an open letter to jaded cashiers

i get it. you don't like your job. maybe it's the bosses or the hours or maybe you're too good for your job. hey, i've been there. i've been you, serving the public eight hours at a time and loathing all parts of the experience. no one likes to be treated like shit and unfortunately people have a tendency to treat cashiers like shit. and that's fucked up and totally not cool. you're mad at the world and you're totally justified in your rage.

but don't take it out on me. i know you need an outlet and i wish you luck in your quest to find one. but i can assure you i'm not that dude. i've seen things from your perspective and i empathize to a degree. my empathy is made blatantly obvious by how well mannered i am in my interactions with cashiers. so please, when i stroll up into the front of the line ready to make my purchase, please don't retort to my politeness with some rude behavior. i'm trying to be a nice guy here. but if you push my buttons, then suddenly i find myself pushed into my own form of cashier rage. here i was just trying to be nice and now i'm getting shitted on for my efforts.

you see what happened there? you're suddenly guilty of being everything you hate in everyone else. people treat you like crap and that makes you mad. you take your anger out on me and maybe you somehow feel better, but you shouldn't. as a cashier, you of all people should know how much it sucks to be treated like crap. and every time you pull that shit on me, i start to feel less and less bad for you. i start to think that maybe you're a douche and you deserve to be where you are, behind that register not enjoying one moment of it.

and please spare me the shopping advice. you not liking your job is not a good reason for you to tell me i shouldn't shop there. yes, i understand, you would never shop here. and i would hope you wouldn't if you hate it so much. but that's not me. i don't have to answer to your asshole bosses. you either work in a place that has excellent prices or a convenient location and there's not much you can say that will convince me that i shouldn't shop here. so thanks, sorta, for the advice. but maybe you should think about the money i spend in this "hellhole," and how part of it ends up in your paycheck.... the same paycheck which i'm sure you spend on shit you enjoy. if everyone decides to stop shopping here, you'll stop receiving paychecks and you'll be out of a job.

but i get it. you can always find another job being a shitty cashier somewhere else.

and to all the cool cashiers out there, i love you and hope you take no offense. i'm a big fan and you should be commended for staying so awesome under such hostile conditions. you're the best of our breed.

so long replacement refs, i hardly knew ya

i for one am gonna miss the replacement refs in the nfl. sure, they were pretty bad at their job, made a ton of mistakes, and were absolutely responsible for fucking up the final outcome of a few games along the way. as far as the art of refereeing goes, they were hard to watch... kinda like that sucky band your friend is in who always guilt trips you into going to see them live and you go cuz you know it means a lot to your friend but boy does that band suck. yea, it's a lot like that. these were the kinda referees that only their own mothers could love... unless their mothers had money on the green bay packers three nights ago.

so if the replacement refs sucked so much, why do i suddenly find myself a fan of theirs now that i know they won't be around anymore? mostly it's cuz i'm a fan of chaos. i love watching things not go as planned. and who plans harder than the nfl? there's a time limit and boundaries, and rules.... so many rules. it's such a big show and the expectations are so high and everyone expects the nfl to deliver on a consistent, never-ending basis. up until this whole replacement ref debacle, i'd dare say that as far as packaging a sports product for tv goes, no one runs a tighter ship than the nfl. so watching replacement refs fuck it all up brought me a certain kind of joy. it's the same thing as watching people fall down staircases (or the ever so rare falling upstairs). it's a train wreck. it's watching explosions. who doesn't, on some primal level, enjoy the fuck out of that sorta thing?

i also take into account that these refs were thrown into a situation they couldn't win. there was no way they were gonna be able to keep up with the speed of the game and deliver the goods. and yet the nfl stuck by them hard for three weeks. they defended them publicly and fined coaches for disrespecting them. players trashed them on radio shows and twitter accounts. i found it kinda hard not to sympathize with the poor bastards. the nfl fucked up by not taking care of the "real" refs in the first place before the season started. these replacements took the fall and were subjected to being boo'd by thousands. imagine how shitty that feels?

or how great, who knows? they were villains, whether they liked it or not. and if you're gonna be labeled a villain no matter how hard you try not to be one, why not flip the script and enjoy it for what it's worth? as it stands now, these replacements will have this story to tell for the rest of their lives. they'll be able to say that they were the ones who tarnished the infallible nfl. up until three days ago, the nfl thought they could do whatever they wanted and the fans would always blindly stick by their side. but by messing up one certain game so bad, there was no way the nfl could stay the course any longer.

these replacement refs may have been a scourge to the purity of football. but they may have also helped the nfl evolve. for once fans were outraged enough to start saying things like, "i'm not watching that anymore." i don't know if most fans would've followed through at first, but this was just the beginning. people were just starting to say it. if bad things kept happening, fans would've eventually followed through on the tough talk and stopped watching.

and if you don't believe it, the nfl surely did. it's no coincidence that talks with the "real" refs intensified the day after the infamous seahawks/packers debacle. an agreement was finalized in two days.... TWO DAYS! the nfl went three weeks deep into the regular season talking tough and in the end, all it took was two days to totally deflate and admit defeat.

if this were a battle, the replacement refs won. sure, they won't work in the nfl anymore, but their impact will be felt for many years to come. it'll be some time before anyone... fans, nfl brass, the "real" refs, players/coaches, etc forgets what happened this season.

way to go replacement refs. you're gone but won't be forgotten.

 

things i think i know about fighting

i know i suck at fighting. that's first and foremost. okay, i don't know that for sure... but it's most likely the safest of assumptions. i haven't been in a fight since the fifth grade. and even that fight was pretty uneventful. me and this other kid, mike, paced around each other. we were surrounded by kids from school. he took a swing at my ear and it hurt. i looked up and next thing i knew, my brother phil had jumped on his back.  we were fighting on some dude's front yard and it was at that moment that he came out of his house and chased us away.

so that's it. that's my fighting career pretty much. i'd say i'm 0-1, but my loss is a technicality. we never got to finish it. who knows what would've happened? sometimes i like to think that maybe i have this natural flair for fighting and if i was given the proper chance, i would've kicked mike's ass in fifth grade.

but i don't like fighting. i'm usually the dude who tries to break it up. which is good and leads me to my next point about fighting. i'm convinced you can stop almost all fights from happening. the only fights you can't stop are the ones that start with a cheap shot.... and that's not fair cuz no one sees that coming. it's not fair to the dude you hit and it's not fair to people like me who try to play peace keeper. but otherwise, most fights start with two dudes (or females) talking shit to each other. if you can get a few people in between them who are really committed to not seeing them fight, then you can usually have them talk trash to one another till they exhaust themselves and lose the passion they had to kick one another's asses.

on to the next point- don't judge people by how they look. just the other night i saw 2 people kick 4 people's asses. i tell no lie. and if you lined the 6 combatants up, you'd probably pick the 4 dudes dressed in your typical urban/thuggish attire to be able to handle the other 2, one with long hair and glasses, the other with a fancy looking hat (sorry billy, love your fancy hats, please don't kick my ass). and if you would've picked those 4, you would've been very wrong that night.

whatever it is that inspires people to fight seems like a big deal at the moment. but most of the time, if you allow yourself to sleep on it, whatever it is you found yourself fighting over will seem like way less of a big deal. i'm not saying all reasons to fight are stupid or unimportant.... there's exceptions to this rule i suppose... i'm speaking more about the majority of the time, and from what i have seen with my own eyes.

i don't think fighting is cool. but at the same time, i also think there should be more fighting. every time i hear about a stabbing or a shooting, i think to myself, how much better would it be if they just threw fists at each other instead? fighting's a shitty thing to do, but if you compare it to certain things, it doesn't seem so bad. i'd love to root for world peace... but i don't think it's very likely in my lifetime. so if i can trade down some of the more violent stuff that happens for fistfights, i'd be all for it.

anyways, if you can and when in doubt, hug it out bitches. real men give hugs. increase the peace. i'm out.

the extra point

"no fucking way am i going out there to watch them kick an extra point. coach, i repsect the hell out of you, but i'm not doing it. there's nothing that can convince me to go back out there in front of those people, those cameras, those refs, and the entire football watching world just so they can kick a meaningless point over my head. it's not happening." - that's what i would've said if i was a member of the green bay packers last night when they were looking for 11 guys to put out on the field so they could finish the game with the extra point play.

the extra point itself was meaningless. the clock for the game expired and there was nothing that was gonna change the fact that the packers were robbed, screwed, and gonna lose a game that they should've won. the packers left the field. this shit was over. victims of a crime, it was time to hit the locker room and lick their wounds away from the cameras and away from those fucking replacement refs.

the packers should be given points in classiness. they did end up sending 11 guys out onto the field cuz technically the game can't end till an extra point is kicked. the seahawks already scored the winning touchdown as time expired. all this extra point would do is rub the burn in a little deeper, as coaches, players, and maybe the loudest home crowd in the nfl celebrated what could be the biggest bad call in nfl history.

seahawks gloated in the aftermath. didn't they know the rules? they knew what happened here. why didn't they just take what the refs gave them and run home as fast as they could? nobody wanted to hear about how hard they played or how well they executed or how well deserved this victory was. everyone knew the packers got screwed. it was on live tv.

and minutes later, after the initial pandemonium died down, 11 green bay packers ran out onto the field to stand in a formation and watch the seahawks kick a meaningless extra point through the uprights. they could've refused and protested and never showed up on that field. what would anyone have done? they would've been forced to end the game and give the victory to the seahawks and wrap it up.

i don't know what drove anyone on the packers to do the "right thing." but that was some classy shit. and through all the pandemonium and discussion and media blitzkrieg, i don't think it should be overlooked that after taking one of the worst robberies in all of nfl history, the packers came back out and finished the game cuz that's just what you do. that's fucking class. that's what i'm gonna remember the most.

i don't care what you think (a stand up comedy tale)

i did a set last night at the weekly open mic i co-host on sunday nights. i told a joke about women complaining about men catcalling and how i wish women would catcall me. i'd write the joke here but the 'stand up to print' conversion never works out well....so i guess you'll just have to catch me tell jokes somewhere at some point in the future if you're really that interested. the joke is not what's important at this moment... just the subject matter.

about 30 minutes after my set, i'm talking to a friend who's sitting next to a dude who's sorta a friend... i guess... maybe more of an acquaintance. and he's there with his lady friend. i make no assumptions about their relationship... all i know for sure is she's a lady and she's his friend. the acquaintance turns to me and says, "me and her have been talking about your set for the past 20 minutes. maybe you can help us out with something."

i'm already shuddering inside. it's almost always a sucky experience anytime anyone wants to talk in depth about my material. but me, trying to be a nice dude, i say, "ok." so he's telling me how where she comes from, it's a compliment for men to catcall women (i never caught the specifics of where she was from... and that's for a few reasons.... we're in a bar with live music and the music's loud. i'm half paying attention to the music and already half looking for a way out of this conversation. so specifics are missed). he goes on to say that women go out of their way to look good so they can get this kind of public attention. and apparently i'm ridiculing the whole process and i should rethink the whole thing through.

she apparently couldn't talk directly to me. he'd say stuff and every now and then she'd butt in, sorta talk low in his direction, and then he'd repeat whatever she was interjecting with. but the point, in brief, is that i shouldn't assume that all women hate being catcalled and hounded by dudes in public. um, okay, lesson learned... i guess. with my new lesson learned, i took the first awkward silence that came up as a chance to book. i ran to another friend a few seats down and talked about something.... anything... i can't even remember what... it was just important for me to get out of there.

all i'm trying to say here is that i don't really care what you think about my comedy. i'll take advice on how to make a joke better or if a joke just outright sucks. what i will not put up for discussion is the idea behind the joke. if i had been interested in a fair discussion last night (i wasn't), i would've spoke my piece and it probably would've went something like this:

look, i get that there's two sides to every coin and that a lot of jokes are based on broad assumptions and because of this i will always encounter the exceptions who are opposed to my views. that shit comes with the territory. but i gotta tell you, i don't know where your lady friend happens to be from, but i don't dig her philosophy. and i don't know if she can just simply blame it on where she came from. but hey, what do i know? stupid me, for being raised by a strong woman whom i have the honor to call mom who ingrained into me the idea that women deserve to be treated with respect and shouldn't be treated as objects. i was taught to have manners and that those manners don't just go away at the first sight of ass and titties. where i come from, that kind of behavior is ugly, moronic, and sad. but hey, to each their own.

of all the things to grab on to in my set, this is the one that sent you and your lady friend into a lively 20 minute conversation? in the same set i also talked about rights for gay people, abortion, the homeless, and beer. and the joke about catcalls is the one that got you talking, the one you couldn't let slide, the one you had to stop me for and talk my ear off when i'm just trying to enjoy a beverage and some live music?

this is comedy. you're not gonna agree with everything i say. so if you don't agree, keep that shit to yourself. i'm not telling you to shut up, what i'm telling you is that your words will be wasted on me cuz i don't care. catcalling is stupid and that's why i mock it and there's nothing no one from any far away place can say to convince me otherwise. it's a joke. either laugh or don't, like it or tell me it sucks. i can deal with that. "hey josh, your catcalling joke sucks." awesome, that only took you five seconds.

what i should've told you last night is nobody gives a fuck what you think. oh, and this is an open mic.... if you gotta get that shit off your chest so bad, sign up on the list and have at it. write a joke, tell a joke, and then come talk to me after. until then... shut the fuck up. thank you.

these commercials will be interrupted by football

i love me some football. but every sunday when i sit down to watch a game or two, it ends up feeling more like i'm watching a marathon of commercials that is occasionally interrupted by clips of live football. i'm constantly being told to buy cars and drink beer and take pills to help my fading erection. fox is selling me iphones while cbs is telling me that something from samsung is cheaper AND better. a lot of these commercials are tailor made to be geared towards football fans. there's a lot of commercials that include fans wearing jerseys or even actual football players telling me what to spend my money on.

at the end of the day, i've memorized commercial scripts almost as well as i've memorized the names and numbers of players who do awesome things on the football field. i walk away with a few highlights stuck in my head... those awesome plays that are bound to make sportscenter's top 10 this week. but those highlights are swimming around in my head with commercial jingles that i can't stop singing to myself.

i don't like commercials on tv at all. i think the whole thing stinks. i pay a company for the right to watch this stuff in my home. stop trying to sell me stuff. someone's already making money off of me. why are those same people who are making money off of me selling time to other companies so they can try and berate me into buying stuff in the comfort of my own home? it bothers me that the nfl makes all this money at the expense of me, who apparently has nothing better to do on any given sunday than to commit 3-4 hours to each game i decide to watch.

just today i heard a certain commentator state that high ranking members of the nfl are starting to complain about the replacement refs they have and how long it's taking them to make decisions.... because that is adding time to the game and all of the sudden the addition of unnecessary time being added to the time frame of a football game is a crime. wanna shorten the actual time it takes to watch a game from beginning to end? i have a great idea. maybe one less ford commercial. enough. not only will i not be buying a ford pick up truck, but i now dislike dennis leary more than ever cuz i have to hear his voice over and over and over and over and over.

i'm sure advertising works. i'm sure there's ridiculous studies that have proven the effectiveness of advertising.  i'm probably the exception. i see the same product over and over and it makes me wanna buy anything but that product. fuck you coca cola, i'll stay away from your products out of spite. you already own a good chunk of my time on sunday, that's all you're getting out of me.

and i won't get over this. people should be pissed about this. advertisements are robbing us of our time. we're being played by the same people we pay for the pleasure to be entertained. it goes beyond tv and football games. they show us commercials at movies theaters. it costs me $12 to get inside and $5 if i want a soda (never coca cola of course). then i have to sit through honda commercials just to get to the trailers. it's bullshit. we live in a world where advertising keeps finding more avenues to get into our lives.

all i ever wanted to do was enjoy the game. this is my time... my time to chill and relax and i choose to spend it by watching a sport i'm a fan of. it sucks that my time has been sold to corporations behind my back so they can scream at me to go out and buy their shit in the comfort of my own home.

and if your counter argument is that the nfl needs to make money somehow, give me a break. coach and player salaries are inflated. they sell tickets and merchandise and that stuff is never cheap. at this point, i'd be happy if they just scaled back the amount of commercials. all these commercials that are shown during nfl games, and the way it's rubbed in our face during games (logos, logos everywhere) is nothing more than a result of their unnecessary greed.

dating the president

there's something about election season that makes me think about dating. for months we find ourselves being swooned by candidates who tell us why we should choose them to be our president. it's like once every four years we're suddenly sexy as fuck to all these politicians who wanna get in our pants. and it's always flattering to hear people of stature tour the country, give speeches, and battle each other just to receive some of our affection.

much like i've experienced in dating, in the beginning, politicians put on the charm. they make sure to always look and act their best for us. they tell us what we wanna hear... sometimes they even bend truths or straight out lie, knowing that it'll better their chances of getting us to give them a pull of the lever on election day.

and in return, we usually fall hard for them in the beginning. if you happen to be someone who's planning to vote, you're usually passionately behind the person you're choosing. they can do no harm in your eyes and anyone else who would want to compete with them is hopeless and unaware of how incomparable they are.

and if you're not voting, you're just weird. get out and vote. you can't live the rest of your life without reaching out and getting to know your leaders. but i get it, you've been burned. some politician somewhere in the past broke your heart and you'll never trust another politician ever again. but you can't judge all candidates based on what one asshole did to you in the past. you have to move on and keep trying and hoping that somewhere out there is the right political choice for you. never give up.

much like most brand new relationships, on a president's first term, we find ourselves filled with such hope. it's a fresh start. this time things are gonna work out. this time our lives will be better and more complete. in the most simplest of terms, this time around we will be more happy and less sad because this time around we found the one..... this is the one who will take care of us and ensure a better future for us all.

as time rolls on, we become jaded. we've set the bar too high. we start to nag and say that the president isn't doing enough or that he's fucking everything up. why doesn't he care about me anymore? what happened to the candidate that told me everything was gonna get better and that he'd be there for me through thick and through thin.

before you know it, you're thinking about seeing other candidates. about three years into it you begin to find a group of candidates who tell you that they can treat you better than he does. give them a chance. they point out all the president's faults and all the ways he treats you bad. they fight one another for a chance to be the next in line.

and then we vote again. it's almost like we dump the president and then he tries to convince us why we should take him back. he tells us that he knows he fucked up but that there were good times and that he can do better if we'd just give him one more shot.

at the same time, a fresh faced charmer is telling you to forget that man. look at all he's done to you. come get with this. i'm the future you're looking for. i can give you the things you need. don't let him sucker you into another chance. he'll only let you down like he did the first time. you owe it to yourself to move on and start something new with someone who knows how to treat a voter.

more times than not, it seems we take the president back. sure, he's got his flaws, but now that he's more aware of them, this time around he'll be better to us. he's not perfect, but nobody is. we've grown so close to him, now's not the time to throw him to the curb and start all over. it's so much work to get to know somebody from square one again. it'll be easier and more comforting this way (sometimes we do vote for the fresh faced charmer. when that happens, you know the previous president fucked up bad).

and after another four years of growing closer, the president will end up leaving us. he'll dump us and we'll know with all certainty, that this time it's really over. we'll be stuck with all the baggage that comes with an eight year relationship and he'll fly off into the sunset into his bright new future without us. and then, a few months down the line, he'll have the nerve to come out of nowhere and try to pawn us off to one of his buddies. typical politician.

now i think i understand why some people refuse to vote. me, i'm a hopeless romantic, so i'll keep voting no matter how many times i get burned.

the misadventures of smoking pot

i used to be a pothead. i used to love smoking pot. now, i don't smoke at all. i officially called it quits at age 28. but even for years before that (6-7 if i had to guess), my pot smoking habit dwindled and became smaller and smaller as i noticed i just wasn't enjoying the high like i used to.

i remember when i first started smoking pot. that shit was fun. it was dangerous too... not the pot itself... just the act of smoking it. i lived at home with my parents. so i had to hide it from them. i did most of my smoking outdoors so i had to hide it from cops. i had to hide it from friends' parents. it was like an unspoken pact. we're all gonna smoke a shit load of this stuff together and in unison pretend that we never touch the stuff in front of parents, teachers, and other authority figures.

and that was fun for years. just having to find pot was an adventure. when i first started smoking, it was the era of beepers and payphones. no one had a cell. we had to page dealers and wait for callbacks and use numerical codes. we had to walk far distances to meet up with dealers. sometimes dealers lived with their parents and we had to put on an act like we weren't there to make a weed transaction. sometimes dealers were hanging out somewhere far away. i didn't know a lot of dealers. if one of them happened to be far away... like a bus trip or something... it was time to make a bus trip. shit wasn't easy. but looking back, it was always an adventure.

then there was the actual act of smoking it. the biggest challenge was finding a place, usually outdoors, to do it. every now and then we knew someone cool or old enough who smoked pot openly at their place, but most of the time it was an outdoors adventure. this lead to me having knowledge of every cool place in north bergen... every park and odd back alley, train tracks and cliffs, and under that bridge where all those homeless people lived.

sometimes we'd try and play it off and walk down the street and keep it moving. to my memory, this actually had a 100% success rate. i've never been busted for smoking pot while walking down a street somewhere. it's funny to look back on that and think how the most obvious, non private way was probably the most effective.

then there were cars. we'd roll in crews. sometimes there'd be 2-3 cars all hiding out somewhere that we'd think was safe. hotboxing was always fun. we'd roll the windows up and keep them up till the smoking was finished and we were all suffocating in a thick cloud of marijuana smoke. and then, usually when the driver had enough, the windows would get rolled down, we'd air out, and then be on our way.... most likely to get munchies.

and munchies were awesome. we'd roll to diners or convenience store parking lots and just rot. it's almost as if that was the main event. we'd all get stoned out of  our minds and then find some place to sit and chill for hours. and i can't complain. i grew up around great scenery. we were always close to the hudson river and the new york city skyline. there was always something cool or stupid to do.... like steal golf balls from the driving range or race around town.

one time we were racing on kennedy blvd. there were two cars.... joe's and lucas's. we just finished hotboxing. we're doing 70 down kennedy and all of the sudden we hear and see cop sirens coming up behind us to pull over joe's car (the car i happened to be in). we pulled the car over into a quick chek parking lot where a crew of cops started to give us the business. the car reeked of pot. we were doomed. they searched the car and they searched us all... one by one they went through all our shit while the rest of us sat on a curb and watched. the cops made fun of us the whole time. finally, when they found about a dimebag's worth of pot, they turned to the line of us sitting on the curb and one cop says, "ok, who's is this?"

and in maybe the most clutch moment, my friend chet says, "mine." he didn't have to do it. i don't even think it was his, i think it was shared among us all. but he took the blame and if anyone else felt like me, we just sat and watched and felt awful that our friend was gonna take the fall for five of us. the cop asked chet to put his hands out. he then took the pot and threw it in chet's hands. he looked him straight in the eyes and said....

"eat it. eat the weed."

and chet, outdoing his own clutchness, didn't say a word. in one swift moment he lifted the weed to his mouth and ate it. the cops said we were lucky they were so nice, told us to stop fucking around and then they left (interesting side note, my other friend lucas, peeled off in his car just as the cops were about done with us. he broke a snapple bottle with his car as he did it. so it seemed really dramatic. the cops hopped into their two cars and pulled him over about three blocks away. he received several tickets. poor bastard got it worst than anyone that night).

but that was then. as time went on, people started to move out and get apartments. everyone got cell phones. getting pot became easy. smoking it was even easier. soon we weren't on the run from the law anymore. nothing was dangerous. we weren't exploring new ground or having ridiculous late night conversations in random parking lots. all of the sudden we were ordering pizzas and watching tv. and all of the sudden pot got boring.

and it makes me wonder if i was ever in it for the pot in the first place. looking back, seems like i was in it for an adventure.... for the right to say i'm having a really good time. i look back, and even though it wasn't perfect (cuz it wasn't... there were long waits that went no where, nights that we never found pot at all, times when we got bad shit, winters when we froze our asses off... i've had money stolen from me on a few occasions), when i wrap the whole thing up into one major experience, it was fucking awesome and fun and i'm so glad i got to live through it.

now, i don't miss pot. i don't miss being high. what i do miss is walking and driving around aimlessly. i miss having to come up with creative ways to pass the time. i miss the lack of responsibilities that allowed us all so much time to go out and be young, adventurous, and more times than not, stupid. i cherish the memories. that was some good shit. and because of that, i might never have a bad word to say about pot.

don't touch me (volume 1)

i included (volume 1) in the title cuz i can see myself writing many posts titled, 'don't touch me.' it's a topic i can go on and on about.

but today's version is about massages... not all massages, but more specifically the massages they give us at work on a yearly basis. every october at my job is "customer service appreciation month." and our job does a bunch of cool shit for us. there's lots of free food, prizes... this year there's even a halloween party that will include awesome things like booze and karaoke. one of the many things they give away are massages. they bring a company in, have 'em set up shop in a conference room and raffle away massage spots. not everyone's a winner so they're sorta a coveted thing around the office.

so every year this comes around and every year they ask everyone who wants a massage and every year i say i'm not interested. and every year people react like i'm crazy. and maybe i am. but i'm just not into it. the whole thing's awkward. i know cuz the very first year i was there, i did sign up for a massage. and what they do is, they send you into a conference room, four people at a time, and you receive these 15 minute massages.... obviously over the clothes... it's not the kinda massage you get at the spa or whatever.

that's just the set up. the awkwardness comes in the details.

you never know who you're gonna be in the massage room with. it could be your boss or that cretin you can't stand or maybe even your office crush. there's no control over that (i have limited control over that, to be explained in just a minute). and even if all other three people in the room with me are awesome, it's still weird to sit around and receive massages at the same time in a conference room during work hours.

beyond that, you walk in and they have aroma candles lit and mellow music playing. the whole thing's kinda a cheese fest. your dealing with some masseuse who's just had their hands on a plethora of your coworkers. i know it's not exactly a germ exchange like drinking out of the same bottle, but last i checked, there are no barriers for cooties and the cootie shot is an urban myth that was debunked sometime in 1998.

but it makes me wonder if the masseuses are sizing us up. when they go to lunch, do they talk about their least favorite person they had to lay their hands on today? what if the whole time they're taking stock of everyone and comparing them and either fucking, marrying, or killing them in their imaginations. cuz that's what i'd do.

and it's just 15 minutes. like i said, this isn't even a real massage. okay, i'm weird with all sorts of forms of strangers touching me. but even if i was into strangers touching me, i'm pretty sure these 15 minute sessions are the fast food of massages. wow, 15 minutes. thanks for loosening me up just a little bit.... now i'm gonna go back to work and get tense again.

and you gotta see some people and the shit eating grin they rock after the massage. makes me think a lot of people at my job are not getting touched by other people a lot. and i always get the, "you don't know what you're missing" routine. and there's usually only two types of people who say that to me:

type 1- people with inactive sex lives.

type 2- people who are married. which leads me to believe their marriages are miserable if a 15 minute assembly line massage classifies as "feeling great."

anyways... to bring this sucker home.... i work in the department that schedules everything. so i have to schedule the massages. and anytime there's call outs, i get asked if i wanna take the empty slot. i never do. and  i know it's just people at my job being nice to me but seriously everyone, i just don't like strangers touching me. it's not up for debate. it's been this way for 32 years and a 15 minute massage in the conference room isn't going to change that.

looking for a punchline in libya

this stuff going on in libya and these protests going on at u.s. embassies around the world is pretty serious stuff. this is tough subject matter. it's the kind of shit that doesn't illicit belly laughs or guffaws. when people converse with one another about the whole thing, there's never going to be a whole lot of smiling going on. no matter how you dice this thing, it's a bummer.

and that sucks. i suck in these moments. this is when i wanna come up with something that will crack you the fuck up. something that will make you laugh and forget all the awful shit for a moment. or maybe even illicit the kinda laughter that makes you wonder why anyone anywhere takes anything so serious that it escalates and becomes a body count on the scroll of our 24/7 news networks.

i wanna find the punchline. but it's hard to even figure out where to begin. there's a movie mocking a god and people are fucking pissed. people tend to get enraged when you mock their god. doesn't really matter what god they believe in. people take that shit serious. it literally is a matter of life or death. and i don't know what's sadder.... that we mock each other's gods, that people get enraged at the mocking of their gods, or that we have all these fucking gods hanging around in the first place.

somewhere down the line, waaaaay in the future they'll look back at us and laugh. there's the punchline. look at these idiots. 2012 and they're killing one another over imaginary friends. at some point humans will evolve past the idea of gods. when that does happen, gods will become as passe of a concept as a flat earth, another issue that got some people in trouble. there was a point in history where you couldn't say the earth was round. that was some heretic shit. imagine that. seems ridiculous, right?

exactly! one day the shit we do will be exposed as ridiculous. and if that's the case, it means that it's always been ridiculous. we shouldn't have to wait for the demise of many generations to come to the realization that this whole fucking thing is absurd. it's ridiculous right here, right now, in this moment. we've become so caught up in who's wrong and who's right that no one seems to realize that we're all wrong... waaaaaay fucking wrong. and we look foolish and we should be ashamed of ourselves and your great, great, great, great, great grandchildren are gonna have something to guffaw about then. having no real emotional attachment to us, they'll rip through us like a page in a history book, mock us, and hope they guess the right answers on a multiple choice exam.

this whole thing seems so huge and so serious and so unsolvable. but all it'll ever evolve into is a question on a multiple choice exam. so let's cut the shit already.

it's gotta be the beard

they didn't ask for id at the door.

someone assumes i'm older than them.

someone assumes i'm wiser than them.

i woke up today feeling awesome.

crumbs fall from my mouth but never touch the floor.

i hate shaving.

people come up and ask me if i got taller overnight. i didn't.

i'm the prettiest dude in the picture.

abraham lincoln's the greatest president of all time.

zz top's new album rocks hard.

you can't read my poker face.

i paid for one bag of doritos but the vending machine gave me two.

my chin feels warm.

the waitress assumed i wanted the lumberjack special. she was right in her assumption.

i always know what i'm talking about.

some dude held a door open for me.

the bus showed up early today.

vikings were badass.

so were pirates.

rick rubin, super producer.

the cops let me go and told me to have a nice day.

no one will make direct eye contact with me. it's as if everyone seems distracted.

obviously every female in the room wants some of this but is just too shy to approach me.

subway only charged me $5 for a foot long sandwich. what a deal!

you read this whole thing.

faith evolving

on some random day in my past, probably about 11-12 years ago, i woke up, looked around and screamed out loud to no one in particular, "this is fucking chaos! none of this makes sense! anyone who believes otherwise is a fool!" and just like that, i was an angry atheist. i had went to sleep the night before as a bright eyed believer. not anymore. now i didn't believe in anything.

and it felt great. i felt unburdened. not believing in anything was a very light load to carry. takes a while to get exhausted. i'd frolic through everyone else's maps of make believe and cackle at everyone's feeble attempts to make any sense out of life, or out of anything for that matter. all i knew is that all was chaos, nothing made sense, and i couldn't feel happier or more free about it.

i had struggled with all sorts of belief mechanisms before that. i had my weird hippie /transcendentalist / taoist / karma is the way phase. that eventually gave way to a born again christian phase. and some time after that i eased back in to my more hippie-ish ways. everything was gonna be alright... man. you just gotta go with the flow.

i look back at that cartoon and laugh. what a sucker. he fell for anything that would help alleviate him of his biggest fears... those being death and that the world is a cold place. he had no idea that all he had to do was sorta embrace what he feared, and he'd feel a lot better about it.

so there i was, the angry atheist. angry at the world before the world could give him something to be angry about. this new found freedom would soon become a burden. at a certain point, it ached to look at everyone i knew and see them all as empty vessels. if life has no purpose, then surely people don't either. everyone around me was a purposeless being.

and that started to seem insane. especially when president bush's second term was about to end. all of the sudden i started thinking differently. maybe there is some purpose... just a little. i can't just stand back and let the world fall to shit. i gotta care about something. and there i was.... ready to put my faith back into people. i'd probably never go back to invisible deities, but people on earth, physical people you can feel, hear, and smell... they were real. and it was time for me to invest in the good ones.

and i started to lighten up. i wanted to love again. i had stopped believing in love for so long. if people are real, then surely the connection between two people can be real also. there's gotta be a such thing as love, right? i wanted to love my friends and family. i wanted to have a girlfriend to love and to love me back. i wanted all to be love. and soon i got lost in this idea that we, as people, could make the world a better place through love.

i'd look around and see a world of strangers and i'd try to see the best in everyone. i figured everyone had some good in them to share with others. and i started to lose sight of myself. and soon i started to feel slighted. here i was seeing the best in everyone else, and no one was giving me their best in return. i had over compensated. i had raised expectations too high. people can be good, there's the potential, but they'll eventually let you down... over and over and over and over. and i'm not exempt. i'm just as guilty of letting others down as anyone else.

and then i stopped believing in others so hard. i crawled deeper inside myself. i started running. i started writing more. and soon i started to believe in me. i figured i'm as good a vessel for my faith as anything else. i figured the only thing i have any control over is myself. there's no power in the cosmos or hope in humanity that's gonna make life any better. i'm responsible for that. everyone is, but everyone is responsible for their own contributions to life. i can't let the disappointments of a sometimes cold existence mired in chaos slow me down. in the end, i'm all i got and i'm all i'm allowed to believe in. to believe in anything else seems insane.

that's where i stand now. i'm sure things will change again though soon enough. it always does. faith's always evolving.

not such a riotfest

this past saturday i went to 'riotfest' in williamsburgh park, brooklyn. 'riotfest' is, in short, a festival type concert with several bands (7 to be specific for this line up). there was much to be psyched for in this line up, the major draw being two headlining acts, 'the descendants,' and, 'gogol bordello.' it was looking to be a fantastic day/night spent in the ever loving glow of punk rock music.

i got there early. i wanted to catch all the bands. the first band in particular, 'larry and his flask,' were highly recommended to me by a friend. they didn't disappoint. though the crowd was small at this point, they put on a hell of a show. the lead singer at one point said it was early for them (it was about 2pm). they looked, moved, and played music like some rabid party animals. it was a raucous good time, even if it was only 2pm, which is morning time by most punk rock standards i suppose.

at this point the sun was shining and all was beautiful. in between bands i'd try and grab a beer and some shade. my friend matt showed up somewhere around the end of the second band (the menzingers, who play catchy, fast paced, nice guy punk rock). we grabbed a beer and i watched him be popular cuz you can't be at concerts with matt without matt knowing a ton of people.

we then caught, 'the screaming females.' a three piece band that dressed in all black and two of them were dudes. they played some kinda chaotic metal/punk fusion. the singer was an oddly adorable force of rage that projected some kinda intensity that seemed too large for the body it was coming out of. she sporadically ripped leads on her guitar that made the hendrix fan in me scream out loud. it's safe to say i'm stricken by her.

then came, 'the bronx.' they were a hardcore band which is good cuz you can't have a music festival without a good fucking hardcore band. they brought it. and by it i mean not only did they bring awesome hardcore grooves, but they also brought the rain. it seemed almost surreal how the singer bounced around the stage, almost as if he were a hardcore shaman calling on the rain with his dance. they were going hard and the storm clouds started to come in. i stood there grooving to the music getting myself ready for the downpour and mentally preparing myself to rock out in the rain.

and then, 'the bronx,' were done. the rain started. at first the rain was light. me and matt went to go get food at some food stands. as we approached the food stands, the rain started to come down harder. there were three foods stands and two of them were closing up shop. the only stand with the heart to go on was the one selling cod burgers.

we ordered our cod burgers and as we waited for our food to be prepared, an announcement was made from the stage. we were about as far from the stage as you could be so we didn't hear the specifics. but it went something like this:

"we're expecting severe winds....... please make  your way to the exits......" there was a lot i didn't catch in between all that. but what me and matt did catch was the crowd breaking out for the exits immediately. that was it. riotfest was over. we were all sent home. the rain didn't start no more than five minutes earlier and they had already decided to call it off.

i know there were tornado warnings and whatnot and you don't wanna fuck with that kinda thing. still, i was fucking pissed. they only gave it five minutes. they couldn't try and wait it out. maybe tell us something like, "hey, wait around for 30 minutes and we'll make a decision at that time to see how this plays out." it was like some dude behind the scenes couldn't wait to clock out and go home early. this thing is called riotfest! c'mon! we can do this shit in the rain, right? this is punk rock, right? you don't put the word 'riot' in the name of the concert and pussy out over a few minutes of rain.

i was also pissed at how quick the crowd dispersed. where's the anger? where's the rage? where's the riot? i'm not condoning violence.... but there was hardly a 'fuck you' heard from anyone. i didn't hear any real complaining till we were all outside and it was too late. it was like the entire crowd was more than happy to accommodate the request to leave now. fuck that! someone scream. this isn't right. i'm ready to rock out in the rain. why isn't anyone else?

i watched as the crowd dispersed. i waited for my cod burger. security people told us to get out of there. "not without my burger, dude." as soon as i got my burger, we made our way for the exit. i crammed cod burger into my mouth in the pouring rain, as a security guard shouted out, "soggy food's the best!" right then it was. i was starved... and pissed. in my mind i had three more bands to go, and now all i had was this delicious cod burger that is getting soaked in the rain.

as we left, we slowed down and waited for irina who was meeting us there. she didn't get to see any bands. by the time we met up with her, the rain had died down to a drizzle. my cod burger almost outlasted the rain. we stood outside the venue with some of matt's friends and commiserated about what a bunch of bullshit this was, what a bunch of pussies they were for calling the show.

and then we did what any reasonable group of people would do, we went to the nearest bar. luckily our ticket stubs got us in for free at brooklyn bowl. so we sat and drank and ate (i know, i just ate. irina didn't eat though and matt can eat all the time and i ordered a dessert, brownie ala mode). there was a tv near by where we saw they had the usc vs. syracuse college football game on. that was being held at metlife stadium in jersey.... not far away from where we were. they had delayed the game due to severe weather. as we were getting to the bar, they were just starting that game up again. it felt like an insult. like, hey, look, this football game won't be called off... not like riotfest was.

we sat around. we bs'd. we checked in with social networks. and then matt found out that two of the bands we'd yet to see, 'hot water music,' and, 'the descendants,' had set up a free show somewhere in brooklyn. we finished up our grub and drinks and made our way to this club. but by the time we got there, the line was around the corner of the block. it wasn't long till some dude came outside and said, "we're not letting anymore people in. sorry. but now  you're officially standing around for no reason."

it was like the entire line stood in collective disbelief. no one disbanded. everyone stood their ground. where was this attitude at riotfest damn it!? i went to the front of the club to see what the scoop was and it was the same story, place is packed. sorry, but no one else is getting in here tonight.

we had struck up a conversation with the dude in front of us on this line and he told us that jello biafra (of 'dead kennedys' fame) was playing a show at the knitting factory for $15. as soon as we convinced ourselves that waiting on that line any longer was futile, we made our way to the knitting factory.

and that night i saw one of my biggest punk rock heroes. and it was all so accidental. jello biafra and his band, 'the guantanamo school of medicine,' put on a hell of a show. i didn't know what to expect. maybe jello was old and finished. maybe there'd be no, 'dead kennedys,' tunes played. both of these thoughts couldn't have been farther from the truth. jello was a fucking madman on that stage and the set was sprinkled with about six, 'dead kennedys,' songs over all.

riotfest had turned into an odd night. most of the day's happenings somehow revolved around a disappointment. however, i can't say that i was disappointed by the end of the night. it was a fucking good time over all. there was a shit load of live music and beer drinking with friends. and a lot of it felt like an adventure. whether we were getting stuck in the rain or rushing around to make different shows around brooklyn, the pace was hectic and fun. plus, they're gonna refund us our money for riotfest being called off in the middle. looking back on the whole thing now, i suddenly have no complaints.

tis the (football) season / haters gonna hate

as you can probably tell from your favorite social networking site, football season is back. i'm sure non-football fans everywhere let out a collective, "ugh," when they saw what their news feed and/or timeline would be inundated with today. football, love it or hate it, takes over and becomes impossible to ignore. to the lovers i say, finally! to the haters i say, don't worry, there's only like 20 more weeks to go. it'll be over in no time... and for the ladies, it ends just in time for valentine's day, which i'm sure will be used as a form of immediate payback for many of you.

i'm a huge football fan. but i recognize that this probably puts me in the category of being a fan of something other people can't stand. i imagine many people see my football related posts on facebook and/or twitter and they dislike it in just the same manner i dislike their posts about whatever stupid television show / movie / book / hobby / etc they happen to be into. i kinda use this as a moment of self reflection... i realize that i'm no better than those i judge negatively. hopefully i'll remember that and not judge others so negatively next time i see a post regarding anything i can't understand other people liking.

looks like no one's perfect and we're all guilty of liking something other people find stupid. if that's the case, then maybe we should all stop hating on each other... i'm gonna try and do my part. next time i see a facebook post about something i think is stupid, i'm gonna tell myself that whoever posted it enjoys this stupid thing like i enjoy football. so even if it is stupid (and if i don't like it, it must be), i'll take comfort in knowing that they're enjoying something and that's pretty cool (nickelback is the exception. no one should enjoy nickelback).

i happen to be a jets fan. as a jets fan i have to put up with a lot of grief from giants fans. i'm not sure why. we're not in the same conference or division. but a lot of giants fans seem to hate the jets and a lot of jets fans seem to hate the giants. i personally don't subscribe to this concept. i have no ill will towards the new york giants. and if they're having a better season than the jets (it happens a lot), i roll with it. it's still a sports team in my area, good for them.

but i'm sure this goes well beyond just jets and giants fans. there's something hateful in a lot of football fans. i think a lot of fans need to learn to let go. if you look through the bullshit for a second, all we're really doing is rooting for a team of millionaires who work for billionaires and wear the colors of "your" team. it's not that serious. have fun with it. but there's no reason to let it turn you into something ugly. a football loss shouldn't ruin your day. watching your friend's favorite team lose shouldn't make your day. no one should say something like, "now that (insert your favorite team here) have won the superbowl, i can die in peace." that's ridiculous. this isn't your life. it's not your accomplishment. if it's something you can't just simply enjoy, and you have to dig your nails into it to the point where you become ugly and/or obsessive, maybe you should chill back and get your own life's priorities in order.

but that's just my opinion. as they say, "haters gonna hate."

to the rest of you, enjoy the season.

so long, brian scalabrine

today the news hit the internet like an asteroid hitting the planet. to the dismay of millions of basketball fans worldwide, the great brian scalabrine has decided to hang it up and retire. he stated that no teams have any interest in him, but i can't honestly believe that to be true.



this bench warming every man has been a darling with basketball fans everywhere ever since the new jersey nets drafted him in 2001. he bounced around a few teams in his career but no matter where he landed, one thing always remained the same, his team was always awesome. this can't just be some dumb coincidence. despite his lack of playing time, scalabrine mattered. he knew it, the coaches knew it, and the fans knew it.

he may never have the honor of being inducted into a hall of fame. but who needs a hall of fame when you've already entered the hallowed halls of our hearts? sometimes sports is about a lot more than the dudes with the stacked stat lines. everyone loves an underdog. when scalabrine would actually see playing time, we all saw playing time. he was our nba rudy. he was us.

thank you brian scalabrine. i tip my hat to you. you sir are a goddamned icon and absolutely the only thing i've ever liked about the boston celtics in all of its entire history.

crash and burn

when you land in a pit and don't see me, just know that i died first. i haven't seen anything for a while. this is nothing new for me. the concept of seeing nothing is old, boring and predictable. to think, this caused tremors of terror to run through my body way back when. but it's nothing. you'll get the hang of it. you have no choice. when the bulb burns out, you can't buy a new one. you are the bulb. you'll be removed and that will make room for someone else to come through and do the exact same mundane shit you just did. this isn't a big deal. it's happening all the time. it's happened countless times before you. countless. people way younger and weaker have already surpassed this hurdle. don't cry now. don't you know that in this moment, you might possibly cement a legacy that you'll never have control over again? and sure, you might say, "no big deal," and, "you don't care." and you're right. but you don't mean it when you say it. your words don't match your gut.

so c'mon, this is it! suck it in for all it's worth. after this, you'll never care again. you'll be relieved of that duty. i know it sounds crazy. but you adapt quick. you have no choice. and in the end, maybe that's what this whole thing is about. a whole career spent in the driver's seat only to realize that in the bigger scheme of things, you never drove this machine in the first place. good luck finding the pilot. there's no 1-800 number to call and file a complaint with. you're gonna crash and burn baby! and you've spent a whole lifetime trying to pretend  you didn't know that.

this is no big deal.
this is nothing.

a craving for silence

i developed an earache over this past weekend. the pain of which climaxed yesterday.... which is well timed. i had a busy weekend socially which included a wedding and barbecues to attend. as soon as monday (labor day, yesterday) came around, and i found myself with nothing to do all day, the pain shooting through my ear became unbearable. when i first woke up, i figured it'd die down eventually. but that didn't happen. a few hours into the day i cherished the fact that i had nothing to do and decided i would give it my best effort to make sure it stayed that way.

i stayed in. i watched a movie. as soon as the movie was over, i didn't wanna deal with anything anymore. i wanted complete silence. not just in hopes that silence would be a relief for my ear, but a relief from everything. it'd been a busy weekend and this was how it was all gonna come to an end. with this kinda pain, i just wanted to shut everything off.... the lights, the volume, you, me, and everything in the world.

i decided i'd sit in silence. i'd ignore my phone, stay off of facebook, ignore twitter, forget about the internet. i  wanted to write this yesterday, but i was too involved in my own personal vow of silence. i sat and contemplated and thought about what a relief it was to turn everything off. what a great break from everything. i usually try and live my life at breakneck speed. i'm no fan of peace and quiet. i usually crave some kinda noise at all times. i love everything to be loud. but here i was allowing myself to turn away from it all... to take a break. no running. no conversations. no critical thinking. nothing challenging.

i can't say i'm any better for the experience. but i figure everything can't be turned on bright and loud all the time. even though that's how i prefer things to be around me, just this one time, it was good to tell everything around me to fuck off and leave me alone. it was good to pull my own turtle in the shell, disappearing act. but being who i am, i can't stay in that place for too long. yesterday i had a craving for silence. it was fulfilled and today i woke up ready as usual to turn the volume up on everything i possibly can.