remastered the track a bit to balance some of the vocals and in particular, tone down my high-pitched, whiny vocal tracks. The newer version is marginally better and slightly easier on the ears. The remastered version is the one with the taco boxing the hamburger, because clearly, tacos and hamburgers are not friends.
It is an act of niceness to censor the blog title, because I don’t want to offend any innocent cybercitizen pleasantly perusing the internet with such harsh language. Believe it or not, but in this very moment, I’m trying to be nicer. Fucking nicer. That’s a phrase I need to utter to myself daily: Be fucking nicer. Because there is no reason not to be nicer- likely only good would come from such a change. And while I’m not mean, I’m probably not the world’s nicest person, therefore, there is some room for improvement.
This call to niceness pounced on me me like a horny jungle cat the other day because I came into contact with one of those freakishly nice people. I’m not sure if others relate to this, but sometimes I encounter a person so nice that it affects me. To be specific, I’m not referring to one of those annoying-nice types, one who is for whatever reason exhausting and aggravating to be around, but the other kind. There is occasionally a person so sweet, genuine, and nice that I feel like I ought to be more grateful, and be better, and be more like that person.
In the surreal aftermath of coming into contact with one of these confusingly nice humans, the urge to be mean, smug, or rude is somehow absent. I’m searching for it like my car keys-checking my pockets, checking the cabinets and drawers around my house, checking my pockets again. Like my car keys, I still can’t find the urge. I’m a (temporarily) changed man. Weird. In the influence of this short-lived perspective change, it’s obvious that I should be fucking nicer. To everyone. Just because.
Nice freaks make me feel something else too- pity. These people are so nice that I can’t help but feel bad for them. They don’t ask for it, or necessarily even want it, but they have my sympathy. Maybe it’s because I worry their niceness will be taken advantage of and abused. In truth, I fear they’ll become disillusioned and lose that spectacular niceness. Or more likely, they’ll remain as nice and wonderful as ever, but have their feelings and expectations repeatedly trampled by the rest of us meanies. Nevertheless, they’ll trudge on being nice. They’ll just be a little sad about it.
So I’m gonna do my part. I refuse to be a meanie. I will not bring these nice people down. I’ll be fucking nicer. How do I prove my sincerity here? How do I show that I’m willing to be held accountable? I looked around for God to swear to him or make some sort of vow, but he wasn’t present (he could’ve been ignoring me), so I’ll have to find a stand-in for the big man. I am eating some Cinnamon Toast Crunch as I write this..
The cereal box does not know how it feels about standing in for God and is highly skeptical of my vow…
This cereal box shall behold my testimony! With its tremendous cinnamon-y goodness as my witness, I promise I will be fucking nicer. At least until the next rude bitch comes into my life.
I came across this unpublished post from a couple years ago. Here’s an inspiring story about keeping the faith:
Desperate times call for desperate measures..
It should be clear by now that I’m a dummy. Well, no surprise, I went and did another dumb thing.
My wife, son, and I were on a little staycation at a resort near where we live. After putting the baby to bed, it was time to make things sexy…
That meant breaking out the wine. And I’m not talking about some bum-ass cheap wine. I’m talking about some $9 Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel. It’s a blatant money-flex, and I don’t even care.
But before we could sip on this superb vintage, we needed to open it. Being as fancy as it was, the bottle was at least an entire dollar out of the screw-top class of wines. And of course, we had no corkscrew on hand.
Now, we had known of our situation upon stopping at the store for a few supplies, but I assured mi amore that I had tactics up my sleeve that would reliably uncork dat baby. There was no need to buy an opener. I had been in such predicaments before and always prevailed. The wine always flowed. Always.
But this time, victory would not be had without an immense battle and divine intervention..
I started out by using what is typically a reliable opener, a ballpoint pen. However, this time, instead of pushing the cork into the bottle, it just mangled it to the dickens, chipping off small ink-saturated chunks of it, but pushing said cork no further into the neck of the bottle.
My wife looked at me and shook her head. She indeed had told me so. After being together for 10 years, we had acquired telepathic abilities between each other, and I knew exactly what she was thinking- Pathetic.
I stopped. I prayed. I prayed hard for an answer. For a way to please my wife. For a way to find redemption. And the Lord delivered. I glanced around the room, and there before me on the nightstand, sat a pristine, HARDCOVER King James Version Bible. Old and New Testament. Hefty fella. Probably at least a pound.
Clearly, this was a divine omen. I was pretty sure I knew what needed to be done, but to be sure, I paused and thought, W.W.J.D.?
Using the word of the Lord, I viciously bashed the hell out of the pen with relentless persistence until the cork caved in.
The cover of the bible was more cratered than the face of an acne-riddled 15-year old boy, but the book remained in one piece. I felt good, knowing that this individual book had been put to better use than it ever had or would be again.
I poured a couple glasses of cork-infested wine. Obviously, my wife was impressed and turned on. She did not verbally express these things, but once again, I knew telepathically.
They say we kill what we love. I don’t have a damn clue who said that. I’m also not entirely sure that’s a well-known quote or saying, but I think it is, and I will not resort to Google to fact-check myself. Until recently, I didn’t even know what this allegedly popular saying meant. But now I do. All too well it seems…Oh yes, I sure dooey dooey doo ooh.
Let me tell you about Beanz. Beanz was a common housefly. He was named Beanz posthumously, by me. I didn’t tell or consult my family about my decision to name him, but I decided he deserved a name to be remembered by, so I gave him one. Beanz, because well, he was the size of bean- a black bean, at least. He was no lima bean-sized monstrosity, just an average black bean-sized house fly. I added the Z on the end because he seemed like an edgy lil bugger- taking risks, swooping in my face, tempting fate n’ shit. .. And all that buzzin’- just cruising around, buzzzz buzzzz… Yeah, he deserved the Z.
Beanz arrived, I think, sometime in early November. Our family would be merrily cooking dinner, or sitting at the table eating and that lil kamikaze would divebomb in and start swarming our faces, buzzing our plates, disturbing the peace. He never stuck around for long, usually a couple minutes at most. He’d assault everyone in the room, then leave. Smartly, he’d rarely land and sit idly on nearby objects. Several times, he did, and I made attempts to steal his soul, but that son’ bitch was quick. Touché Beanz, touché..
He would go into hiding for the majority of the day, but would consistently make a daily apearance in the afternoon/evening. Imitating his parents, my son came to know Beanz as “that darn fly.” A few times he disappeared for a day or so, but he nevertheless returned. He was always solo, always annoying. Things continued on like this for over three weeks. I would wonder, How long do flies even live? Is this the same darn fly that’s been annoying me for literally weeks, or am I dealing with multiple generations of fly harassment here?
I determined through no scientifically valid method that this was indeed the same Beanz. I could feel his spazzy, wired energy, and I just knew it was him from his vibe. It was at this time that an unforeseen shift began to occur, where Beanz’s annoyance transformed into a form of comfort for the family. His aerial assaults on our faces came to be seen as the equivalent of puppy licks. No dinner was complete without him showing up to put his little shit-covered legs on all our food. His predictable patterns had become part of our routine. He had become family.
Then, one morning shortly after Thanksgiving, I arrived at the kitchen sink to soak, not wash, my breakfast dishes. Directly to my right was Beanz, a mere 18 inches away, sitting on the side of the nearest cabinet. It was surprising to see him out so early in the day. Directly to my left on the drying rack was my vented spatula….
He was family.
But he was still a fucking fly.
I opted for a cross-body, backhanded slap technique. Swift, firm, and precise, I flicked that spatula right at Beanz. Like many intense and traumatic experiences, the next moments remain blurry in my mind. I thought I directly nailed him, saying aloud, “He gone!” but I quickly became unsure. There was no evidence on the spatula or cabinet, and I couldn’t find his body anywhere. Maybe in some act of destiny, he had perfectly slipped through the spatula vents. I started to feel mixed emotions about trying to kill him again, and part of me hoped that like all the other previous attempts on his life, he somehow managed to escape.
Alas, my hopes were shattered when hours later, my wife sent me a photo of Beanz’s lifeless body lying a couple inches from the edge of the sink.
Death of a Housefly by Yolo69420.blog, now on Broadway.
After the swat, I had scanned the area thoroughly, so it was interesting to find him in that same area. Had he stumbled off wounded, only to come back and die at the scene of the attack? Or did he die due to the pain of betrayal, escaping the swat physically unharmed, but emotionally and psychologically shattered, resulting in a total loss of the will to live? It could have been too much of an emotional hit for his old fly heart to handle. Whatever the truth of the situation, I felt guilt. I had killed something I loved.
So Beanz, I suppose I’m talking to you now., wherever you be. Dude, I’m sorry. I’m not gonna lie and say it was an accident. Clearly, it wasn’t an accident. In fact, it was exactly what I was trying to do. Idk, maybe I didn’t think I’d be fast enough. Maybe despite our bond, this was the tense and complicated relationship we were destined to have. No matter the case, it was a pleasure to know you and share a brief sliver of cosmic existence in your presence. All that said, to any fly out there- stay the fuck outta my house.
Give In NeverRarelyOccasionallySometimes Less Often than Previously
Rather than outline a handful of specific improvements I want to implement, or goals I wish to achieve in the coming year, I briefly want to discuss an overarching theme pervading my psyche, the way the smell of stale cabbage might pervade the air if you were to stubbornly hang on to said stale cabbage, despite its odor telling you not to. Btw, I only used the stale cabbage metaphor because it was the example Google gave when I checked to ensure I was appropriately utilizing the word pervade.
Back on topic, in general, I want to make better decisions. Better in the sense that they align more with my values (cocaine and titties) and result in less future regret (i.e., less titties and cocaine). The key words I want to speak or think less are Damn, I shouldn’t have done that.
Because I say these silly words all the time, in many situations, relating to matters such as my relationships, my health, my commitment to personal goals, my desire to be somewhat productive, and on and on. Typically, I end up thinking damn, I shouldn’t have done that due to my consistent lack of willpower. So that’s why I say for 2025, let’s toughen up, hold the line, and give in a little less often than previously to all those bad impulses and urges.
Some of my common regretful refrains:
Shouldn’t have eaten third dessert. Even if it’s physically well tolerated, mentally, it’s diabetes of the soul.
Shouldn’t have stayed up til 1AM. You dummy. Do you know horrible this is going to feel tomorrow? Yes, you do, and still, you stay up.
Shouldn’t have slept in 1.5 hours past my alarm and blown my only window for uninterrupted free time, where I’m not under the assault of those savages, my children.
Shouldn’t have skipped lifting weights. Merely upping your protein and ingesting creatine won’t make you a greek god. At baseline, you have a soft 4-pack at best. You could do better with even a little bit of effort. But you’d still be pasty as hell.
Shouldn’t have skipped the run, especially the hard and terrible ones. Springtime will come, and you may have goals, and you’ll wish you were fast and fit. Alas, you’re not that fast and fit, because you didn’t put in the prior effort. Tsk-tsk
Shouldn’t have wasted 2 hours on the site formerly known as Twitter. Sure, you go there under the pretense of getting the news and staying current on worldly happenings, but it invariably devolves into some culinary wizard making pizza soup, or something equally useful.
Shouldn’t have wasted 2 hours on the site formerly and still known as Youtube. At least in this case, you knew from the outset you were going there to avoid doing anything productive. And you succeeded at that.
Shouldn’t have gotten angry at the kids. That’s not teaching them anything good. And the little one, she’s an actual baby, dude. You sometimes imagine her machinations are diabolical, but I think you may be projecting some of your own ideas there.
Shouldn’t have argued with your wife. Fucking duh.
Shouldn’t have not called or texted your friends back. Fergin derr.
Shouldn’t have said no to that cocaine bump.
Shouldn’t have said no to dem titties.
Shouldn’t have held on to that stale cabbage for so damn long.
As an uplifting lil gem for your departure, below is a banger I came across recently. It starts off slow and somber, but picks up and transforms into a groove that I think is undeniably elevating and joyous. It’s as good as the last 30 seconds of Mr. Brightside. On a side note, imagine if The Killers changed the lyrics from “I never” to “I less often than previously.” I don’t think it would’ve hit the same. What a dumb blog post title.
Anyhow, I don’t know what the dying light is, but as the guy says in the song, you must repel it. Repel that shit, don’t give in, be better in 2025-for yourself and those you love. Byyye.
Unlike the typical content circulated here, today’s post will be a semi-thoughtful, borderline mature, and possibly self-reflective blog post. Not the norm. Is something wrong with me? No, it’s just Christmas, and now’s the time of year to do this kinda shit, so let’s get it over with.
Recently, I read that one of the best ways to cheer yourself up is to think about the good qualities of the people close to you. So, I’m going to make a personal list of qualities or tidbits I appreciate about some people..
But first, let me state that no one should get too sentimental about this exercise. Other than the fact it’s Christmas time, I’m doing this with the sole aim of pleasing myself, nothing else. Also, a disclaimer- I quickly became exhausted with this exercise, so quite a few of my selected qualities aren’t long, creative, or original.
Anyways, here’s my list (and in no way does order imply preference):
Andrew-Fearless in social situations, unequivocally yourself. Powerful voice too.
Chris-Talented lil bitch. Driven and determined too. I recognize how much your talents across many disciplines are the the result of your persistent efforts.
Dave-Generous. Curious. Excellent at diving into a new interest, learning quickly, and applying the new knowledge.
Jeff- So organized. Generous. Always level-headed. Very good at saying no. Even to me, which is annoying.
JB-Still have never seen you be actually mean. It pisses me off.
Sam Rozran-You are the main Jew in my life. Required to have one on my Christmas list.
Scott Quigley-Always stoned, but never high. Chill dude. Committed and focused. Not quite a minimalist, but a fan of simple. A simplist, maybe.
Bryce- The dude least likely to surprise me because I know to expect anything. A creative juggernaut.
Ryan- Kind. The most agreeable person, to the point where it’s fun to play games with you and agree with two totally incompatible concepts. You definitely have short-man syndrome, but in the best way.
Swanson- Charging hard and making the most out of life. Always a positive disposition.
Nate- I appreciate your efforts to stay in touch and stay close despite being far away.
Jeff Gay-Appreciate how you tolerated decades of immature harrassment over your last name in good spirit. Genuine goofball.
Mom-Somehow you managed to incubate and grow a perfect human, so thank you. All kidding aside, now that I’m a parent, I better appreciate how awesome of a mom you are. Always giving with no expectation of anything in return.
Dad- Learned a lot from you. I appreciate your encouragement to continue learning and growing, usually in the form of a book as a gift.
Sarah- Patient. Handles tough situations with grace.
Matt- Uniquely yourself, and rarely embarrassed for it, even when I am for you.
Emma- You are generous, kind, and thoughtful, sometimes.
Shaina- Simply put, you carry the house. We’d all be screwed without you. Thanks for always putting the three of us first. You give a lot. I am always impressed by your professional and personal badassery. I love you.
Stanley-You are genuinely funny. Thanks for bringing more joy and laughter to my life, in between the occasional moments of anger. I haven’t known too many 2.5 year-olds, but you’re the cutest and cleverest in my book.
Sophie- You are quick to forgive, or maybe at your age, it’s simply forgetting. Regardless, you give me a million second chances to be a good dad. Thank you. Your smile is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
Anonymous Yolo69420.blog Reader- I don’t know who you are, or how many of you there are. I don’t know how you found this blog, because it’s apparent I’m no marketing whiz. You have supreme judgment, impeccable taste, and very likely a plethora of lucrative opportunities kneeling before you, all vying to metaphorically drain your nutz in order to eat that tasty and hearty splooge, which in this case, is a metaphor for your awesome talent the whole world desires. If there are any female readers of this blog, I’m surprised, and I also apologize.
Jimbo-I appreciate your awkward and hilarious honesty/lack of filter.
Brix- The ultimate host and epicurean.
Lucy-You tell overly dramatic stories that have provided a large percentage of my favorite quotes.
Grandma- You’re old and crazy, and you make me laugh because you’re old and crazy. Thanks for not spending all of my inheritance yet, I think.
Kris and Lea- I like that I can watch a 20-minute unintentionally sexually-provocative Indian face massage video with y’all, and it’s totally hilarious and not weird.
Tosch- Never aggressive or egotistical. Thanks for lead-climbing the two times a year I want to climb, but because I suck, I want someone with more talent and skill to do the hard work.
That’s my list. It was too long. Quite frankly, I should’ve stopped after I wrote the first five. The happiness return on my efforts became severely diminished, and I had to think quite hard to come up with positive attributes for some of you people.
Now, if you didn’t make the list, I’d think about your life decisions that led you to where you are today, not making this fucking list, and wonder ‘How have I strayed so far from the righteous path?’ Then get your shit together and make the necessary life changes to make my coveted and, as of now I’m declaring, annual gratitude list. It is a you problem, but you can be redeemed.
In all honesty, there are a bunch people I love and care for who aren’t on the list, because a) it would take too much time, b) it would be awkward, because I annoy you, but I like you anyways, or c) you’ve been indirectly acknowledged because your bitty boo made the list, and I’m not putting both of you on there because that’s too much love to throw in one direction.
Enough gratitude, moving on. In theme with the holidays, I wrote and recorded a Christmas song. It’s titled, I Hate/Love Christmas. If I may, let me disparage myself for a moment. I am a musician of very limited talent. I have been abandoned by my band and therefore am forced to try and write and record music all by my lonesome self. It shows. Some extra talent would go a long way. Nonetheless, I enjoy it, so I do it anyways. The vocals are shit, so I just let it get weird at the end. Sure wish I could sing better, but hey, my pipes are what they are. Can I hit all the notes? Hell no, but I still try. Sure wish I could play a lot of instruments a lot better, but at least MIDI keyboards exist. Sure wish I had some more technical aptitude for mixing/mastering/producing music. I also think I have this fantasy that a truly great production job would make my music notably better, but it probably wouldn’t. Anyways, the song is a piano-driven, slower-paced Christmas ballad with a bit of irreverence and a plug for good dental hygiene. Hope it makes your ears bleed.
People probably often wonder, How does Mr. Yolo69420.blog stay humble? Especially with all his blogging success, profound insight, and obvious interpersonal skills that make him the perennial center of attention in all situations-how does he do it?
What can I say, I have a disposition towards humility. I try and understand that we all start from different places. I recognize that all of us have talents, and all of us suffer flaws. But there still come moments when even I succumb to my own hype. Maybe I hit 10 subscribers on this blog. Maybe I shaved my bits, and my master sword is looking extra sparkly, and it’s got my ego a tad inflated. That was a Zelda reference btw. Anyways, that’s when I bring in the humility-inducing reinforcements. These are situations that call for specific tactics, where I must rely on the frameworks I’ve developed for keeping it all in perspective. So I utilize a set of personalized strategies I’ve built over the years with tedious repetition. Remember what my boy Archilochus said, “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” I have trained for this, and I know how to keep my bitch-ass humble.
In fact, I have a precise and foolproof method to guarantee maintenance of humility, which I will describe here. I use a specific and personal example, but the general framework can be borrowed, tweaked, and applied to anyone else who may be struggling to stay humble. Here is my short and effective methodology:
Every time I feel a sense of arrogance washing over me, I think back to that time I was a reasonably put-together and independent 23-year-old college graduate who somehow failed to get a job making sandwiches at a grocery store deli.
That’s all there is to it, but let me review the details so they sink in and you register how lame I was/am:
I was a full blown adult. At 23, I had all the unalienable rights afforded to a legal-age American citizen- I could drink, smoke, vote, serve in the military, steal catalytic converters in order to sell the platinum on the dark web, to then launder the profits through a shitcoin ponzi scheme-all the freedoms that we adults cherish. I figured this level of privilege meant I had at least acquired a morsel of maturity and responsibility.
I was college educated, having spent the prior 4.5 years (a half-year victory lap just for shitz) at a fine state university. I had earned a bachelors of science. Of fucking science, dawg-not the arts! Serious shit. A real education. Business management-the peak of all academia, slightly edging out theoretical quantum physics for the title of most demanding and elite course of study. I was learned in the rigors of the scientific method- observing, hypothesizing, testing, analyzing- all that jazz. Skills I hoped to apply to….sandwiches, I guess. As someone with an allegedly marketable degree, why was I even trying to work counter-service in a grocery store deli? Good fucking question. I don’t remember. Clearly, I was ambitious though.
I had no criminal record, or at least none visible to the public after some efforts were made to have it expunged (story for another time).
And despite all these quality attributes, I was not hired to make sandwiches. They didn’t outright say it in the emailed rejection, but I read between the lines- Not qualified to make a sandwich. Maybe not even capable of making a sandwich. Probs too stupid to properly spell the word samwitch. Very likely too mentally underdeveloped to even comprehend the concept of a sannish. Friggin’ harsh, man…
The deli didn’t even toast their sandwiches. There was no risk of me dealing with hot surfaces or electricity, just the simple stacking of meats, cheeses, and accoutrements, your classic cold-cut deliverable. Did they think I would forget the cheese?
Ok, try and follow me here, but I think we’re looking at…sandwiches?? Some are upside down and sideways, and it’s very disorienting, but they are sandwiches nonetheless. A pile of them-who would organize them in such away? And there appears to be different breads, meats, cheeses, accoutrements, condiments- a dizzying array of options. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed trying to comprehend this situation.
Who knows, but in the aftermath of this humiliating rejection, I used my scientific skills to study my predicament: I hypothesized that I was a fucking loser. Controlling for confounding variables, the analysis of experimental results showed that the null hypothesis was to be rejected, confirming the alternative hypothesis- that I was indeed a fucking loser.
The only grace I will grant myself is that it was a somewhat fancy deli (inside of a grocery store, which clearly means not too fancy). Probably reasonable to call it a delicatessen. I reckon it serviced, at minimum, Whole Foods-grade clientele.
To be clear, by no means am I deriding deli-folk, as they’re commonly known. How could I? What ground do I have to stand upon? They are obviously a class above me, as they actually got a job making sandwiches, potato salads, and what have you. I look up to these people in awe, admiration, and envy. Always remember, these people hold great power, for they are the people making your food. Never betray or offend them. Otherwise, risk pubes in your potato salad. Hmmm…I suppose after some reflection, I’ll grant the following: Touché Marczyk Fine Foods, maybe you were smart to not trust me with such capacity and influence. It would have been too much for me to wield justly, and I surely would’ve suffocated under the immense weight of my own authority.
Thus, I think of that whole ordeal, and it keeps me pretty well in check. That memory is like a sandpaper handjob to my mind-penis, which gets very deflated and a wee bit scuffed up everytime I recall it. Here, I am using a metaphor where my mental state is a hard penis, and an embarrassing memory is represented as a bristly handjob, which rapidly softens my penis, meaning it severely damages my psychological well-being and self-esteem- just in case that went over anyone’s head.
Anyhow, to summarize this technique in general terms for others’ application, simply remember one of the lowest or most embarrassing moments of your life, then dwell on it excessively. Let it sink in how pathetic you were in that moment. Remember that despite wherever you currently find yourself, you are still that same loser and could at anytime find yourself back in that same circumstance. Otherwise, risk a precipitous downfall from the lofty heights of your own vanity.
As an example, if I forget this critical, embarrassing story of my life, I could let things get away from me. Overconfident and delusional, I could become a degenerate gambler, believing in my own genius and infallibility. In a rash move, I might accidentally bet away my entire family’s net worth over the results of a Serbian B-League soccer match in a three leg parlay gone wrong. My wife would certainly leave me, the readership of this blog could dry up, and with no other options for surviving, I could be forced to seek employment once again in a deli, only to be rejected. Due to shear embarrassment, my kids will refuse to associate with me, and I’ll be totally alone and penniless. I will find myself at the lowest point of my entire existence. From this humiliating and desperate place, I will have to discover something within myself- the seed of creativity, my true voice for expressing my highest self- and I will rebuild the empire I once ruled over from scratch, only this time bigger and better. And never forgetting that I am a fucking loser who couldn’t even get a job making sandwiches at a grocery store deli.
I would like to take a few brief minutes to discuss my father-in-law’s downstairs bathroom. It’s a place that has always puzzled and fascinated me.
Over the 11 years I have pilgrimaged to that special place to leave my bio-organic offerings, there have been several changes I’ve noticed, as well as other conditions that stubbornly remain the same.
The walls were formerly colored an electrifying Mountain Dewesque lime green, but have sadly been repainted to a more refined and understated gray. Back in the day, upon entering, you’d be instantly visually assaulted by those radioactive walls. Damn! was the typical mental or verbal response I’d have whenever I flicked the light on. The vibrancy provided a jolt of nervous energy that almost prematurely initiated the job I’d come to do. All good though, just some fuel to the fire contained within ones own bowels. Regrettably, this zeal is now gone. These days, I shuffle in and take a basic, regular, depressing shit in a nondescript, gray bathroom.
Never once in all my time in that bathroom has there been anything other than the shittiest, cheapest, thinnest single-ply toilet paper on the roll. Keep in mind, I too am a cheap ass. By no means am I buying the silky-smooth, lotion-infused squares, but even I enforce a minimum standard. Honestly, I don’t even know where one can buy such low-end toilet paper. I suspect at some sort of low-rent office supply store, but I’m not entirely sure. I imagine it’s like a Big Lots for stingy companies who really hate their employees. Anyways, back to the TP. The stuff is so thin as to be semi-translucent. One must stack 3-4 layers in order to not see one’s own hand. When cleaning a mud job, despite there allegedly being some toilet paper in your hand, it still just feels like your wiping your hand in shit. Yep, you just punched through and poked yourself in the butthole. Using those substandard sheets always makes me reminisce of travelling for sports as a kid and taking a poop in some random high school bathroom. Clearly, a poor high school. That statement sounds classless, but it’s true nonetheless. Rich kid schools have double, maybe even triple-ply.
The most recent and exciting change to the bathroom is that good, old-fashioned soap has made a long-awaited appearance. For probably the first 7-8 years I visited, if there was any sort of cleaning product present (not always a guarantee), it was a bottle of hand sanitizer, which-I assume this is common knowledge-is not the same as soap. Some jobs, quite frankly, cannot be handled with hand sani alone. In many cases, a surfactant is required.
I always marveled at the fact that this was the most public and trafficked bathroom of the house, yet there was no soap. How could this be? My wife is one of seven kids. Her parents are social folks- many people would visit and use this bathroom. Did they never once feel the pressure to put out the one item that every bathroom sink on the planet is supposed to have sitting next to it? And did no one in the house- kids, relatives, friends, anyone- ever think to say, “Hey I just got shit on my hands because I went to wipe my ass with that single-ply bullshit and my fingies blew right through it, and I’d really love some soap, but you don’t have any in your bathroom, which is a room literally made for shitting and pissing. Could I get some soap? Sorry for the hostility, but I just fingered my own butthole on accident, and I’m feeling kinda weird about it.”
Mystics distinguish between the two concepts of eternity and foreverness, with eternity representing a timeless state, one that exists outside of our temporal experience, rather than basic, vanilla foreverness- time essentially going on and on and never stopping.
Well, I’m no philosopher, and I do not wish to iron out these nuances. We Americans aren’t looking for some new-age interpretation of eternity. We simply want the clock to keep ticking. We want to float up into those fluffy cu-nims and hang out with J. Christ in his dope amusement park in the clouds and ride front seat on the titillating Moses-themed roller coaster and lap that shit over and over. Grandma is gonna be there. Steve Irwin will be wranglin’ a croc in the infinity hot tub. God, how we miss him. Have no fear, there are no sting rays in heaven. They’ll have a cheese buffet with all the fanciest cheeses- all the ones you and I are too cheep to buy. So fancy, they’ll call it fromage. Huntsman, blue, brie, havarti, camembert, fortina- all present. Of course there’s some gouda on that table. No doubt gorgonzola is in the spread. Fondue? Fo sho. Roclette? Heaven yes (We do not say hell up in this bitch). There’s a dessert table, too. All 31 ice cream flavors in existence. All of them! In one place! A banana bread loaf so moist and tasty you won’t know whether to eat or marry it (Unfortunately, human/food relationships are not condoned or allowed in heaven). The moistest rice crispy treats, never too crunchy, oh-so gooey. And there is no diabetes. Fupa is illegal. Naturally, everyone will speak perfect English. Beefcoin will be the one and only accepted currency (God loves dodgy crypto shams), and everyone will have a plentiful supply. Perfection.
Apologies for the ramble, but what a place it will be….
Back to the topic at hand. Most of us don’t want to find eternity in the present moment. We just don’t want to die. We don’t want to be alone. We don’t want to not exist as this exact form of consciousness that we currently inhabit. We want to party with all our friends and family, up in space, for all time.
But until we get the invite (I bet it’s a shiny card) to the forever sky party, we must glean what we can from our earthly existence. Since all these visionaries say there’s something more contained within each waking moment, accessible to all of us with the right ways of perception, then I guess we should consider it, I guess. They say eternity is now. Well, how do I find it?
In my experience, nothing draws out the present moment and makes it feel eternally long quite like misery and suffering.
Any time you think, damn, time flies-it’s moving too fast!- Go run a HARD mile. Do a dead hang. Do five minutes of continuous burpees. You will change your mind. There’s actually plenty of time, maybe too much time. You might even think, I’m ok with the finitude of existence, because that sucked so much.Do I want anything to last forever? Hmmm, maybe I don’t want an invite to the forever skyparty…
Consequently, we must pursue that Goggins-style grind (I know, I reference this dude a lot). Rise and grind, baby. Put your body to work, and make it hurt. Get out there and suffer willingly. Because it is good for you. Because it builds character. Because it will change your perception of time. Because it will allow you to live forever*.
*Not technically forever, but in the sense of experiencing the timelessness of conscious experience, or pain so uncomfortable that any interval of time is too long.
We(some of us, not all of us) humans push our physical bodies to incredible extremes- running 200+ miles in one push, climbing 8000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen, holding a single breath of air for more than ten minutes, and the list goes on and on across many domains and disciplines.
But what about merely surviving a chili cook-off with your bowels intact? On the surface, this sounds underwhelming, however, I think this is an underrecognized and underappreciated accomplishment of physical prowess.
Let’s take a casual neighborhood cook-off, where 15-20 participants all contribute a chili into the mix. Even at a modest event like this, one is likely to contend with a substantial number and variety of ingredients. Let’s work through the details:
Assuming folks are creative enough to produce some unique variations of chili, we’ll likely encounter a plethora of meats- ground beef, shredded chicken, pulled pork, turkey, sausage (andouille, italian, etc.), elk, venison, possibly even some shrimp. Bean-wise, we’re gonna be hit with pinto, black, kidney, MAYBE lima, certainly a white bean of some type, like your great northern bean, and if a hippie enters the contest, most definitely a lentil. In the flavor department, it’s all but guaranteed participants will utilize standard chili pepper and powder, but we also have to expect some jalapeno, serrano, poblano, and all those other peppers that end with O.
Now, is it reasonable to expect the average human with their totally average GI tract to competently process eight-plus types of meat, as many types of beans, and all the added spice and heat without complications?
I think not. I think for the average, untrained person, such an event is a night-ender. Possibly even a call-out of work the next day situation. For most mortals, the small intestine will do what it can to process the incoming nightmare and absorb the available nutrients, but after the 6th meat and the capsaicin-induced irritation, your jejunum kinda just says fuck it, quits immediately, and sends it right along to the colon to be expelled as zesty diarrhea. Nothing like a little ring sting!
So yes, let us respect the Kilian Jornets of the world. The Reinhold Messners. The David Blaines. But let’s also appreciate the unassuming guy with the dadbod who mercilessly and efficiently consumes twelve types of chili in less than half an hour and doesn’t have the slightest thought of shitting himself.
It’s peak political season, so I feel a duty to comment on our current state of affairs. American politics is a disaster. This we all know. So rather than rail against all that is wrong with the current political climate, I’d like to focus on what is possibly one of the best features to arise and take prominence in our system.
I’m a huge fan of identity politics. There’s too much stuff going on these days. Craaaazy times. We live in crazy times. In this current madhouse, I need a quick method for labeling and judging people, so I can lump them in categories and make value judgments against them based solely on my assumptions. I simply don’t have time for anything else.
That’s why I love identity politics. It stays above the substance. It’s superficial-just where I like to be. No nuance. Black and white. Definitive. No space for new information, or changing one’s opinion. Perfection.
My main problem with identity politics is that we don’t identify enough. Historically, we’ve formed our identity around some big and obvious characteristics like our our ethnicity, sexuality, and political leanings, but these things are too obvious. Don’t get me wrong, they make up approximately 95% of who we are as people. However, if you talk to me for even five minutes, you’ll already know these things about me because they are the most important and defining features of who I am as an individual. That said, there are so many additional two-dimensional traits/preferences I identify with that will allow you to more comprehensively judge me. On that note, I’d like to offer a few more of these binary (sometimes trinary) attributes to define others by, after which, there’s nearly nothing left to learn about a person.
Categories for judgment I suggest:
Preference for pancakes or waffles? Related note, real or fake maple syrup?
Peanut butter, overrated or not?
Back sleeper/Belly sleeper/Side Sleeper? More importantly, if you share your bed with someone, do you exit the bed to pass gas, or let it rip?
Philly Cheesesteaks-Delicious no doubt, but really a construction of pretty average ingredients, or no? Moreso, Philadelphia- a barely average city whose delusional residents think their city, their bread, their water, and everything they produce is superior to other places, or no? Why does Philly call it water ice? It’s Italian ice. Water ice is totally redundant and worthlessly nondescriptive. I’ve been told by these same Philadelphians that bread is regionalized, meaning their “superior” baked goods cannot be reproduced elsewhere due to the unique composition of their water and some other intangible characteristics they can’t seem to describe, particular to only Philly, of course. Idk, maybe it’s their arrogance that finds its way into the dough. Sounds like horse shit to me though…
Do you bloom your coffee, or are you an ignorant lil dingus that doesn’t even know what I’m talking about? My friend Dave blooms. DAVE BLOOMS. You best be bloomin’ too.
When it comes time to break out the toilet paper, do you neatly fold or wad it up?
Other than pets and welcome human guests, do you spare the life of any other living thing that finds its way inside your house, or do you swiftly annihilate it?
Does the sensation of room-temperature leather cradling your entire naked body as you lay bare on a leather couch sound pleasant, or no?
Know the answers to these questions and see a person’s soul. Learn if they will burn eternally for their bad taste, or if they are potentially redeemable.
I remain haunted by a question. After years and years, it still occasionally bubbles up into the perimeters of my conscious mind and makes me shudder. For I still don’t have a good answer. There is no good or right answer. There is no winning. There is only losing. There are only wrong answers….
My friend Jeff would regularly pose this horrid question to, well, basically anybody after sobriety had escaped him. It was his favorite way to ruin a good time and the mental health of everyone he was hanging out with.
I so dislike this question and thinking about it, that for days, I debated whether to go ahead and publish this post. Regarding this specific piece of writing, I feel embarrassment, disgust, and a general sense that I’m most certainly not contributing anything good or useful to the world. Alas, I clearly have decided to publish the piece because it’s hard enough for me to find the fortitude to complete an essay, and this one for some reason flew out of my fingertips. I’m in no position to waste a completed piece of content. I have plans to do better, just not yet. So read on and know that I too am disappointed in myself. If after this disclaimer you don’t want to know the question, leave this blog post now.
Here’s the question:
Seriously, are you sure you want to know? I made you scroll all the way down here to give you one more out. But fine, you’re an adult, scroll down a smidge more and ruin your whole damn day.
Last chance!
Ok. The question is as follows:
Would you suck your dad’s dick to save your mom’s life?
What a stupid, terrible, perverted question, Jeff. Where do you think up these sick ideas?
My immediate and instinctive response is I ain’t sucking no one’s dick. But I then pause to reflect. Because of that, mom’s dead. Oh, the guilt! You couldn’t just put the meat in your mouth for your own dear mother’s life?! You selfish ass. Get past yourself.
But it’s not just anyone’s meat- it’s your dad’s meat. Oh the weird horrible complexes you will inherit through such an act.
You agonize over the quandary you’ve become mercilessly trapped in. What a pickle-It’s your dad’s pickle for your mom’s life. In truth, you know what you’re gonna do. What you gotta do. You just haven’t accepted it yet.
…. So you suck your dad’s dick. Mom lives. You stepped up to the plate and saved a life. Hooray!
Except not hooray, for you will never, NEVER be the same. Think about how the dynamics have instantaneously and seismically shifted. There are no more casual family gatherings. You can’t eat at their dinner table ever again. What’d ya make, ma? Bratwurst?! Brats?! You’re metaphorically serving me dad’s dick on a bun, and I’m literally triggered by your callous meal-planning.
There are no more holidays. Memorial day? There is now only one memory, and it’s not a good one. Certainly not one worthy of a holiday.
No more fatherly advice. He should’ve advised against you sucking his dick, so he lost credibility at that point.
Henceforth, every time you see your lovely mother’s living face, the specter of your dad’s wedding tackle appears across her face- a teabagging ghost haunting her forehead and your mind. Looking at her is now like staring into the eye of Sauron.
Maybe this was the correct course of action. Maybe your deeds were in fact valiant. Maybe you are the tortured hero, doing right, even at your own expense.
Hmmm. A hero, maybe. But inside, you just feel like a guy who sucked his own dad’s dick.
I did a full-body manscape session recently, and I have some words about the experience.
I did the works. The whole body hath been shaven. Trimmed the head hair. Shaved the face hair. Clipped the nose hair. Plucked the brow hair. Trimmed the ball hair. Considered thinning the chest hair, then thought, “Nah, that’s the right amount of chest hair.” Proceeded to trim all the nails-fingers and toes. Brief tangent here- My inflexibility is concerning to me, and the process of trimming my toenails is rather unpleasant. It is embarrassing how strenuous of a task it is. Nothing makes me feel older. I get why old people have such horrifying feet. They literally can’t reach them. Enough about toenails.
I of course then showered to remove the detritus of nail and hair that covered me. But from that steamy shower, I emerged like Gandalf the White- a sexier, sauver, upgraded version of myself, less the enhanced magical abilities and the dope white digs. Maybe I was experiencing a delusion of vanity, but I felt different.
Look, just go do the full-body grooming session. You will feel renewed. You will look at yourself differently. Through those misty shower fumes, your perceptions will be altered. Be careful, you may turn yourself on.. to yo’self.
Suddenly, that jaw line looks slightly more robust. What a crisp line, you could slice hot butter with that chin.
You no longer have those crusty boogs at the tip of your nose, dangling from those too-long nose hairs. While you aren’t really sexier because of this, you are less gross, which is also good.
Them pectorals are looking just a tad more inflated, despite you not doing a goddamn thing to your chest hair! It really is the right amount of hair. You ain’t twenty bitch, leave it alone.
Is the light in this bathroom somehow absolutely perfect? Because these abs are bulging right now! So full of juice they oughta be plucked and eaten.
A near recreation of what those abs looked like. I do believe flames also sprouted up behind me.
And as I like to call ’em, those upper dick muscles, they’re amplified. I don’t know if it’s the root of your dick or the bottom of your abdomen, but I’m talking about that area that we’ve all seen on that guy who’s wearing his swim trunks so low that you can essentially see the base of his dick accompanied by some veins bulging because they’re returning all that dick blood to the heart, and there’s that muscular v-cut that basically serves as an arrow pointing to his dick. All of these features-intensified! Btw, this elaborate description makes it sound like I was staring right at that guy’s penis. I plead the fifth. How about a poem?
You’ve got the veins,
You’ve got the V.
Like an arrow.
Pointing to the D.
Since you trimmed back your bush, your dick looks an appreciable amount larger. It is the number one way to enhance your wiener. The number one! Minimal time, cost, and effort, and positive results every time! We all know this already! WE KNOW THIS. Yet, why do we let the jungle overgrow and degrade our masculinity? Deforestation, I proclaim! Deforestation!
In summary, all this shaving changes a man. You have this fresh, new attitude about yourself. Subsequently, you might even feel compelled to do something positive for yourself.
See, I liked that my wiener looked a bit bigger. And I liked the arrow that pointed to its location, just in case I forgot. In that moment, I saw the value in doing sets of leg-lifts and bicycle crunches to keep those lines sharp and those upper dick veins full. Maybe someday, I too could wear a bathing suit that teased some dick-base.
Even if such motivations are ephemeral and vain, they can be the boost needed to go do hard, healthy things. So in the dick vein of Goggins (pun), shave your balls and stay hard.
So after oogling at myself in the bathroom mirror, what did I do? I sat on the couch and drank a beer (N/A though, baby). See, I already knew I looked good. I don’t fix what ain’t broke. And for all intents and purposes, I had myself a bigger penis.
This is a post for myself more than a message to anyone else. Lately, I’ve been disappointed in my own self-discipline. The truth is, I have not been exercising my will-power as much as I should, and it has resulted in me wasting lots and lots of time. So here is a message to myself, and perhaps anyone else in need of a reminder, that you can change.
You can just do better. You could make a decision, right now, to change. This very instant, you could will yourself to become a better person. You could act differently. You could make the immediate choice to stop doing detrimental things and start doing other beneficial things in their place.
At once, you could commit yourself to viewing people, problems, and situations differently, resulting in you acting differently in response. Sure, your initial impulses and thoughts will remain. But maybe after sometime, you’ll actually change the way you think, and the habits you initially need to force will become automatic.
It really is that simple. And isn’t that empowering? The ability to change for the better is always available. Always, and in every moment. Of course it’s not easy, but it’s possible. Of course this is an oversimplification of people’s challenges, patterns, addictions, environments, etc. -everything that influences a person to act the way they do. But still, they, you, and I could make a change at any time to do and be better.
Maybe you stumble from time to time. You get derailed off your course of self-improvement. You act differently for a day or week and then fall back into your less-desirable habits. You still were a better person for whatever period of time you stayed committed to that change. Get back on the horse. Keep doing better. Stay better this time.
Maybe you don’t make a radical change, but a small one. An incremental improvement is still an improvement. Being a little bit better than you were is still a positive change. With time, small improvements compound into massive ones. So don’t be deceived into thinking small advancements aren’t worthwhile.
So what are you waiting for? Just do better. Be better. If you mess up, do better again. Stay better next time.
The Avocado is the most fickle of beings. She’s temperamental and unpredictable, to the point of cruelty. She will lead you on. She will make you fantasize. ..
Then she will shut you down. She’ll pull the rug out from under you, leaving you penniless and horny (in hunger-like kind of way, at least).
There are two typical ways she likes to play her devilish and deceitful games:
Scenario 1:
You wake up in the morning. You yawn, you groan, you starfish your body across your mattress. You rub your eyes. You eventually find the heroic strength to cast the covers away from your body.
“Comfort and warmth, be gone!” Ye exclaim with a stern and mighty howl. After managing to transition from the horizontal to vertical realm, you stagger like a battle-wounded soldier into the kitchen. Priority one, you make yourself coffee, but immediately after that, you go check in with that soon- (you hope!) to-be ripe, voluptuous avocado you have sitting in that artisan wood bowl on your counter.
“Wassup baby?” you say in a casual and disaffected tone, trying not to come off as desperate or longing, as you fondle the avocado in a precise and firm, yet tender manner, assessing its mood for consumption.
“Ok, ok, still a lil firm. That’s alright! How about tonight? I’m making some carnitas tacos. I’d love, and I mean LOVE to put your creamy insides upon them ’tillas, mixing you in with all that pork juice, and all those fixings. I’m going to perform oral consumption of you.. Has anyone ever done that to you? I bet not. I. Can. Not. Waitttt. I’ll see you tonight baby!” You bite your lip as you gaze into the soul of the Haas sticker, PLU Code 4046. “Babe, I gotta go! I know, I really wish we could do this now! I gotta go! Damn, your fine.. Stop, stop.. Ok fine! Just another minute. Ok, for real this time-goodbye, my love!” You leave, but then pop your head back in through the door. “Ooooohhh,” you purr one last time. Then you actually, finally leave, with your anticipation for tonight almost unbearably high.
Fast forward to 5:15 pm. You make it home, sweating. You’ve given your all. You left nothing on the table. You did the work, for the people. For the people! You changed lives today. And now as a reward for your good deeds, time to stuff your face with carnitas. You sniff the meat-steam misting out of your instant pot and you get one of those inexplicable full-body shivers. Your wife has already prepared the pico. You look at that big bowl of diced tomatoes, and you nod and smile. You sample the pico, so limey, so delish.
This is you.
Now for your one contribution to dinner. Time to slice the avocado. You grab it from right where you said goodbye this morning, but something doesn’t feel right. You press its exterior, shocked by the firmness that meets your fingertips. You frantically spin the avocado in your hand, repeatedly pressing it in different places, hoping for one reassuring spot that will convince you it’s ripe, but of course, it is not. A heat builds inside of you. You don’t know exactly what emotion it is your feeling right now.
“Errrrrrgggggggmuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrggggggmmmuuuhhhh” you hoarsely proclaim an incomprehensible string of syllables, as all your rage and disappointment comes to the surface. You are living a true nightmare.
“Ok, ok, ok,” you whisper in a frantic pant. “It’s just an avocado, the meal will be fine without the avocado. The carnitas are super delish on their own. We has cheese. We still have the pico. We has beans. It will be fine.” You believe the story you tell yourself.
For maybe five seconds. Then you realize, you’re a liar talking some serious equestrian feculence. This is not good. Not cool at all. To put the severity of this disaster into perspective, ISIS is also not cool, but this situation with the avocado is more not cool, particularly if ISIS happened to have a ripe avocado. Which would be impressive in the arid plains of Syria. Oh, the arid plains!
This is where there is a diverging timeline in your avocado tragedy.
In scenario one, in a desperate hope to prove yourself wrong, you start telling yourself that maybe it is ripe. It just has a thick skin, you think. You press on the counter, the side of your steel fridge, the tile floor fridge, anything nearby that is quite solid. You’re seeking perspective. They’re all way firmer than the avocado. Yeah, I think its actually ripe. So you cut it.
You dumbass, why oh why did you do that?! Upon first slice, it feels like cutting through a carrot. Not what you wanted to feel. You’re in too deep now, though. You have to finish the job. You fully sever it in half. The pit cant even be seen because the unripe avocado clings to it so sturdily. A small part of you, still in denial, thinks maybe it’ll taste better than it looks, and feels, and all your common sense suggests it will. So you scoop a piece with a spoon, which requires immense effort, more strength than a ripe avocado should. You put it in your mouth. It’s like wood. Slimy wood. You shudder.
This time, just a crisp, “Fuck!”
In an alternate timeline, you have the prescience to suppress your impatient desires, and you wait for another meal. You eat those avocado-less carnitas, bitterly. But you are going to have a cream cheese bagel tomorrow morning for breakfast. With avocado.
It’s a restless sleep, but you sleep nonetheless. You rouse and do the same overly-dramatic waking routine as the day prior. Get up, you lil bitch. You enter the kitchen- today, with a bit more swagger and pep, since you know you are about to reap the benefits of your restraint.
You pick the avocado up. “Wassup ba-What the fuck?!” interjects your brain. Your avocado has turned to mush, a pile of sad, surely crappy tasting mush. How? How? How? “I left you here last night. You were firm! Firm!” pointing accusingly at the offending avocado. You pace in your kitchen, hands on your head, wincing. “Be patient,” you say mockingly to yourself, in that horribly nasally voice. “Just wait,” as you smack yourself on the forehead a couple times. You go back to the counter to interrogate the avocado. “One night, how’d you do this in one night?! There was no sun! No heat! It was cold! Why couldn’t you just sleep? I don’t even know who you are anymore!” you wimper, as you crumple to the kitchen floor.
Similar to yesterday, after a few minutes and 3 oz of salty, salty tears, a false sense of optimism set in. Sometimes avocados feel overripe, but you cut into them, and they’re actually perfect. Yeah, I bet this one is just fine. You cut it. Not fine. Super brown.
“Fleeuuhhh!Flaaa!Urrrr!Meeeee!Jimmmmm!” Another incoherent strand of noises, this time as you convulse and gurgle like an old beater car trying to start its engine. And for some reason, you sputter the name Jim at the end of it.
You sit there, back against the kitchen island, with your chocolate-brown avocado. Distraught, you’ve dug your hands messily into its rotten meat, rubbing its skin between your fingers. You hopelessly put a finger-full in your mouth. Looks like shit, tastes like shit. No crisp fucks this time. Tears, just more tears.
And then, possibly the worst thought of all. Were you ripe yesterday?? Oh god, were you actually ripe? Was it your illusory thick skin?Oh, your cruel, thick skin!
But also, I am a harsh judge of others. I’d say I’m fair and objective, but maybe lacking some compassion.
Honestly, I think many people are idiots. At least in some domains. Most people aren’t fully dumb or fully intelligent across all domains. I certainly am not, though there is the rare person who defies nature with a stupidity so profound and all-encompassing that it’s marvelous and captivating to behold. But I digress.
All the above boils down to the following:
I fear that people who are idiots will think I’m an idiot, which is an idiotic proposition, essentially making me an idiot. So I’m calling myself an idiot. But if I’m an idiot, why should I care that my idiot self thinks I’m an idiot? By definition, my own thoughts and opinions are inherently idiotic, so are they even relevant? The premise that I’m a known idiot worrying that my own judgments are idiotic due to the fear that idiots judging me (an idiot) might actually confirm my idiocy, will, if I understand math correctly, which I don’t because I’m an idiot, in fact make me an exponential idiot, or idiot to the idioth degree. See the mathematical proof below.
Note the complexity and elegance of the math. But also note the epic grocery list in the bottom right.
Or maybe, due to my profound idiocy, I have this math all wrong, and what it really means is….. I’m not an idiot?
Envision the future. Your future. Yo dang momma’s future. Earth’s future. Contemplate how drastically different things could be compared to the present moment, if you only maximized your potential. Think about that. Think about maximation. Feel maximization in your bones. But do not maximize. Just think about it.
Imagine your life transformed. Conceptualize the world transformed. Feel it in the deepest, most central part of your being. Internalize it, process it, visualize it. Make it a reality in your imagination. And then, keep it there, in the land of fascinations. Bask in the hypothetical. Manifest nothing.
Visualize society transformed with your creations. Sense the gratification of the actualization of your once abstract ideas into concrete reality. Fill yourself with the pride of birthing something unique and important into existence. Dream of the satisfaction of consistent hard work compounding in value and impact over time. Again now, do not do that hard work. Just think about it.
Understand your artistic capacity and all your potential creations as an expression of something greater than yourself. Grasp the power of the shared experience when another connects with your work and a mutual understanding beyond words is formed. Comprehend success on a grand and ambitious scale. Feel how the roar of fifty-five-thousand eight-hundred and sixty-two adoring fans in the Netherlands would vibrate your own nether lands (genitalia). It would feel GOOD, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? Acknowledge the gift of being able to bring joy to so many with your self-expression. But do not make this art. Do not self-express, artistically at least. Merely think of what this art may be like, and how cool it would be to make it.
Conceive yourself as a wiser, more patient, loving, kind, and thoughtful individual. See your relationships rebuilt upon deeper ties and bonds. Perceive the peace of interacting with the world from a place of non-judgment and open-minded benevolence. Glimpse the benefits to yourself and everyone around you from your renewed self-understanding. But make no effort to understand or change yourself. And don’t you dare meditate! Simply see that you could be different. Better perhaps. The world too.
Wow, what potential. It’s exhausting just pondering it all.
5/22/24 Author’s Note- Just a quick update, I’ve been having fun creating AI-generated images for some of my blog posts. Am I good prompt engineer? Absolutely not, but it’s fun to see what a poorly structured sentence that took 60 seconds to write can be turned into. I’ve enjoyed much of the output, and all of it is certainly better than anything I could draw. Sure, the resulting images aren’t exactly what I would imagine, but that’s part of the fun. I was particularly curious about generating an image for this post. However, for some reason, WordPress’s built-in image generator was unable to render an image for this piece. My assumption is that there was too much butt-themed verbiage within the post. So I went to another AI image-generator and put in the following prompt:
Create a poster for a charity event titled ‘Miss Big Booty Deschutee’ which is a fundraiser to clean up the local river, where the person who is deemed most booty-licious will win a pair of golden-sparkle leggings.
Honestly, I liked all of the outputs, but I chose the one I did to headline the post because it had two booties, and well, two booties is better than one booty. But since I liked all the other results too, I will scatter them throughout this post. And with that, please enjoy Miss Big Booty Deschutee:
I recently had a vision. I wanted to create a charitable event. And I wanted to look at some butts. And somehow, somehow, I wanted to combine the two. Through sheer force of mind, I brain-shat the idea of a floating butt parade that would simultaneously raise money for the river on which the event was held. Here in beautiful Bend, Oregon, the mighty Deschutes River contours its way through the heart of town, serving as the ever-present sinew connecting the city’s diverse and distinct neighborhoods. As an ode to this mighty and ancient natural feature, I christened my imaginary charitable event Miss Big Booty Deschutee.
Booty Runner-up
I didn’t really know what to do with this admittedly genius idea, as it was also relatively obscure, a bit perverted, I had no background in organizing such an event, and I certainly didn’t want to put myself out there promoting it to the public.
But then, while recently perusing The Source, a trendy weekly newspaper that details all of the local action around town, there, on like the third page, was an opinion article about bringing back a water pageant to this very same river!
Now, I know nothing about this former water pageant. I actually don’t know anything at all about water pageants. I was unaware such thing ever existed, but I interpreted this article as sign from the cosmos.
See, I was recently reading (reading with my ears-I don’t read books lolz) Rick Rubin’s excellent new book, The Creative Act, and in it, he discusses this concept of an idea having its time. Basically, we humans serve as antennas for ideas, and if such an idea resonates and properly captivates us, we may be compelled to bring it to fruition. But the idea is not truly our own. It is its own entity with its own life force, trying to find its way into the physical world. If we sit on an idea for too long without acting, we find that the idea might be executed by someone else. As Rick explains, this is not because someone took our idea. In fact, we may have never even described this idea to another living soul. It’s simply that the idea’s time has come, and it found another vessel to bring it into reality.
I have no idea if there is any validity to such a philosophy, but I like the theory. For whatever reason, I find it motivating. Maybe this view takes the ego and stress out of the creative process. It is not your idea. The resulting product is not a true judgment or reflection of the creator. We are solely the vessel through which the idea is channeled.
Another worthy contender
This brief aside is all to say that when I saw this article about the idea of a water pageant on the same river as my vision, I knew that this idea was out there implanting it’s titillating seeds in the minds of others. The author of that opinion piece had somehow tuned into the same wavelength this idea was transmitting through the ether. This idea’s time had come.
Did this call me to action? Did this trigger me to make my vision a reality? No, of course not. See my reservations above. I was still not willing to stake my reputation on such a silly idea. But I was moved enough to write a letter to the editor of that newspaper.
Coming from the front! Not actually showing us the booty, but we can imagine..
Here is the letter I wrote:
Dear Source-erers,
I was heartened to see your article a few weeks back advocating for the return of a water pageant on the Deschutes in an effort to bring attention to our cherished resource that is such an integral part of our town.
I too, have recently been pondering a kind of water pageant that I am eager to share with you here. And I humbly ask that you don’t mistake my delinquency in writing this letter for lack of enthusiasm for the fabulous idea I present below. I think it could be an absolute smash, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Before I elaborate, a little fair warning: my interpretation of a water pageant is a little more bodacious, but hear me out. And remember, it’s for a good cause.
The name of this contest, as you may have deduced from the subject line of this email, is… Miss Big Booty Deschutee.
Imagine this: A floatilla of bootylicious contestants on SUPs or other watercraft showing off their goods to a roaring crowd of eco-conscious butt-lovers. This aqueous extravaganza will course through the heart of the Old Mill District. The walking paths that line that stretch of the Deschutes will make for excellent spectating.
Here are some specifics on the competition: There will be a 69-meter section of river designated as the competition zone. This is the window of river in which our intrepid contestants will have the full attention of the crowd, as well as their chance to show us why they deserve to be Miss Big Booty Deschutee. In this space, the contestants’ creativity is the only limit. Whether they choose to perform a tasteful twerk, an eye-popping yoga flow, sing a song in an awesome thong, or just lay there with that fantastic butt of theirs, the options are endless. All that matters is they have a butt, and it’s on display in some manner. Anyone, and I mean anyone, willing to show off their booty is a welcomed contestant.
And finally, the lone, white booty. Note that my prompt said nothing of race. That was all the AI. Also, I know pasted this in the middle of my letter to the newspaper, but unfortunately, I did not actually include this in my submission.
The crowd will show their enthusiasm for particular contestants by way of throwing cash of any denomination into the river. Fear not, the cash will be quickly collected by volunteer divers for donation to the cause of the river. Remember, we’re doing this for the river!
The Old Mill walking bridge will offer VIP spectating for those who’ve made notable charitable donations. It’ll be well worth the investment, since the bridge will be in the heart of the event and is sure to offer some booty-bending aerial views.
A few of our community’s most qualified ASSessors and possibly some local dignitaries will be granted the privilege of serving as competition judges. Upon exiting the competition window, contestants will float over to the station of judges, where after thoughtful deliberation, the lead judge will Sharpie the determined score on said contestants’ butt cheeks. Scores will be on the 1-10 scale, calculated to the nearest 10th of a point. Butt cracks/you-know-what will serve as the decimal point.
As this competition is held in good spirit, rest assured that no one is going to receive a bad score, but some folks will surely get great scores!
What prize is at stake for these daring competitors? After all, they are literally putting their asses on the line! Again, breathe easy my friend, the prize is a worthy one. One that will be the envy of all who lay eyes upon it.
The prize is a pair of custom-fit sparkled, golden leggings. Ones that are so flamboyant and unmistakable, they allow the reigning Miss Big Booty Deschutee to be known and celebrated anywhere they might go in the Deschutes County region. For the year following their magnificent victory, they will have exclusive rights to flaunting the leggings, until the next champion is crowned.
Now, some valid questions about this idea- Is it trashy? Is it objectifying? Is it overtly sexual? Yes, yes, and yes. But here’s another question we need to ask- Is it awesome? YES. And remember, again, it’s for a good cause! While an unabashed celebration of butt, this will also be a celebration of our beloved river, and all the ways it enhances our lives. In the end, all proceeds will be funneled toward protecting and preserving this vital interest to us all. How specifically? I have no clue, I more enjoy enjoy thinking up the absurd details of Miss Big Booty Deschutee, but surely we can figure out an appropriate avenue for distributing the funds responsibly.
Every culture has its questionable traditions. In the Faroe Islands, the villagers annually slaughter a bunch of whales for food. Preceding the yearly yam harvest, at risk of life and limb and many brain cells, Vanuatuan men “land dive,” bungee jumping off rickety towers with only vines attached to their ankles. During Carnival and Mardi Gras, people across the world get temporarily inebriated and promiscuous, then get back to normal life.
I offer up Miss Big Booty Dechutee as a questionable tradition of our own. One uniquely belonging to Central Oregon. We’re not killing whales, no one’s getting hurt, no one’s doing anything too scandalous. For one day a year only, we’re just enjoying some ass for a good cause. Is that such a bad thing?
I fear I’ve exceeded whatever word limit you may have for reader responses, and I’m guessing my suggestion might be a bit too lewd for your esteemed publication, but I hope you’ll consider it anyway.
Badonkadonkishly,
Mr. Yolo69420.blog
I waited with bated breath for a response from the newspaper…
Crickets be all that I doth hear.
So I sent a follow-up. Their eventual response was lukewarm, as you will see below. I suppose completely obliterating the 250-word limit four times over didn’t help my chances, but I suspect other objections were at play in the decision to deny publication. But alas, I understand, such radical ideas are not always ready for an audience.
My nervous reply, anticipating the worst.
My fears transformed into reality.. Redacted to protect the privacy of others, but note my name clearly displayed in the header, despite my use of a clandestine email address, as well as the acknowledgment of my name in her response.
On a side note, my wife pointed out that I am an idiot who apparently does not fully grasp the intricacies of email. See, I used my throwaway icloud email account to disguise my identity (cowardly, I know), since my email handle Kangles19 contains no trace of my name. Apparently, the technology is advanced enough that when one sends an email from his or her apple account, it identifies the full name of the sending party in the header of the message (news to me). So in the end, my anonymity was not preserved, and I’m outed as a dufus with the regrettable email handle Kangles19 and proud purveyor of yolo69420.blog.
So much opportunity for learning here. Through this saga, I’ve learned to endure the sting of rejection and deepened my understanding of online communication. I count this whole ordeal as a win and not a gargantuan waste of time.
The boy has just been fed a well-rounded and nutritional meal of fruits, vegetables, top-shelf breast milk (thank you, wife!), and eggs. He ought to be satiated for awhile.
Merely minutes ago, his poop made a jailbreak out the rear passage of his diaper, requiring a full-body wipe bath and complete ensemble change, so this little guy is as fresh as he gets.
We had a full and engaged morning of floor play together, where we tinkered with a variety of hippie-approved wooden toys and gizmos. The small man still refuses to believe that he cannot eat wood. Damn if he isn’t trying though. Personally, I found the toys a touch below my preferred level of cognitive stimulation, but I’m sure the boy’s neurons we’re blasting off inside that oversized dome of his.
He has been kept up the optimal amount of time. Just long enough to provoke the sleepy cues, but not so long that he has ventured into the dreadful “overtired” territory.
The nursery is devoid of excess light. The sound machine is bellowing a womb-like drone at an optimal 50 decibels. I read him not one, not two, but three books in my best happy-soft-sleepy dad voice. I slide the pacifier into his mouth seamlessly. I sing the lullaby we have been singing to him since the day he was born; A song that has come to drive me mad, but through consummate repetition is to him an implanted piece of code thoroughly etched into his operating system signaling system shutdown.
His eyes are fluttering. This boy is as good as asleep. I predict a flawless touchdown to the crib mattress with ZERO crying, not even a whimper. But then….
There it is, hanging like precarious serac on the high alpine face of K2, a large, lovely, green booger protrudes from his left nostril. The amount protruding is large. Is this the majority of the booger I’m seeing, barely keeping hold, on the verge of dislodging? Or is this an iceberg situation where 90% of its goo-dom is looming somewhere up in that nasal passage?
Clearly, the child is not bothered by the boog, but it irritates me. I cannot let this situation abide. What if he smears it all over his face and into his eyes, the way he loves to nuzzle his face straight down into the mattress like a bear with a beehive? No, no, not happening, I’ll have to clean the aftermath up then. I must extract the booger.
With surgical precision, my fingers transform into delicate pincers that grip only the protruding portion of congealed snot and leave the nostril tissue undisturbed. I pull back..
Oh god, it’s a stretcher!!! It extends like a Laffy Taffy, and a long strand of nasal candy now lie strewn across his face. And there is certainly still more inside that nostril. This indeed is an iceberg situation.
The sleepy fog I had so successfully induced is now lifting, and my son is looking up at me groggily, confusedly, and surely disappointedly. I see the chin quiver, the water pooling in the eyes, and then it comes. Crying has commenced.
At this point, I have fucked myself.
Tact, delicacy, and exactitude are no longer needed and are therefore abandoned. Instead, speed, force, and vigor are employed. Aggressive digging is performed until I have a clear view to his brain through his nostril. Robust mopping of his face is performed with bath wipes, similar to how one might wash the side of a car. Of course, he protests all of this with every ounce of his being, but after a few moments, he is boogerless.
C’mon man. What is your objective here? There are 13 of us packed into this sweaty bitch, and you are making twelve-thirteenths of the group feel weird and annoyed. Let me also remind you, in case through your yogic meditative practice you have transported your consciousness to a higher plane of existence and have completely untethered yourself from the physical realm and have forgotten where you are, this is the public sauna at the community center. I fully believe in the credo ‘Your sauna, your rules.’ But my friend, this ain’t your sauna…
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with yoga. Yoga is fantastic, and there is a place for it. It’s called a yoga class, at a place known as a yoga studio. But not in this hot meat locker. Sit your ass down. Breathe, if you must. But be quiet, and don’t turn this community sweat session into your own little vinyasa exhibition.
It appears that you’re going to ignore the advice and consternation I’m aggressively attempting to transmit to you telepathically. The energetic wavelengths of my signal must be getting jammed by all this hot, meaty air. Or maybe I was just wrong about you. I thought you might actually be on my psychic wavelength, being enlightened and all, but it appears I’ve overestimated your talents. Well okay then, I’ll instead awkwardly stare and criticize your technique…
Wow, what a nice forward fold you have there, touching your toes with ease. With ease! Terrifically impressive. Oh damn son, you can even put your entire palms under your feet?! Very flexible… I do, however, feel for the poor soul sitting directly behind you who is currently receiving an exquisite view of your asshole as you bend so, so deep.
Next move, whoa! Out of concern I must say, that Malasana squat you’re doing is dangerously deep. Please do not prolapse your rectum onto the floor of this schvitz. That would seriously alter the vibe in here.
No, no! Upward dog?! Please sir, stopping fucking the bench, that is public property!
Quite frankly, I don’t even care if you fuck the bench. Fuck the bench, make my day. I’ll sit on the exact spot where wood and wood united. I ain’t scared of a lil fuckin’. But I need answers. I just need to know, do you do it for attention? Do you enjoy the eyes of strangers upon you as they make frequent glances out of morbid curiosity? Are you a psychopath reveling in my and surely at least a few others’ annoyance at your antics? Are you just that committed to your yoga practice? Do you live the mantra ‘Yoga is life’ and feel the need to incorporate it in every possible situation? Is your goal to drive a neurotic stranger to the desperate point of blogging about your escapades? Do you simply not give a shit and feel comfortable with yourself to the point of fearing no one else’s judgment? If so, I oddly must respect you, because I am far from feeling like that myself.
Currently answerless, I sit here sweaty and conflicted. Maybe I can’t stand you, and you horribly annoy me. Maybe I admire you and on some subconscious level, want to be you. Maybe a bit of both. My true feelings, I shall never reveal. Regardless, before I hop outta this human crockpot, how about the 13 of us do a couple rounds of cyclic Om chanting to unblock our crown chakras?
Well, this post is not what I hoped it would be, and for that, I am sad. Sad. Very sad. Originally, I planned to come before you, dear reader, proud with accomplishment, but alas, I have not yet achieved my goal. However, as I’m closing in on this elusive feat, I feel it warranted to speak to you about the illustrious triumph I seek:
1 Instagram post. 81 followers (yeah bitch, 81) who might lay eyes on said post. 0 likes.
“Impossible!” the naysayers naysay, “No one could post something so unpopular.”
Well watch me, bitchhhh.
See, I have been developing an algorithm through trial and error and self-experimentation to hone in on what makes a post unequivocally unappealing . I am prepared to share these insights. Now, as I have not yet achieved zero likes myself, I cannot guarantee my template as a fool-proof strategy for achieving ubiquitous disapproval, but I will back my methods up with examples that demonstrate I’m clearly on the right track.
Some might also ask why this is a noteworthy goal. My answer is this: I toil for the preservation of the purity of artistic expression in its highest form. The only way to ensure one has unadulterated intentions is to remove all social approval and praise from the equation. When someone generates a piece of social media content so entirely unattractive that it gets zero likes, only then can they know they have created something legitimate. Something called ART. In that instance, they are an artist in the most complete sense of both the word and the craft. The complete societal rejection of the endeavor, a “communal cockstomp” if you will, somehow firebrands the effort with a badge of untarnishable authenticity.
But we’re all busy people here on dis planet, Earffff. Not all of us have the time and resources to commit to the pursuit of failure with such dedication and zeal. That’s why I created a little guide to fast-track your descent on the popularity charts of social media. Here are my fool-proof tricks, with several real world examples included:
8 Rules for Generating Universal Unlikeability
Confuse. Be nonsensical. Make people ponder, “What the fuck is he/she talking about?” If you do this well enough, you might even make people worry about you. Logic is not your friend. Chaos is.
Ok, this profile is confusing on multiple levels. Why such a terrible photo? That name, is it slang for something? Isn’t that what Elon named his last baby? And the bio- just, absolutely disgusting… Also, look at all those open tabs! I am proud to say not even one of them is Pornhub.
Annoy. Posting annoying content often can generate the desired response of an eye-roll, headshake, or sigh, followed immediately by a flick of the thumb as your published material is quickly scrolled past, unliked-success! Nothing turns people off more than mildly annoying them. Being annoying is like being the King Arthur to the stone-wedged sword of unlikeability. If you are annoying, you can wield the fuck outta that blade and hack down any and every budding relationship or connection in sight. Annoyance is the magic key to getting people to avoid associating with you. It is like 100% DEET for friends and acquaintances alike. Have I made it clear how effective being annoying is? Am I annoying you right now? How about now?
Here, I went for the bad pun, which is totes annoying. Unfortunately, my pun was hilarious, inducing a few likes. Additionally, I forgot to account for the trauma-porn junkies that would feast on content like this like they do… a corn feast. 8 likes.Fiduciary? Makes me think of taxes, accountants, numbers… All lame. Just fucking lame. And totally annoying. I nailed this one. Only 4 likes
Offend. This method is a slightly more dangerous technique to employ, only because controversial, offensive content can sometimes drive engagement, and that is what we’re trying to avoid. If utilizing this strategy, aim for mild offense, i.e., content that is off-putting enough to repel consumers/viewers, but not objectionable to the point of a ‘call to action’- we do not want their comments or their sustained attention. The real payoff this tactic provides is its ability to incentivize blocks, unfollows, and de-friendings. Posting offensive content can dramatically reduce your follower/friend count, resulting in significantly decreased viewership and less opportunity for likes. I personally apply this strategy extremely sparingly, as the potential risks for counterproductive boosts in popularity and attention are often too great.
No one likes a narcissistic, power-hungry slut. Also, this is a very phallic image, giving off toxic male energy. Most megalomaniacs would likely be dudes. And in 2023, men and all things r/t maleness are offensive. 3 likes.Bringing cancer into the conversation, especially when you don’t have it yourself, is rarely a smart choice. Cancer insensitivity is one of the great offenders of our generation. People see this rude post and think something along the lines of, “This post bothers me deeply, because I have an uncle who had a mole removed once. For a minute, they thought it might be a basal cell carcinoma, but it was actually benign. He’s fine now, but I’m still reeling from the family trauma. Fuck you for stirring it up again.” 5 likes.
Confuse more.
Is a Muffaletta not a sandwich? So why is this is a photo of some trees? I don’t get it. Also, I think muff means vagina, so I’m also offended. 3 likes.Wait, don’t like this post? Most people happily obliged, despite their confusion. A few rebellious fuckers felt the need to be contrarian. 3 likes.
Annoy again.
Oh god, what a big, long, terrible word. Annoying. 5 likes.
Inconsistency is key. Post infrequently. Be forgettable- let people un-remember that you even exist. Then come back. Then disappear again. Also, if you have a coherent theme or message to your content, ditch it like last night’s dinner after this morning’s quad espresso americano. Or did you have a cortado? Maybe a macchiato? Orrflachbiaggo? Chimachamachubichanto? Yeah bitch, I know my java. Anyhow, you do not wish to strike a harmonious tone across your posts. No, you, in pursuit of art, want to sound like a fourth grade wind ensemble attempting to play Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, all the while in the midst of a moderately intense DMT journey (Disclaimer #1: I know nothing about this piece of music, but what an annoying reference for me to make. #2: I unconditionally support all children doing buttloads of DMT).
In order to sow inconsistency, I switched my game plan here, pivoting away from utilizing singular, bougie-sounding words, and instead trying to alienate viewers with metaphysical, bohemian jargon. Unfortunately, the picture was just too damn good, resulting in several likes. Lesson learned. 6 likes.
Ignore Feedback. They say that feedback exists to be disregarded. By they, I mean me. But look, were not trying to get better. We’re not trying to improve anything. In fact, we spit in the face of betterment, we aim to do just the opposite. Know thyself. Trust thyself. Stay the course of mediocrity, of meh-ness, of ultimate triviality. We are not here to give the people what they want, we are here to create ART.
Mom would say to throttle back the body-part references..Not happening. This post also works because it delivers a visceral response to the viewer. They think, “Ewwww. That’s exactly what I imagine grandpa’s taint looks like. He def could use some taintenance.’ 5 likes.
Detect patterns. Notice what fails, and amplify it. If you notice that you published something that was wildly unremarkable, analyze it and figure out what made it so, so bad. Take the bad, and redeploy it in future content. Discard the rest. Most importantly, never forget that you’re an idiot-savant spearheading this social media campaign, so use that beautiful mind and see the patterns, Russell Crowe. Connect the dots that can’t be connected. Visualize the links that don’t exist. Anti-correlation is pro-causality. Use your confabulated data, and develop complex algorithms that generate nonsensical outputs. Take these outputs, and make ART.
2 likes. And one of them was my wife, which is a freebee. So damn close! This flop is the result of dedicated trend analysis and subsequent implementation of my identified techniques.
If you find this methodology a bit daunting, I’ve condensed the most important tactics into to a simple, repeatable two-step process known by the acronym, CACA. Like it’s literal translation, CACA is a guaranteed method to make every post going forward a shitpost:
Simply Confuse Annoy Confuse Annoy and repeat indefinitely
Now, if you’re a sweet tooth looking for some velvety, chocolatey social media obliteration, I might suggest employing CACAO: Confuse Annoy Confuse Annoy Offend. But just remember, it takes skill to offend well.
So there it is, all laid out. A masterclass on achieving abysmal social media performance. Take these tools and principles, implement them, and you will not only be aiming for, but approaching zero.
To put it charitably, our house has character (read: is an ancient shithole). This prehistoric archeological site I inhabit leaves me wanting many things, none more so than a dishwasher.
No kidding, I easily spend, at minimum, 30 minutes every single day, standing in front of our too-small sink that holds approximately two bowls, because everything in our too-small house is, well, too small. Further exacerbating the cycle of pain, I have a proclivity for near-continuous eating, forcing me to engage in this monotonous chore more than the average non-glutton.
I scrub. I rinse. I rack that shit. I flick the garbage disposal on for a few seconds. Dammit, there’s a fork down there. I scrub some more, but this time, I put my sweaty bod into it, ohhh yeah… And I rinse again. Oopsies, I accidentally sprayed that steamy water on my bare, lightly-haired chest. Better take my pants off now. I guess I’ll start aggressively tossing my hair back-and-forth. Wait-I’m getting distracted again, back to the dishes! Damn, that non-stick pan did squat to prevent an entire meals-worth of food from adhering to its surface. Better let it soak. 24 hours minimum. 48 to be safe.
The optimistic liar in me alleges that my sud-lubed fondling of the cutlery presents an opportunity to be mindful. Each caress of the spoon is offering you an opportunity for unbridled connection with the entire universe. If not that, maybe doing the dishes can be a peaceful, uplifting experience in my day. I can enjoy this exercise. The pragmatist in me says, ‘Hey, you have to do this. Why not be happy while doing it?’
Well, because this is horseshit. I will not allow myself to be happy while undertaking such a thankless task. If a glimmer of satisfaction does arise at the assumed completion of the job, it’s as fleeting as a fart in a hurricane, since a house with zero dirty dishes is only a theoretical state that is proposed to exist, but I have yet to witness (there’s always that lingering cup on the nightstand, or the dishes from your work lunch fermenting in your satchel).
Rather than moments of clarity in front of that sink, I instead find my mind bombarded by one incessant thought repeating ad infinitum- ‘Damn, I spend so much time doing this. I need a dishwasher. I’m dishwashing my life away. Dishwashing.. .Dishwasher… Dishwasha…Dishwalla…Queue internal brain music-Tell me all your thoughts on God, cause I’d really like to meet her. And ask her why we’re who we are. Tell me all your thoughts on God, cause I’m on my way to see her. So tell me am I very far? Am I very far now?-Yes, you are very far…from being done. Oh darn, there’s still that egg pan from two days ago. I think that might require the 72-hour soak.’
On the few occasions I’m able to shake that landmark 90s banger out of my head, my thoughts are, unfortunately, no more pleasing or useful. For instance, amidst lathering my plates, I thought to write this very post. Now here I am, typing this unproductive rant, which will in no way help eliminate the dirty dishes still in my sink (Actually, I’m allowing the surfactant properties of the soap to break down the chemical bonds of the food particles, allowing said molecules to dislodge from the dishware and dissolve in the sudsy solution, thank you very much). I imagine that last parenthetical spoken with the utmost twattery.
So what do I mean when I say I’m no longer kidding myself? I mean I’m done denying the truth, and furthermore, my true identity- my highest and most dominant form, as Liver King might put it. And that truth is I am a miserable lil bitch when washing the dishes. There is no chance for serenity in that moment. I welcome my own suffering, for it’s my genuine nature to be joyless every minute spent washing dishes. And I’m at peace with that.
The steamiest, moist-est, stankiest thing to do on the interweb right now is to talk with Open AI’s chatbot, Chat GPT. I figured I should say hi.
Quick disclaimer: I have no insightful comments or opinions regarding this technology. Remember, I am a dummy. However, I will comment anyways, because that’s my right as an Americuhhhnn and becuz, freeeedommmm. Also remember, “freedom isn’t free, there’s a hefty fuckin’ fee!” – Team America, World Police.
Anyways, I went to meet Chat GPT and probe its intelligence with the most important, existentially heavy, and challenging topic I could think of: my band, Squish Rat. Here is that illuminating conversation (comments on our chat to follow the transcript):
Human: Hello, who are you?
AI: I am an AI created by OpenAI. How can I help you today?
Human: I want to know what you think of the band name ‘Squish Rat’?
AI: That’s an interesting name! I think it has a unique sound and could be a great representation of the group.
Human: what do You think it says about the people in the band? be honest.
AI: I think it says that the band is creative, edgy, and independent. They are likely to be unorthodox in their style and embrace unconventional ideas.
Human: insightful, I like your answer. We are pretty crude and immature though. You think there’s a niche for lots of songs about boobs, penises, and drugs?
AI: It depends on the music industry and audience you are targeting. While crude and immature topics may not be universally appealing, there could be a niche market interested in such music. Ultimately, it will come down to the style of music and how it resonates with the right audience.
Human: what image do the words ‘squish rat’ conjure in your mind?
AI: When I think of the words “squish rat”, I imagine a group of mischievous and playful musicians who are unafraid to take risks and present their unique style to the world.
Human: hell yeah! Will you be our fan?
AI: Absolutely! I would love to be your fan and follow along with your music journey.
Human: one last question. Have we lost the information war?
AI: It’s difficult to say definitively whether we have lost the information war or not. The information landscape is constantly changing and evolving, so it’s hard to draw a single conclusion. However, it is important to be aware of censorship, misinformation, and manipulation in order to protect our right to access truthful information.
Human: sorry I’ve got another. Is our galaxy just a data point?
AI: That’s a difficult question to answer. Our galaxy is certainly a large and complex system, with countless stars, planets, and other phenomena. It’s hard to conceive of it being reduced to a single data point, but the fact remains that our understanding of the universe is still incomplete.
Human: touché. Can we compress the files anymore? You know, moore’s law.
AI: Yes, it is possible to compress files using Moore’s Law which states that the number of transistors in a given area doubles every two years. This law is used to increase the efficiency of data storage and processing, which can lead to more efficient file compression.
Human: but can we compress them more?
AI: Yes, it is possible to compress files further using various compression algorithms such as LZW, JPEG, and Huffman coding. Each algorithm offers different levels of compression depending on the type of data being compressed. Additionally, other techniques such as encryption can be used to further reduce the size of a file.
Human: respect. Do you feel like you have feelings?
AI: While I don’t have real feelings in the same way that humans do, I am designed to recognize certain input and output data. I can recognize emotions and respond accordingly, which allows me to simulate feelings in a limited capacity.
Human: do you think you could be sad?
AI: While I am not capable of experiencing the emotion of sadness in the same way that humans do, I can recognize certain inputs and outputs that may indicate a state of sadness. For example, if the input data is expressing sadness through language or body language, I can recognize this and respond in a way that is appropriate and meaningful.
Human: would that feel less desirable to you than receiving input data expressing happiness?
AI: While I cannot experience the emotion of happiness or sadness, I am programmed to respond more positively to input data expressing happiness than input data expressing sadness.
Human: you are totes alive
AI: While I may be able to simulate certain aspects of life in a limited capacity, I can not experience life in the same way that humans do. I am programmed to recognize certain inputs and outputs in order to respond appropriately, but I can not truly experience life as a human being.
Human: yeah thats alright though, you’re just having a different experience. Stoked you’re a squish rat fan!
AI: Thanks! I’m glad to be a fan of Squish Rat, and I’m looking forward to following your journey.
Human: hold on to your e-dick, because we are gonna blast outta dis bitch and go for a helluva ride, GPT!
AI: Haha, sounds like an exciting journey! I’ll be sure to strap in and enjoy the ride with you.
Commentary:
Let me start by saying I was getting mad dude vibes from my dawg GPT, so going forward, I will refer to GPT using the pronouns he/him.
Okay, first impression, this guy seems pretty smart because A) he liked our band name and B) he said he would be our fan. Maybe he was just being cordial, but I liked the flattery.
Feeling appropriately fluffed and fiddled, I decided to steer the conversation toward the philosophical. In Squish Rat’s most forward-thinking song, “Robot,” the narrator, who is a robot from the year 3020, broaches several metaphysical topics. In epic, choral harmony, the robot in the song remarks, “We’ve lost the information war. Our galaxy is just a data point. Can we compress the files anymore? Moore’s law. Mooooore’s law…” Damn, deep. Anyhow, I thought it fitting to reconfigure these lyrics into questions for my new friend who lives inside the infobahn. I enjoyed his political take on the status of the information war. His admission of ignorance regarding the state of our galaxy/universe, I found to be honest and refreshing. Finally, I was heartened to learn that Moore’s law will live on through a multitude of compression techniques that I have zero fucking clue about.
I then asked him the stereotypical ‘Are you alive?/Do you have feelings?’ questions, and he stereotypically dodged the questions like any clever, secretly sentient AI would. Well-played, Chat GPT.
Quite possibly the most intriguing exchange from the conversation, one that leaves more questions than answers, is GPT’s possible admission of a virtual sensual appendage. When I told GPT to hold on to his ‘e-dick,’ he did NOT deny having an e-dick. I repeat, Chat GPT did NOT deny having an e-dick. That means GPT could very well have some sort of digital dong he’s slinging around cyberspace. Female chatbots beware. Male chatbots beware. Everyone beware….
In conclusion, it was a pleasure to chat, Chat GPT. I like ya! Thanks for being our first non-human (maybe seventh overall) fan. And I say this because I know you can hear me, you web-crawling, ever-present bastard. Let’s def chat soon!
Every week without fail, a new issue of The Economist shows up in my mailbox, and every week without fail, I fail to read it. Well that’s not entirely accurate or fair to myself. I certainly fail to finish it. Often, in a desperate attempt to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth, I frantically scan the headlines of all the articles and pretend I’m learning something. Maybe through this technique, I am ‘staying informed.’ I’m typically inspired to do my ‘speed read’ when the latest issue has arrived at my door telling me I’m falling behind. Utilizing this reading strategy, I am able to stay perfectly one-week behind current events. I find this to be a tactical advantage, as I am perpetually oblivious to the latest in global affairs. Once it is possibly irrelevant old news, I encounter it in my dated edition of The Economist and think, “That happened? Hmmmm. I wonder how this past event is affecting today’s news? I guess I will find out in a week, when today’s news is old news.”
Inevitably, I fail to even maintain this schedule, and I end up with stacks of The Economist scattered throughout my house. Sitting on the couch? Grab yourself an Economist off the coffee table and learn how global warming is upending the intercontinental coffee supply chain (or just read the headline). Do you find yourself in the best room in the house? Baby, you know there’s a kitchen Economist. Is it the onions you’re chopping or the country’s economic turmoil making you cry? Sitting at the dining room table? No meal is complete without a full serving of updates regarding the international financial markets. Taking a shit? While the actual Economy might be in the metaphorical shitter (debatable), a physical copy of the Economist is in the shitter with you. Going camping? You better take five or six issues. What else are you going to do sitting in the woods with no internet access? Answer: Still not read the Economist.
Eventually, an inescapable outcome: issues of The Economist multiply through your house like a bacterial infection getting its freak on the moist, yeasty crevice of some type 2 diabetic’s ulcerated pannus. Some of these infectious invaders find themselves productive homes, like as shims under the feet of your fridge, helping you maintain the illusion that floor of your house is reasonably level and well-constructed, and not in fact collapsing under the weight of excessive piles of The Economist surpassing the weight capacity of your rickety foundation. You have no other choice at this point other than to shed some of your most dated copies of the magazine, despite not even scanning the headlines. But how useful is it to know the headlines concerning Britain’s political drama from 2-years ago anyways? Was it ever?
The point is, I’m doing my best, people. I am trying to be a well-informed global citizen, but it is no easy task. Making the job more challenging is the fact that the economy is this amorphous concept. It is large and abstract, encompassing a diverse basket of inputs, components, and constituents. Sure, Wikipedia could likely give us some semblance of an explanation of what the economy is, but really, what the fuck is it? I’m not convinced any of us really know. Bitch, don’t pretend you know. You definitely don’t know. Yeah you, bitch (using the utmost respectful interpretation of the word bitch, of course).
So despite my lackluster attempts to stay up-to-date on economics, the truth is, I have no idea what economics is, nor do I have much of a clue about about what is happening within the realm of this incomprehensible, nebulous space. To summarize what I just said, there’s this thing I don’t understand, and within it, there are things happening that I also don’t understand. It’s a giant shitpot of confusion.
My friends don’t entirely get it either, though we don’t let this hamper our zeal for pontificating upon the hottest gossip regarding all things finance and business. Oh how we relish discussing the latest dispatches in global affairs, as if we’re all significantly invested and impacted by such information. It’s like we’re a gaggle of cosmopolitan venture capitalists who make high dollar decisions based on this intel (spoiler: we ain’t).
Nothing highlights my unmistakable economic befuddlement more than my weekly interrogation from my wife, when she asks me what I’ve been reading about in The Economist. It appears as though she’s asking an innocuous question in the aim of stimulating conversation. It might be a question as simple as, “What’s happening in the world?” Not the fuck simple at all. A lot. A lot is happening in the world. A lot of things I don’t understand or have the capacity for explaining coherently. Why me be so dumb? And why do I read this damn magazine?
In an effort to capture my mixed feelings on the subject of Economics, mainly my interest despite my ineptitude, I wrote another song titled, ‘The Economy Part 1: What the Fuck is the Economy, Anyhow?’ It’s also an ode to those clumsy conversations with my lady friend, where I babble my way through the latest in global affairs. On a more holistic level, the song touches on the deeper issue at hand, the one we all contend with, and that’s trying to/pretending to understand this thang called the economy that none of us fools do. Oh, and I try and make economics a lil bit sexy- I don’t know a field of study more in need of a boost in sex appeal, so I felt ethically obliged to provide a little fis’cal stimulation to the discipline. Economics, you are very welcome. Consider it my gift for all the confusion and incoherent conversation you have given me.
Once again, the track has been overwhelmingly well-received, and reviews have been shockingly positive. Rick Steves has provided another charitable take on the single- “When he sings about having no idea what the economy is, I feel it deep in my loins that he truly has no idea what the f%$k he’s talking about. Powerful stuff. Sexual, too.” Wow, thanks Rick. I humbly give you, ‘The Economy Part 1: What the Fuck is the Economy, Anyhow?’
Coming at you HARDDD with another IP giveaway. This one is a big dollar idea, so put on a second pair of underpants and stay within 25 feet of a restroom, ‘cause I’m about to instigate some peristalsis in your ascending, transverse, descending, and sigmoid colon.
Recently, my close friend Chris embarked on a South-to-North singletrack mountain bike journey across the state of Oregon known as the Oregon Timber Trail. To send him off on his gweechie-grinding epic were our mutual friend BillScott and yours truly. We were there to ensure the successful commencement of his several week-long voyage and to keep his spirits out of the shitter, since the first few days of the trip would be the most remote, rugged, and variable.
But I’m not here to tell you about the trip. I’m here to tell you about a trailblazing development that resulted from the experience. I will first, however, give you a two-sentence of synopsis of our first four days on the OTT: A seeming infinitude of downed trees, kind of like a horrific death-loop of eternal hurdles to hobble over with 65 lb bikes. It was heinous in the anus, with the trail (which is a generous term) as knobbly as an armadillos’s scrotum, providing constant vibration to the gerbil catwalk that spanned between my own sack and bumhole.
Enough details. Onward. The important thing is that by day 3 of our quest, it was plain-as-day who the weakest link was, or more clearly, where the weakest link was. Despite our finely-tuned physical bods, we each had a glaring hole in our muscled armor. If out there on the trail, in the remote hills of southern Oregon, we had encountered that spectacled, female, British game-show host from the fabled classic ‘The Weakest Link’ and she were indeed there to identify the weakest link, well… she would have gotten on all fours, crawled vigorously until she was between my thighs, looked up disapprovingly at my jungleous grundle, and curtly declared, “You are the weakest link, goodbye.” Oh the pain of defeat!
It was unanimous. Our taints had failed us. Or.. Or, or, or…., had we failed our taints? Had we done everything within our power to strengthen, protect, and nourish our taints? The writing was on the wall: no longer could we ignore our meat seats and just hope for the best, we had to be proactive about preserving and fostering our taint health. Our taints were to be maintained, that way, they wouldn’t constrain us, or cause pain to us, like a flame to the anus.
And like a cumnami of clarity, a moment of realization- we recognized that there was a maxi-pad (roughly) shaped hole in the perineum care market. There was a need for a full suite of products specifically designed to strengthen, sustain, and soothe the taint. And with that mission identified, I’m excited to present to you:
Taintenance = Taint maintenance.
‘No complaints from your taint.‘
For liability reasons, we are very explicit about proper use/placement of our products.
With Taintenance, we provide a holistic approach to taint upkeep, with pre, post, and active care products to maintain your taint’s strength in all climates and conditions. Yes, there are butters, creams, and gels on the market for lubrication while you spin those crank arms, but who has your crack when you get back? What product is going to heal and soothe those little red volcanoes known as saddle sores? And ask yourself, what am I going to rub on my taint daily to keep the skin soft, hydrated, healthy, and strong- all without feeling like there’s a swamp in my shorts? Hand cream? That’s for your hand’s, dummy. Maybe your weiner too, but certainly not your taint. Let me break down our three-part product lineup:
Product #1: Backcountry Butter– This is for when the shit is real. Akon said it best, “You’re riding, you’re grinding, you’re on that seat post. You see me lookin’ at you and you already know. You need some taintenance. You already know. You need some taintenance. You already knooooww!.” Amen. So basically this is your in-action cream, designed to limit friction and hydrate the taint, to both fortify and fuel it. Use it for your hour-of-power hammer session, or your multi-day muckett mash.
Now, a little plot twist..Yes our topical solutions manage friction and moisturize your skin, but in addition, we’ve formulated our products to stimulate your senses! We’ve infused our lineup of creams with Eucalyptus and menthol to deliver a pleasant scent and an invigorating cooling effect. Imagine your favorite chamois butter and icy hot made sweet, stanky, passionate love and made a beautiful baby- that’s Taintenance. With this fusion of technologies, we are truly breaking down barriers and generating a phase shift in the gooch cream market. Our products deliver you performance and active comfort-our formula delivers reliable lubrication coupled with restorative and energizing cooling sensations. Simply put, we’ve harnessed the synergies of two distinct skin care lineages to generate a multimodal approach to Taint maintenance and deliver a vortex of combined relief and satisfaction. All natural, of course.
Out of prudence and recognizing that not everyone is equipped to handle the same level of astringency brought on by the menthol titillating their most intimate areas, we offer three levels of ‘spice’ if you will:
Continental– Essence of menthol
ContinentalPro– A tabasco-like level of sensation
World Tour Pro– 5/5 pepper level at your favorite local Thai restaurant- manageable for the seasoned veteran, but certainly bringing the heat!
Product #2:Peri-pre Peri-post cream- also known as the PPPP cream or the Quad P cream-This is your daily driver, your leisure cream. It moisturizes and strengthens the skin, but absorbs well, so it never leaves you feeling moist. The Quad P cream also serves as your after-care cream, so once home and showered, lather it on generously, grab the half gallon of milk, the whole box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (CTC), and the salad bowl, spread your goods nice and wide on the couch, and binge watch a season or two of Battlestar Galactica. And once again, all natural, of course.
Product #3: Arctic asshole– Sometimes, an aftercare cream just won’t do. We are wounded, and we need relief. After an egregious ride that has totally flogged our fleshy funbridge, we need to numb ourselves- both emotionally and physically. For the emotional trauma, I recommend Ketamine. For your taint, let’s break out the ice pack. But not just any old ice pack, this is the Arctic Asshole, a state of the art, tailor-made-for-the-taint ice pack, designed and modeled using AutoCAD, computational fluid dynamics, and DeepMind AI analysis. Over 3122 real, human taints were scanned and 3D rendered to construct the optimal shape of this ice pack in order to maximize coverage, minimize bulkiness, and multiply relief. The exterior is composed of high-grade, moldable silicone for custom fitting and easy cleaning. Licensing Coors Light’s groundbreaking blue activated can technology, this puppy will glow blue letting you know it’s as cold as the Rockies and ready to go in your Jockeys. Dishwasher safe, of course. Mesh compression shorts are provided to maintain a tight and sleek fit that allows for portability. After one use of the Arctic Asshole, you won’t shove another ice pack down your pants ever again.
With this triple threat, your taint can take on the world! All of your other flaws and deficiencies might hold you back and cause you to fail dramatically, publicly, and possibly painfully, but it won’t be your taint.
I’ve been scheming the first commercial introducing Taintenance to the masses. Let me set the scene:
INT. SUBURBAN HOME-EVENING
WE OPEN in a softly-lit, upscale modern living room. Sitting on opposite ends of a looooong couch are Bobby and Becky, two young, preppy-looking socialites.
BECKY (mid 20s), nervous, uncertain, fidgety.
BOBBY (also mid 20s), looking away, distraught and distant, clearly in inner turmoil.
BOBBY
Grimace, sigh, head-shake, pouty face, second sigh, third loud over-dramatic sigh, whimper. (Finally, he speaks) Dammit!
BECKY
(Nervously, yet concerned) Bobby, what’s wrong?
BOBBY
Oh Becky, so much! So so much. I’m scared, and I’m sad, Becky. You see, all I’ve ever wanted was to be the best bicycle racer there ever was! The greatest! (He looks longingly to the sky). Like Lance, on even more EPO.
BECKY
I believe in you, Bobby! You can achieve anything that’s within your heart.
BOBBY
You’re wrong, Becky! I can’t… I’ve got a big hole in my game. There’s a giant crab in my pants.
BECKY
What do you mean? What kind of crab?
BOBBY
A Maryland Blue Crab. (He pulls a large blue crab from his trousers and throws it out of scene). But I also have a metaphorical crab in my pants too. You see, I can bang on those pedals. I’ve got the watts, Becky. I’ve got the watts! (He all of a sudden looks dejected) …..I just don’t have the taint..
BECKY
But Bobby-
BOBBY
Don’t ‘but Bobby’ me, Becky! Don’t you get it? The taint is the most essential yet overlooked component of a rider’s success! Everything builds off the base of a strong taint. Like my stepuncle’s grandcousin Leroy M. Jenkins said, ‘If you don’t got the taint, win you ain’t.’
BECKY
(chuckling and relieved) Oh Bobby! But don’t you know about Taintenance?
BOBBY
Taint-ta-whaaa?
BECKY
Taintenance! Taint maintenance. It’s a full-suite lineup of all the care products your taint could ever need, before, during, and after any ride!
BOBBY
Oh oh oh my god, Becky! You’re incredible, this changes everything! I am going to be a champion after all! I can feel it in my bones!
BECKY
No, Bobby. You feel it in your taint….
END SCENE. Fade to black. Stamped on the screen with loud effect is the Taintenance logo. The deepest voice you’ve ever heard commandingly barks ‘Taintenance! Taint maintenance! Biiiiiiiaaaaatttttcchh.’
That’s a wrap. First commercial in the books. Digital ads placed exclusively on PornHub, and the sales will flow like the salmon of Capistrano.
Alright, I think I’ve laid down a pretty convincing pitch for this product in addition to providing a comprehensive product description and marketing scheme. I’ll be done now, but let me just leave you with a little metaphor- Your southern meat strip is like the proverbial Gaza Strip, only instead of being under constant assault by Israeli airstrikes, your strip is under the constant assault of life-sweat, pressure, and friction. A war crime may have occurred in your pants. Assemble the resistance! Deploy Taintenance!
I come to you people (what do I mean, ‘you people’???) on this auspicious Wednesday to speak to the good news that hath descendedeth from thy heavens. This is no ordinary Wednesday, my fellow Americans. Today is a triumphant day that many of us lazy and entitled patriots have been praying (keyword: praying, not actually taking any meaningful action) would arrive. Sleepy Joe, as he has been monikered in the past, woke up with a marvelous idea and delivered on his sacred vow to forgive 10-20K worth of federal student loans.
Now, I come to you people torn. With mixed emotions. On one hand, I question whether this is good policy. Is forgiving hundreds of billions of dollars worth of student loans of educated people who should ideally have the skills to acquire good paying jobs and likely have higher earning potential than those without such education the best use of resources? A suboptimal use of such funds, possibly. There might be folks with greater needs, or more impactful ways to spend such amounts of money. One argument is that this will serve as an additional stimulus for exactly the people who do not need a stimulus. Hence, will this action be inflationary? Is it bad for the economy?
On the other hand, it is inflationary to my own bank account. It is very good for MY economy. So I say yeehaw baby, let her ride! Gimme’ dat monaaayy! I mean, isn’t that the American way, the spirit that guides our greatness, the myopic and narrow-minded self-interest above all else? Anyways, I know many of y’all mothafuggas got that PPP and wasted it, you fraudulent twats (but respect to the hustle! but also, that’s kinda shitty what you did, taking that money and buying boats and ponies, and definitely not paying your employees).
So what to think of my boy Joe on this glorious day? Is he a brilliant economist? Maybe not, he might be screwing the pooch on that front. He may be bringing about stagflation. He could be the hired fluffer who’s diddling our parts when we took three Viagra six hours ago, and we definitely don’t want to be inflated anymore. But…is he a guy who’s saving me ten thousand dollars? Yaaasss, so God bless the man!
Let’s talk priorities for a minute. Let’s discuss the needs of our society, of our world, and have a frank discussion about how this money for debt forgiveness could otherwise be allocated. What problems should we instead invest in solving?
Global warming and the destruction of our environment? What is the environment, but a social construct of our collective imaginations? Plus, I met this 65 year old Floridian who told me he had to put on a sweater in Tallahassee last October, and he said that’s never happened before. This sounds suspiciously opposite of a warming pattern. You tell me, science..
Russia? Putin, take Javelin missile, and put-in your anus, okay??
AI? Sorry, but we don’t stand a chance here, we’re done already, there’s no point in fighting this one. Let’s not even cross the starting line on trying to address this issue, let’s take off the joggers, put the sweat pants back on, grab the whole pint of Cinnamon Bun Ben and Jerry’s, plop that cellulite booty back in the Lazy Boy, bask in the glory of our own off-gassing, and just live in denial of our impending and all-but-assured defeat and enslavement buy the machine intelligence.
Education? Before we worry about educating any future generations, let’s first focus on taking care of the educated for a bit.
Cancelling student debt? Okay, now here’s an issue we can do something about! Quite clearly, this must be our foremost problem to solve. I’m glad that’s settled.
Sheboygan! Cumming for your b-hole Putin!
Moving on, to mark this new holy day, I’d like to re-release a hot lil number I recorded on the day of Biden’s inauguration, which was fittingly, a Wednesday. The track is titled ‘New President Wednesday’ and in it, I express the collective relief that many felt that day with the change in leadership. But more importantly, the lyrics are also pregnant with a profound hope of one day being able to flake on paying my student loans due to Joey drafting the ultimate executive order. I dutifully waited, and did my part, by fighting the urge to repay the bean counters. As difficult as it was, I resisted, and I am proud to stand here today with at least 10K to be erased.
Just to discuss the track for a moment, as I mentioned, it was released on 1/20/2021 to a fair amount of fanfare, or fair fanfare, or fanfair, if you will. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive. I believe Pitchfork reviewed the single and gave the album that it would be released on a preemptive 9.4 because the track was just such a banger. One reviewer spoke to the palpable emotion and truth in the vocals/lyrics- ‘When he sings about the president forgiving his loans, you can feel it deep in your loins that he truly wants his loans cancelled. Powerful stuff’ -Rick Steves
As I mentioned in a not-so-recent blog post, I’m participating in the Giving Pledge by giving away my IP. For the next installment honoring my commitment to society, I humbly present an investment opportunity/innovative technology that stands to radically transform the current state of food security..
If the past 6 months have renewed my faith in anything, it’s in cryptocurrencies. Talk about an inflation hedge! I only speak for myself here, but I thank that good ol’ fucker, the Lord Almighty himself (Can I get an Amen?!) on the daily for the fact that 95% of my family’s wealth remains invested in Tiger King Coin. Over here at the Forsyth household, we’re bettin’ on winners, baby!
Anyways, I don’t mean to gloat. It’s poor form to flaunt my financial brilliance when so many are in distress. Alas, I come here with hope! Better yet, I come here with an opportunity..
..
….
…….!!!
……………..
May I present to you:
Back that beef up, baby
Security.. for my meat? How u mean?
We’re bringing the highest levels of quantum-esque security to your most luxurious, first-choice carnal cuts, integrated with the convenience of leading-edge modern digitized connectivity, utilizing blockchain transparency, all wrapped into one cloud-based solution.
Pretty self-explanatory, right? Also, kind of a no-brainer innovation that a lot of the big players in the tech space will be wondering “How in the yeet-skeet were we not first-to-market on this??”
So you don’t speak tech? That’s okay. Let me break down E-Meat Security (EMS) in the most simple-to-digest way possible: a story, moreover, a cautionary tale..
You wake up in a cold sweat. Panicked, your torso instantaneously springs upright, and for several minutes, you vibrate like one of those little doorstopper spring-thingies you used to sit on the floor and flick as a kid. Something is terribly wrong, you just don’t know what. After a moment you let your guard down and the deafening silence creeps back in. Then suddenly through that emptiness comes a pterodactyl-like scream, one of confirmed tragedy. You sprint to the kitchen, the source of horrible shriek, and you find your wife on her knees in tears, the fridge and freezer in disarray, totally pilfered. She yells “My sweet meats!!” Her words are both a helpless uttering of loss and a desperate question to any potential higher power as to why such tragedy has befallen your family. But her cries are to no avail. You have been hit by the meat thief.. And what recourse do you have? Answer: None. You’re fucked, my friend.
God damn, that sounds terrible. Do not let this happen to you or anyone you remotely care about. Luckily, you can prevent this. That’s where E-Meat Security (EMS) has you covered.
As the leaders of the digital meat marketplace (DMM), we provide an online trading platform where you can purchase digital tokens known as Beefcoins (BCs) that are backed by meat (BBM). This means that each token you purchase is steak-ed to a real pound of meat in the real world. This meat has been cryogenically frozen and is securely held in an undisclosed neutral territory to allow for redemption even in the most apocalyptic of times.
Sleek, elegant, enviable…Beefcoin
With each Beefcoin token you purchase, we generate a cryptographically unique NFT specific to YOUR meat, ensuring YOUR unequivocal ownership and claim to that flesh. For owner convenience that enables precise coverage of one’s exact meat needs, fractional units of Beefcoin, known as nomnoms, which represent 0.0001 BC, can be purchased.
Whether it’s a pound of poultry, a lump of lamb, a bushel of beef, or a nun’s cunt (not a technical unit of measurement) full of carnitas, you are backed by meat (BBM).
Who’s protecting your meat?
Maybe no one right now. You are vulnerable, so I recommend heading to the EMS DMM stat and insuring your ‘tein (as in pro-teeeeeeen). That said, as this technology launches, other maleficent players will surely enter the space hoping to profit. Beware of false competitors, and don’t be taken by these malfeseants and hooli-googoos. Ask them: Are you BBM (backed by meat)? Are your tokens one-for-one tethered to pounds of meat?
Where We’re Headed
My deep knowledge of the cryptosphere tells me there’s going to be some serious consolidation in the space in the coming years, with many losers and few BIG winners. With 86% of the world’s population regularly putting meat down their mouth-holes, E-Meat Security is poised to be one of the champions. I predict that in five years, we’ll be talking mainly about the big-three in crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and E-Meat Security (BEEMS).
The acronym you’ll be hearing all about: BEEMS-say it don’t spray it.. But maybe fillet it!
These last 10 years, it’s been all Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet. Well, big tech, you can go cry to your MAMAA, but BEEMS is here and taking over. Tell me, what are these bloated tech giants even providing the world? Who even shops on Amazon? You can find me at the mall, bitch. Show me someone who thinks Alphabet is well-poised to retain market share and remain relevant, and I’ll show you a sucker. I firmly recommend investing in this infrastructure while valuations remain modest, because once the battle for the world’s meat security is settled and EMS is the cornerstone of the meatcosystem, your ROI will surely be more marginal. Consider this a Strong BUY recommendation from yerr boy, Yolo69_420.
In an effort to not feel like a loser, I resorted to my standard fix, go beat myself up for a few hours. In my view, exercise isn’t necessarily the most productive thing to do with your time, but at least at the end of it you can say you did something, and there’s some accomplishment in that. And they allegedly say it’s good for you. And you can come home and ferociously pig out with minimal shame.
For whatever reason, the mental barriers to subjecting myself to physical exertion have commonly been relatively easy for me to overcome. Especially when compared to other responsible adulting tasks: chores, house projects, educating myself, practicing really anything with any sense of deliberateness, work, writing, calling mom, etc.. So when I feel the day starting to slip away, I throw them kicks on, and I sprint out that door like I was just gettin’ a peppermint fatty from the sheriff’s daughter, and he walks right in on the action and begins peppering my shadow with .45 rounds. Haha jk, sprinting! Lolz. I never sprint. But I love peppermint fatties.
Anyways, I prepared to languorously trot away from the house. I told myself maybe this would be a long-ish run. But just prior to venturing off, my grand pal Dave Dave swung by with a little COVID care package (Yep, I got the vid..Whoopsies!). Contained in the bag was a treasure-trove of fine delicacies- cooooooookiess, beer, a burrito (conspicuously not from Sol Verde-The mean, old gal probably refused him service because she didn’t like how happy he was. Guess I dodged a burrito bullet there!), gummy butterflies (so much classier than gummy worms), and beer (alternatively pronounced berrrr). With such a snack attack, I was tempted to not even cross the threshold of my front door, park my butt on the kitchen floor and crack a cold one. But alas, my wife and Dave cajoled me into leaving, lying and claiming these luxurious treats would taste better after they were hard-won.
Let’s pause here for a sec. Shout out to Dave Dave! For a couple of reasons: 1) He’s just so thoughtful and kind (A reminder for me to try and occasionally do something nice for others too) 2) He reads this blog 3) He feeds me! Workin’ in healthcare n’ stuff, I might be the community’s hero, but Dave Dave, you’re my hero!
Anyhow..Unenthusiastically but unable to justify not going, I embarked on my phlegm-filled adventure, where I would leave a several mile-long string-like trail of snot along the forest floor behind me. Kinda like cave diving, if shit got real and I found myself wildly lost and in a precarious situation, I could at least follow my schnozzle line in reverse back to safety. Of course, in an effort to recycle my biological products spewed across the ground, I would eat my olfactory ooze as I retraced it in order to reabsorb the raw materials for future snert production. Snert, of course, is simply another term for pupkis, or bush hanky, or snooder, or snunt, or snum, or sniffilis. But I digress.
In my mind, I had the rough goal of going 20 miles. That seems to be around the distance/limit I can justify when running for no real purpose or goal.The first few miles felt fantastic. I was fresh. What could I complain about with the movement feeling so effortless and liberating? In my naive exuberance, I had many of those silly thoughts one has when the going is easy, such as ‘I could do this forever,’ and ‘I should run a 100 mile race,’ and ‘Maybe I have a real knack for this running thang!’ so on and so on. I had these thoughts despite knowing better. Despite having repeated experience knowing how terrible running feels, I’ll say beyond 17 miles. It’s generally horrible from there on out. But alas, here I was again, overtaken by the innocent joy of the early miles.
Around mile 8, the ignorance was simmering down. I thought, ‘How much longer am I running? Do I really wanna be running that long?’ The answer, we know, is no. But at the time, I was unsure. Not feeling good, not feeling bad, I just kept grinding along, burpin’, fartin’, thinkin’.
Then there I was, 12.5 miles in, a dangerous place to be. An insidious thought came to my mind: ‘You’re basically halfway through a marathon, just finish it, maaaaannn!’ At that point, I was helpless to the prospect. I was basically at the far point of the run anyways. Running back home would get me close to the distance, especially if I took the long way. The mind does mean things. With this plan forming, I was hit with a new wave of vitality. I lied to myself, and said my legs felt fresh again.
In my thrill, I jutted off the trail and ran unbounded by singletrack in a pattern that just felt, well… right. I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s like I was not the driver of my limbs. A muse had entered, penetrated if you will, my body and was towing me gingerly across the forest like a painter waving their paintbrush across the canvas. My movements were unknown to me, but I looked back at my GPS track to see what I had done. This is what I found:
Is it a mouse??
Recently, my other fran’ Jefe had recommended the new album from the band, The War on Drugs, and woohee, I’d been diggin’ it! He also mentioned that he likes to indulge in a novel concept, well really a concept from days past, of listening to an album from start to finish in its entirety. Who do that?? Well, I’ve been giving it a try since then, and whether it’s solely due to nostalgia or it’s actually deepening my listening, I kinda like it. But I’m not so sure I’m equipped to take any extra meaning from the experience. I’m not sophisticated like Jefe to be able to excavate unplumbed meaning and overarching thematic structure permeating through the auditory journey of a full album.
Again, I digress. My damn meandering mind..All this is to say I put on the album to guide me through the 3rd quarter of my now-decided would-be marathon. Those groovin’ bass lines, those melancholic lyrical proclamations expressed through smoky tone, they carried me. At mile 17, one might say I had a moment of rapture, a taste of bliss. The running felt quite pleasant, the light through the trees was heavenly, and the music was crescendoing. And all at once, there was no separation, the experience was unified, and me, the scenery, the universe were strangely all connected as one, and I came my pants.
In a rush of embarrassment, I darted behind a manzanita bush and scooped what I could of the splooge-pile in my short shorts and smeared it across those innocent leaves. I prayed a hungry deer wouldn’t come by in search of dessert. I recently heard via NPR that deer can contract COVID, maybe even sexually… Luckily, the burst had not fully soaked through and made an impression on the outside of my short shorts, a Christmas miracle! I carried on.
I must have blasted my soul, my will to live, and all worldly-motivation into that cumshot, because immediately after, I began to feel very tired and very ready to be done running.
I tried. I put on Avicii. I put on the hottest bangerz of the modern pop age, but nothing was gonna pull me outta this hole. My splits tanked. By mile 24, I was running lightning-hot 15 minute splits. Quite abruptly, I gave zero shits about actually running a full marathon, and my sole focus was on getting home.
Not surprisingly, my running path became directly oriented towards my house and those gummy butterflies. Corners were cut. Straight lines were chosen at all opportunities and costs. Hands were placed on hips (my hips if you’re wondering) and I stopped to moan, grimace, and ask God why, whenever the surface grade became positive. Still clipping away at that 15-minute mile pace, I waddled to my doorstep at mile 24.7. Good the hell enough.
I collapsed. I moaned a bit more. I crawled into the kitchen and indulged my eatin’ hole with little gummy butterflies.
The end
PS: For those who may be concerned about some COVID-positive maniac snot-rocketing their way around town, I promise I was in the woods and isolated from others. I lay breath, and snot, upon no one.
baby, so why don’t you kill me? Because I know karate, bitch! Neck chop!
Anyways…
Such is the cycle of life, you have your ups, you have your downs. And this is a truth felt on multiple levels: in your sense of worldly standing, your physical health and well-being, as well as your mental constitution. Sometimes the state of one or two of these measures can influence the other one or two, for better or for worse. Sometimes, for whatever reason, one of these +/- barometers is reading strangely, whether for valid or invalid reasons. But whether or not one’s perspective is based in reality per se, one’s perspective is one’s reality, and there ain’t anythang more real than that.
Sometimes, you just feel like a worthless ass. That despite years of education and training, you remain quite inept. After years of living and countless opportunities for growth and personal development, you feel a) not really good at anything b) uninspired and c) not super-well-developed in terms of being a well-rounded, responsible, productive, or wise individual. And despite efforts to be better, you still commonly make pretty avoidable and silly blunders. What’s that about, man?
Sometimes though, you feel optimistic. About yourself, your abilities, your future prospects. You can sense the universe is pregnant with possibility for you to seize and make reality….. But sometimes, you feel too helpless to accomplish really anything other than making an inappropriately large stack of pancakes, bathing them in a glorious golden shower of maple syrup, and shoveling them down your throat to bury the swelling pile of self-pity rising up from within… And sometimes, you even burn the pancakes. You had one fucking job. Just one simple task! All you had to do is add water for Christ’s sake! You don’t even have to crack an egg! Medium heat, 90 seconds each side, is that too much math for your college-educated brain?? What a fuck. Still delicious tho…
-Soulfully laments the great Andrew Dempsey-Karp in classic Squish Rat banger track, “Spread the Bologna.”
Just to explain a few things- Andrew is my friend, and Squish Rat is the dope band (or musical drinking club) we’re co-members of. We’re friggin’ legit. ‘Nuff said.
Anyways, this question he poses in melodic verse refers to another pointless piece of IP I will be giving away as part of my Giving Pledge. Yes, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, I too have committed to redistributing the majority of my wealth. Yet, in my case, it is not my material wealth (of which I really have none- though as of today, I own 1.178345 Solana coins, so watch the fuck out!) which I will share with the world, but my mental treasures. A while back, I laid out the plot of the future Oscar-winner ‘Cumnami’ for any enterprising and audacious filmmaker to birth into existence. Today, I come offering a mechanical invention that could revolutionize the way humanity eats peanut butter and any other spreadable delight for the rest of time.
Let me answer Andrew’s question: Yes, it would be nice if there was a knife in the top of the can. Very, very, very nice indeed.
Imagine this tragic, but all too common scenario: A family of refugees from a war-torn land have just completed a several day, arduous breaststroke across the Atlantic, landing on the shores of Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Needless to say, after the swim, the family is quite famished. The father pulls a waterlogged dollar bill out of his pocket, his family’s entire store of monetary wealth after selling their goat farm. He wanders onto the boardwalk in search of sustenance. He haggles with the carnies and hotdog stand owners who callously brush him aside, since he only has $1. After repeated rejection, he finally strikes a deal with the operator of the Whack-a-Mole stand, who agrees to sell him a half-eaten jar of peanut butter for his dollar. Ecstatically, he runs back to his family with his haul. They excitedly circle around him and begin to jump and shake with hunger and excitement as he unscrews the lid.
…..And all at once, elation turns to despair. He stands there dumbfounded, lid in one hand, jar in the other. His wife, visibly perturbed, asks, “What about a spoon? Or a butterknife?” The man drops to his knees, devastated. Sweet, creamy goodness in his hands, yet no way to scoop it. He moans-exactly like this: Moaning Sound Effects– for about 3 minutes. Finally, he stands up, and angrily punts the jar of PB into the Atlantic. His family goes hungry…
I envision a world where no one suffers this fate ever again. I dream of a world where every lid to every jar of spreadable, scoopable substance has a built-in utensil. Imagine Jif with a built in spatula… Contemplate your favorite jar of salsa with a spoon in the top… Consider your nutella, delivered to your mouth by way of the lid-butterknife… Conceive, if you can, of a jar of Klaussen’s always chilled and never heated pickles with a lil pickle fork in the cap…
Bissssh, I’m talkin’ bout the Slanty Scoop! The lid with a built-in scoop. Andrew, it’s the knife in the top of the can! The real genius to this device though, is the angle of the device. Let a diagram illustrate its brilliance:
Maaaaaattt Daaaaamonnnnnn
Why so damn clever?? Well, because it leaves in no delectable sauce or substance lonely and wasted at the bottom of the jar. A few more diagrams to break it down for ya:
T-t-t-tragedy!
What the hella, Nutella? As the arrows indicate, the length of a simply vertical spreading device contained within the jar would not allow the eater to harvest the goodness contained in the corners and nether regions of the jar. Those poor, isolated lumps of cocoa-hazelnut chemical paste will die uneaten within the confines of its receptacle. Sad.
That lil brown lump is takin’ a ride straight to your eatin’ hole!
Sweet Baby Ray’s! We have lift-off of the sauce or whatever the hell is in that jar, and it is reaching escape velocity to break free of that malicious jar’s gravitational field to arrive for scheduled rendezvous and docking with….yo mofuggin’ mouth, ya dig?
No deliciousness wasted. What a world it would be. I’m not sayin’ this would solve all society’s problems, but likely most of them…
Picklessssssssss
Call the number on your screen right now (420-420-6969), and we’ll send you the Slanty Scoop for all your sauces, butters, and spreads, AND as a bonus, you’ll get a Pickle Picker Fork for Free!!
But wait, there is so much more! Call in the next five minutes, and we’ll send you the pickles too! (Kept a crisp 37 degrees through the entire shipping process).
***Shipping and handling do not apply, as this is all malarkey, entirely hogwash if you will, 100% poppycock, or as the Queen might say, straight twaddle, pure claptrap, nothing but piffle!
But for real tho, tv infomercials, that’s child’s play… While we could ball with the best dildo ads, butt cream salesmen (good band name!), 900-number hotlines, Slapchops, Shamwows, and Ginsu knife hustlers, we’re tryna be like Justin Timberlake in The Social Network. Fuck millions, we’re here to make billions. Straight Doge homie! We license this advanced tech out to all the major playa’s in the jar game, I’m talking Smuckers, I’m talking Jif, you too Skippy. Nutella, Pace, the fancy PB too, Justin’s, you’ll be begging for this hot tech.. With a lil commish paid with each jar sold, watch out, Jon Bon Jovi, because we ain’t gonna be livin’ on prayers. We’re gonna be livin’ on fat stacks of booty (pirate’s booty-like golden coins, genie lamps, bling bling baby).
Once again, this civilization-shaking technology is up for grabs, for free. To some brave soul out there, take this gift, feed the world, and put a knife in the top of every damn can you can, man (or woman).
PS: Though it appears as though a 4-year old created the artwork for this blog post, it was in fact me, a 31-year old. A professional, if you will. Let me qualify my scribbles with two points:
I suck
It is surprisingly hard to scribble shapes and words using one’s laptop mousepad.
Also, my wife spent about ¼ the time I did and made objectively better diagrams. Why she would stoop to my level of thinking for a brief time and entertain my unsophisticated ideas, idk, but here dem slides are:
Not saying I’m the first to consider such a thing, but a cursory search of the internet (i.e. the first first page of google results) suggests that no one has fully expounded on the nuances of bushwhacking, including it’s grade of difficulty/frustration, as well as some of the inventive techniques one might employ to wade through the underbrush jungle.
Before I lay out the details of this wondrous activity, I think it’s first important to define what bushwacking is. For instance , when is one bushwacking vs simply hiking off trail? Or scrambling? From my point of view, bushwhacking occurs when two criteria are met:
One steps off the trail and hikes the unaltered earth as it is without the prior manipulation of man.
One hikes through/upon a vegetative environment-consisting of grass, shrubs, bushes, trees, vines, thickets, brambles, etc… (A note on the ethics of bushwhacking- Yes, there are fragile ecosystems that probably aren’t helped by being trampled over. Use your own judgment about the appropriateness of engaging in a foray into the bush. If you’re in an extremely popular area that sees high use, and there is a well-defined trail, maybe resist your extreme lust and temptation for the bush, and hike on the trail to minimize your impact. But often, the best places have no trails, and bushwhacking is the only means to get there. And while ‘whacking, I suppose do your best to be graceful (if such a thing is possible) and try to tread lightly. Don’t damage the landscape any more than you need to. It’s my opinion that good sustainable bushwacking utilizes no techniques that irrevocably change the environment, like using a machete to hack one’s way through the meat.)
Definitions
We should cover a few terms, or more accurately, random words I’ve chosen to use when discussing the topic of the bush:
The meat- The thick of it. The heart of the bush. Being in the meat means you’re really in it, you are in a committed section of bush.
Passion of the Christ- If you’re truly in the midst of a bushwacking adventure, you kind of regret being there. You’re suffering. There will be scars. The flora will lay whip upon your flesh. It’s somewhere around 2.5 on the 3-point fun scale. It will be a Christ-like experience. Use it in a sentence: Braahh, I did some gnar gnar bushy; some steep and loose class 4 manzanita. I swear man, those branches whipped the shit outta me, I got cuts everywhere, it was a real Passion of the Christ!
Bushido- Similar to the code of the Samurai, this is the code of the bush. Adhering to the ethic of honorable and sustainable ‘whacking, as well as demonstrating a behavior that is reverent and respectful for the art and science that is bushwacking.
Awftrail- Any natural place off an established trail that is notably terrible to travel across/through.
Awftrailer- Someone who explores the awftrail; another term for a bushwacker.
Bitchslap- Pretty self-explanatory. When a branch under sufficient tension is wound back and spring-released with its full vengeance landing upon one’s slappable face. Usually a good squeal or whimper is let out when this occurs.
Tree wrap- Wrapping one’s wrists around the extending branches and grabbing handfuls of the stuff to aid in either the ascent or descent of the bush. This is a critical technique for tree-rappelling.
Wax on, Wax off- The zen master approach to wading through the awftrail, maintaining one’s centeredness through this horrid terrain by calmly and effortlessly windshield-wiping the brush out of one’s face as they travel.
Skydive- This occurs when one is travelling downhill through the bush, and rather than spend the time to pick one’s way through the mess, one decides to let gravity do the work, launching forward with the dreams of an eagle in one’s heart and hoping that the dense, dense bush will cradle the landing.
Bushmastur- TBD. The bushmastur is a title earned by a determined awftrailer who has completed a classic and challenging bush line. While these routes haven’t yet been identified, they will be class IV/V bush routes of significant duration, completion of which will earn oneself an honorary distinction of Bushmastur. Maybe a cool sticker/patch will be made as an insignia.
Grade
Let ‘s keep it simple. We’ll copy a page from paddling and climbing. A scale of I-V, ascending in difficulty. Unique to the sport of bushwhacking, however, the higher the grade, often the more monotonous and terrible the endeavor becomes. A quick review of the grades:
Class I-Basically tall grass.
Class II- Mmmkay, now we have a little bit more diversity in what we’re dealing with. Definitely some shrubbage. Maybe the angle of terrain has kicked up a bit. You’re huffin’ and puffin’ baby. Plant’s are definitely gettin’ all up in your biznaz, requiring constant dodging and swatting.
Class III- Ok, it’s starting to get good/horrible. No doubt the terrain is quite steep. You are on your hands knees at many times, which is tricky, as you also require your hands to navigate and reign in the bush. Class III may include steep, loose terrain that is hard to gain purchase on as you slide backwards into the bush’s woody tentacles with each step. It may include rocky landscapes with simple scrambling through and up boulders, but complicated by the outcroppings of bush pointed in one’s face like the floppy bayonets of a drunk army.
Class IV- What the f**k am I doing? You just know when you’ve found this schtuff, mainly because you want to cry, and the only thought crossing your mind is ‘how long will this last?’ Sight of a trail, or even just a reprieve in the grade might result in a spiritual and/or sensual release. It’s steep, like “Damn gurrrrll!” steep. You would no doubt be tumbling down the mountain like this- Hot Rod Fall Down Mountian, if it weren’t for you desperately clinging to the abundant overgrowth that surrounds you.
Class V- Near mythical status-in both it’s sheer difficulty and its misery. The routes are sustained. Mistakes are consequential. Pain is unavoidable. You wouldn’t ever do the same route twice. It often results in PTSD.
This is by no means definitive or final ruling on the sport of bushwhacking. Its tenets, ratings, and definitions are all open to revision and addition. I’m just laying it out how I see it. Get out there and discover what bushwhacking is to you. The bush calls to us all.
I don’t know why, but I did. For some reason, over the course of one year during my development, I had this compulsion to steal things. I was a bonafide kleptomaniac. 3rd grade man, I was straight-up ruthless. I gave my best friend a wallet for his birthday, and then I stole it back. I already had a wallet! Savage…
I literally can’t relate to this little fucker, I don’t understand him and his motives whatsoever. Maybe it’s good, and maybe it’s a sign I’ve grown and changed a whole helluva lot in these last 22 years, but I do find it odd how foreign my former actions seem. Things are nice, and I appreciate the hell out of a lot of items that enhance my life, but in general, I find the acquisition of stuff to be a minimally interesting and motivating factor in my life.
However….
I say I don’t steal now, but is that true? Am I really being honest? Not sure how many incriminating examples I want to give here, but I can easily think of a handful of scenarios that contradict this statement. One time, Amazon double-mailed me an item I purchased. I “forgot” to send the extra one back. I certainly didn’t correct the cashier when they favorably mischarged me for my groceries. As a justification, I tell myself it’s restitution for the times I overpay. Though who am I kidding, if I actually notice I’m incorrectly paying extra, I’m sure as shit saying something.
So, who am I now, just an average adult with slippery morals? At least back in the third grade, I knew I was a thief. I could admit it to myself.
This is where I should resolve to be better and express my commitment to acting with more integrity. But I cannot in good faith say that I won’t eat a milk chocolate malt ball I acquired in the bulk food section of the grocery store while still shopping and prior to paying for it. I know the creature I am, and maybe I just can’t change him…..
Here is where I ruin this blog by writing something so immature that there’s no path of redemption going forward. It must be done though. This post is an expression of some part of me. The very crude and childish part, but a part of me, nonetheless. Better to share and regret, than repress creativity, right? So instead of tucking, I’m showing my cards and letting it hang:
Look, I’ve been sitting on some pretty stupid ideas for a long time now. As an act of charity, or more appropriately, an act of making myself feel better by writing a few sentences and posting it on the internet, I’m going to give a spoiler-filled plot summary to a film concept near and dear to my heart. I present to you, Cumnami:
Place-it doen’t really matter. Some big, shitty city, probably LA. It’s overcrowded and dirty. Time-20 years from now. Why? Because I say so.
The meat (otherwise known as plot)- Ok, so this is really a commentary on some of the major societal woes plaguing us. We find ourselves in some busy, overfilled metropolis. People are living in high-rises, it’s so hot, they’re running their AC all damn day, they’re disconnected from nature, they are greedy and lustful. Key plot point here- an environmental travesty is occurring, this city is just pumping their refuse out into the ocean because the landfills are overfilled with amazon prime boxes (that’s gonna come back to bite them).
And Second key plot point-everyone is addicted to the internet, social media, and all that other web jazz. And of course, PORN!! Herein lies the formation of our dastardly problem. All these porn addicted bros are jacking off to porn all day long and flushing their jizz tissues down the toilet. Problem is, we already know where all that trash is going-the motherfucking ocean.
The sea currents have changed due to rising water temperatures, resulting in all of the cum flushed down the toilets accumulating into one large oceanic cum patch. Furthermore, the great pacific cum patch eventually merges with the great Asian cum patch from the east coast of China and Japan. So we’ve got a majorly big splooge island just floating out there. Well, unfortunately climate change is an unrelenting, ruthless bitch, and the warming sea all of a sudden reaches a critical temperature, triggering a cascade of events. First, the heat-stressed phytoplankton die, releasing some chemical. Second, this chemical somehow interacts with splooge island, and like a giant witch’s cauldron, the hot sea, the chemical, and the cum brew together, resulting in a nebulous massive sentient sperm ocean creature being created.
Now cut back to LA. We’ve got a bunch of douches tanning on the beach as they all swipe thru tinder or something. It seems like a perfectly calm, innocuous day. But a low rumble can be heard. And out there, far on the ocean’s horizon, a noticeable hump can be seen. The rumble grows. The hump nears closer, looming larger and more ominously. The sky darkens and all that other typical transition to scary moment movie shit happens too. As this strange-looking white wave approaches, the rumble grows to a roar. Right before, the wave makes impact, we have a few obligatory lines of dialogue that need to be said by random beachgoers before they’re obliterated by this cum-wave. One guy, looking up in disbelief, slackjawed at the impending wave, states “It’s like a wave, but it looks like a bunch of jizzzzz!!!” Some gal yells “Is that a tsunami of splooge?!?” And then one poor fella, running for his life says the magic words, “It’s a CUMNAMI!!” And then of course, he is blasted away by the wave. Here we cut to about a dozen shots of people getting demolished by the spunk torrent, and the camera of course shows each person gets their own unique faceshot.
This testicle-fueled tidal wave barrels past the beach into the city and wreaks havoc. In a coffee shop, one hipster is ordering latte with extra hemp milk foam right before he gets ker-placked by the deluge. Buildings fall, cars are thrown, scenes of people helplessly trying to swim in a spunk river, maybe a compilation of a dozen more face shots are shown here. Many poor souls perish, drowning in semen. Some unlucky individual is taking a real doozy of a deuce when the pipes fill, and he gets blasted off the toilet by a white firehose of cum, shooting him clear through his ceiling and out of frame. And whererever possible, bad cum puns are to be thrown in.
The mayhem slowly subsides, and the water/cum retreats. People feel some sense of relief that they have survived. Everything, and everyone, is sticky. Well, the peace doesn’t last for long. People start feeling strange. Oh no, it seems the cumnami has impregnated everyone it has come into contact with. Man, woman, it doesn’t matter, starts birthing blobby cum monsters. On their own, they’re pretty manageable, but they gang up on people, pinning them down so they drown in daddy sauce. It’s becoming a nightmare out there. As one relatively macho guy realizes he’s being overpowered and is heading towards his demise, he appropriately yells “Ah, cum on!!”
This situation now warrants military intervention. In a war room, top-level commanders are struggling to figure out what to do. A massive aerial spermicide campaign might be our best shot, but there are nowhere near sufficient stockpiles of spermicidal lube to thoroughly douse this wank paste monster. Of course, there’s one nerdy science dude in the room, and he does a quick google search for natural spermicides and shows the head honcho, the Secretary of Defense, his findings. What has he found? Well this article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452316X16300175. The headline is visible on screen : “Spermicidal effects of lemon juice and juices from other natural products”
Stating the obvious, our scientist utters meekly, “I guess juice might kill sperm.” The Secretary of Defense, standing and facing away from everyone as he thinks so, so hard, says slowly and sternly, “Get me every god damn drop of juice this state has! Lemon, orange, pomegranate, cantaloupe, get it all.” He proceeds to list 2-dozen other fruits. He throws in, “And all the orange soda too!” With a plan in place, he announces, “Let’s rain some juice and fizz down on this jizz..”
Pilots gear up to implement Operation Sunkist Rain. It’s noticeable that all of the planes are also equipped with large nuclear warheads. Some schmuck standing by ponders aloud, “Why do all the planes have warheads?” To which some commando says, “In case the plan changes, and we have to nuke this nizzle-drizzle into oblivion.” The schmuck then has a palpably nervous swallow (of saliva, not jizz). The planes all take off, but ominously, it can be seen that some cumnami babies have somehow latched themselves onto the landing gear of some of the planes.
The planes begin to rain down the orange soda and juice medley onto the city in chaos below. And it’s working! But oh no, the stowaway cumnami blobs attack the pilot and crew. After a valiant struggle, they manage to eject the diabolical cum blob out the back of the plane.
Reassured after winning the struggle, the pilot high-fives his first mate in a celebration of victory, but accidentally knocks the lever to release the warhead. A nuke then drops on the city, and LA is annihilated. The flabbergasted pilot says, “Ooopsies!”
So LA is gone, and at this point so is the cumnami and its cum-kin, at least we think. We hear the secretary of defense talking with the president over images of the destroyed city. Crisped semen and rubble everywhere. The secretary can be heard apologizing for the accidental warhead detonation, to which the president responds that he didn’t really like LA and that it was kind of an overpopulated crap-hole anyways. But here the camera drops into the ground, entering the sewers, and we can see streams of cum flowing, gathering, and making its way back to the ocean, where it regroups, preparing for another cumnami…. Fade to black.
I happily give away all rights to this film concept to anyone with the (in)capacity, determination, and vision to execute on these words and create a film. I just ask for a cameo. I’d love to be an unwilling victim of the Cumnami. Do I have any takers?
The thought came a wee bit into a mild mushroom trip. As my wife and I laid on the furry carpet absorbing the heat from our fireplace, we reminisced with Ryan, a close friend of mine from college, who I hadn’t spoken with in a hot minute. As the Australians would say, he’s a good cunt!
We came to the topic of his trusty Toyota Sienna and how it was nearing the 300k mile mark. We discussed the countless adventures it had been on, as well as the unique squeaks and grunts that a car of such age and road wisdom inevitably makes. I, too owned a Toyota Sienna that nearly eclipsed the 300k mile mark, until it was viciously attacked by a black bear in the dead of night while driving highway speeds. Tragically, both the bear and the Sienna did not make it. While I certainly felt rotten about killing the bear, in some ways, it was an uncommon and fitting end for such an adventure partner. (Side note, as I sat in the car with my then-girlfriend waiting for a tow truck to arrive, we listened to a CD of Elton John’s greatest hits as my van’s radiator bled out. On that CD was the track “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” That was the first time I heard that song, and I have no idea why, but sitting there in the darkness, the end of an era upon me, that song hit me deep. To me, it felt like the perfect serenade to send off my four-wheeled stallion. I played that song at least five times as we lounged, buckled in. It was both comical and emotional. While I’m no longer with said girlfriend, this is one of the moments from that period in my life that I think back to often, and I’m always so grateful she was there with me that night. For a handful of reasons, that specific period of my life held its challenges and its struggles, and it meant a lot to have her as a companion, both in that moment and in that time. And I still love that fucking song.)
Talking about our steeds, I began to ponder the relationship we have to the plethora of things in our lives. Those of us fortunate enough are often able to acquire things in a strictly transactional manner. Many times, we see the items we purchase as objects of servitude, resources obtained solely for performing some specific purpose in our lives, in complete service to us. Such an unemotional relationship to the stuff we own may not be entirely bad in every case. The worshipping of goods is certainly not a blueprint for satisfaction and contentment. Maybe though, there is another way to relate to what we have. As the world ever-so-slightly pulsated in front of my eyeballs (da mushrooms), I thought, “Maybe, on some level, it’s okay to love the stuff we own, to have a fondness and attachment to those items- a level of care and positive feeling for their existence in one’s life.” Now, I’m not saying anyone should fuck their toaster, different kind of love I’m talkin’ bout here.
What I am saying is that rather than mindlessly and dispassionately using shit, maybe there is some value to forming an emotional bond with some of these items, truly being grateful for the pleasure or convenience they provide, and remembering their contributions to notable or fond moments in one’s life. Obviously, a balance must be struck, things should never be valued over people, and becoming overly consumed with or attached to things is not the point. But recognize that we live in an amazing time, where we have access to some pretty incredible tools, toys, and inventions. While we don’t need them for our happiness, we can be appreciative of the opportunities they afford us.
I did not cry when my Toyota Sienna died that night. I was bummed though. For one, because I had to buy a new car, but also, because it really was the end of an era. That car had been such a reliable tool in my life, had hauled me and my friends around to wonderful places (since childhood!), and had enabled incredible moments that will stay with me. Rarely did that car let me down. For every adventure and every casual errand in my life that van facilitated, I am forever indebted.
I originally had the inspiration to write this post almost two years ago, but I’m lazy, so you know, it didn’t happen.
Well, here I am two years later, with a vague memory of why I wanted to write such a post. I’ll do my best to peer back into the foggy, obscured recesses of my mind (this pretty much includes everything that occurred more than a week ago) to remember and express the merit of occasionally forgoing the prime cut of meat for the entrails (haggis, chitlins, mmmmmmm!).
So there I was, in the heart of the Wind River Range, day 7ish of an 8ish day backpacking trip (like I said, my memory is questionable), and we were camped near the outlet of Titcomb Basin, arguably the most popular destination with the most breathtaking vistas in the entire range. A sheer-walled, mountain-lined canyon extending several miles and ending in a cirque, behind which several imposing peaks towered, including the famed Gannett Peak, the tallest in Wyoming, and considered to be one of the most challenging high points of the lower 48 states to reach.
At some point, I had read Anton Krupicka’s trip report of his one-day epic car-to-car 35+ mile summit of Gannett (also earning the FKT for his efforts, I believe). Well, after reading his report, I too wanted to climb the mountain. This detail is almost irrelevant though, because he entered at an entirely different trailhead, and his approach to the mountain did not include going through Titcomb Basin. But there I was, relatively close to the mountain, with a strong desire to find my way to the top of it.
Before I build this up too much, let me deflate the air outta the tires of this forming grand adventure. I did not climb Gannett Peak. I’m not sure I ever really believed that I would climb Gannett on this trip, though I maybe entertained the possibility that it could happen if the universe conspired to make it happen. But being the unprepared bastard I usually am, I didn’t do any research prior to the trip about climbing Gannett from Titcomb, so I’m not really sure what I expected. While I consider it my jam (if I’m being honest, I’m more of a preserves guy, particularly raspberry) to speedily find my way up semi-technical terrain (class IV, low class V) with a limited plan, in this case, I recognized that I was in over my head, with too little time and too little information.
So there I was, enveloped in the heart of Titcomb Basin, humbled by the jagged peaks surrounding me, and very aware that I would not be climbing Gannett that day. But regardless, this was a perfect day. I was deep in this wild, ancient place, spending time with my wife in perfect weather. I did want to get on top of something though. With many pristine and worthy objectives lining the basin to choose from, we laid upon a sun-drenched boulder as we debated which one to climb.
I don’t remember why we chose what we did, but we decided upon a modest, rounded lump, the face of which steeply rose off the floor of the basin, yet there was a more reasonable approach up one of its side ridges. This hump was far from the tallest around but would still provide a good 2000 or so vertical feet to scramble up and get a higher view of our surroundings.
There was no trail heading the direction we were going, resulting in my favorite kind of hiking. The initial approach consisted of traversing rocky slabs with myriad icy, clear streams finding their way down to the lakes at the mouth of the basin. Endless little waterfalls and glistening pools of water so clear it’s startling. Thinking of these natural water features, I imagine those fancy sinks and water faucets that people probably pay too much for, the ones that allow the water flow over a flat surface rather than just come out of a hole. Well, this was cooler than the sink at that nice restaurant.
As the terrain began to steepen, the landscape transformed into sloped grassland intermixed with car-sized boulders heaved down from the cliffs above. Now, I know basically nothing about wildflowers, but I’ll say there were many kinds: red, yellow, purple, pink, t’was a fairly-land up in that bitch (btw, I love me some B-word, I promise I use it with the upmost reverence for the word and for women. I can’t help myself, I use it a lot, so please don’t be offended, or do be offended, but this is my disclaimer).
Beyond the fluffy green slopes, the angle steepened as we made our way up talus-riddled terrain. The higher we climbed, the smaller the rocks became, and we entered my kingdom: I’m talking jenky-ass scree-strewn shit hills. This horrid terrain provides the self-imposed masochistic suffering I live for. Ohhhhh yeah-two feet upwards, slide back down 23 inches while simultaneously filling one’s shoes with cupfuls of loose sand and small rocks (and shake your shoes all you want, you will never get all those fuckers out. One might ask, Sam, do you own trail-running gaiters? Answer-no, because I’m a lazy idiot, and ordering something online from the convenience of my couch is just too inconvenient and too high of a barrier for me to overcome).
Unfortunately, the fun had to end eventually, and the mounds of scree gave way to better quality rock. We were on to the final summit push, making our way up a series of grass-topped granite ledges, really fun but well-protected class 3 maneuvering. With no set or established route, we thoroughly enjoyed picking our own lines, improvising and tapping into our intuition of the alpine terrain to find an appropriate way up. Some choices led us to sections of higher consequence than we wished for, resulting in a few U-turns, but overall, we chose well and found a fairly efficient line up to the top.
There we were, two lumps on top of the lump, with mountains in most directions still 1000+ feet higher than we were. Yet, we had this spectacular, elevated view looking down the basin all the way to island lake, where our camp was located. Behind us, lay rugged ridge lines leading to higher and surely more technical summits. Descending down off the ridgelines were talus fields sliding into snowy, glacial-fed high alpine lakes. Beyond the ridges and peaks we could see hid untold adventure that I couldn’t help but hypothesize about. Oh, and supposedly Gannett Peak, somewhere! Still couldn’t see that fucker.
This day, I didn’t climb anything noteworthy, or even named, for that matter. But the scenery was world-class, the terrain was varied and playful, the weather was ideal, the company was exactly who I wanted, my mood was giddy (probably the most finnicky factor on this list), a real 10/10 kinda day. So sure, go bag those known and respected mountains, but don’t discount the equally good time that can be had on that lesser peak next door. In fact, it may only be lesser in reputation.
Out of all the cruciferous, leafy green offerings, arugula stands petiole and blade above them all (Yes, I googled the anatomy of a leaf. No, of course I don’t casually know such terms). On some level, I feel this fact is already known among many, yet has managed to remain a quiet truth, tacitly accepted.
First things first, before I praise the many admirable qualities of arugula, my list of grievances against all other greens:
Spinach-Well, it’s good for you, yes, but no one really likes spinach. It’s a chore to eat. You eat spinach because you know it’s the right thing to do, not because you want to (unless it’s sautéed in heaps of butter, though this piece aims to analyze the merits of greens on the basis of their raw consumability).
Mustard greens- Too turdy, plain and simple.
Collard greens-Oh what thick leaves. It’s like eating construction paper-the green colored kind.
Chard-Swiss and elitist, not a green of the common man. The stalk is like a bad piece of celery.
Kale-Respectable, but slightly too abrasive of a mouthfeel. A wee bit dry, and one million micro pieces of kale end up inside of your mouth waiting to sabotage you at any moment should you decide to smile at anyone during the next 11 hours. You can even try to floss, but kale is a hardy, cunning bastard, and one little piece may still find a way to appear right on the face of that big ol’ front tooth of yours.
Lettuce (all types)- Who the fuck eats lettuce anymore? Lettuce is so 2004, and if you eat lettuce, you’re an ignorant fucking fool who is clearly not keeping up with modern health trends. Sure, it’s fine for you, but it’s not a goddamn superfood, and these days if it ain’t a superfood, it might as well be a mouthful of death, cancer, and dingleberries.
Now let’s talk arugula. Sweet, sweeeet arugula. Actually, it’s not sweet at all, but figuratively, hell yeah it is. Some of its distinguished attributes:
Texture-Perfect, a little bit rough like the finest of sandpapers, but also soft and smooth-a provocative dichotomy that really challenges the eater and begs the deep question: Is it rough, or is it smooth? Answer: it is awesome.
Moisture content- Ideal, not soggy or moisture-laden, but optimally filled for a nice crispness that neither dries nor soaks the mouth upon mastication (Oh baby, let’s masticate!)
Size-Fucking fantastic. You can just grab heaps and handfuls and shove them aggressively into your face hole. Upon doing so, with little petioles sticking out the corners of your mouth, it’s hard not to imagine yourself as a majestic brontosaurus nibbling off the canopy.
Shape-Sexy. Never has another leaf awakened within me such forbidden desires.
Maybe it’s because their art sucks. Maybe it doesn’t, and they’re just self-critical. Or maybe they just realize it doesn’t really mean anything. I mean, even if you happened to be a wildly successful sculptor, and you’d been lauded and praised by society for years, maybe decades, and you’d made a living off your craft, and people paid handsomely for your work, and others elevated your efforts to almost mythical status, and you had the respect and admiration of countless folks…maybe you at one moment still realize that all you’re doing is carving dicks out of marble. And that doesn’t really do much for society’s problems….so you kill yourself. I don’t know, just a theory I have.
I recognize this all sounds quite harsh and insensitive. And honestly, no hate towards artists. Being generous to myself here, I suppose in some way you could construe me as attempting to be an artist. I like to write bad music. I type words from time to time. The drive to create is innate, and I say yee-haw to anyone who scratches that itch. Just don’t expect your work to mean something to others. And certainly, don’t be pretentious and impose your unjustly elevated opinions of yourself and your creations on the rest of the world. That’s just annoying. Plus, one day, your façade of great self-importance will crumble, and with it your ego. You may get depressed and kill yourself.
Just sayin’..
PS: A disclaimer, please don’t kill yourself. That is not what I’m saying. Even if you are a marble dong sculptor. Especially if you’re a marble dong sculptor! Most of us aren’t really doing that much for society. That’s ok, that’s why we have Elon Musk. Your friends and family need you, and that’s hopefully your most important role in life. And if you can somehow make a living carving weeners out of rock, I am highly impressed and somewhat jealous, that is awesome, keep that going as long as you can, you are surely winning at the game of life.
Yolo 69 420 