george zimmerman on twitter

if you were wondering who the biggest douchebag on twitter is these days, the answer is no longer chris brown. that award now goes to george zimmerman... y'know that guy who killed trayvon martin and got away with it? he finally found an outlet to speak to the public, and what a lucky public we are to have him out there making the internet a shittier place than it was before... a task that i thought was near impossible. but he did it.

he's not overly popular. sure, he's got more followers than me, but not too many, somewhere around 2500. and i feel it's pretty safe to assume that a decent percentage follow him ironically. but some of those people are actual fans. george zimmerman has a fan base. that's a thing that exists and is real. and if you read over some of his tweets, he seems to enjoy reminding everyone that he has supporters. sometimes he retweets them. sometimes he thanks them for being so supportive. that's when he's not busy quoting the bible cuz that's a thing he does... a lot.

and what church wouldn't be proud to have him? he's such a great example at turning your other cheek and whatnot. a true disciple of the lord. what would jesus do? pack heat and end a life i suppose. must be a missing chapter that never made the final cut. i'm not one for gods and afterlives, but i'd have a really hard time accepting a heaven that would have him. then again, he'd probably be a total buzzkill in the eternal hellfire heavy metal party that is hell.

anyways, if you're looking for a shitty time on the internet, and proof that sometimes the bad guys win, take a visit on over to twitter and give @therealgeorgez a read. maybe say something obnoxious or rude to him. i'm sure he'll forgive you for your transgression or if you're really lucky, he'll include you in what i imagine is his daily prayer ritual of thanking whatever creator decided he should get away with murder.

you are what you buy other people (a holiday message)

just remember, when it comes to christmas and the entire holiday season, you are totally what you buy other people and everyone is judging you based on the presents you buy them. so please, if there's someone in your life that you need high forms of validation from, i implore you to go out and get them the biggest, baddest gift you can find them. get them two of 'em. because if you don't, they'll like you less than they did yesterday and you will have a sadder 2014 as a result.

if the collective culture we get to share with one another can be called anything in one word, it's shallow. so let it shine. this is the big payoff. this will be for every store line and traffic jam you gutted out, for every asshole you had to curse out in public, for every early morning store stampede you participated in, for every child you pretended you didn't see but you really did so you bumped into them as you walked by them real fast with not even an apology because you saw register 4 was about to open up with the uninterested youngster who just came in for the night shift.

the days of thoughtfulness are over. if we were thoughtful people, we'd sit around in a circle by the fire singing, 'kumbaya,' and writing each other poems. how lame does that sound? nobody wants sonnets. you can't brag about sonnets to all your coworkers. people want flat screen tv's and kitchen appliances that cook only one specific thing that you'll probably only make three times in your life.

and please, please don't bring up the "meaning" of christmas. we've all seen the charlie brown christmas special. we all know where all that sentimental crap gets you, the saddest looking tree in the christmas tree contest. it's cute in a cartoon but in real life it sends out a, 'i think he's spending all his money on drugs,' vibe. we all work way too hard for this opportunity to show off and to try and outdo all other gift givers out there.

and if you even think of buying someone a gift card, all i can say is, how dare you. that's basically the equivalent of giving someone else a chore to do. here you go person i only sorta care about a little, go out to the store and buy something yourself. you couldn't be bothered with the mayhem. where is your christmas spirit?? people died for this (in tragic black friday store tramplings). we can't allow their deaths to be in vain. the show must go on.

why i don't like duck dynasty (a fashion manifesto)

there seems to be a lot of controversy surrounding the tv program, 'duck dynasty,' as of late. it seems suddenly a lot of people don't like them much anymore, which i think is good. i think it's about time everyone else caught up with me because when it comes to not liking, 'duck dynasty,' i'm a trailblazer who never needed awful comments made in a gq article to inspire my disdain for this show (although it does help keep the fire alive).

here's the thing about, 'duck dynasty.' the guys on that show, they're "those" kinda people. you know the kinda people i'm talking about, right? the kinda people that no matter how hard i try or how hard they try, i just can't get past my own prejudices to embrace them. they're what i like to call, 'camo guys.' y'know the type, they like to wear camouflage clothing out in public when it's absolutely unnecessary.

i'm no fashionista, but i do know this, camouflage clothing was made for one purpose, and that's to hide yourself. it's a type of clothing that serves a purpose and when you wear that sorta thing outside of the necessary hiding situations, you look like a buffoon. nobody should "want" to wear camouflage clothing. it should only be worn out of necessity.

it's almost like a uniform (in many cases, such as the military, it is). you never see flight attendants, police officers, nurses, or best buy employees wearing their necessary occupational threads outside of the necessary occupational situations. it would just look stupid and their friends would probably not wanna be seen in public with them. camouflage should follow the same guidelines.

i don't think i'm being too harsh here. i could go on about how i think hunting is stupid because there's grocery stores that stock all that stuff for you so you don't have to wake up at 5am to freeze your ass off in a seat on a tree. this is such a great time to be alive if you're a meat eater. never have i sat down to a steak or picked up pork chops at pathmark and thought, 'damn, i wish i could've been the one who killed this beast.' but hey, to each their own. all i'm saying is to keep the camouflage in the woods. unless you're gonna wear it in pathmark. because pathmark is sorta like hunting, or at least it's the closest i'll ever get to it.

this ain't no cbgb's....

not too long ago i was at an open mic where an old timer was reciting a poem he had written about cafe wha. cafe wha was a big deal back in the day. it was probably the cbgb's of the folk music movement of the 60's. many famous acts spent the early part of their careers playing there... none more famous than bob dylan.

i myself happen to be a big bob dylan fan. i remember going into cafe wha once. i was psyched. i was young and sorta inexperienced in the art of drinking in new york city. me and my friends took a path train to the village and walked around till we saw cool places that caught our attention. i didn't even know where cafe wha was exactly, we just happened to walk by it by mistake, and i demanded that we stop in there for a bit.

i remember there was a cover at the door and a menacing doorman. i believe the cover was $10. when we went in, the place was fancy looking and they demanded a 2 drink minimum to be there. there was also some jazz performance going on. the vibe in there felt nothing like what i thought cafe wha should feel like. it felt fancy and overdressed. me and my friends stood around inside cafe wha for a second, talked it over, and decided to ask for our money back and leave, which the doorman accommodated since we literally walked in and walked right back out.

when this old timer was talking about cafe wha in his poem and how great it was and how awesome he thought it was, i couldn't help but think of clubs i frequented to see bands perform live. many of them closed down, none more famous than cbgb's. and when it closed down, it caused a lot of anger and sadness. cbgb's was an nyc underground rock and roll institution. it can't be closed down to make way for condo's and bullshit... can it?

but after hearing his poem and revisiting that cafe wha trip in my mind, i figured maybe cbgb's is better off closed down. cafe wha was no longer the dingy place where folk singers passed around a hat and hoped people were nice enough to put money in it. who knows what cbgb's could've transformed into over time? the name alone could possibly be reason enough to give the place a good polish and turn it into some sorta tourist destination. but there's nothing about cbgb's that should be "polished." cbgb's was dirty and loud. and that's how it went out.

for all we know, the future of cbgb's could've turned into some farcical hardrock cafe ripoff with fancy pictures of all the famous bands that played there displayed everywhere... guitars and other memorabilia hanging on the walls. but that wasn't cbgb's. cbgb's was the place where i shared sweat with strangers and left with impaired hearing. cbgb's was the place where i saw the biggest cockroach in my life (seriously. it was crawling up my friend ernie's leg and he was wearing shorts. it was longer than my hand). i once hotboxed the men's bathroom at cbgb's with a bunch of friends while dudes went in and out using the facilities in our cloud of smoke. that was cbgb's and i'm glad it never got a chance to get to a point where it no longer resembled itself.

maybe neil young said it best when he sang, "it's better to burn out, than to fade away."

mandela and moving forward

there aren't enough words or phrases that can be strung together to express the immense legacy that nelson madela left behind. there's not enough obituaries you could read to get the full message of just how impressive of a human being mandela was. but it is important that we try. and although death is always a bitter thing, it's oddly comforting to see and hear positive words that either mandela himself said or positive words about his life coming from all angles. it seems that a large portion of the human population can agree, nelson mandela is a big deal.

but can we carry that legacy with us? i don't think it's good enough to be mindful of important life lessons he imparted on us for just a week and then forget about it. although mourning is a process that sorta ends at some point, there's some things we need to carry on with us long after the mourning process is over. it's not enough to just be sad about this for a few days. that's not going to change the world.

the assumption is that most people who consider themselves fans of nelson mandela are also fans of changing the world for the better. if we could put the debate on how to make these changes happen aside for just a second, the important part is to reach a place where we realize millions of people are on the same page. millions of people stand for equality and human decency. we need to say this out loud, to each other, in unison. it's not enough to just give it a thought and then return yourself to the regularly scheduled program.

this (changing the world for the better) needs to be the regularly scheduled program. for some it is, but for most it's not. it's not enough to validate mandela's life work by giving it an 'a' plus in your book. true validation comes from taking the torch and keeping it moving. that's what mandela stood for. he and everyone else knows they can't possibly live forever. but if he can cause a spark that lights the torch that shows us the way, he sorta could go on forever as long as we keep moving forward on that path. but it's up to us. we gotta get busy. being nelson mandela wasn't easy. and if you want to honor the man and his legacy, there's a lot of hard work to be done, and it won't be easy. but if you want easy, then you probably weren't really paying much attention to nelson mandela in the first place.

thankful for thanksgiving shopping

this year i'm thankful for thanksgiving shopping. i'm not so thankful that it's a thing that you can do. i don't think anyone should go christmas shopping on thanksgiving. i find that kinda ridiculous. but i'm glad it's out there and it's something that's filled people with the urge to complain out loud. i enjoy seeing a bunch of people pissed off at the same thing. and it's so much sweeter when it actually has an effect on things. there are some stores that are refusing to open on thanksgiving. some are even advertising to let you know that they don't practice that nonsense. everyone complaining about it won't make it go away completely just yet, but it's a start. it's progress of some form.

i'm also thankful that this is a thing we get to complain about in modern america. we're fortunate enough that we're not complaining about a lack of clean water or warlords running our lives. there's a whole lotta pain and misfortune in the world and we've dodged the worst of it just by being here within these national borders. i'm not claiming that the whole american scene is a fairy tale for all. but we could have it a whole lot worse. i'm sure there's easily millions of people who would love to trade places with us and be able to wake up in a warm bed, log onto facebook on their smartphone, and complain about how much they hate stores opening on thanksgiving.

and finally i'm thankful that some people think christmas shopping on thanksgiving is a good idea. it's nice to know you're out there identifying yourself. if it were up to me, you'd have all the time in the world to shop because you'd be uninvited from all thanksgiving happenings anyways cuz you kinda suck at life and no one wants to spend quality time with you anyways. so go ahead and wait on lines, catch that sale, and yell at store employees who'd rather be anywhere than helping your dumbass. it's nice to know who you are and that you've outed yourself.

just let bill cosby have cookies or why marriage scares me

in bill cosby's latest stand up special, he tells a story about having to hide eating cookies from his wife. they go out to eat and there's a bakery in the restaurant and he has to lie and say he's going to the bathroom to go eat two cookies. that's as much as i'm gonna explain cuz you should just watch the special yourself, it's motherfucking bill cosby.

anyways... while listening to him go on about these cookies, i'm thinking to myself, this is the living legend. this is bill cosby. if bill cosby wants to have two cookies, bill cosby should have two cookies. on top of being bill cosby, he also doesn't drink or smoke. cookies are his big thrill. i can't understand why a man of his stature at his age can't just have two cookies without feeling somewhat guilty about it.

the reason he feels guilty is because of his wife. if bill cosby's wife isn't gonna let him eat cookies, what luck do i have if i find myself in that scenario? here i was just trying to not be alone in the world, trying my hand at love and the happily ever after, and now i'm in my 70's and i can't eat cookies. i don't know if that's the life for me.

sure, maybe i can find a wife who won't restrict me from eating cookies. maybe i'll get out there and meet the biggest cookie enabler around. maybe i can add 'must like cookies,' to my list of what i prefer in a mate. but who's to say she'll remain the same over the years? if i met someone today, at about my age, who's to say she won't totally change 40 years from now? what if one day, around age 73, she suddenly wakes up and turns into the wife that won't let her husband eat cookies and just like that, the cookie enabler i fell in love with is gone?

and this is just a matter of cookies. what if i fall for a left leaning, socialist, jets fan who somehow morphs into a, 'neo-conservative who hates everything about football,' type of woman? we're talking decades. people change... a lot. whoever you fall in love with today won't necessarily be that same person for all of time. you can promise to not part till death, but there's no promise that you'll remain the same two people who made that promise on day one.

i guess what i'm really trying to say here is that life's hard and filled with uncertainty. the least we can do is let a spouse enjoy some cookies.

don't read the comments

so you just finished watching an awesome video on youtube. or maybe you just finished reading some article on the internet somewhere that you also enjoyed very much. not knowing what to do next, you decide to scroll down and check out some of the comments. who knows? maybe you're even the type of person who will leave a comment. i don't recommend doing either. if you enjoyed whatever it is you just saw, your best bet is to close your browser and run. let the experience end here. comments will only degrade the experience. they'll never improve it. never.

sure, it's nice that the internet gives everyone a voice. totally empowering. the downside is that the internet also gives everyone a voice and there's a lot of stupid voices out there. it won't take you long to find a comment that earns your disliking... you will always, 100% of the time, run into a comment you wish you could unread from your memory. but you can't. you fucked up when you decided to take this voyage into the comments section in the first place. this is something you will never be able to undo.

most comment sections end up devolving into petty internet disagreements that go back and forth till one of the parties involved decides to call the other, "faggot," or, "retard."  it is when we reach this point that we realize, oh yea, this again, this won't get us anywhere. it never will. no one ever walks away from these situations a better person. this is never an opportunity to learn or grow. it'll always be anonymous people on the internet babbling on and on until one of them gets the last word. it's never who's right, who's wrong, or what did we learn... it's always about who posts last or who has the most people on their side. it's neanderthal-like tribal warfare on the most un-neanderthal-like platform. 

and if you happen to be the sorta person who likes to leave a comment, you should probably try harder to resist the urge. this really is more about your desire to be heard than it is about anyone actually wanting to know what you're thinking. before you left your comment, no one even knew you existed. now all they know of you is some silly thought you couldn't keep boxed up inside. that's what twitter is for. stop using your vapid opinions to ruin other parts of the internet. we don't need each other's help to determine whether what we just watched was awesome or stupid, a decision which is determined before your comment is even seen. we can all decide for ourselves. the most your comment is ever gonna accomplish is convincing other people to think you're an asshole. 

that guy

everything's always going smooth until that guy makes his presence known. you know who that guy is, right? the one who can't be content with the smooth flow of things. he's gotta disrupt that shit cuz everyone can't just have a good time with no worries. that guy calls bullshit on that idea. he will not have it and he will let you know. 

that guy may come in the form of some hapless asshole who's possibly craved for attention. or maybe he's hammered and he doesn't know how to control the things that bother him deep down inside so he's decided to take it out on everyone around him. that guy. he's constantly fucking up the party. but if you ask him about it the next day, he'll probably tell you that everyone else is an asshole and he's the victim cuz that's what that guy does.

that guy hates when you stare at him. sure, you didn't think you were staring, but when you took a quick glance around the room, your eyes quickly moved past that guy and you fucked up. you should've known better. you have a problem and you're about to be invited outside to take care of said problem. 

maybe you said something and that guy misunderstood but that guy misunderstands nothing. you fucked up in your presentation which means you meant for that guy to take offense. and that guy, he's gonna let you know. he doesn't care if it's at a wedding, a graduation, or a funeral. there is no inappropriate place for that guy to stand his ground. all other things take a backseat to that guy and his problems. 

that guy's not just fucking up your life, your party, or your immediate environment. that guy is a busy motherfucker. he's out there in the world putting nations on notice. he's dissecting the human population one group at a time and letting everyone know that we cannot all get along, we can not get past our differences, we cannot let bygones be bygones, and we sure as hell can't live and let live. that guy's not a fucking hippie. he's a man with a code and he will manipulate anyone he can to see things his way. that guy's version of right and wrong is the only version of right and wrong. there's no grey area when it comes to that guy. if you're wrong, that guy will promptly punish you in that guy fashion. that guy won't talk it out. that guy won't try to see things your way. and that's what you deserve because you haphazardly crossed paths with that guy.

that guy is everywhere and he's quick to fuck up your day. some believe that guy secretly knows what a dick he is, but that guy will never show it. that guy's got an image to uphold and he can't waste any of his time or reputation on considering that he might just be an asshole. just when you think you might reach a breakthrough with that guy, he'll meet another guy who agrees with him and he'll be rejuvenated and ready once more to attack the world with his totally justified onslaught of, 'his way or the highway.' you probably know that guy. you probably hate that guy. you might even be that guy.

ladies, feel free to replace the word 'guy,' with, 'gal.' cuz that gal is just as much of an asshole.

going to see the opening band

so one of your favorite bands is touring but the only way you can see them is to purchase tickets for a show where they happen to be the opening band instead of the headliner. and now you're gonna have to go see a headlining band you probably don't even like that much and pay for it knowing that the band you don't even like is going to see a bigger percentage of the money than the band you actually wanna go see. and the whole time you'll have to hang out with the asshats who actually wanna see said headlining band while they yawn, chat, and show up late during your favorite band's set.

but it's not all bad news. here's just a few of the advantages of going to a show to see the opening band.

1- less people

sure, the people who like the headlining band are asshats. but there'll be less of them there when the band you like is performing. that may not be joyous news from the band's perspective. but for you, you'll have more space. you won't be shoulder to shoulder wishing you had more space to spaz out when they finally play track 6 off your favorite album. plus, you'll end up getting there earlier than most people which means you'll probably deal with a smaller line and less waiting. and when the headlining band does take the stage, you can take advantage of this time to buy some merch, grab your next beer, use the bathroom, or pick up your jacket at coat check because when the headliner is playing, none of these activities will involve waiting on lines. if you really wanna go crazy, you can even leave early. depends how curious you are to see any of the headliner's set. which brings me to my next point....

2- you don't have to wait through a band you don't enjoy

sure, a lot of people around you are not gonna get it cuz they're fucking clueless. they're not gonna be into the opening band and they'll look miserable cuz they'll feel like they're being forced to sit through this just to get to the band that they paid to see. but you don't have that problem. the band you came to see comes out first. and if you don't like the band after, you have no more waiting to do. you're free to leave whenever you like. so long to the suckers who can actually stomach whatever sad collection of humanity is headlining this thing.

3- bragging rights

you love this band and you have good taste so eventually this band will find itself headlining their own tour. soon more people will be into them and they'll release an album that you like but not as much as their old stuff and it'll sorta drive you crazy that all these other newcomers decide the newest album is the best one. fret not. you were there on the front lines. you have solid bragging rights. you can talk about all the times you went to go see them in smaller clubs or opening for other bands that fell off. bottom line, you're just a better fan than the rest of these jokers which means you love the band more than they do and if the band met you and any of these other johnny-come-lately's, they'd definitely love you more than them... definitely.

4- they're gonna bring it

the opening band has to bring it. this is their chance to increase their fan base and school some strangers on just who the fuck they are. an opening band's goal should be to bring it so hard, that people leave saying they were the better band (which you obviously already knew). there's no chance for an encore so they have to leave everything on that stage in the allotment of time they're given to do it.

so next time your favorite band's in town but they have to open for some insufferable noise vomiters*,  don't even think twice. pick up those tickets knowing that this purchase only further validates just how super awesome you are to be a fan of this band in the first place.



* 'insufferable noise vomiters,' is the name of my band that doesn't exist cuz i have no musical talent. still, you can't use it... asshole.

thanks for the ticket, guttenberg, nj

a big thank you to the town of guttenberg, nj for the $63 parking ticket i received on sunday night. i really needed that. $63 for two and a half hours of parking, that's worse than a night out in hoboken, nj. i'll just pretend that's what i did instead. at least hoboken's straight up with their bullshit. is hoboken gonna charge you a lot to park there? y'know it. y'know it going in. they don't shock you with the sticker price at the end of the night when it's too late to do anything about it.

don't get me started on my aversion to tickets for parking permit laws and how ridiculous i think it is that we need to pay for permits so that we can park on the streets of the towns we happen to frequent. it reminds me of every time i used to drive around when i was younger and had nothing better to do and anytime a cop pulled me over, they'd ask, "what are you doing here?" cuz y'know, leaving your town and going to another one is a crime and all. how dare i leave my town of north bergen (which is your neighboring town which also has a stupid parking permit system but at least they give you four hours to move and only charge $42 when they do process the ticket) to come hang out in guttenberg. and to host an open mic i might add. i'd try to convince you that i'm helping add culture to your bleak scene, but really, it's just a bunch of musicians having drunk fun.... lot of drinking going on... cuz that's all there is to do to make time pass by in guttenberg, nj.

it was 11:30pm on a sunday night. i'd like to assume that most people looking for parking in your town are in by that time. but i'm sure the space i took was valuable... or at least it is now.... $63 worth of value to be exact. since you have my $63 now, can i at least advise you on how to spend it? i'd prefer if it went to education or feeding the homeless. or maybe you can give your ticket processors handwriting lessons. the penmanship on my ticket was awful. whoever processed it should be full of shame. whatever you do, don't spend it on something stupid like a, 'welcome to guttenberg,' sign.

lou reed

i'm quick to admit that i'm not well versed on lou reed. when i was 16, i purchased a cd of velvet underground's greatest hits and that's probably as much play as lou reed ever got in my life. i did listen to that one cd a whole lot though. and at the impressionable age of 16, it meant something to me. they were something of a revelation at the time. from what i understood, they were from hippie times and yet they weren't hippies. they wrote dirty, daring, sometimes odd rock and roll. they weren't tough guys... they were more strange than tough but they were still cool. the sound of the velvet underground was honest and unpolished. they were more soul than science and that was something i could (and still can) get behind.

lou reed seemed to be the kinda famous i could possibly deal with. he wasn't overly famous but famous enough that if you approached him, chances are you were really a fan of his. the cliche about lou reed and the velvet underground is that they didn't sell a lot of albums, but a big percentage of their fan base went on to form bands of their own. a lot of other rock and roll legends have bigger legions of fans, but lou reed's fan base are the 300 spartans of the rock and roll universe. they will fuck some shit up and make a lot a whole lot of noise.

when someone like lou reed dies, i tend to feel bad that i didn't embrace his music more while he was here. it almost feels like cheating for me to consider going on a lou reed listening rampage now. so i can't say that there's a void in my life that now can't be filled. but i feel pretty confident in saying that there'd be a void in rock and roll without lou reed. his influence can be found in every low-fi, low production, any shade of punk, genre since his time. rock and roll's a lot grittier and more blunt because of lou reed. i can't imagine a much more important rock and roll legacy to leave behind.

the regretful 'reading habit for a car' trade

tonight, a friday night, i decided to stay home and finish a book that's taken me forever to read. it's not that i wasn't enjoying it. it's just that my reading habit has been very weak and inconsistent as of late. it's a bummer really but i only have myself to blame. i don't wanna be a dude who isn't always constantly in a book. i enjoy reading and the feeling of eagerly anticipating my next opportunity to get back into a book or start a new one.

it's not that i suddenly enjoy reading any less. what happened is i traded in my healthy reading habit for a car. before i had a car, i read on buses and at bus stops. that alone would usually supply me with a good 20-40 minutes of reading time per day. not only that, but finding myself in a position where i began the day reading set a tone. there's nothing better going on at the bus stop so i'd bury myself in whatever book i was currently reading. i'd get to work and be bummed cuz i had to stop. i'd look for opportunities to try and make time throughout the day to read a few pages here, a few pages there.

now i just wake up and go to work. i've started waking up later. i spent years waking up 45 minutes earlier than i do now. and suddenly going back to waking up that early seems criminal. even when i was taking buses everywhere, i always tried to squeeze in as much sleep as possible. the bus just forced me to get up earlier and created a convenient space for reading. i'm really at odds with my own desire for convenience... like the convenience to stay in my warm bed till the last possible second without being late for work.

so tonight i found myself home with no plans. i tried to embrace it by finishing this book once and for all. i'm almost embarrassed by how long it took. but it's over... and it was enjoyable. sure, there were thoughts of me wandering to a local pub, catching a brew, or maybe texting friends to see if anything could be made of tonight. but i fought through all of that and kept reading. and here i am, so satisfied with the results, that i've somehow squeezed multiple paragraphs out of the experience.

reading is cool and i'm a reader. i hope tonight was a step in the right direction and back onto the path of recovering my once healthy and habitual reading habit.

you can always quit

last night i saw a comedian quit at an open mic. two jokes in and then he told the room, "i can't do this anymore. this just isn't me." he gave the mic back to the host and made his exit. he was chased by a couple of fellow comics but he never returned. it was the most honest statement i've ever heard at a comedy open mic. it's something i won't soon forget. i didn't know him before that night and now he'll be burned into my memory as if he was someone i was always familiar with.

you sit through enough open mics and sometimes you stop hearing words. you just see people on microphones and what they're trying to sell you. making people laugh, that's the big sell. and there's nothing faker than a salesman. this is no slight on the craft of stand up comedy. but even at its realest, stand up comedy is no more than caricatures of the people behind the words. what this comic did last night was obliterate the mold and give a room full of comics the realest bit they'll ever hear. sure, he had to quit to make it possible, but it's nice to know total and absolute honesty is still possible.

why even attempt convincing him to come back? what would be the point after that performance? a man that in touch with who he is should only come back on his own volition. i don't hope he stays away from comedy. i hope he gets closer to who he is. it was a fresh reminder that there's nothing more important than being true to yourself. that gets lost in the punchline sometimes. the laughs feel a little too good and can cause those who are less in tune with themselves to stray from what really matters.

it was also nice to be reminded that we don't have to do this. we can walk out the door anytime we like and never look back and lose nothing for doing so. this isn't about trapping yourself within a habit that's been sucked of all joy. don't be a comic because you think you have to or because you trapped yourself into the classification. be a comic because that's what you want to be. and know that at any moment, you can stop being a comic, especially if it prohibits you from being yourself.

because comics need to be themselves more. i've watched and listened as i've seen several comics drag their characters offstage and force it into all other aspects of their lives. you can take the mask off as soon as you step off the stage. you can be you. you should be you. anything else besides that is fake. don't be an impostor. that's not why we're here, right? if so, maybe you should consider walking out the door.

maybe the comic who quit last night saw what was coming down the comedic path and he knew better because he knew what it took for him to stay true to himself. he was a stranger to me before last night and now i'll never forget him quitting and the lesson that he inadvertently taught me.

stopping gay marriage

if you're the type that thinks allowing gay people to marry one another is going to ruin the institution of marriage, it's probably you that's the real threat. if you think that the rules of marriage should apply to what type of people can marry each other, then you've got it all wrong and don't know anything about the concept of love. not allowing gay people who love each other to get married is just as crazy as not allowing people of different races who are in love to marry each other. the only prerequisite marriage needs is love. it doesn't matter what type, shape, or size of person you happen to be. what matters is that two people love each other so much that they wanna acknowledge it out loud.

the only kind of marriage i could never understand would be the marriage of two people who don't love each other. and i have a hard time understanding anyone who can't understand that. if you're able to look at two people in love, and find some other reason why they shouldn't marry each other, then you shouldn't be acknowledged as a source of authority on the subject of marriage in the first place. what else is there to marriage besides love?

if you think the definition of marriage should be anything beyond the realm of two people in love, you'd probably be a sucky person to marry. if you're the type of person who would say, "well i'd marry this person i'm absolutely in love with if it weren't for (fill in the blank)," and you're able to fill in the blank with anything at all, then it's you who's corrupted the concept of marriage. it's you who took the purity out of it. it's you who probably shouldn't be allowed to get married because you've missed the point.

a true story about sucking at fantasy football

i should be good at fantasy football. i enjoy watching football immensely. i used to play dungeons and dragons when i was a teenager. aren't those two of the most important qualities to run a fantasy football franchise? i have the dorky imagination that has imagined waaay crazier things than me managing a fake team of real football players taking on another fake team of real football players. sometimes i wonder why i didn't think of the idea myself in my most dorkiest of phases when i'd actually try and create my own role playing/dice/card/paper and pencil games.

i'm not a pro athlete. i sucked at gym in school. being good at sports in real life is something i've never had a knack for. despite my nonathletic ways, i've always sorta been good at watching sports on tv and talking about it with other people. that's all the more reason i should be impassioned to be the greatest fantasy football general manager yahoo sports has ever seen. this is my time to prove that i belong in the realm of sports. sure, i'm no football player and i have no idea what it really takes to be one. but i got the brains (or i'd like to think i do) to run a team of them. savvy back office guy who makes all the right moves is supposed to be my dream roll. and here i am, year in, year out, with a chance to prove my worth, and i squander it.

i told myself at the beginning of this season that if i don't place in the top 3 of either of my leagues (i'm in two separate leagues this year) at the end of the season, then that's it. i'm hanging it up, retiring for good. fantasy football obviously doesn't want me and i don't wanna be kicked around anymore waiting for a far fetched season of redemption. as of this moment, i'm 2-4 in both leagues. it's not looking good. sure, things could go my way from here on out and maybe either team could catch fire. but that's what i always tell myself. i try to make some moves to instigate change but it almost never gets better.

i know that if i find myself at the bottom of both leagues, i'll be totally deflated at season's end and ready to write off fantasy football altogether. but it's that offseason that does it to me. it's in the anticipation... waiting for football, easily my favorite sport to watch, to return. bumming my way through boring ol' baseball season. with every new season comes another sense of hope. this year it'll be different. this year i'll make all the right moves. this year i'll have the draft that sees my team secure a championship. and when i get that team, day one, that most beautiful of fantasy football days, that's my team. when my record is 0-0, there is nothing but hope and the idea that i, josh wells, can fucking do this.

and then i suck all over again. what a viscous cycle.

hammer (this is about the gov't shutdown)

when the government shuts down, i don't know if the politicians are becoming more disappointing over time or if they've always been this disappointing and the realization only becomes more obvious to me as i age. or maybe i'm disappointed in myself. i had to have some sorta expectations in place to set myself up to be disappointed in the first place. why did i aim so high? what makes me think they've ever really had our best interests in mind? why do i look to a body of government to conduct itself in a way that would improve the overall quality of life for everyone? sure, they're dysfunctional, but maybe i'm the one with the real issue here. maybe it's time i shut it down and stop waiting for a better tomorrow presented by the representatives we boldly voted into their positions.

burning deep inside of me is an idealistic kid who believes in a government that is of and for the people. this inner idealistic child thinks we're somehow capable to will this current form of government into that noble vision. with age, it's become more apparent that this is like cramming the square peg into the circle hole. but that inner child of mine screams out, "PICK UP A FUCKIN' HAMMER AND MAKE IT WORK!" i love that part of me... it's the part of me that still thinks that i and everyone else in this country can make a difference. all we have to do is pick up our hammers and start slamming away. that part of me thinks we can hammer our way into not just a better country but a better world as well. and the older me doesn't want that part of me to die.

sometimes it feels foolish to think this sorta stuff. but i won't let it go. it fuels me. if i ever put down my hammer and give up completely, i'd be disconnecting myself totally from passion and hope. i'd feel soulless and incomplete. so even if it takes the harsh realization that this government of ours has failed us time and time again, i won't let that completely beat me down. i won't totally give in. i owe it to myself to not give up.

cuz deep down this is more about me than anyone or anything else. this is about what i want and what i see fit for the world. and if i never get to see what i want come to pass, i have to go on at least convincing myself that i'm somehow bringing this whole shit show closer to my vision. and in the meantime, i'll try and curb my expectations. i'll try and keep in mind that for the most part, our government is run by very selfish people who stick to their own agenda and make no room for compromise. sure, that's a sloppy way to conduct business on a political level, but they are only human and subject to their own stupid, selfish desires.

and i'll keep my hammer in hand. i won't compromise that. i may never see the day when a square peg victoriously occupies a round space, but i'll keep on hammering till i can hammer no more.

i should be in arcade fire

why are there so many people in the band arcade fire? are all of them necessary? is there room for one more? can i ask to join? would they mind? i don't have any musical talent but it looks like fun to be in a band that has so many people that i actually have to count out loud or use my fingers before coming to the conclusion.

i perform stand up comedy. it gets so lonely up on that stage. sometimes i become envious of bands and the way they get to share a stage together. whether they succeed or fail, they do it together. it makes the possibility of failure seem more fun than it actually is. and if you succeed, you suddenly have other people to share it with. i imagine succeeding at stand up comedy can probably be a lonesome experience in many ways. sure, you might have friends and/or family to share it with, but they're not up there with you. they're not in the trenches dodging bullets. that's you, alone in a foxhole. being lonely sucks. being in a foxhole sucks. now put the two together.

arcade fire is an army. they're like the wu-tang clan of hipster music. arcade fire's not a band. they're a club or a gang. being a member of arcade fire comes with a sense of belonging. so what do you say? got room for one more on that stage? i'll try to take up the least amount of room as possible. i'm sure i can ironically bang on a can or blow into an electric kazoo. i know i'm taller than the lead singer and that might be off-putting, but i can crouch or stand in the back or take a chair. let me know. i'm ready to go.

chasing old people

some thoughts after running my first half marathon:

i say "my first," because i hope to run more. the one in jersey city is awesome, affordable, and convenient for me location wise. it's at a good time of year weather wise. i definitely would like to run it again next year and who knows, possibly the year after and so on. i'll probably just take this one year at a time. i don't wanna get ahead of myself. i never really like to get ahead of myself when it comes to running. i kinda just wanna keep running... small distances, long distances, whatever. i just don't wanna over think it too much. it's something i'd like to keep up with till i'm too old to do it and it's something i'd like to enjoy doing the whole time. over thinking running (much like anything else really) sorta takes some of the joy out of it.

i saw a fair amount of older people running this half marathon... people of all ages really. but i saw people who i figured were at least in their 50's and 60's running this thing, and some of them were running hard. there were parts of the race where i'd be running in the opposite direction of other runners who were possibly a half to a full mile ahead of me. i'd catch a good glimpse of these people and a fair amount of them seemed to be fairly older than me. and that was immediately inspirational to me. this isn't just about this 13.1 miles. it's about the next 13.1 miles and it keeps going. running never stops.

sure, i had goals for this day alone. but when i catch a glimpse of people decades ahead of me running, i think about the bigger picture. no matter how well (or poorly) i ran this half marathon, it's about the continuation of the habit. it's about growing old as a runner. i don't ever wanna quit this. when i'm older, i wanna be that older dude in the half marathon that a younger person sees and thinks, "i can keep doing this for a long time." this isn't a phase for me. whether people older than me were running faster or slower than me isn't what's important to me, what's important is that they're running and that's what i wanna be doing when i reach their age. and until i get to that point, i'll always be chasing the older runners. and i'm glad they're out there giving me something to look forward to.

three days, a half marathon, and food poisoning

today marks four weeks of sobriety. i quit drinking for a month leading up to a half marathon i'm running this sunday. what do i get for four weeks of sobriety? a case of food poisoning. a stomach that won't stop punishing me. it hit me at work and chased me out early. this is the last thing i need three days prior to running 13.1 miles. today i puked harder than drinking has made me puke in years. this feels like punishment (well, technically it is. i'm being punished for something i chose to eat today).

i could begin to go over some of my dietary choices as of late. i've been eating a lot of things with sugar in them. i'm sure this is no coincidence, more like a form of compensation for the lack of booze. i've drank more soda in the past four weeks than i probably have in the past four years. i still go to bars (almost a must if you wanna tell jokes on microphones) so i gotta drink something. i've been purchasing soda cuz i don't have the cohonas to order a juice (afraid my manhood will be judged) or a water (afraid i'll be seen as cheap which i'm not. i'm just trying not to drink. also, i always tip even when ordering water).

i'm not saying all the consumption of sugary stuff is what's brought me here. but i'm a dude who's running every other day and exercising every other day i don't run (i do usually take a day off per week to just chill out). i'm sleeping well. i take vitamins. besides the consumption of sugar, i don't do much that leaves me at risk of being a generally unhealthy person. and that's exactly how i feel... that somehow being unhealthy has lead me to this. that if i had consumed less garbage over these past few weeks, my system wouldn't be in a vulnerable place to be susceptible to this sorta thing.

and i know the words i'm typing are coming from a very uneducated place. i'm just taking shots in the dark at what could possibly be to blame. but what's the worst that can happen under this assumption? i start to consume less soda and junk food from here on in? even if that's not to blame, it's still a nice goal to shoot for. it could only do me more good than bad at this point.

right now it's 10:02pm. i don't know where this sickness is taking me. i'm tired. i hope i can sleep. i hope i can wake up and eat and not be doomed by my body to suffer much more of this. i hope i can go to work and put in a full day. i hope i can run the 3.5 miles i planned to run tomorrow, the final run i will do before the half marathon.

this half marathon is a big deal to me. i don't expect it to be a big deal to other people. that's one of the many things i love about running. it's a very selfish thing. i'm out there on my own doing my own thing. and when i complete that half marathon, i can say that i took my carcass off of  beer belly/couch potato status about five years ago and crossed a finish line that will be the longest run of my life thus far. i've been running 12 miles once a week for about the past six weeks. i know i can run that extra 1.1 miles to make it 13.1. but i don't. cuz sunday is special to me. it hasn't happened and it already means so much. i've purposely done all i can to put myself into a situation where i know i can run the distance and still be able to claim that it's the longest distance i've hit yet.

i've done a lot of thinking about this. i'm extremely proud of myself. i don't know where i'm taking my running habit after this. i've had thoughts of chilling out for the winter (chilling out still means running every other day and probably knocking my weekly 12 mile runs down to 5-7 mile runs). there's a part of me that wants to feel great after this and maybe look further down the path into running longer distances. maybe i'll keep it up with the sobriety thing or maybe i'll run and get a beer immediately following the race. i won't really know where my head's at till i'm done on sunday.

but first i gotta get to sunday. and this food poisoning nonsense is really fucking up my game.

moments in assholery

i almost hit a pedestrian the other day while driving. i was making a left and i was so concerned with getting over the lane to the left of me that had oncoming traffic, that i didn't realize there was a guy trying to cross the street. i caught a glimpse of him in time to stop the car. as i brought my vehicle to a full stop, he looked at me and froze. another dude who was on the other side of the street about to cross said, "can you believe this guy?" to the guy i almost hit. i just sat there, foot firmly on the break, made eye contact with the dude i almost hit and told him i was sorry about five times. all he said to me was, "c'mon man, this is a residential area."

and then i drove off all sorts of shook up. i didn't wanna hit that guy. and all i could think about was what if i did hit that guy? what did that say about me? i was completely sober. i just wasn't paying full attention to all my surroundings. at what point on the moral compass do i become a bad dude in this situation? i don't feel like a bad dude but if i would've hit him, even if it was a total, absolute, 100% mistake on my part, i'm totally a bad guy. there's no getting around that. as the situation stands, that dude now has the right to refer to me as the asshole who almost hit him with a toyota corolla for the rest of his life. that's me. that's my role in this dude's life story. any and everything else about me carries no weight in his narrative.

here i was, i had spent my whole day like i spend most of my days. just trying to stay out of trouble. just trying to not be an asshole. just trying to enjoy life and not shit on anyone else's. those are my generic goals day to day in life. and in just one brief moment, the whole thing almost got fucked up. without trying very hard, i almost fucked another life up big time. and this took no effort on my part. i thought i was doing everything a-okay right up until i saw a dude a few feet from my car.

the whole thing is a sucky situation. there's only two things i can walk away from this situation with:

the first is gratitude. i'm glad i didn't hit that dude. i'm glad i didn't severely hurt another human being which in turn would've severely hurt his circle of family and friends... all for nothing. all because i was too dumb to pay attention to the details. i'm very thankful that my own airhead ways didn't cause any physical damage to another human being.

the second is a wake up call. i need to give driving my full, undivided attention. i can be a real dullard sometimes and that's fine if i hit my head on a low hanging tree branch or trip on a curb or forget to buy toilet paper. but when i'm in a car, that's a big hunk of machinery that can fuck shit up in an instant. and i need to do a better job of making sure i don't fuck anything up with said automobile... if not for me, then for the sake of my fellow humans. anything less makes me an asshole.

boxing for unity

so mayweather fought that canelo dude tonight and i didn't watch it. honestly, i just wanna pass it off as two dumb millionaires punching the crap out of each other and why would i wanna watch that? but they're probably not that dumb because they make a ton of money doing what they do. still, it's just two rich dudes punching each other's faces. what's with the massive interest?

i could try and wax philosophical about human blood lust and how the most primal parts of our being connect with this sorta thing. people love a fight. it's not just boxing. it happens in bars and streets and schoolyards. and when it happens, most of the time there's a bunch of people standing around and gawking. we love to watch people beat each other up.

i happened to be walking through jersey city tonight as the fight was happening. and i passed a ton of apartments and houses with wide open windows where you could hear people having fun and enjoying themselves at get togethers that were thrown for the fight. and i guess that's sorta cool. that's an unexpected positive result from two people beating each other senseless in front of cameras.

i suppose it's all in the speech at the end of rocky 4 when rocky tells the crowd that everyone changed during that fight. and that if two people can hurt each other instead of 20 million people hurting each other, then isn't that the better option? rocky 4 probably ended the cold war. there's real power to bring people together through people fighting each other.

sure, the world wasn't saved tonight. i don't think any major wars were avoided. but just for one night a bunch of people in a bunch of places had an excuse to leave their house and go hang out with other human beings. we're living in a world where people interacting with each other in person is becoming a less common thing. so i like to think that two people making millions of dollars beating the holy hell out of each other did actually, for maybe a moment or so, make the world a better place.

enjoy your mansions fellas. thanks for the memories.

sit there and stare (this is about syria)

all this talk of war with syria has me feeling all sorts of helpless. i wanna scream, "DON'T DO IT!" but even if i did, it'd fall on deaf ears. this is gonna play out how it's gonna play out and all i can do is sit here and stare. if a certain chosen few decide to start throwing bombs at stuff, they do so in the name of america, in my name. there's gonna be blood and life lost and that's all got my name on it. there's blood on my hands and here i am not wanting any part of it. i don't wanna play the role of the killer. i don't even wanna play the role of the playground enforcer who from time to time has to drop a body to keep things fair and balanced in his sandlot.

syria's civil war is a complicated thing. and i don't think there's any easy solution. and it's extremely sad to see the loss of life that goes on over there. in the end, children are the real victims of all wars. and that concept will forever break my heart. but i don't know if us trying to impose our will on one side or the other is the fix for this dilemma. i can't see any logic in the idea that we'll rain hellfire on "specific targets," which will in turn somehow inspire the two sides of this conflict to wake up the next day and suddenly find themselves in the mood to hug it out.

i have no idea what should be done in this situation. and i don't think anyone else does either. i don't see how this doesn't get sloppier than intended for us. we're about to insert ourselves into a fight that is extremely personal to both sides. i don't think we have the empathy to realize how impassioned both sides of this battle really are. this isn't our fight. it's sad knowing that there's a fight going on and nothing can be done till both sides are done fighting it out. but i don't think our involvement will bring about a clean ending any sooner.

but we're america. we got a reputation to uphold. we always know what's best for everyone else. and if you disagree with our moral assessments, then prepare to find yourself the victim of our military onslaught. cuz that's what morality's all about. telling yourself you're always right and kicking the shit out of anyone who has anything contrary to say. freedom of speech and all that.

'on the road,' revisited

i recently saw the film adaptation for, 'on the road.' it was out in limited release sometime last year but i never got around to seeing it. 'on the road,' is one of my all time favorite books. and after seeing the movie, i think i know why i consider it one of my favorites now more than i ever did before. the thing is, the book, 'on the road,' fell into my hands at the right time of my life. i needed a book like that to make me think running away from everything was possible. even if i never pulled the trigger myself, when i was a younger dude, i had always had visions of getting in a car or going on a bus and disappearing for a while... having my own on the road adventures. there was this part of me that just needed to believe that if it ever came to it, hitting the road was always a valid option.

but after watching the movie, i realize i'm not that same dude anymore. i've grown up. the idea of running away and trying to experience life at its fullest no matter the cost isn't as endearing to me as it once was. sal and dean run from everything. and they get their kicks. oh do they get their kicks. there's booze, drugs, women, music, and all sorts of fun shenanigans. who doesn't like shenanigans? but something happens along the way. i start to see just what they sacrifice to live such a life. there's love lost and abandoned children. all sorts of hurt feelings are scattered across the country in their wake. in the moment, everything is awesome. but when it gets quiet, and when sal and dean finally  get a moment to themselves to reflect, i can't see how a flood of bullshit that they created won't come back to haunt them.

'on the road,' is about some kind of reckless life. and reckless can be fun. but it can also have its disadvantages. it's an immature kinda selfish. rest of the world be damned if they don't like the life you're livin'. but that's not cool to me anymore. i think that you have to make some concessions in life to make your way in the world. one of the biggest is to simply not be a douchebag to others. sal and dean exhibit all sorts of douchiness throughout, 'on the road.' yea they're some crazy, hip, fun-lovin' guys but any douchebag can have fun. it's about having fun without having to come to the realization that you were a total dick to other people around you, in many cases people you care about, along the way.

i'm still a fan of the mad ones. i still root for the weirdos. i'd still rather hang out with the freaks than the jocks. i think i'll always have an affinity for counterculture in some form or another. but i realized after watching the movie adaptation of, 'on the road,' that i've chosen to do it my way. and my way has a lot less dickishness, a lot less drugs, more stability, and a lot more good nights of sleep.

pop culture has no monsters

when i woke up and realized that people were losing their shit over what miley cyrus did at the vma's last night (aka- hannah fuckin' montana) that's when i also realized that pop culture is desperately lacking monsters. REAL monsters. they lost their way somewhere. we've been given way more outlets to create and consume pop culture monsters and yet the quality of the monster has weakened... almost to the point of nonexistence.

it used to be that you had to be marilyn manson, self proclaimed anti-christ to raise some eyebrows. or you had to be n.w.a., self proclaimed gangster rappers who put the word, 'niggaz,' in their name. or maybe you were snoop dogg and you performed a song at the vma's about being wanted for murder while you were actually wanted for murder. REAL fucking monsters.

sometimes axl rose wouldn't show up to a gig and a riot would happen. sometimes rappers would say the wrong thing and someone would get shot. i remember when axl rose threatened to beat up kurt cobain and when vince neil challenged axl rose to a fist fight (vince neil also killed someone in a drunk driving accident). the drummer of def leppard lost a whole fucking arm due to street racing, got that shit amputated, and kept drumming. what a fucking monster! ozzy bit the head off of a bat. anything the sex pistols ever did while a tv camera was filming.  billy corgan once showed up to an ecw wrestling event and beat somebody up with a guitar. sinead o'connor once tore a picture of the pope in half on snl. a deranged motherfucker charged a stage one night and shot dimebag darrell dead.

i'm not applauding or celebrating any of this. i'm definitely not trying to encourage monstrous behavior. but i think we can put the outrage away. maybe we should be happy that the worst thing we got going on is miley cyrus twerking it up with the son of the dad from the tv show, 'growing pains.' miley cyrus is not a monster. to try and label her as one is to take monsters too lightly. in all likelihood, somewhere out there is a sleeping dragon who's observing all of this and thinking, "this weak shit pisses everybody off? oh wait till they get a load of me."

how i learned to stop worrying and love ben affleck

despite being a big fan of kevin smith movies and, 'dazed and confused,' i have, in the past, held a pretty negative opinion of ben affleck. i think it started when he was dating j-lo and he showed up in one of her music videos. there was also 'gigli,' (which for the record is a movie i've never actually seen so my assumptions on its horribleness are all based on my own biased worldview and hearsay) and that time the makers of south park made a song about how bad ben affleck was in, 'pearl harbor,' in the movie, 'team america' (i put a ton of stock into what the creators of south park think about things cuz i'm pretty sure they're beings of higher intelligence that were put here to enlighten us all through crude yet thoughtful humor). i was also a little bent about the whole, 'daredevil,' debacle, but not nearly as much as everyone else.

so when the news first broke that ben affleck would be the latest actor to portray batman, my initial reaction was a generic, 'what the fuck are they thinking?' but that didn't last long. cuz i had already seen the internet blow back before it happened. comic book fans and generic geeks of the world were going to hate this at a high social networking decibel that would be impossible to ignore. and they did. and maybe they have the right... that's what the internet is for i'm assuming, displaying your hate for things that, in the grander scheme of this shared experience we call existence, don't mater.

my first facebook post in response to the news was a simple, "i 'heart' ben affleck." i was really just trying to display my general sense of apathy for the whole thing. but i could've just as easily jumped on the, 'ben affleck sucks,' bandwagon. it would've been so easy. it's not that much of a stretch for me. if i were interrogated on the topic, i'm sure i could easily come up with at least five actors who i think would be a better choice (i had jokingly posted on facebook that they should've casted mr. t. ridiculous? yes. good idea if you're looking to make the next great viral youtube video? you know it). but my problem is that i don't care that much about it. it's not that big of a deal to me. whatever. it's fucking batman. there's gotta be bigger matters in the world.

and there are. i could get all serious and buzzkilly and list all the fucked up shit that's wrong in the world today. but i won't. cuz as much as i don't care about who plays batman, there's other ridiculous stuff i do care about that i could be called out on. all of this ben affleck business broke a little less then 24 hours before my first fantasy football draft... my first... there'll be a second one for a second league in about a week. fantasy football. i draft real life players onto my own imaginary team and hope that on a weekly basis they score enough fantasy points to beat my opponent's roster of real life players scoring fantasy points for his (yes, 'his.' i'm in an all male league, though i will point out that i have heard of women who participate in fantasy football. it's a thing) make believe team. just typing that out helps me to realize that i'm in no position to bitch about people bitching about ben affleck. they have the right (let's not even get into how i'm a pro wrestling fan as well).

everyone's a geek for something. we all enjoy something a little more passionately than we probably should. and that's okay cuz it's cool to be passionate about things. it's fun to be a fan of stuff. we're not all gonna be fans of the same things which is also okay cuz that just means life is so awesome that we've been given a large enough variety of stuff to choose from that we don't all end up liking the same things. how boring would that be if we did? we all happen to have different tastes but we all know what it's like to enjoy stuff immensely. we're all guilty of being geeks. so when we see each other bitching about something that we may not be a fan of, before attacking, we should sit back and appreciate that they happen to enjoy something as much as we enjoy whatever bullshit it is we choose to enjoy.

so to those who have a distaste for ben affleck as the next batman, that's cool. if that's how you naturally feel about it, you have a right to that opinion. as for me, i'm just glad that we've all been given stuff to be passionate about. ben affleck being cast as batman caused such a passionate response (on both sides i might add... the initial negative response to it, and then the people who respond negatively to the negative response... this is a pretty constant and consistent cycle for all things on social networks) that for me it acts as a reminder of how cool life is sometimes. we've been given so many options on things to enjoy and be a fan of. and for that uplifting reminder, i thank you ben affleck, even if you did stink it up in pearl harbor.

i don't believe in grammar nazis

i think throwing the term 'nazi' around for people who correct poor grammar on the internet is a bit much. nazis were fucked up. nazis did a lot of evil shit. you can't just take the label 'nazi' and apply it to anyone who happens to bother you a little. anyone who corrects you on which form of there/their/they're you're using is hardly evil enough to have earned the term nazi. so please, stop using it.

i know, i know... you thought it was cute to call people grammar nazis. you figured if you used the term 'nazi,' that would have to pressure whoever it's directed at to stop acting in a way that is an inconvenience to you. after all, they're harshing your mellow. how dare they! i can't believe there's people out there who see poor grammar and actually want to correct it, right?

we willingly choose to communicate on the internet. social networking happens to be a form of communication that is confined by the boundaries of typing. sure, i might be able to get through your poorly constructed blurbs on facebook and know what you meant to say, but i shouldn't have to put that much effort into it. you should care a little more about how you appear when communicating. if we were talking in person, you wouldn't purposely fuck up and slur words and make it any harder than it has to be to get your point across to the person you're talking to. i don't understand why typing should be any different.

i'm not gonna lower my standards. i expect better from us. i can't be the only one who watches the movie, 'idiocracy,' and fears for the future of america. we're supposed to be the change we want to see in the world. so if that change happens to be an all around dumbing down of the general population, then go ahead and slaughter the language online and encourage others to do the same. let's get stupid on purpose ya'll, even though we know better.

the person correcting your poor grammar is not a grammar nazi. they're not even doing you any harm. if anything, they're defenders of language and communication and their actions are noble. if anything, you're the one guilty of slaughtering words and deteriorating the quality of how we communicate with one another. if there's a bad guy in this story, it's you.

why i won't watch your favorite tv show

y'know that tv show you love so fucking much, the one you never shut up about and always tell me i should be watching, why don't i watch it, something must be wrong with me if i'm not watching it? yea, still not gonna watch it. this is not a you thing. i mean, it sorta is... but not 100% you. true, i have a tendency to stay away from things that people try a little too hard to push on me like the word of jehovah or candy bars for your basketball team's uniforms... but it's a little more complicated than that.

i have a pretty steady tv habit. i try not to watch a whole lot of it cuz tv scares me. i've spent many phases of my life drooling in front of a tv screen for hours and it's an appetite i'm constantly trying to curb. but there's some shit that i just HAVE to fucking watch. and the stuff i do watch probably accounts for 4-10 hours of my personal time per week. and that's only when it's not football season. so i usually think long and hard about my choices before adding another show to my schedule.

and i get it. breaking bad is awesome. everyone's saying it. and the walking dead is the shit. i also heard everyone say that. and it's not that i don't believe you, but it's just that too many people like these shows (some other examples are true blood, mad men, dr. who, and any stupid reality show... reality tv is probably worth its own separate blog post though). while there happens to be a lot of people i respect or think are cool that appreciate them, there's also a lot of people i don't respect and think are uncool who also enjoy these shows. if some of the less cool people backed off the endorsements, i'd probably throw more consideration at these shows. but i can't cuz if i sit down to watch them, i'll think, ugh, don likes this show and don's an asshole. i don't wanna enjoy the same things that asshole don enjoys (sorry asshole don, i had to take someone down in this post).

that being said, this tuesday i will make it my mission to finally watch drunk history on comedy central. why am i gonna watch drunk history instead of all these other shows ya'll want me to watch? because at this moment, no one who sucks has told me to watch it... yet. so i gotta get on this while the getting's good. it's just a matter of time before some asshole i can't stand tells me how i HAVE to watch it. it'll never stand a chance at a spot on my dvr after that. but if i can get in on it before the dinguses do, then there's no problem. all is well in my world as long as i beat them to it.

an open letter to famous people in commercials

dear famous people in commercials,

stop it. you're famous already. you don't really need to be doing this. have you any integrity? did you lose it all on your climb to success? sure, there comes a time early in your career where you gotta take every scrap they feed you. but you made it. you're living good. i've seen your big houses and your fancy cars. you're good where you're at. stop selling little pieces of your reputation at every offer you receive to attach your name to yet another product they wanna cram down the rest of america's throat.

i like to think that when your journey began, deep down inside was an inner rebel artist child who wouldn't stop screaming, "I'LL NEVER SELL OUT!" and i know you still love that child. to some extent, it's what originally drove you to pursue whatever it is you pursue. you were gonna go out there and show the world what you're made of and do it your way and never compromise yourself as an individual.

and maybe you got soft along the way. but you're a success now. people want your autograph. you have a fan base. time to go back to your roots. people look up to you. isn't this what you wanted? to be recognized and appreciated? is that what you want your fans to appreciate? a sell out? is that your message? it's okay to sell stuff for corporations and help make them richer cuz they give you a decent paycheck to do it.

i'm sure easy money is great. maybe it's not even easy, maybe it's a moderately tough day of work but for a lot more money than you probably deserve. and that's a tough temptation to fight against. but in the end you gotta live with you. are you someone who is excellent at your craft or are you a poster boy (or girl) for products? you could try to juggle both i suppose, but every commercial you take part in is one more mark on your permanent record.

there's so many better things to stand for and be about in this life. your fame can be used for so many better purposes and how you decide to use your fame helps to define your legacy, if that's worth anything to you.

waiting for godot at the bar

during my very brief semester and a half in college, i once attended the play, 'waiting for godot.' i had to do it for a theater class that i would eventually drop out of. i wasn't very interested in theater but not knowing yet that i would eventually stop going to all my classes altogether in a couple weeks, i bought a ticket for the play. it's possible that it went over my head or maybe i just wasn't very interested.... but i'm pretty sure that it's about a dude who waits for something that never comes. i'm pretty sure it's some kinda metaphor for waiting for god or you could replace god with any other existentially heavy concept i suppose.

what i personally walked away with was that you shouldn't waste your time waiting for stuff that's never gonna materialize, or worse yet, don't wait for something you can't define. and i've come to realize that half the time i go to bars, that's exactly what i'm doing. i'm standing around waiting for something. i can't define it exactly. maybe it's the next conversation or the next drink or i'm just waiting for a good time to be had. but many times when i'm in a bar, i feel like all i'm doing is waiting. and that's pretty boring.

i find bars to be fun if you go in with a purpose. maybe it's karaoke or open mic night. maybe you're gonna play pool or arcade games. maybe there's a band or it's a friend's birthday celebration. i find that when the terms are defined before going into a bar, a good time is more likely to happen.

but most times when i end up at a bar to kill time, i'm seriously killing time. like i could be found guilty in a court of law for the murdering of minutes. there's gotta be a better way to spend the hours that keep on creeping by no matter how bad i want them to slow down. whenever i find myself in these situations, i always find myself existentially unfulfilled at the end of the night. what did i just accomplish? why did i blow all that money on waiting around? and then i usually do something really dumb to fill the void that's left inside of me... like eat white castle.

and maybe this is just a me thing and maybe i'm just a boring person in a bar and that's why it's happening. either way, the realization is a bit of a bummer for me personally. most times when i end up in a bar with no other intention but to fill time, it's cuz i'm bored. but all i'm really doing is trading one form of boring for another. i'm taking a risk.

it's not all doom and gloom. sometimes i go to a bar to kill time and i have a blast. but that's usually the exception, not the standard.

i'm not a creep

i'm not a creep. i might be a weirdo, but i'm not a creep.

i can't help but think that sometimes radiohead's hit song, 'creep,' is what's wrong with my generation. i can't help but think that sometimes the song, 'creep,' is also what's wrong with generations after. i don't find any reason whatsoever to celebrate being a creep. i just don't think it's something to shoot for.

'creep,' came out into the world at the exact time in history you'd think it would. it was a time when it seemed  cool to be down and depressed and sad. it was a time when a lot of our heroes were kinda bummers. and, 'creep,' sorta perfectly captured that spirit. you could probably single out, 'creep,' and beck's, 'loser,' as the anthems for that time (at least, 'loser,' was sorta upbeat musically). that's how we felt, like losers and creeps. at the time when i was a stupid teenager, that seemed cool. but looking back at age 33, i want no part of that.

to this day it sorta bums me out to be in a bar and hear, 'creep,' come on the jukebox when suddenly everyone around me is singing the chorus in unison. and hey, i get it. i've been there. i've been that dude. i guess at some point in our lives, we all play the roll of the loser creep that no one's attracted to. so the song gives people some form of catharsis and that's always a pretty rad feeling, even if it's focused on something negative.

but no one's ever gonna be attracted to the loser creep who thinks of themselves as such. if you wanna rock out to this song, go ahead. but don't live it. don't hear it and think, 'this is about me.' cuz being a creep is not a good thing. i don't wanna be around creeps. it's in the name, they creep me out.

it's okay to be weird. and it's fine to be different. we should all be different. break molds. be unique. march to your own damn drumbeat. and if you find yourself misunderstood by most, that's cool. just like who you are. there's no joy in taking a look in the mirror and thinking, 'what a creep.' do whatever you gotta do to stop thinking that about yourself.

and for the record, i'm a radiohead fan. i even think, 'creep,' is a good song. but i think that it became too popular. and it's rise to popularity and it's lasting power for damn near 20 years says something about the listeners who keep that song popular. radiohead has a pretty expansive library. go dig around in it. stop replaying the song that makes you feel okay for being down on yourself. in fact, stop replaying anything that makes you feel okay for being down on yourself.

battle of the sexes: one-upmanship

based on my experiences and what i've seen in the world around me, i find it almost completely safe to assume that when it comes to the art of one-upmanship between men and women, women will almost always get the last laugh. they're just plain ol' better at it. they're in it to win it and their will alone allows them to outlast any random dude's desire to come out on top in this sorta contest. the only thing a dude is usually better at in this competition is waving the white flag. so my advice to all the dudes of the world is this, get your white flag out early. you may be delusional enough to think you've got the strategy that's gonna break the mold on this, but you don't and your sense of vanity will only crumble into a pile of embarrassment. give it up, women rule at this.

unless.....

there's really only one form of one-upmanship that can clinch the victory for a dude. but it's a big risk and you may lose it all. but if winning this contest is what you wanna do, and you feel you must win at all costs, this is what you do. write a song about her. but if you're gonna do this, it better be a big fucking hit. the kinda hit the radio can't avoid. the kinda hit that's so catchy that all her female friends are singing it all the time. make a song that has the whole world bopping their heads in unison to your final one up, the last one up you'll ever need. cuz if it's a hit song, there's no coming back from this. you won.

but woe is you if you half ass this. if you end up with a song that sucks and goes nowhere, you've effectively lost the one up battle in the most excruciating way possible. you took yourself out of the competition. you were so bad that all she had to do was sit back, relax, and watch you crash and burn.

so dudes of the world, if you don't have a hit song up your sleeve (spoiler alert: you probably don't and even if you do, remember you might risk it ALL), leave this game alone. when it comes to one-upmanship, women rule.

celebrate ugly

i think it's time to stop looking our best. it's time to stop taking the pictures that make us look awesome. it's time to stop pretending that beast you happen to be when you wake up in the morning isn't the real you. that is the real you. that's the realest you. that's the realest you're ever gonna get. take a picture of that you. put it on your facebook page.

i don't understand why people try to look their best in certain social situations. whether it's something as casual as social networking or more serious stuff like dating, job interviews, meeting the significant other's family... y'know all those types of situations where standard operating procedure up to this point has been, "look your best," "dress to impress," and all that other nonsense. if these interactions go your way, they're eventually gonna see you in the rugged for who you really are anyways. why start it all off with some facade? give 'em the goods right up front.

cuz if you don't do that, all you're doing is putting yourself into a situation where you're raising everyone else'e expectations of you. and that's not fair. here you were, just trying to do your best to get people to like you and now they're probably gonna expect more of you than you can possibly offer. how much better would it be if we all agreed to stop doing that?

and you should only want people to like you for you. if all you can get out of people is for them to like you cuz of the way you look in a certain fancy suit or dress, then you're probably just a sucky person in said suit or dress. work on who you are, not what you wear. your focus is in all the wrong places.

and as an added bonus to all of this, we'd all be more comfortable. imagine a world where everyone dressed for comfort. whatever it may be, pajamas, a potato sack... as long as you got your naughty parts covered up, who cares what you wear? the uptightness of the human race would drop down several ticks. many sticks would suddenly be removed from the nether regions of many asses.

cold world

george zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering trayvon martin. the words seem insane as i type them out. i mean, frame it however you want to... but a bullet took trayvon martin's life. he was murdered by a gun, by george zimmerman's gun. the whole thing seems insane. if george zimmerman didn't murder trayvon martin, then how did trayvon martin die? the logic seems flawed at the most basic level.

and then i'm reminded that this is the cold world we live in. fairy tales are lies. bad stuff is happening all the time and life in general is not a fair game. me personally, i don't think it's fair that zimmerman gets to walk away from this. i don't think it's fair that a life was taken and no one's gonna pay any legal consequences for it whatsoever. but i also think life's not fair and i had sorta been preparing myself mentally for a george zimmerman acquittal.

justice isn't fair. the american justice system is probably one of the top justice systems in the world (this is an assumption on my part, i know nothing of the justice systems in other countries). when i take a look at our justice system from afar, i figure we could do a lot worse. sure there's room for improvement. it's not perfect. but it never will be. we'll always be victim to a system that usually favors the better lawyer. to a certain extent, it's like any other form of competition. if the lebron james of lawyers goes one on one with the brian scalabrene of lawyers (love ya red mamba), lebron's gonna dominate. that's a law of the cold world we live in.

and let's not forget the jury process. most people i know don't like jury duty, don't wanna be selected to be on a jury, are sometimes willing to lie or connive their way out of jury duty. we're told it's a civic duty but that concept doesn't resonate in any serious fashion with most people i know. it's like my good friend kevin said last night, "smart people don't get selected to juries." sure, there's probably random exceptions to that statement, but for the most part i assume most smart people are trying to outsmart their way out of being on a jury in the first place. what does that leave us with? i'll let you do the math. just another sad part of the cold world we live in.

but what's great about living in a cold world is that nobody's immune to it. we all have to deal with it. and so will george zimmerman. his life outside of prison will probably be better than a life inside prison or having to face the death penalty. but his life's gonna suck. george zimmerman will have to live the remainder of his life knowing that a large faction of the country he lives in despises him. he'll have to live with death threats and constant danger. he blamed gaining an excessive amount of weight on the anxiety of the past year or so. that's just the preface of the next chapter of his life. there won't be a free person in america that'll want to trade places with george zimmerman. everything george zimmerman does from now till eternity will be a suckier experience for him... anything ranging from facebook to grocery store shopping, hitting the beach to taking in a ballgame. zimmerman's free but he's not as free as the rest of us. he'll be imprisoned by a public that found him guilty a little over a year ago.

it's a cold world for all of us, but starting today, it'll be a little colder for george zimmerman.

meeting chuck klosterman

actually, i didn't really meet chuck klosterman. sure, we said a few polite things to each other and he signed the book i just purchased. but i had just waited in a line behind a crowd of klosterman maniacs who were all there for the same reason. it's a book signing, something i've never participated in before because i'm weird about autographs.

i don't put a whole lot of value into autographs. i'm not the type of person that goes to conventions or other events so i can wait in line and get things signed by celebrities who i happen to be a fan of. i am a big klosterman fan, and it was cool to be in his presence and it was cool to get his autograph and he was a waaaay nice dude about it, thanking me for being there and hoping i like the new book.

but the reason i was there was cuz he did a reading and a q&a after. i was there really just to hear him speak to a crowd. to me it's the author equivalent of going to see a band or a comedian live. and in those instances, i'm there cuz i enjoy whoever it is that's on the bill. but i never wait around after the show. i never try to get anything signed. i'm not there for that. i'm there to watch/hear/most importantly enjoy whatever it is they do. and i enjoyed the hell out of listening to the words of chuck klosterman that night.

but did i meet him? scientifically i suppose i did. but a real meeting happens whenever two or more people encounter each other for whatever reason and walk away feeling like they got to know all other involved parties better. that didn't happen. i know of chuck. but i don't really know chuck the person. and chuck seriously don't know josh. at the end of the day, i figure all the autograph signing blends all the faces together into some sorta gelatinous blur... this goes for all those in the business of giving autographs. i imagine that's just the way it is.

but by all means, if that's your thing, and you get something out of it, go for it. i can't deny that it holds some value for me. but usually not enough value for me to exclusively seek out autographs. but in this instance, it seemed to be included with the package that was going to see chuck klosterman at barcade in jersey city, nj.

what kinda value? this book is now on a short list of things i will try to quickly grab, if i can, if i ever find myself in a situation where my apartment is on fire and i need to leave asap. cuz if i have to start a new library, might as well be with a book that's signed.

while i'm on the topic of chuck klosterman... i'm a huge fan. he's in this odd sorta classification of author for me. i have a few authors, klosterman and vonnegut most notably, who i enjoy immensely. or at least, have enjoyed immensely so far. i've enjoyed the books that i have read so far by them so much, that i make it a point not to burn through all their books too quickly. i don't ever wanna read two klosterman/vonnegut books in a row, ever. i wanna always have one waiting for me in the future somewhere. with klosterman, it's a little easier to maintain cuz he's still alive and writing. but vonnegut... ugh, i'm gonna be really bummed when i finish reading everything he's ever written.

thanks for the feedback

after my set last night at the wild rover open mic, a patron at the bar gave me her feedback before leaving the bar for the night. i'm not posting this for pity. and i'm not posting this because i think i'm great. i'm comfortable with the idea that not everyone's gonna like me or laugh at my jokes. that's cool. and it's even cool for people to let me know if they think i'm not funny. i got no problems with that, just look at the name of my blog (or my twitter handle @joshaintfunny). it's just that this chick went overboard on me last night. and it was the sorta ridiculousness i'd like to share it with the world.

for the record, i never got her name.

as she's leaving with a dude (husband, boyfriend?? not sure, never got told the specifics) she comes up to me as i'm sitting down enjoying a beer and exclaims, "hey! i'm funnier than you!"

my immediate response was, "ok, that's great. how about you sign up and perform then?"

to which she replied, "i can't. he (points at the dude she's with who's practically one foot out the door and seems to have no interest in being at this bar anymore) doesn't like it when i perform. but i perform at the improv in new york. i have some feedback for you, something i thought of that you could add to your set."

it is at this point where i sorta tune out on people. this sorta thing unfortunately happens too often, especially when dealing with people of the drunk variety. my go to stance at this point is to politely nod and humor whatever it is they have to say. so i reply with an, "oh yea? what cha got?"

"well, i have this bit about butt fucking, y'know a dude fucking another dude in the ass. it's funny. you can add it to the part about obama (cuz i did have a joke about obama but it was short, not graphic, and doesn't get close to the topic of "butt fucking" in any way... but anyways....). you see obama's right hand man went to duke. and that's who tells him who's gonna win the final 4 tournament every year. they're like best friends (she mentioned the dude by name but it has slipped from my memory). you can do a bit about them fucking each other."

and that was it. that was her great, funny idea that would make my set so much better. but anyways, she bantered on a little more... with not much encouragment from me, but i went, "okaaaaay...."

and then she continues with, "like i said, i perform at the improv. but i'm 44. i don't perform that much anymore."

i butt in, "you should perform tonight!" (cuz i really wanted her to get up there and bomb at this point).

"no, no i can't. we're leaving and like i said, he doesn't like it when i do this stuff."

and then she left.

two things i've walked away with:

1- next time you see me perform, you can feel 100% at ease that i will NOT in any way have a butt fucking obama bit in my repertoire

and

2- if you're lucky, maybe you can hit the improv in nyc and catch her sometime.

compact discs as coasters

as far as listening to music goes, cd's are the worst. any cd ever created in all of history was doomed to become scratched up eventually. and there's not much that's more annoying than the skipping of a scratched cd while you're trying to enjoy some tunes. it would've been way cooler if we could've gone from cassette tapes to mp3's. the whole cd phase was useless and all that's left behind is stacks of old cd's with scratches on them that people try to play in cars that don't have any sort of mp3 technology in them.

beyond that, cd's ruined our attention span. cd's made it too easy to skip songs. if you wanted to skip to the next song on a tape, you had to really want it. you had to press down on the fast forward button and wait a bunch of seconds. then you had to press play, realize you went too far, and rewind it, and end up in the previous song again. it was a mess and most of the time it was better to just let the damn thing play. and to me that's a good thing.

i prefer to listen to music by the album. i like to play entire albums from beginning to end without skipping any tracks. albums have a feel to them. it's like the album is greater than the sum of its songs. when i was younger i used to like to listen to whole albums. but i got lost somewhere along the way. cd's had me skipping ahead to the songs i liked better. i was so trained in that mindset, that by the time mp3 players came around, i was consuming music on shuffle mode almost all the time. it took me a few years to get back to a place where i was listening to whole albums again. and now that i do, it's enhanced listening to music in general for me. i'm not gonna say there's anything scientific or factual to back me up here... it's just the feel of the whole thing. plus, artists work so hard to put an album together, it just seems like the way it's supposed to be. like skipping through an album or just picking one or two songs out is some kinda injustice that negates their artistry and hard work.

another advantage tapes had over cd's was portability. portable cd players sucked. they always skipped. it took them years to invent "skip proof" cd players and even then those weren't perfect. walkmen for cassette tapes however were fucking awesome. you didn't lose anything in the experience. you pressed play and it played with no issues.

also, blank tapes are better than blank cd's. sure, blank cd's were easier to mess with once we were able to throw mp3's on them, but making a blank tape was an experience. you had to spend time with it and really think out your game plan. was your tape going to have a theme? were you gonna give it to someone, like a friend or a crush? were you gonna try and record songs straight off the radio or borrow tapes from a friend's collection? you had to time things out so you didn't end side a in the middle of a song cuz that was a bummer. it took work and when you were done you had a sense of pride. blank cd's never could give you quite the same joy.

now we're knee deep into the digital stuff. and i'm happy with it. i like mp3's. i like being able to carry around a boatload of music on a handheld device. long gone are the days of cassette tapes and they're probably never coming back. but i'll always look back on the days of rocking cassettes as an awesome time. cd's on the other hand... i'll probably always remember trying to entertain people at a party with my awesome music selection only to be foiled by a cd that skips so much, it ends up annoying everyone in the room. or how i was really bummed out that one day and all i needed to hear was that one song to lift my spirits and i'd have to put up with a bunch of skipping to get through it. not every song on every cd skipped, but it happened frequently enough to qualify as a legitimate pain in the ass.

so long cd's. i'm glad you're no longer the most accepted form of music listening format. besides inadvertently tarnishing our attention spans by allowing us the convenience to skip through tracks, your only good purpose these days are as a coaster for beverages i drink while listening to music i downloaded off the internet at home.

in memorium of matt osbourne, aka doink the clown

i'm not sure when i started rooting for bad guys in wrestling. but i clearly remember getting a kick out of doink the clown. doink the clown debuted in the wwf as a villainous bad guy. he would use stupid clown tricks like spraying someone in the eyes with water to cheat and win. sometimes they'd dress up another dude as a second doink the clown and he would come in and help the first doink win his match. but maybe the most memorable aspect of doink the clown as a heel was his entrance. they'd play this creepy music when he'd come out from the backstage area and children would cry. wwf would actually catch close ups of children crying on camera. pretty sweet stuff if you're rooting for villainy. children crying is like the bad guy equivalent of a standing ovation. the only thing that could possibly top that is a death threat.

it might've been cause i've always dug clowns. when i was a kid, i thought clowns were cool. they were the only grown ups who were allowed to act completely ridiculous at all times. as a child, that seemed awesome. and on top of that, a lot of people fear clowns. and i don't really understand the psychology behind it but i know it's a thing. so here was this thing that i seemed to dig that scared the living crap out of other people. it was like my heavy metal. it made me feel cool. in hindsight, probably wasn't as cool as i thought, but hey, i was a dweeb who needed something over other people. i wasn't gonna start playing sports or kissing girls anytime soon.

doink was originally portrayed by matt osborne. matt osborne died a few days ago. he left wwf on bad terms and to make matters worse, they would continue to dress other dudes up like doink and use the character. so it was like he was never gone. and who can blame wwf? i'm sure the story lines at the time were in high demand for a wrestling clown. the show MUST go on, even if it's a clown who squirts water in the faces of his opponent to cheat, right?

i watched monday night raw last night and i had hoped that wwf (now wwe) was going to do some kinda tribute for matt osbourne, but they didn't. he didn't even get a picture on the screen at the end of the show. and i find that sad (queue a picture of a kid crying to doink's entrance). doink represented a different side of wwf. among all these serious grapplers and tough guys were some silly characters that bordered on the line of cartoonish. and i think doink will always represent that silly side of wwf that is still fairly represented to this day. but as far as silly goes, nothing may ever be as silly as doink the clown, who at times would roll with several other doinks or even several mini-doinks.

thanks for the laughs/tears matt osbourne. cya at the crossroads.