"they sold out"

no, they didn't sell out.

YOU sold out!

you sold out when you chose a path with more security. you compromised your ideals and settled into a job that you never dreamed of as a youngster cuz youngsters don't dream that little.

what were "they" supposed to do? arenas, limos, big money contracts, and bright lights were calling... no, wait... they weren't calling.... they were screaming! they were knocking down the damn door. did "they" make a decision you disapprove of? were "they" supposed to turn down the opportunity to become household names to appease joe blow from their hometown? sorry success, can't let you in right now... we have a fan base that "respects" us for our underground-ness.

and what's your "respect" worth? before a band or an artist of any sort is on that cusp of making it huge, they're most likely in a semi-dire financial situation. sure, you got a job. you're doing okay. you can count on next week's paycheck and know for sure that if you don't do anything stupid, you'll make rent again like you always do. but "they" decided to take lesser jobs, or sometimes no job at all... just so they could fully pursue whatever it is you're such a big fucking fan of wholeheartedly.

if "they" don't sell out, "they" have no future pursuing what it is they sacrificed so hard for in the first place. sure a lot of people stay true and never sell out... and a lot of those people are selling guitars in their mid-40's at garage sales just to make ends meet. the whole time you played it safe and found some sorta respectability on a corporate ladder of some sort. what're you gonna do for your precious band now that they didn't sell out?

or will you just call it sad? will you tell others how at one point when you were younger, you saw nothing but potential in "them?" and now look... it's almost too hard to watch.

they owe it to "themselves" to sell out if they wanna sell out. if they can cut a paycheck that equals everything you'll ever earn, so be it. there's not a single fan accusing them of selling out that would do anything to help them in the future if they become "never were's."

it's real easy to hold others to unrealistic expectations that you would never hold yourself to. it's "their" art. "they" have the right to do as they like with it. if that means trading you, one bitter fan, for a thousand more who adore them, i think the decision is pretty easy to make.

next time you wanna call someone a "sell out," think about your own place in life. the only people saying it out loud are those who can harness the kinda bitterness where they can't even enjoy the idea of other people succeeding beyond their wildest dreams.

what's worse than a "sell out?" you, screaming it at them at the top of your lungs. you look and sound like a sad, bitter dumbass. if i had my choice between the two roles, i'd choose "sell out" every time.

it's cold in the fortress of solitude

i live in an apartment where i don't have the luxury to control the heat. usually that's not such a bad thing. the heat's almost always on when it's cold.. and when it's on, it's fucking hot in here. so there's usually no cold to complain about once i'm indoors.

but things tend to get a little sketchy during the transitional seasons. it was really nice the past couple of days... the kinda nice that makes you think winter and cold fronts are gone till late november. but then today happened... and today is cold. and it's only getting colder as it gets later.

and as of this post, still no heat. maybe it'll turn on eventually.. but i'm not sure so i'll plan for the rest of the night like it's not gonna turn on.

so tonight will probably be the kind of night that i wear a hoodie and wrap myself up in a blanket and lay around the house trying my best to make due with what i got and be thankful that i'm not homeless i suppose. better to have four walls than none.... right?

i'll drink cups of hot tea and think about how it's not so bad... i got cable to occupy my mind. i'm entertained. i'll get through this. i'm not some savage living some savage lifestyle. so there'll be no 'whoa is me' or pity parade on my own behalf.

cuz no matter what, i'm home. this is where i recharge my battery. eventually i'll fall asleep and i'll get a good night's sleep and it'll be awesome (i'm also really fucking tired and beat... i didn't get much sleep last night, making tonight's eventual sleeping session that much sweeter).

and i've begun to refer to my apartment as the fortress of solitude... only to myself... i don't actually say that shit to other people (until now i suppose). i remember when i first moved out... all i ever wanted to do was invite people over, hang out, party, never be alone.

that song's changed a whole lot over the years. just the other day i threw out my ashtrays... all of them. it was a pretty symbolic moment for me. i didn't once think, 'what if i have smokers over?' fuck 'em if they wanna smoke. they can step outside or they can not come over at all.

cuz this is my apartment damn it. and i'm gonna be comfortable in my own damn way cuz it's my home. so many times i've had people over and woken up the next day to the whole place reeking of cigarette smoke... i quit smoking cigarettes six years ago.. i should never have to deal with my home smelling of cigarette ever again. i'm free from those shackles, fuck the rest of you all!

but this isn't meant to be some big anti-smoking rant. this is more about me and how i like things to be and not compromising that. i guess i'm just trying to say that over the years i've learned to enjoy my down time... alone time... time by myself. it gets me centered... helps me refocus and get my shit together for the next time i leave my apartment and face the world. i don't enjoy company like i used to. i don't want to host a party or after hours anymore. and it's crazy, cuz i used to love that shit! but it's faded. usually when i'm home now, i'd just rather be alone... keep all my social activities elsewhere in the outside world.

my apartment's kinda crappy.... and i'll find a new one (hopefully sooner than later), and tonight i'll probably be cold... but it's still home. and i still know for a fact that tonight i'll be totally comfortable in my own skin all by myself, recharging my battery, with no worries at all about waking up basking in the odor of stale cigarette.

fighting cliches: the 'you only live once' edition

saying 'you only live once' shouldn't be a license to do anything and everything there is to do. if you find yourself in a situation where someone wants you to do something that you don't wanna do, like say drugs, sexual acts, a really crazy roller coaster, or going to a celine dion concert.... if you don't wanna do whatever it may be, the other person should refrain from saying something like, 'c'mon! you only live once!' as if that's some valid type of argument that should automatically persuade you to change your position on the matter.

yea i only live once (i assume anyways... but hey, different topic for a different day). but you're wrong if you think bringing that to my attention is gonna somehow convince me to do something i don't wanna do.

and i can flip that shit easily. yea i do only live once. since i only live once, i'm gonna do what i wanna do and only what i wanna do and not what other people want me to do. since i only live once, i'm gonna live my life trying to avoid pressure from others who are trying to coerce me into doing shit i don't wanna do.

if all we do is live once, we should live our lives to our own idea of fulfillment. we all got different ideas and concepts of what that might be... and that's totally cool. different strokes for different folks, right? (always fight off one cliche with another.)

what's not cool in the only life we live is getting on each other's backs and constantly trying to convince each other to do shit we don't wanna do. so get off my back, you're bringing me down! and if you're only gonna live once, i'm pretty sure you don't wanna go down being known as that kind of asshole.

hines ward

if you don't know who hines ward is, he was a receiver for the pittsburgh steelers. that was until recently. they released him and he spent a few days mulling over his options for his future... and after some thought and reflection decided he'd rather retire and be able to say that he was a steeler his whole career.

it's a proper ending to his career. cuz hines ward defines toughness. and when i think tough, the first nfl franchise that usually comes to mind is the pittsburgh steelers, who over the years and decades have had a reputation of usually being one of the tougher teams in the nfl.

hines ward was a wide receiver. and in this day in age in the nfl, there's a stereotype that suggests most wide receivers are pri madonnas. but hines ward was definitely the exception to that stereotype.

i don't know of any other receiver who's ever been so vilified by tough guy defenses in the nfl. he's been accused of playing dirty and hitting hard... sometimes too hard. hines ward isn't afraid to hit the dirt. hines ward isn't afraid to get in a dude's face or to throw an awesome block to make room for a runner behind him.

and yet he participated in 'dancing with the stars.' so all the while when tough motherfuckers like ray lewis were accusing hines ward of being too much of a tough guy for a wide receiver, they were talking about the same guy who would show up on nationwide tv in flashy outfits and give it his best go to dance around competitively. that dude who just performed a ballroom dance of some type, same dude who's put tough hits on some of the nfl's toughest dudes.

hines ward decided he wasn't gonna play elsewhere. there's no where else that a player like hines ward makes sense. when it's cold in pittsburgh in december, no one has any interest in seeing hines ward in a dolphin outfit in beautiful miami. he's a throwback to an earlier era of football, a tougher era. he's a standout who played in a time when the nfl was making major changes to make the game safer and less violent.

he may have been somewhat violent (for a receiver), but hines ward got the job done. he helped win two superbowls and was awarded a superbowl mvp award. he's been to probowls. hines ward may not be jerry rice... but no one ever complained about jerry rice bullying them on the field and hitting them too hard.

i don't want your joke

please don't try to offer me a joke that i can use in my routine. i'm not going to use it. i'm not going to use it for so many reasons.

you're not unique. you're not the first person who thought they had some great joke that i would hear and love so much that i would throw it right into my act.

and it's not that i think i'm funnier than you or better than your joke. i mean, okay, sometimes that is the case. sometimes the jokes i'm told are awful. and i know awful jokes... i have my own fair share of awful jokes that i have to sift through and throw away eventually when i realize they're just not that good. the last thing i need is anyone else's help in making the load of awful jokes any bigger. so sorry... your joke sucks and i'm not going to use it.

but even if your joke is a good joke, i'm still not gonna use it. it's a code of honor thing... i think most comics have the same or a similar code. we don't steal from one another and we don't tell other people's jokes. i do this out of passion. i wanna be a good stand up comedian.... i can't possibly respect myself if i try to get up on stage with something funny that someone else wrote. i'd be a fraud. i'd rather be a bad stand up comedian on my own than find success with jokes other people created.

so keep your funny joke. go hit an open mic. or go find another comic who takes jokes. i'm sure they're out there.

i'm not even sure what makes a person utter the words, "you can use this for your material." but i can tell you that i hear it a lot. i'm not sure what kinda validation you could possibly get out of someone else getting laughs from your jokes... me standing on a stage pretending i wrote it. how could that do anything but anger you?

i've had occasions where i'll be watching a stand comedy special on tv or whatever and i'll hear a joke that's similar to one of mine. and i'll know for a fact that whoever told it didn't steal it. they just thought the same thing that i did at some point in their life. it happens.... unfortunately. they had a similar experience at some point in their life that lead to a similar punchline. and though there's nothing i can do about these situations.... because it's all very accidental... these moments anger me.

so how could someone else not possibly get angry at the idea of knowing for a fact that the person telling the joke knows:

a- they didn't write that joke.

b- they know the person who wrote that joke.

c- the original author of said joke is not going to get any credit for it.

so please keep your jokes to yourself. or do your own stand up routine.

oh, and one more thing.... if you are gonna try to feed jokes to a stand up comedian, please don't use old bar jokes. i don't understand the joy people get in telling 4 minute long jokes that start with, "3 guys walk into a bar," and end with some predictable punchline. and then to try and think that i might actually wanna use that joke.... a joke you definitely didn't write yourself! you heard it from some dude who heard it from some dude... it's more than twice borrowed. you have no right to offer it for my consumption AND it's not really that funny.

josh's st. patrick's day paradox

today is st. patrick's day.

i coulda tried to study up on what st. patrick's day is all about, but i didn't. i do know this, i'm pretty sure it has some sorta humble beginnings that has nothing to do with drinking a shitload of booze. i'm sure excessive, blackout inducing drinking is to st. patrick's day as the easter bunny is to easter.

and i'm not here to poop all over the drinking. i get it. i used to be one of those dudes that used st. patrick's day as a reason to go out and get all sorts of fucked up. but it was never st. patrick's day specifically that inspired me to get hammered. i used to be the type that was always looking for a good reason to get hammered. the hangover and shame that comes the day after st. patrick's day is a lot more socially acceptable than that hangover i used to wear to work every tuesday.

and it also ties into the whole, 'it's always better to drink with others than to drink alone.' so being the type of dude that i used to be, how could i not drink copious amounts of booze on st. patrick's day? it was like finally the entire world around me was doing what i always like to do. can't miss out on that, right?

and i'm not gonna try and be all old about this and say that any of what i just said is stupid now that i'm who i am now and just not that into binge drinking. everyone should do their own thing and enjoy whatever it is they enjoy. so go ahead and drink green beer till you puke. i get it. i did it. i even thoroughly enjoyed it.

but now i don't. i don't wanna get blitzed or hammered. i don't want to blackout. i don't wanna wake up tomorrow and immediately the first thought that comes to mind is, 'what happened?'

but in a way, i'm still sorta glad that this holiday is used as a reason for everyone to go out and get hammered. it inspires people who don't go out a lot to go out and socialize. all of the sudden people i haven't seen in weeks, months, and years are out and about. and there's a bar in my neighborhood, the wild rover, and i expect a lot of good people i haven't seen in a while to show up. so i'll go out tonight to a local joint. but it won't really be to celebrate st. patrick's day. i'm going out in hopes that i'll be surrounded by a bunch of good people that i enjoy to be around and who i don't see a lot. so even though i'm not celebrating st. patrick's day, if it wasn't for st. patrick's day, that shit wouldn't happen.

so if anyone sees st. patrick, tell him i said thanks.

welcome home, your place is a mess

yesterday, (wednesday), i called my super and asked if he could fix the ceiling in my bathroom. there was a leak coming from upstairs and my ceiling was gross and damp and needed to be attended to. so he checked it out, called me back, and said he'd fix it on friday.

to my surprise i came home from work today (thursday) and see that my super had been here and had in fact fixed my bathroom ceiling a day early. awesome. one less thing i gotta worry about (until the next time the leak comes through cuz this is the third ceiling fix i've needed while living here).

and i'm appreciative of my super and his willingness to break his back every time something breaks or gets fucked up around the building (buildingS really, he's a super for three buildings, all owned by the same dude). so i'm sure this dude's job is no joy ride and it's probably one of the last things i'd ever wanna do for a living (i'm also horribly uncrafty and useless when it comes to fixing stuff).

but to my dismay and utter frustration, my place was a mess. there were traces of plaster and paint throughout my apartment. my entire bathroom needed to be wiped down. dude didn't do much to clean up after himself.

and this might just sound like me being bitchy... but here me out here. if you hired a chef to come over and cook for you, wouldn't it take some of the joy out of the experience if you had to do the dishes when dinner was done?

i don't know if that's a shitty analogy or not.... but i'd also like you to consider the idea that i don't ask for a leak in my bathroom ceiling. this is also the third fix i've needed for the same leak. the whole thing is a total inconvenience on me and me alone.

so after all the inconveniencing this experience puts me through, i have to come home after a day of work and clean up a mess too? that sucks! i didn't sign up for this. i walked through the door with ideas of chilling out... i've been working all damn day, my plan was to order greasy take out and watch a dvr'd episode of the latest 'south park.' i was psyched and ready to chill the fuck out.

so now i've just finished cleaning for the past hour or so.... i'm kinda pissed about it, pissed enough that there was something else i wanted to write about tonight but this took immediate priority cuz i had to get it out of my system. i'm not even sure if this post is gonna be entertaining to anyone but me... and even then it's probably only entertaining to me now as i write it cuz it's me letting my frustrations out somehow.

my hands smell like bleach. i didn't want this... not tonight. all i wanted was a cheese steak sandwich and some couch time.

i'm done. food and south park are calling. gonna salvage what remains of tonight.

assessing yourself (mental masturbation, the office edition)

this isn't about me, i swear. some dude that works at some other place that i don't work at told me all this and now i'm rewriting it to share with everyone because i feel it's worth other people reading (so if you're a boss or coworker of mine, it's your own fault if you assume this whole thing is really about me and that the statement i just made before this sentence is a lie... your fault).

however, to keep it all as simple as possible and to not further complicate things, i will now write the rest of this in a first person narration... only to keep it simple cuz i'm a simple dude.

once a year we receive our annual review at work. we then receive some sort of compensation (or none at all) based on this review. the review is given by our superior and for the most part, from what i can tell, it's based mostly on what my immediate supervisor observes of my performance for the year.

however, they make us complete a self assessment. we're given 4-5 topics and then we're asked to give ourselves a score of 1-5 for each topic, we're asked to pontificate a bit as to why we think we deserve the score we gave ourselves.

it's all masturbation to me... not actual masturbation... but we are playing with ourselves. and our bosses, they're watching us cuz they're sick bastards. not only are they watching us, but i think a good number of them are enjoying it.

beyond that, many times our superiors are watching us and waiting for us to finish. and once we're done and ready to call it quits and put the whole awkward experience behind us, they'll tell us the way we did it wasn't good enough. they'll give us pointers on how to improve and then expect us to go and do it all over again.

i wouldn't feel so bad about it if i felt the whole process amounted to anything. i can't help but feel like the whole thing's a sham. there's no way they're gonna process our raises based on how we grade ourselves. if that was the case, all the employees in the office would've been onto it a long time ago and everyone would give themselves high grades and call it a day.

if i give myself all 5's (the best i could give myself), there's no way my boss is gonna look at it, read the explanations behind the 5's, and then tell me that he agrees. what happens at the very end of the self assessment process is my boss tells me what he graded me on everything. there's no grand negotiation. if he gives me straight 2's (just as an example, i'm better than 2's people), it's not like i can take my straight 5's and hope that he'll average everything out and i'll have straight 3.5's. my raise is gonna be based on those 2's and that's the final score.

and i'm not trying to shit on my boss here. i'm pretty sure he's gotta turn around and do the same thing with his boss... and so does his boss and so on and so forth it goes all the way up the ladder. it's just the way it is and there's nothing my boss can do about it either.

my guess is this... and i don't know this for sure, though based on my many years of service, this explanation makes sense to me.

someone up high... or maybe a group of people collectively up high, come up with some number that's acceptable for raises this year. like if everyone got a 2% raise across the board, the company would be fine with that.

so then they tell their underlings that they can give out raises however they like, but in the end it all MUST average out to 2% per person. some people might get nothing and some people might get a 4% raise... but as long as the average is 2%... all is well in number land on the top rung of my company.

so my boss has a department and he's probably told to keep the average to 2% within the department. most likely, especially since it's a small department, he's gonna give everyone in it somewhere close to that 2%. why mess up the average or try and complicate things? but he's still gotta toe the company line and tell us to do self assessments cuz that's the process and that's that.

the best case scenario for the company is that employees give themselves lower scores than what their bosses give them. let's say i give myself all 2's, and my boss wanted to give me all 5's... he's probably going to see the 2's i gave myself and lower his a bit... maybe he'll lower them to 2's... maybe to 3's... who knows? but it's less money the company has to spend so it's the really good thing to do (company line wise) in the end.

that's why it's imperative to score myself high. i don't need to believe i earned those high scores. but i can't let them shaft me if for some reason they were gonna rate me higher than i was going to honestly rate myself. there's no punishment in this whole process for being too full of yourself.

anyways... the whole thing seems like a joke. the idea of a self assessment in principle is a cop out for managers who should be paying attention to their employees throughout the year. that's what effective management's all about, right? but i'll play the game... and i'll fill out the forms and i'll take orders to rewrite it once or twice and then i'll sit down and get my average raise and find out everyone else got an average raise as well (even though they tell us not to talk about it with each other... but c'mon!!). and then the whole thing will be done. i'll have a little more money... just in time to find out my rent went up again.

hooray life! i give it a 5!

karaoke therapy

karaoke is therapy.

if you allow yourself to let go and get into it, fun will be had. you will have a good time. you will smile. you will attain happiness... even if it's temporary and disappears right after. but hey, i'm not advocating a cure all in karaoke.. i'm recommending a great way to get off your ass and have a guaranteed good time.

everyone's singing. most people probably choose to do their singing in the privacy of their home or car or wherever other people can't hear them. and that's fine... totally understandable... some people aren't good singers, and some people are but lack the right amount of confidence. but even if you suck at singing, you still enjoy doing it... even if it's only when you're alone.

in a way, everyone's already practicing the sacred art of karaoke. they just don't do it in a bar or club where other people can hear them.

(and if you don't sing at all, even when you're totally alone... you seriously need to start singing... get to it. you'll thank me later.)

so if everyone's doing it, let's all do it together. the beauty of karaoke is you don't have to be "good" at singing to do it. you can be average, below average... whatever... karaoke's not a talent contest. karaoke's all about having fun.

and if there's anyone out there that tries to ruin it and turn it into anything more than that.. either by comparing singers or insulting singers.. that's their own loss and makes them lousy people who don't know how to let loose and have fun.

whether you drink or prefer to stay sober... on karaoke night everyone's out for the same reason. people love to sing to their favorite songs. so go do it. you were probably gonna do it anyways at some point by yourself. but karaoke is definitely one of those 'the more, the merrier,' type situations. so go, sing. find out for yourself.

karaoke is therapy and i'm prescribing it to all. you're welcome.

older dudes in suits

i work in an office complex. the company i work for is pretty laid back with the dress code. it's totally cool for me to show up to work in a t shirt and jeans. when it's cold i can wear a hoodie. in the summer we can even wear shorts as long as they go below the knees.

but there's older dudes at my job and in the other offices in our building who do dress in suits. i see them all the time inside and outside the building, in the cafe for breakfast and lunch, outside for smoke breaks.

i'm not sure if the older dudes at my job in particular are dressing up voluntarily or if there's some executive dress code that i don't know about cuz i'm not an executive employee.

who knows?

what i am sure of is this.... when i see older dudes in suits, i wonder how they feel. how do they feel about dressing up in a suit everyday? how do they feel about their job and what they do for a living? do they still follow their dreams? do they have dreams anymore? do dreams stop at a certain age? for all i know, maybe they are living their dream within the confines of an office building that i never associate with dreams.

when they go home, do they look forward to it? are they married, single, divorced? kids? no kids? are they alone and lonely? or maybe they're alone and content. maybe they live in a big house with a big family and everyone in their family drives them crazy. or maybe they have a family and they're perfectly fucking content with that.

when i see older dudes in suits, i'm not looking at them. i'm trying to use them as a mirror to look at myself. there's no way to know who's happy or sad or how anyone really feels about anything. but when i look at the older dudes in suits, i wonder about my own happiness. i begin to wonder about my own dreams.

when i enter the office everyday, i become so numb to these things. if i live my life day to day, i always figure it's good enough to just get through one more day and live to see a tomorrow with a secure form of employment.

and this isn't some kinda, 'i hate my job' rant. my job's fine. it doesn't make me sad. it doesn't depress me. i don't crave a different job and the idea of looking at classifieds for some other job horrifies me.

but i don't love my job either. i don't have a passion for what i do. i have a passion to survive and collect paychecks so that i can pay the rent on time and keep up with all of life's other expenses. it's that passion that keeps me going every single day.

and then i see the older dudes in suits and i realize that i've lost my way in the daily grind. i have dreams, but i don't think about them as much as i used to. my dreams aren't as loud and vivid as they used to be. there were points in my life where i couldn't turn the dream machine off... everyday was filled with thoughts of what i really wanted to do in life. but as the days turn into years, the thoughts pop up less frequently. the volume's been turned down.

i'm not mad at the older dudes in suits. i'm mad at myself for the thought that i could realistically see myself as one of them. and i don't wanna do that. i have nothing against the older dudes in suits, but it's just not for me. i can't envision my soul confined to cubicles and neckties from now till retirement. just typing the words feels like some sort of punishment... like maybe if i force myself to write the statement on a chalkboard 100 times, i'd finally drill the point home to the center of my soul where it would explode and become impossible to contain.

i'm going back to dreaming again. i have dreams. i'll envision them and chase them. and if i end up an older dude in a suit, i'll be an older dude in a suit still chasing after dreams. cuz i don't ever wanna say i'm too old to dream or too old to have dreams or too old to chase dreams.

when i see those older dudes in the suits, i envision me... i see me in a future after i throw in the towel, after i completely give up on my dreams and decide to willingly hold hands with a corporation till i can start to collect my 401k.

i'm not going out like that. i have dreams.

rush limbaugh is a slut

and a damn good one. no low level slut could hold a whole political party hostage quite like he does. you could practically divide the party lines and washington in half over rush limbaugh. the republicans, most of them, are the ones that would fuck him, have fucked him, will fuck him again when they get a chance, and they'd prefer nobody to publicly know about it. rush has so much republican dick on blackmail status.. it's no wonder it's hard to ever hear one of them go, 'yea, rush is dead wrong in this instance.' (i read today that mccain called rush out... good for you mccain, i absolve you of my anti-republican tirade in this one instance).

and the democrats... those are the ones shouting, SLUUUUUUT! LOOK AT THAT FAT SLUUUUUT! WHAT A DISGUSTING FAT SLUUUUUT! WE CAST SHAME UPON ANYONE WHO WOULD FUCK THAT!'

and then the republicans call the democrats elitists for casting judgement on him. he's only a racist, sexist, cult of personality that inappropriately manipulates the minds of waaaaay too many people. leave rush alone they'll say... it's not like he's collecting welfare. he's a self made man. give him his respect.

rush can break a republican with his radio show, but he can't do much to affect democrats. the republicans helped feed the beast that is rush limbaugh and now he's a terrible monster that is beyond their control.

he called someone a slut. this isn't his first controversy. i got a feeling it won't be his last. a part of me hopes it is... but i won't get my hopes too high on this one. you can count on rush limbaugh at just about any moment to say a phrase, statement, or word that will throw thousands, maybe even millions of people into an uproar.

i say forget rush limbaugh. most of the people he seems to offend are those that are more likely to vote democrat or more likely to lean liberal anyways. the democratic/liberal side of things is beyond rush limbaugh's command. if rush limbaugh tells people, 'don't vote for obama,' the only people that are listening are people who weren't gonna vote for him in the first place.

i think the best any of us can do is tune him out. let him have his audience who were gonna think the way they think anyways. let rush and the republicans eat each other alive while the rest of us sit back and pull that whole, 'did you hear someone talking? nah, it must've been the wind,' routine.

rush limbaugh just wants to be heard. he doesn't want your love, respect, or admiration. he needs to keep the money machine rolling. that's why he gave a half assed apology. cuz yet again, he's a slut. he's not really sorry... he's just a hoe trying to attract his advertisers back.

the best solution for this rush limbaugh problem would be if we all agreed not to fuck with him. don't listen to him. don't talk to him. don't listen to other people talk about him. don't tell other people to read this post i just wrote about him.

cuz that's how you fix sluts. everyone's gotta agree not to have sex with them and then they can no longer be a slut.

throwing away a pair of running sneakers

i bought a new pair of running sneakers today. with a new pair of sneakers, i will be throwing away my old pair of sneakers.

you could choose to measure your life in days and hours, weeks and months.... or you could measure your life by the shoes you wear on your feet.

these shoes in particular were with me for a pretty good time frame of my life. a lot happened in these shoes.

these were the shoes when i first learned i grew into a size 14. it was a hard lesson. the pair before these running sneakers were my first ever real attempt at buying running sneakers so i could run properly (up until that point i had been running in vans). but those sneakers were 13.5 which i thought was my shoe size. i tried them on at the store and they seemed like they would work but i learned after a few runs that they wouldn't. i don't know how, but my feet grew a half inch and i needed to upgrade... and soon... i'll spare the details of what could possibly happen if you run in sneakers a half size too small... but it was pretty awful.

so i got rid of the 13.5's which never accomplished much except for a few runs. got my new size 14 nike's and i was a running fool. running never felt better. i felt inspired to run more often and farther and i found myself pushing my usual limits on running.

at one particular point last year, i quit drinking alcohol completely for 3 months. during this time, i pushed myself to run even more often and it was probably the most serious push i ever gave myself running. what was once a 3-4 times a week habit was now becoming a 5-6, sometimes even all 7 days of the week habit. i found myself running faster and farther. i started running 10k's at the lake by my place on weekends. i'd eventually push that further and start running 8 miles at least once a weekend. and that's kinda where i stand right now.

i played basketball in these sneakers. i know that doesn't seem like a big deal... but there's a part of me that misses playing games outside. it's good recreation and something i'd like to do more often. and though i'm not all that skilled at basketball, i still had a lot of fun playing it. hopefully when the weather warms up, i'll find myself out there again... just with different shoes on my feet.

maybe more importantly than anything else, this pair of sneakers will be the first that i beat the life out of due to running. it'll be the first of what is hopefully many pairs of running sneakers that i run through. ending the era that is these sneakers is a badge of honor to me.... i'm proud that i ran these sneakers to a point where it's no longer acceptable to me to wear them.

these sneakers that i'm about to throw away are the first of many casualties in my pursuit to keep running.

a cautionary tale about sports fanaticism (aka the clipper darrell story)

this is clipper darrell:









darrell is a super fan. darrell has made a name for himself as being the most over the top, well known, well loved l.a. clippers fan in the world. in fact, he may be one of the more well known fans in all the nba. clipper darrell has spent years rooting for a franchise that hasn't had a lot to root for. the clippers have always been synonymous with losing and are constantly in the humongous shadow of the l.a. lakers.

but through it all, clipper darrell remained true to his heart and stuck by his team no matter what. he was always out in the spotlight rocking his crazy colored suit and sharing his love of the l.a. clippers with anyone and everyone.

so this season the l.a. clippers finally got it together. all of the sudden they have a couple of star players and they look like contenders. more people are suddenly watching and paying attention and wanna know what's going on with the l.a. clippers.

l.a. clippers management, noticing the success, decided now would be a good time to ask their #1 beloved super fan if he would stop referring to himself as clipper darrell. here they are finally getting a sniff of some success, and they're gonna go after their #1 fan. classy move.

their pr staff will tell you that clipper darrell is making money off the clipper name. and hey, maybe he is. but he's been at it for so long. he was a clippers fan when it never made sense for anyone in their right mind to root for them. clipper darrell is all you want in a sports fan. he doesn't abandon you when times get tough. he's there through and through in suit and character.

so now he's just darrell bailey. and that's alright, i'm sure darrell bailey's a swell dude.

but the problem is, here's a guy who spent a good chunk of his life building his whole reputation and personality around a sports team. he's well known by thousands (possibly millions, especially since espn's picked up the story) as that super clippers fan. that's his everything and the people who run the team took that away from him.

i'm sure he'll still be known as 'clipper darrell.' just because the team asked him to stop using it doesn't necessarily mean the rest of us won't call him that. but should he want to be known as that, after all he gave of himself for the team, and team management deciding it meant nothing to them?

clipper darrell could've used his time and dedication elsewhere in life. he could've been known for something different or pursued other passions. maybe pursue passions that mean more to darrell bailey the individual than clipper darrell the sports nut. it's one thing to be a fan and hoot and holler, but when the game's over, step out of the fan zone and back into the other aspects of your life.

the saddest aspect about sports fanaticism, in my eyes, is that people can truly love a team, but no matter what they do, that team can't reciprocate and love them back. it will always be a love that leads to emptiness and abusiveness. that sports team won't love you back, but maybe if you buy more tickets or memorabilia, the team will see you differently. keep spending... spending time and money, trying your best to impress something that is totally incapable of ever loving you back.

so go on, like sports. but don't let it own who you are or define you as a person. there's so much more depth to the human character. we could be so much more than super fans and sports junkies.