'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.