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.