clowns

i was in a burger king today eating and i saw a female clown there. she was just wrapping up her shift. apparently she was there making balloon animals and what not for kids inside of the burger king. for some reason i felt bad for her. here she was, looking totally out of place in her bright colors. it just didn't seem to fit the scene.

here's the thing about me and clowns... i get them... or i think i do. and i feel bad for them. clowns just want to make kids smile mostly. i'm not sure what it is inside of them that makes them tick. i guess being overly eager to make children smile can come across as a bit creepy in certain situations... but someone's gotta help make the kids smile. it's a shitty world. without clowns, cartoons, and toys what the fuck do kids got? they need these distractions while we try to hide this shitty world from them until they reach a certain age. i think this is why so many teens are fucked up and depressed and what not. but that's another concept for another day.

we need to try and give kids some happy years before reality sets in around them. clowns are here to help that cause. it's really some classy, honorable shit to devote yourself to. and yet some people fear them, some people hate them, some people mock them and so on and so forth.

and that's what really sucks about being a clown. you have to turn your seriousness in to do it right. cuz kids don't want serious. they want you at your most absurd. the less serious the better. works for the kids, but the rest of the world can't take you serious. when people don't take you serious, they tend to look down upon you.

and that's fucked up! 100 years ago your rugrat would be digging in coal mines or tending a farm by now. this is the best age in all of history to be a kid. and a lot of it has to do with how the concept of childhood has evolved over the years. kids used to be employees you didn't have to pay. now we're paying a lot of extra money to keep their hands clean and their faces smiling. clowns fall into the whole scheme of things. you bring your 2-3 little terrors into burger king for chicken nuggets and crowns AND there's a person there willing to act ridiculous just so they can make your kid a stupid balloon animal that you know is going to make them stupid happy. you need to take heed and appreciate that.

some people hate kids. some people don't wanna deal with them. a lot of people love their kids but could care less about other kids. yet clowns selflessly put themselves out there for all kids. so go ahead and hate on clowns. but remember that under the make up and ridiculousness is a real person who for some crazy reason wants to do something that involves helping kids enjoy life more. wow, what assholes.

a blog about being a fan of stuff

we live in a world filled with dreamers. people everywhere would like nothing more than to do something they love at a level that makes them famous. i'm not gonna get into the psychoanalysis of fame here... when looked at simply, fame seems fucking awesome. i'm sure like anything else, it has its drawbacks... but then again so does working a job you sorta don't like for 40-50 years... waiting for the end of the shift and the end of the week till you retire or die. meanwhile elsewhere in the world, it looks like some people are actually enjoying this roller coaster ride.

but here's the thing, we can't all be famous. we can't all be in bands or movies or write books or score touchdowns. we can't all be the ace of cakes... someone's gotta be around to enjoy it all. if it weren't for a fan base, then being famous would be impossible. you can't be an ace of cakes if no one's eating cake.

if you're not famous, then you're probably making fame possible. we all do it. the famous need us. in fact, they need us a lot more than we need them. without famous people, our lives would pretty much be the same.... go to work, do whatever it is we do with our free time and so on and so forth. but if it wasn't for the rest of us, the famous would just be normal people sitting in the cubicle next to you looking over your shoulder as you try to sneak a game of tetris in.

and it's good that they're not here with the rest of us. life would probably suck a lot more if there weren't any stages or platforms. we need art and music. someone's gotta give us the goods. music, movies, books, sports, etc, etc... all this stuff adds to things we enjoy in life which makes life an all around cooler experience.

i'm in no way trying to discourage anyone from being famous. if you think you got it, go for it (and if you think you can make my blog famous, go for it). but there's nothing wrong with being a fan. we help make them who they are which fuels them to create things we enjoy. so if you're a fan of something, be a fucking fan! make some noise! jump around! get excited! love the fuck out of whatever it is you love. and remember that whatever it is you think is so awesome wouldn't be there if it weren't for you.

where ya been josh???

i'm coming off an unplanned hiatus from blogging. it's not that i didn't want to blog. i've had a ton of ideas floating around in my head lately. it's my computer. there was something wrong with it and i don't know what. i'm not even sure how i got on it today. for the past bunch of days i've been unplugging and replugging wires hoping that some combo will get it to turn on. today was that day. now i'm scared to turn my computer off.

and it's a good thing i got it to turn on. i'm too poor to get it fixed or buy a new one and my job demands that i work from home in december (december's our peak season, so it's usually the only month i'm asked to work from home). that would've forced me to spend money i really don't have and that would've ruined christmas, a holiday i choose to celebrate (even though i don't believe in the dude it's about) by spending a stupid amount of money on people i see twice a year.

but i'm back so blogging should resume at a semi healthy flow. i had previously said november was going to be blogtastic but here i am with a 10 day vacancy in the middle of the month with no blogs. so my bad. if it upsets you or something, i'll give you 50% off the next blog. you're welcome.

love always,

@joshaintfunny (<--- shameless reminder to follow me on twitter which is like facebook except there's no farmville requests.)

surrounded by douchebags

i went to austin, texas recently for about a week with some friends of mine. a good time was had by all. one of the observations i made about austin is that the people there were really nice to us. the people of austin seemed to generally be friendlier people that i am usually accustomed to.

so then i come back to jersey where douchebaggery seems to be more in style. and i found myself wondering why do people in austin seem so much nicer than they do around here? a part of me thought maybe i just wasn't there long enough to get to know the bad side of austin. i'm sure somewhere under that cover of hospitality is a whole underbelly of jerks and douchebags hiding from my sight.

but then i started to think about every other time i travel outside of jersey. i've been to new orleans, las vegas, montreal, buffalo, los angeles, and colorado springs, all within recent years and everywhere i went people were straight up nicer than they are in my area (when i say my area, i'm thinking nj/nyc).

could it be that people weren't nicer everywhere i went? maybe that's just the norm as far as people go. maybe my area is below average. maybe the average person around here is just a bigger douchebag than the average person elsewhere.

and why not? look at the area i live in. it's densely populated to the point where it feels like people on top of people. there's constant noise and sirens and never a dull moment which may work against us. they call new york city the city that never sleeps. but have you seen what a lack of sleep does to someone's attitude? it's all one big clusterfuck of a rat race... an overcrowded rat race where the competition is tough, other rats are constantly in your way, and at the end of the day all you have to show for it is a stupid piece of cheese.

i'm not trying to say everyone that lives around here is an instant douchebag. there's definitely awesome people around here and it's not all doom and gloom. but for the most part, if you put our area in a douchebag contest with any other area in the world, i'm pretty sure odds would be steadily in our favor. we got douchebag written all over us.

so if you find yourself in other parts of the country (or the world for that matter), look around and see how wherever you may be stacks up against us in douchebaggery. and if you encounter a place that is full of hospitality, good manners, and all around swellness.... try and take a bit of that and bring it back home with you. fuck a souvenir from the gift shop, just bring back some of that awesomeness.

and for those of you who live around me and are starting to feel bad about who we are as a people and how others perceive us, don't worry... we're not the worst on the map. there's always philadelphia.

say it ain't so, joe (paterno)

joe paterno of penn state coaching fame was fired late last night. a child sex abuse scandal broke and it turns out it all happened under joe's nose.

at first i didn't know how to feel about it. i freaking loved joe paterno. i'm an avid football fan and if you would've asked me what i thought was the most awesome thing in all of football existence, i probably would've either said, jets rocking the world with a superbowl win, blue turf in boise, or motherfucking joe paterno.

the man's a legend. he's coached the same team for decades. he holds the record for most wins as a head coach. dude's been doing it well and right for too long. and throughout his whole tenure he was a cool customer. as his career stretched into the early 2000's, he grew to be like your awesome grandpa out there on the sideline still getting it done, still churning out quality football teams.

and he always tried to do things at a higher standard. his emphasis was on doing it the right way. he wasn't only a coach responsible for great players, he was responsible for helping to mold children into men and he wanted them to be great men.... it was more important to joe for them to be great human beings off the field than great players on it.

and this was supposed to be joe's legacy. when he called it quits and hung up his hat, he was supposed to hang his hat on the most secure and awe inspiring of legacies. when it was all said and done, who could be considered a greater force for all that is great about the sport of football than joe paterno?

and then this happened. inside the shadows a beast was lurking, something we were unaware of but it was waiting and couldn't hide forever. who knew it would all end like this? leaving behind a trail of sadness and anger and questions that will probably remain unanswered for a long time.


why???? why would you say nothing joe? why didn't you try to do more with the knowledge you had? why didn't you go to authorities? sure, you told your higher ups, but if they weren't going to do anything about it, why didn't you go out of your way to make sure this monster was squashed as early as possible?

and why the fuck would someone do such a thing? SANDUSKY. jerry sandusky. a name that will go down in infamy and will forever be synonymous with child sex abuse. you sexually abused children. you did more than just simply tarnish the name of an institution and end the tenure of a broken legend. you are the monster for which there are no kind words for. if you spent the rest of your life dodging rocks and spit, you'd be a lucky son of a bitch. i'd hope for justice to be served. but there's no true justice. there's no payback for what you've done. you can't give back and repair the childhoods you ruined. you can't unrape 10 year old boys. SANDUSKY, the reason people hope a place called Hell really exists because anything short of eternal suffering is getting off easy.

i was very saddened by all of this and at first very confused. they went after joe pa with a fury and i didn't want them to. somewhere in my head i wanted joe pa to have some sorta exemption, some sorta excuse, some sorta rational reason why his indifference should get a pass from us.

but he can't. him, all other coaches, all other authority figures who had any sort of knowledge of this horrendous situation should go and go immediately. walk west and never look back. you've lost your penn state privileges.

in the end i hope joe pa quietly walks away. i'm sure there will be court proceedings that will be splattered all over our tv's. i just hope joe keeps it quiet and fades off into the sunset. joe paterno. the name used to conjure ideas of high morality and ethics and consistency. now..... not so much.

i don't want joe to be the poster boy for what went wrong here. cuz at the end of the day, SANDUSKY's the one. SANDUSKY's the evil fucker for which there are no nice words. but guys like joe were supposed to protect us from the SANDUSKY's of the world.

joe's the poster boy for something different. perhaps it's indifference. or perhaps it's the concept of not rocking the boat too much and worrying more about the institutions we serve instead of serving ourselves. i'd like to think that anyone with a half a heart or conscience of any sort that is removed from an institution would call the cops or tell someone that could do something. it's not good enough to just tell your boss and forget about it. especially when you're joe paterno. don't you know what you stand for?

celebrating someone's birthday when they're not present (an office story)

we had a birthday at work today for someone in my department (it's a 5 person department so it's hard to miss birthdays). but our co-worker who's birthday it was took the day off, to which i say good for her! you should have your birthday off. shit, i think your birthday should be your own personal holiday. do with it as you please, just don't show up to work.

but unfortunately we don't all have jobs that can accommodate this and sometimes even if the availability is there to take the day off, some people still choose to work that day anyways (i myself work during a "black out" period. it's online retail so no days off around x-mas..... sooo robbed again for being born too close to that stupid, glory hogging holiday). so when people do show up to work on their birthdays, it's customary to at the least get your co-worker a cake.

even though it was marked on the calender and planned in advance, we'd forgotten that she had decided to use a vacation day. my supervisor, being the swell guy that he is, got a cake for her before he came into work today. once he got in, he, as well of the rest of us, realized she wouldn't be joining us today.

so what to do? i mean, he got the cake. she's not gonna be back till next week. the cake won't be any good at that point. so we decided that we should eat the cake anyways (side note: we got busy and forgot to eat the cake, but i'm pretty sure cake eating is on the agenda tomorrow once again when the birthday honoree won't be present).

this was one of them odd moments that had me thinking a whole lot about what's the right thing to do. at first i thought, if it was my birthday, i'd find it weird that my co-workers celebrated the occasion with cake while i wasn't there.

but it's not like that was the plan all along. our supervisor meant well by getting the cake. what's a guy to do? what's a department to do? how could we in good conscience let good cake go to waste? and it's not like we're a bunch of bad dudes... we would enjoy the cake eating while sincerely hoping our missing co-worker is having a great birthday.

so i think cake eating is the right thing to do... even if it may seem a little odd at the time of consumption. of course, the next part is telling her. cuz you can't just do something like that and not let her know you did it. if we kept it a secret from her, it'd be like we felt we were doing something wrong... but we're not... right? so the right thing to do is tell her.

"hey co-worker, we had cake to celebrate your birthday while you weren't here. hope you had a good one!"

we'll probably post pictures on her facebook page of us eating it. maybe that will help.

besides, it's not like one of us won't just buy another cake next week. two cakes in two weeks... the holidays are starting early for us!!!

joe frazier

dedicated to the memory of smokin' joe frazier.

life and sports and all else needs joe frazier. joe frazier represents that other dude, the one that might be the best, but we're really not sure. we look back on that era of boxing and most will say that ali was the greatest... but frazier beat him. that happened! so even if it was agreed by all (it isn't) that ali is the greatest, at one point, frazier beat the greatest.

and that's what life needs. no era can belong to only one guy, one team, one thing. the beatles needed the rolling stones. hulk hogan needed the macho man. robert deniro needed al pacino. joe montana needed dan marino. star wars needs star trek. coca cola needs pepsi.

it's competition. it's knowing that we'll never have a definitively best anything cuz the arguments will rage on. i may state that ali's considered the greatest of his era, but i know for damn sure there's people out there that would vehemently disagree. and that's the way it should be. no one thing should ever get away as the unchallenged best. because if that happened, everything would be boring and predictable.

there's enough sunshine for all the competitors to bask in. i'm all for the stoppage of these silly arguments of who's the best at what. it's all nonsense. it's a waste if you consider that both ali and frazier were amazing fighters and both should be enjoyed for what they did when they stepped in the ring.

let's enjoy everything awesome and stop limiting their awesomeness by trying to compare them to each other. in fact, let's acknowledge that their coexistence probably made for better competition. ali and frazier pushed each other to higher levels. they made each other that much better at what they did and helped solidify each other's legacies.

shutting down the competition (a story about buses)

i live in a super densely populated area that results in tons of buses everywhere. the main provider is nj transit. however, nj transit is not without competition. there is a more than decent amount of independently run shuttles and mini buses that compete with nj transit on a daily basis.

a lot of the competition can be sketchy, shady, and most likely unsafe. however, when it's all about just getting where you need to go, fuck it, i'll hop on that sketchy shuttle if it's gonna get me there quicker. and in a way, that's how it should be...i'm the consumer. i'm in the market to buy a ride to get somewhere as quick as possible. most times, i'm willing to hop on the first thing that shows up.

however, a lot of these other shuttles that run against nj transit are probably not in conditions that meet certain legal standards. i don't know for certain, but being in the area for as long as i have, i've heard a whole range of issues such as: no insurance, bus isn't registered, driver doesn't have a lisence, driver doesn't even have a legal form of id. or sometimes the buses are so old and beat up, there's just a ton of shit wrong with them that can get them pulled over.

the drivers of these buses also have a pretty crappy reputation when it comes to safe driving. the reputation is that they'll do dangerous things to get some place quicker (not like i've never seen a njt driver guilty of this either). a lot of people think they suck and ruin the quality of driving around here.

so you roll all that up into one big ball of consideration... it eventually leads to john law getting involved. it's usually in the form of a one day shutdown. they'll catch them all at the start of a major bus line or as they're coming out of the lincoln tunnel and pull them all over, find something wrong with them all, and impound all buses. this spreads to all the other bus drivers associated with them and that in turn leads to a total shutdown of the competition.

now there used to be a time where even though i took full advantage of these shuttles, i'd still think that maybe they were bad. one- they congest the roadways. two- it sorta hurts people who have jobs with nj transit. if these shuttles weren't around, nj transit could put more buses on these roadways and they'd be able to hire more people.

but that would just be a monopoly. i think someone should try to compete with the big, bad wolf of the bus routes. the demand is there. this area is way too populated to ever imagine there could be such a concept as enough buses.

anyways.... today was one of those days where they shut down the competition. there were no other buses available besides nj transit. and it sucked! buses were super crowded. the bus i got on to get to work was late... and i'd soon find out why... it takes forever to get anywhere when the bus has to go to EVERY SINGLE STOP and pick people up.

so while there may be some concern over safety and legality.... i can't help but think that these one day busts are a little counter productive. if there's something wrong with these other shuttles, something you think we should know, why not tell us? start a campaign. buy a commercial. mail me, email me, facebook me.... but when you decide to suddenly take hundreds of buses out of commission for a day, all you're really doing is adding to the misery of the common person who's just trying to go to school, work, the doctor, grandma's house, etc, etc, etc....

on a MONDAY no less!! c'mon!!!

they do this every so often, and every time they do, it reminds me of the upside of the sketchy, shady, dangerous shuttles. it actually cultivates my appreciation for them. they're legality means nothing to me... i didn't make the laws. i'm just a dude trying to get from point a to point b.

'state of the blog' blog

i'm coming off the biggest lapse in time in between publishing new posts here since late july (coincidentally when i quit drinking... cuz that equals more time to sit around and be bored and write stuff). i figure now is as good a time as any to reflect on the state of this blog, where it stands now, and where i plan to take it in the future.

first, i should report a brief state of the blogger who writes this blog. hi, i'm josh wells. i went on vacation to austin, tx and just got back yesterday. i didn't write shit while i was on vacation. i didn't plan to either. i figured i'd only be gone for a week so if i didn't feel the need to write, i knew i'd come back home and find myself writing soon.

i also chose to drink while on vacation. so that might've had something to do with it. but honestly, i think it's mostly that i didn't wanna sit around the hotel room writing blogs when there was a whole city i felt like i had to conquer in just a few days.

so that's where i'm at. i was sober for 3 months and 3 days and then went on a 6 day bender. i'm now 1 full day sober and plan to stay this way for some time. i drank a shitload of beer, but never on jersey soil. so i'm still on a roll as far as being sober at home goes.

i'm just throwing the sobriety stuff out there cuz i'm sure it plays a roll somehow in the production of this blog. it also gives you an idea of where my head's at. it felt really awesome to be sober for a little over 3 months. there's a part of me that wishes the streak would've continued. i know in about 9 months i'll think about how i could've went a year sober but didn't cuz of that week in austin. but fuck the regret. i did what i did cuz i was enjoying myself.

when i quit drinking in late july, i wasn't enjoying myself. i was just drinking cuz that's what i did. i fell in a comfortable pattern and realized that i just drank cuz i didn't know how else to pass the time. i felt like that was a pretty weak excuse to drink. so i quit. whenever someone asked me why i'd quit drinking, i'd say, 'i ran out of reasons to drink.' i was drinking without purpose. i wasn't celebrating anything. i was just mindlessly consuming.

but now i'm back in jersey. i'm sober. i just completed my first jog on jersey soil since being back and i feel really fucking good!

it probably also helps that yesterday was kinda a 'blah' day. vacations are great. but that day used to travel back always feels like a disposable day. i woke up and focused all my attention on getting back home which was halfway across the country. i had to fly to accomplish this. i don't like flying. i mean, i like the idea of flying in the sense that it's a quick way to get somewhere far, and for that i am grateful. but i hate being in a plane. i'm too tall to be comfortable and i don't like the idea of being in a metal tube for hours 30,000 feet in the air.

then once i got back, i had to find a way home. getting home from airports is always a minor pain in the ass. it usually involves long rides and traffic. by the time i get home, i'm thinking, "great, i'm finally home and no where near to going back to that awesome place i just was when i woke up today." oh, and my cats decided to throw a party and trash the place while i was away.

vacations are awesome. if there was just some way to wake up that last day and be home already, that would be totally rad.

anyways.....

this blog is gonna be alright people! i know that october only had 15 posts which is the lowest since july. i know that i took an 8 day break since my last post and i didn't even remember what my last post was about till i signed in today (it's about 'stairway to heaven' being overrated. i'm pretty proud of it. you should read it). but i'm back and i'm charged with a lot of ideas for new posts (at least 5, including this one). and by the time i get through those 5, i will probably already have thought about 5 new topics to write about so i look forward to november being blogtastic.

in the meantime, i hope you've taken advantage of this lapse in new posts by catching up on my old shit. i think i'm gonna have a pop quiz on new year's day or something and who ever knows the most about my blog's gonna win a crappy t-shirt. it'll probably be a self serving t-shirt with a less than spectacular phrase on it like, 'i know joshaintfunny.blogpost.com.'

i also have this ebook idea in the back of my head where i collect a bunch of old blogs (starting with stuff from my myspace days), tweets, and other josh related nonsense. so if you don't have a favorite book yet, give me some time, you will.

other than that, spread the word. there's only 2 of you. tweet links and tell your fb friends to read it or else kittens will die (okay, that's mean. kittens are gonna die either way and now i'm just sad).