fuck the rich! (an uninformed view on financial politcal... umm... stuff)

this whole debt ceiling conversation is so aggravating. and it's for so many reasons. sure there' the whole... politics as usual... repubs gotta defend rich people, corporations, and tax loopholes and they can be so mean about it. do you have to do all that yelling guys? cuz on the other side of the aisle are the good intentioned pussies. yes pussies... i'm sorry, i can't come up with a classier word for the democrats.

i mean, i'm still raging about how they had control of the house of representatives, the senate, and the WHITE HOUSE!!! but somehow, somehow we didn't come out with the super progressive dream machine it was advertised to be. why? cuz the dems are pussies. there is absolutely no other reason... go ahead, research it. put hours and days of studying into it and i guaran-goddamn-tee you come back with the same results.

'you were right josh, the dems are a bunch of pussies.'

now that i've filled my yearly quota for using the word 'pussies,' i'll try and get into the current situation.

debt ceiling needs to be lifted. it's something we've done a whole bunch of times before and usually nobody blinks when it needs to be done. but this time it's a big issue. and maybe it should be with unemployment and a sinking US dollar. but let's not lose our shirts and get crazy either.

repubs want to reduce spending. a pretty logical idea when you consider the base of our problem is we spend more money than we make.

so the dems are willing to make some cuts. they realize, yes, the base of the problem is we need to cut spending. it's tough and some crucial shit will take a hit for it... like social security and medicare... but something's gotta give. (maybe they could go ahead and end all them wars and put an end to all money invested into american imperialism PERIOD... but i'll save that diatribe for another blog post).

but the dems have a bright idea of their own to help us, on top of spending cuts, let's raise taxes on rich people.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEESS!! DOUBLE MOTHERFUCKING YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! how could anyone possibly be against this? no brainer! i mean, they're rich! let 'em pay their fair share. the rest of us only bust our asses day in and day out in soul sucking jobs that wipe the smiles off our faces so that they can afford a maid to clean their castles.

but the repubs don't want none of this. they say we can't raise taxes because the rich people are "job creators." if we tax the "job creators," they'll create less jobs.

and a mighty fine job they're doing with the whole job creating thing as of late. just look at 'em go!

listen, if you're gonna hind behind this BS concept of "job creator," can you at least try and make it look like you actually create jobs?

but nooooooo, we have outsourcing and cheap labor on foreign shores! it all helps the bottom line which is to make the "job creator" richer. so the "job creator" is "technically" creating jobs, just not for american citizens.

wait, why are the repubs so anti-immigrant? they defend fat cat bastards that employ people who aren't U.S. citizens. if it wasn't for non-citizens, the "job creators" would have it so tough. they'd have to give us jobs with fair pay and benefits and let us off on christmas.

point is, the "job creators" aren't doing shit for us. let them make up for what they lack and toss some extra coinage into the bucket! besides, they're defended by republicans so i'm certain they're all patriots who love their country very much? why wouldn't they willingly wanna help us out on this one?

i wholeheartedly believe in taxing the rich. it's my solution for everything. that's cuz i'm a pissed off middle class dude who's come to realize that the american dream is just that, a dream, a non reality. and we owe the robbery of this dream to greedy bastards who keep coming up with new and improved ways to spend less money so they can make more. the way they spend less money is they get their labor OUTSIDE of america.

they don't care about the middle class. and we're pretty much just apathetic about it. sure, we get mad, but twitter posts won't be enough to start the revolution here. they got the guns but we got the numbers... but fuck.. not now... the new 'dancing with the stars' is coming on.

the dems defend us but to a certain point. and we're just like them. we talk big at the press conference, but once you get us in the room to negotiate, we crumble. the repubs hold the demands of corporations over the dems' heads just like our jobs hold our financial well being over ours.

so to try and sum this whole thing up here and put a bow on it:

man up democrats. man up middle class. fuck the rich cuz they fuck us on a regular basis. and fuck the repubs for standing up for them. tax the rich now. tax them till they bleed. and when they say, 'oww, that hurts,' show them your scars.

fuck circles!

this is a google+ inspired rant.

if you're a member of the google cult, turn away now. i know, i know, you wanna convert me. that's what cults make you wanna do. that urge you're filled with, you think it's logic and common sense, but it's not... you're in a cult and you're brainwashed! so turn away.. thanx.

i'm on facebook. i like facebook. it serves its social networking purposes for me. it does everything i could possibly want. my social networking experience is not broken so i don't feel the need to fix it with the newer, shinier version from its competitor.

and i am on google+. don't get me wrong. after all, you can't knock it unless you tried it.

anyways, fuck circles. circles... that's the major difference between facebook and google+. (google cult members are foaming at the mouth to shout the 100 other things that make them different, spare me, google+ is fb with circles).

i get it, the circle thing. it's a nice, easy, guilt free way to post things and have certain things only be seen by certain people. that's awesome for people who have something to hide. i decided a long time ago back in the myspace world that i was gonna only be friends with people that i thought would be able to handle what i post without being offended, shocked, mad, sad, etc. and every now and again someone got through and they did get offended and then they unfriended me. boohoo.

there's certain things that are hard for people to do, like declining requests or booting a 'friend' cuz you realized they suck a lot more than you thought they did... but these sorta things shouldn't be hard. the thing is a lot of people are just soft and the google+ circles are only gonna enable the bad habits that continue to keep you soft.

thanks to circles, you can now accept that request from your boss or an annoying coworker and put him/her in a circle to be ignored forever. you accepted the request, far as they know you're just not very active on google+. no hurt feelings. but they shouldn't be your network friend in the first place. you don't have what it takes to tell them no, but this is your goddamn profile! stand up for yourself and refuse the request. what can they say say? he/she can't harass you, they wouldn't wanna make this an HR issue. you should want to make and probably even enjoy making the decision of declining that request! shit! c'mon people!

the circles also make it easier to do things like cheat on your girlfriend. take the side piece, put her in the circle with your boss. hope they never meet. you sly bastard! you now have duped your side piece and your boss! just name the circle "suckers" and get high off the power trip.

cuz the circles can enable that power trip bullshit. 'watch this, i'm gonna accept so-and-so's request and put them in my circle called 'insufferable douche bags.' that's all well and good, but if they're such an insufferable douche bag, then someone should tell them so. you've done nothing to improve anything... in fact, most likely the insufferable douche bag is someone you hate hanging out with but do anyways for god knows what reason and now that douche bag is one step closer to NEVER knowing how much of a douche bag they are. and that's not right.

the biggest issue i have with the circles is that it brings you one step closer to taking joy in not being yourself. let me post the bong pic for the friends, the boring pic where i'm well dressed for some boring work event for the co-workers, and the picture of me in a church for the grandparents. you're living 3 lies!!! whatever it is you're about, bongs, jesus, money, dungeons and dragons... anyone who sends you a request should already know this about you. stop accepting requests from people you're uncomfortable to be yourself around. all you're doing is isolating yourself into your own circle and eventually you'll be the only person you can ever be yourself around. congratulations. your life is a sham.

with love,
josh wells

ps- i know if facebook goes the way of friendster and myspace, i'll be a google+ reg and i'll have to go back to this blog and eat it. buuuuut i tell you this, if that does happen and i do become an avid google+ user, i will only have 1 circle, for everybody, no divisions. suck it.

i hope the nba employs replacement players

yea i know, it's not a strike, it's a lockout, so technically there's no reason to replace the players with replacements since they're not striking.

but some nba players are threatening to go play bball in europe. taking the atlantic ocean jump just to spite your bosses is as good as striking to me. and if they do go to europe to play, they'll still be compensated with a paycheck so i can hardly feel bad for them. they'll still receive the adulation of the crowd while i crunch numbers to the applause of no one.

i almost always on principle side with the employee over the employer in situations such as this. i'm just a "DAMN THE MAN!" kinda guy. but these are nba athletes. they're well paid already. in this instance, i don't really have to feel bad for them. they're not factory workers living check to check and willing to sacrifice it so that they can strike to get things they think they deserve. kobe bryant's kids will not starve.

there also happens to be a major ulterior motive for me personally. i'm 6'6" and people constantly ask me if i play basketball just because i'm sorta tall and i'm tired of saying no. i wanna say, 'hell yes, i play basketball! and i make a lot of damn money doing it too!'

now i'm not conceited enough to believe that i deserve to play in the nba. i know height alone is not enough to make me a good basketball player. but i could ride the bench and i look pretty decent in a suit. who cares who's on the bench? if it's gonna be anyone, it might as well be a tall, lanky white guy. you don't have to put me in your games, just sit me on your bench, and i'll contribute as much to the nba as adam morrison ever has.

so nba teams, when you start thinking about filling those rosters, i'm right here. i come real cheap (i imagine real cheap to you is still a lot of money to me). i already have a twitter account and i'll be phenomenal at press conferences.

and when it's all said and done and the "real" nba talent comes back to you, i'll go away peacefully back to where i belong... begging the washington generals (the team of white dudes that always lose to the harlem globetrotters) for a roster spot.

a letter to kurt cobain

dear kurt,

it all ended 17 years ago. you died on this date. you took your own life. you were my first hero. i was 14. from the ages of 12-14 i listened to the music your band nirvana released religiously. you were the front man of my favorite rock band, the first rock band i ever truly worshiped in my teenage years.

i look back at it now and i understand now how i didn't understand so clearly back then. i didn't know all that much about you. i didn't know what you were going through. i still don't know what it is you went through. i don't know how the path of your life lead you to where it did. but it did, and that's all that matters. there's no undoing these sort of decisions.

when i first bought 'nevermind,' it was just 1 of 10 cd's i bought from columbia house for a penny a piece, back in the days of cd clubs. i bought your album along with a copy of pearl jam's '10,' and the doors' greatest hits. i was just truly discovering rock and roll and i wanted to know all about it. 'nevermind' blew me away. i couldn't explain it, still can't. but when i heard that album, i wanted to throw shit at the walls. but not cuz i felt destructive.... it was like something inside of me clicked. i didn't know what was wrong with me, but i didn't feel in place in the world. i was an odd teenager. i felt alone. but as i moved my way through the tracks of 'nevermind,' i felt less and less alone. i felt finally someone figured it out. someone took the feelings of isolation, of being weird and odd, and sometimes being lonely in this world... someone took those feelings, bunched them up together and made music with it. i had an anthem, a soundtrack. for the rest of my life, no matter how weird shit gets, no matter how much i think the world's out to get me, i will always have this album to come home to and feel alright about my odd place in the world.

and on it went. i discovered 'bleach.' i bought 'incesticide.' i was filled with excitement as i waited for the release of 'in utero.' the first time i saw nirvana unplugged was on my birthday. it just made total fuckin sense the whole time.

you taught me two of the biggest lessons in life. the first you taught me was that i was not alone. there were plenty of people who felt odd and out of place just like me. nirvana sold tons of records. i now knew out in the world, there were plenty of people like me, and we all had nirvana. it was the first time i felt part of something, like a movement. like nirvana were our heroes going out in the world and fighting the good fight for all us fans. nirvana was huge and couldn't be ignored and that made me feel huge and impossible to ignore.

it was okay to wear old flannels and beat up jeans. the rest of north bergen high school was concerned with fashion but i didn't give a fuck cuz nirvana didn't give a fuck. i started to write poetry and express myself. in my own mind, i was suddenly against the grain and damn proud of it. that was probably my first pure "punk rock" moment.

even the first serious crush of my life was on a nirvana fan. i said to myself, 'holy shit! even women are into this! women like nirvana! i like nirvana! maybe women can like me too!'

and it was cool. being uncool was cool. being sad sometimes wasn't necessarily bad cuz everyone gets sad. why be a total fake about it like the rest of those other conformists?? fuck them! they just don't get me and i don't want them to.

and then one day my best friend eric calls me up. i forget the reason he called, i can't remember if it was to hang out or if he only called me to deliver the news. kurt killed himself.

fuck.
why?
what now?

i was 14. and just like that, i was 14 with low self esteem all over again. fuck, my hero took his own life. if the biggest fuckin hero of my life can't stand up to the weight of the world, what chance do i got?

this is where lesson two came in. you inadvertently taught me that sometimes in life, you're gonna be alone. and you're gonna have to deal with that. and just cuz one dude commits suicide doesn't mean i have to. hero worship was suddenly the ungrungest thing i could think of. and just like that i labeled you a coward who just happened to write good music.

kurt cobain. the name's still huge, like in my head, when i say it to myself, it's huge... just bigger than any other name floating around in my brain. i'm over the coward thing. you did what you had to do. and some people think you didn't even take your own life, that someone else did. these are details i'll never know for sure. but i'm glad that i was a teenager when i was. i'm glad i had nirvana, and grunge, and a hero named kurt. it was a nice little foundation for an oddball such as myself. to this day, i still feel out of place in the world but now i'm just totally cool with it. don't bother me at all. when i'm angry, i grunge out, i blast 'in utero' from time to time. when i'm mellow, there's the unplugged album.

and maybe that was your role in existence. maybe it was up to other people to tell us what comes next. give us some sorta battle plan beyond what we already thought we knew.

many years later i saw dave grohl and the foo fighters in concert. dave's whole agenda seemed to be letting the crowd know it's ok to rock out, make noise, drink beer, and have a good fuckin' time! as long as no one gets hurt and everyone's smiling, what else really matters? i'll never be as much a fan of the foo as i am of nirvana, but it seemed to make so much damn sense that after all these years, after all the dust settled, here stood one of the men who was in the forefront of what i called my movement. and now he told me it's ok to smile and have fun. so what if we were all odd, dirty, rocker kids? just take the odd, dirty rock stuff and turn it into a party.

anyways, thanks kurt. you helped me out in a huge way. i will always be like, 'fuck yea, i was a grunge kid! i was there when it was alive!' sometimes it seemed you didn't want to be a hero, but you were and still are.... minus all the suicide stuff.

probably not your biggest fan, but i like to think i am,

josh wells


ps- if you were here today, you'd probably think everything's lame; stuff like reality tv, social networking, cell phones, even rock music. you'd be mad at it all. i know i am. i guess we gotta keep that torch alive.

i am not who i voted for

so stop coming up to me with your obama grief.

yes, i did vote for obama.

no, i did not pledge allegiance to 100% of the actions he would take while in office. in fact, i have a small shopping list of things he's done that i highly disagree with.

i don't dig the libya thing (and whether you do or don't, i don't care at the moment, this is not an opportunity to disagree with me). but i'm tired of people coming up to me making snarky comments like, "what do you think about your boy obama now?" anyone who would assume that i would back this up simply cuz i voted for the man is insulting my intelligence and i gladly ask that you take your words and eat them.

here's the thing, when i vote, i don't vote for a savior, a superhero, a magician, or a maker of miracles. i'm well aware that the campaign season is full of all sorts of grand speak and deceit. when i hit the voting booth, i'm looking for the lesser of two evils, and that's about it. when i voted obama, i openly told anyone who asked that i just thought he was a better dude than mccain. if you asked me 6 years ago, i'd have said, 'i just think john kerry's a better dude than george w.'

i stand by my vote. i still to this day think obama is the lesser of two evils. if i had to do it all over again, there's no way i'd vote for mccain! no way, whatsoever! this doesn't mean that in my mind, obama has a license to freely do as he pleases. i hold the man accountable for his actions and when he goes against what i feel is the right thing to do, i don't cower inside and say, 'well, guess i gotta stand by him cuz i voted for him.'

i also feel that i must explain why i won't vote third party anytime soon either. i did at one time vote for nader. that was george w., round 1. i was a lot more idealistic then. these politicians play politics like coaches coach football. dudes like nader are blessings in disguise for guys like bush. it sucks that i have to downplay nader as that cuz i really dig the dude and everything he stands for. but that was when i voted for an individual, when i thought that was more important that voting for the realistic lesser of two evils.

we got a long ways to go before a 3rd party candidate stands a realistic chance in this country. ross perot may be the closest we see for a long time. if a third dude came in and got some steam, and it looked like he could turn it into a realistic three way race, then i'd consider voting third party. but i can't in good conscience vote that way and watch bad dudes like george w. bush reap the benefits.

so my apologies to mr. nader. you're awesome. and you've done a lot with your career. you even hosted snl.

so that's it. don't call me obama. i'm not him. i just voted for him. i voted for him cuz my conscience said, 'this is the best realistic shot this country's got.

and the way some of these contenders are looking right now that are lining up to go against him in 2012, i wouldn't doubt if obama wins my 'lesser of two evils' vote once again. doesn't mean i won't get pissed every time he decides to stick our military into something i'd rather not see american lives be sacrificed for.

what are you reading?

'what are you reading?'

that is one of my least favorite questions ever. if i'm reading, then obviously i don't want to stop and talk about it. i can't talk to you and read my book at the same time. the fact that you would even ask me any question at all while you see me reading implies that you think you're more important than the book i'm reading. but if you were more important than the book i was reading, then i wouldn't be reading. instead of reading i would've went and found you and talked to you. i would've made that decision way before i decided to open my book.

also, most times, my book has a cover on it and you can clearly see the title on said cover. so please, leave me alone. i'm reading to get away from you and everything else. thanks.

but what makes this question even worse is that with the addition of a simple comma, the definition changes and makes the question suck even more.

what are you, reading?

cuz to some people reading is arcane or a waste of time. yeah i heard they made a movie out of it, but i still like to perk up the ol' imagination. imagination, you know what that is, right? that's the thing that you used to use before you had non stop internet access through your cell phones, netbooks, and PC's, that thing you used to use from time to time before you had a gigantic TV with a blue ray DVD player and 3 different video game systems.

but what do i know? how dare i take part in an activity that celebrates literacy. there's nothing a book can offer me that i can't get from scanning over wikipedia pages.

and it's so time consuming! who has time anymore? the world won't stop turning and the facebook news feed won't stop rolling. who can afford to take their eyes off of the world in action to bury themselves in an art form that helps create a getaway spot in your mind? that'd be madness! you might even forget about everything else around you for a while and.... enjoy the experience!

cya at the library.

3 fridges later....

today marks the first day of the third refrigerator i've owned since moving out on my own. i moved out in october of 2004, so if you do the math, that's a little over 6 years which would make the average life span of a fridge in my apartment approximately 3 years, which means i should expect to be shopping for my 4th one in 2014. good to know. i'll start saving now.

cuz it's a bitch to buy a new fridge! if every one's like me, you don't really plan the purchase of a new fridge. what usually happens is the fridge you currently own craps out on you and you're forced on the drop of a dime to run out and get a new one. this time around, that was $500 right out of my pocket! motherfucking OUCH!

i've been a lucky dude though cuz this is actually the first fridge i've paid for. so if we do the whole averaging thing again, that's a little less that $170 a fridge.

the first fridge came free. well, free in price tag. but it cost a lot of headaches and pain. my girlfriend at the time found someone giving a fridge away in jersey city. it was a really big, really old fridge. we had to convince my friend Chet to borrow a flatbed from the tow truck company he worked at the time to haul it to my house. but that's not the half of it. this fridge was so big, that to get it out of the house, we had to remove the front door, take the fridge out, and put the door back in place. luckily, once we got back to my place, there was no door removing. but angling it and making it work was a pain in the ass as well.

but it was all good cuz here i was, moved out of my mom's place with a fridge! finally i could keep my beer and groceries cold! i finally felt like a grown up!

this fridge was old and i felt the time we had with it was all borrowed time. but for free, it did it's thing. and about 2 years into it, it crapped out on me. time to get a new one.

i'm a lucky bastard when i think about my second fridge. my mom had heard me complaining that i had no fridge. she couldn't stand the thought of her son living alone with no fridge. so she offered to buy me one. off we went to PC Richard's. we went in, purchased a reasonably priced fridge and left. they delivered it a couple days later and even took the big, old bastard with them. sweet deal!

the new fridge did it's thing for a year or so till the compressor crapped out on it. i called a fridge repairman who came by and mumbled something about how, 'they don't build 'em like they used to, buncha crap nowadays.' he replaced the compressor and for his services i was out $350. damn. oh well, at least my fridge works again... it was free after all, right?

so now if i add that $350 to the equation, it's really $850 out of my pocket for three fridges. that brings the average price to $284 each one. and if each one really only lasts an average of three years, that's about $95 a year. anyways... back to fridge #2.

fridge #2 went on for a little longer and crapped out on me again at an odd time. i live in a really old building and the owner decided to try and update the electrical system so it's more up to date. the day after they messed around with my electrical stuff, my fridge stopped working, so i blamed it on them. the electrician came over and checked it out. the fridge would start, then shut off after 30 seconds and start again. the fridge would never get cold. electrician said my compressor was shot. at that moment all i could remember was the repairman a couple years back grumbling about, "not makin 'em like they used to." so i accepted my loss and went out fridge shopping again.

i waited a few days before making the purchase. i wanted to wait for payday, cuz i was pretty low on funds. in the meantime i had to keep the essentials cool somehow. and by essentials, i mean beer and water. because it was cold out, i kept beer and water by the window and left the window open a little. and this worked out nicely while i was fridgeless. i might be the first dude i know who's said something nice about the cold weather this season. thanks mother nature! you rock! i don't care what the kids on facebook are saying about you.

that brings us to today. got a decent looking fridge for $500 altogether (that includes delivery and the $10 i tipped the delivery dudes). and i'm happy to be able to keep things cool once again. it makes me reflect on the passing of time. there's so many ways to measure time; days, weeks, months, years. you can even try more abstract concepts like serious relationships (since i've been on my own, 4), cars (0), jobs (1), arrests (0), TV's (3, haven't paid for one yet, but that's another blog for another day), computers (2, if you count the netbook, 3), hangovers (countless). in this case, i'll measure by fridges. i've been living on my own now for the length of 3 refrigerators.