Nice

"I won't kneel" I Won't Kneel - Groove Armada


I think I'm rather nice, and a good load of my friends would agree. I'm proud that I'm nice most days, but there are some days when I hateth myself for it. The days when I know I've been taken for granted, and there have been many of those days - those are the the self stabbing days.

I get mad at myself for investing so poorly in people stock sometimes, berating myself with "should"s that make no difference now, and then berating myself for berating myself.

Thoughts get stuck in my craw...ok the word "craw" has always cracked me up and in looking up the literal definitions of this word, I happened upon what Wikipedia had to say and the second entry on that page, I shit you not, was "Craw (band), a math rock band from Cleveland, Ohio". Uhhhh wtf is a MATH ROCK band and how do I avoid such a thing? I mean, there can be a MATH COUNTRY band, as two things I hate in the same place like that won't make that much of a difference one way or the other, but to soil ROCK music with MATH is just something my brain refuses to process at this time.

I had to click on that link, and I confess a single respectful brow was raised when I saw the name "Steve Albini" mentioned, but the same section of acceptable, female, facial hair came crashing down when other words like "saxophone" and "Rush" pissed on my eyes from cyberspace.

After an ocular cleanse, I furthered into nerdness by looking up MATH ROCK and the mere gesture of the first click made my glasses become two inches thicker and I went to reach for an imaginary inhaler that may or may not have been there. I can't tell as my glasses became as thick as Glen Beck.

About two sentences in, I felt death by boredom coming on and came back to finish this note and my glasses safely transformed back to their original Tina Fey status.

Ok now where was I? Oh yeah, shit gets stuck in my craw; thoughts ruminating over and over. Thoughts that sound like a posh, English, 56 year old, gay man. The kind of dude that has said "Unhand me you CAD!" on more than one occasion and plans to consciously do it again. I can "How Dare YOU?" for days, but it won't change anything will it? People DARE without explanation nor translation, and sometimes you have to just suck it up and cut your losses. I keep wavering between that and self persecution.

I'm nice, yes, but age/experience or just constantly fucking up has taught me to be better at being TOO nice. I know some are reading this thinking "Um you could give Betch lessons, you aren't TOO nice," but yeah sometimes I actually have been and got bitten in the left quadrant of my ass when I was. I'm trying to be a bit of a dick here and there to balance it out though, and I really made progress yesterday when I was shopping.

I was sifting through some shirts on the rack and one fell off a hanger to the floor and I just left it there. That's right ladies and gentleman, I didn't even look at it. Fuck that fucking shirt and it's fucking flimsy, loser ass material that can't fucking hang onto a hanger. I will not be held accountable for that fucking shirt's inability to do one of the VERY few things asked of it.

Oh yes, I left it there.

Judge me if you must.

True Story: Most Dudes I Encounter Are Dbags

"I'll just nod, I've never been so good at shaking hands
I live on the frozen surface of a fireball" 11th Dimension - Julian Casablancas

Monday, April 19, 2010 at 1:52am

I have no idea why I gave this guy my number a while back, I was bored, drunk, who the fuck knows?

He called this evening and after a quick reminder of who he was, hijacked my ear for seven straight minutes. I zoned out after about two, but then a text came in snapping me to consciousness so I severed into the one sided conversation with an excuse about having to meet a friend in ten minutes. It wasn't a lie, my cat was in the next room mixing martinis. He's one of my dearest friends with a penchant for punctuality that can't be ignored, and a genius when it comes to the libations.

I guess my participation wasn't expected in this phone conversation because he seemed quite taken aback as he asked me to repeat what I had just interjected. I did as he requested with a bit more pinch in my tone, but it went unnoticed as he preceded in asking me if I wanted to get dinner sometime.

I said "Thanks, but no."

He then asked me why I even gave him my number. I said I couldn't recall but that after hearing him on the phone, I had reconsidered.

"After HEARING ME? Wtf does that mean?" he asked.

"Well, from the second you rang, you've been the only one talking and haven't asked a single, fucking thing about me, not even 'How are you?' That shows me you aren't interested in my well being, or anything I have to say. There were no compliments sincere or otherwise in your rhetoric and that's a prerequisite to getting face time with me. If people don't say nice things to me or give a shit about anything I think, my ego can't get mentally or physically hard. If I'm not getting hard, then neither are you. These are the rules I now live by. I'm sorry but you come across as a narcissistic blowhard and I don't want to waste either of our precious minutes do you?"

The exquisite "click" sound of him terminating the call gave me more mental wood than I imagine he ever could.

Stealth Care

“Doctor I'm leaving
But don't turn out the lights
There'll be a cigarette burn victim
Who just like me has lost the strength to stand and fight
Above all it made me sick
I wanted the truth
But he just licked his lips and smiled
That's just the price you pay” Doctor Doctor – Razorlight

I’m starting to wonder if I can even associate with Republicans now as their insanity baffles me even more than people that want to make accessories from human skin.

The ones I’m related to and grew up with think the U.S.A.’s BIGGEST problem is people on welfare that don’t deserve it. When I ask them do they have any names of people that they know well who are on welfare but “scamming” the system, they never have any. In fact, one guy got pissed at me and said he didn’t have to justify what he believes in. I wasn’t asking him to do that, I just wondered if he knew these folks because I don’t know any at all. I don’t know anyone on welfare, let alone someone who is getting it but doesn’t need it.

I do, however, have a long list of names of people that need health insurance and I do KNOW them. Some have lost their insurance when they got sick, some can’t find jobs with insurance offered, some can’t afford the plans their jobs offer, and some have pre-existing conditions and have been denied coverage. I know one person who lost everything when they got cancer and was denied Medicare/Medicaid when they applied.

Republicans don’t want to hear these things. They tell me they don’t think people that sit on their asses deserve health care and will do whatever it takes so they don’t have to pay for THESE people. It's more important that THESE people, that they don’t know the names of, are "put into their places" over the well being of the ones they do know that have either fallen on hard times or chose a more artistic path.

Fuck it, maybe it doesn’t even fucking matter, I mean, there are other options besides the government helping out right?

If American women need health care, they can get pregnant. The state pays for your health if you have a kid, even if you hate the kid and can’t afford it and end up on …wait for it…WELFARE. If they're barren we can start a web site for mail order brides to other countries (Saudi Arabia is always looking for some hefty, pale, white girls). My back up plan is prison, they accept my pre-existing condition (heart stuff I was born with) there and I kind of salivate at picking whose house I'm going to burn down when the time comes (I'll make sure the pets are out) or whose dick will meet with my baseball bat on unfriendly terms (my bat is bipartisan).

Both women and men, if healthy, can join the military like some of my friends are doing. Musicians, artists, designers, writers, models, actors, etc that have to work weird hours to support their habits can hang it up, there really is no need for new American music, or acting, England has that covered. Everyone can get an accounting job or become a nurse and we'll all be the same, yeay!

********

It won't ever come into fruition here, we all know nothing ever changes except gas prices, which nobody seemed to have a problem paying $1.50 per gallon extra for that two years ago for some reason. (Those poor oil companies!) Maybe pretend we’re still paying that but instead of the cash going to some fat, fucking suit at Exxon, it saves the single mom down the street raising three kids on her own, or the life of someone born into poverty that will someday write your new favorite song.

I've come to the conclusion that it's ridiculous to worry about it one way or the other. I don't give a shit who’s for or against it, but I do know I could never look another non-murdering human being in the eye and tell them that they don’t deserve to live.

I think the BIGGEST problem in the U.S.A. is that too many people here can.

Alex Chilton R.I.P.

"Every night I tell myself,
I am the cosmos,
I am the wind
But that don't get you back again
Just when I was starting to feel okay
You're on the phone" I Am The Cosmos - Big Star

When I heard Alex Chilton died today, I genuinely cried, then fell asleep and missed all of the St. Patrick's festivities I had planned, but I really didn't care.

I'll raise a glass with friends later this evening to the memory of this legendary and inspiring man.

To most he's the teenage phenomenon from "The Boxtops" (duh "The Letter") or the dude who sang "That'70's Show's" theme song "In The Street", but to musicians he's on Bowie levels aside from the fact that he was not WELL known. A fact in which he reveled.

"Big Star" live was awesome, and I miss the days of being able to catch them in small, out of the way places after they reunited in the 90's. I miss who I was at that time as well. I believed in love, I wasn't yet broken or used. I felt invincible and vulnerability was never given a thought. I thought the people that were my friends would be in my life forever (some are yeay!), but some have died, and some I wish were dead (the bitch part of me is still VERY intact). I believed in a higher percentage of goodness in people than the sad reality I've witnessed in the years since.

That was a time where there were "passwords", if you will. Naming the right influences was the deciding factor in your status and ranks amongst your peers in the overly snotty music world. "Alex Chilton" or "Big Star" were the right answers to 90% of the questions that were never asked. I can't tell you how many doors were opened for me when I ignorantly mentioned my admiration of them. Eyebrows raised, interest sparked, opportunities were relinquished to me just because I mentioned them first. Knowledge was power, but now it's more accessible and I'm beginning to think knowledge has become simply random.

Sometimes when I'm lost in "For You" or "I'm In Love With a Girl", I feel like that person who still believes in love for a minute, but then I think and she's gone.

She Fangs

Above: Ian Somerhalder

“How fucking romantic
must we really waltz?
drag another cliche
howling from the vaults” How Fucking Romantic – The Magnetic Fields

Ugh, I just sat through the movie “Twilight”.

“Why?” You ask as you grimace in solid distaste. Well someone I grew up with was murdered a few days ago and I was already in a weird place, but this brought me to that level where you just don’t want to think. TV is the antidote to thinking and voila, "Twilight" was on Showtime HD and honestly the cinematography was lush and pleasant. The script however, was not. Rated “lame” for mature audiences.

Many wonder the appeal of such films, but it’s quite simple. Mousy brunettes want a guy that’s a tortured soul who needs and craves only them. He is SO sensitive and hides things to protect them, but NEVER lies. He’s pretty, but strong (never muscular) and keeps them safe at any cost. He looks at them like he’ll die without them but lives to linger only in a stare. Having sex may kill the girl so overly dramatic restraint is a necessity.

He would never get drunk and do anything vulgar like yell “Show me your tits” to female passersby, no! Such words would never stain his lips. He’s mysterious and different. He doesn’t watch sports, he’d rather hear stories about how no one else understands but him, and truly no one does understand but him. He texts them all day, even while they’re being chased by really evil vampires he takes a moment to text and say how great her elbows look as they run for their lives. He dismembers the enemy seconds after hitting “send”, but will text again even if she is standing right in front of him, he just loves her that much.

Vampires kill people, but it’s okay as long as they’re good looking and monogamous. If the vamp were to look at the girl’s friend for more than two seconds though, she would stake him in the left pec fo sho.

There should be a disclaimer at the beginning and end of the movie like “Caution, this is fantasy. There's no such thing as a good looking, monogamous dude that gives a shit about anything you have to say in America or probably anywhere. Interesting, mysterious guys that care about brains over a pretty face are fictitious! The possibility that vampires exist is more probable than the males postured in this film. You are setting yourself up for crushing blows of reality and years of costly therapy if you delude yourself into thinking men are even remotely like this.”

The fantasy male and female in these times makes me wonder how any of us ever get together at all (oh yeah alcohol).

I confess I do watch “Vampire Diaries” but merely to drool over Ian Somerhalder (Boone on Lost). The show itself blows aside from his scene stealing character "Damon". It’s “Roswell” subbing vampires for aliens this time right down to the pretty, brown haired girl (blondes aren’t allowed to be smart leads with otherworldly boyfriends) that narrates the show as she writes in her diary. It sucks but there are no eye pleasing males where I live so I make due via Verizon Fios.

At least on VD they don’t put white make up solely on the vampire’s faces that so obviously doesn’t match the rest of their skin like they did on Twilight. Hello! HDTV! Please keep up!

HBO’s True Blood is more adult oriented with loads of sex and the evil blonde vampire “Eric” is hot, but the lead characters annoy the shit out of me. I hate the South and when Paquin’s character “Sookie” speaks, I feel like my IQ drops a few points to acquire the translation.

At least whoever does the soundtracks for all these vamp viewings is on the same page as I am. Muse, Radiohead, and just about every other band fronted by a seemingly depressed dude that would make a decent bloodsucker are featured.

Well as bad as I am for watching this shit, you’re reading about me watching it.

Sad state of affairs isn’t it?

**RIP Carrie**

P As In Pterodactyl

Above: Me & Ben P. Chmura

"She she she shine on" Shine On - House of Love

Oh so glad Ben wasn't kicked off the first episode of Project Runway! Was great to have him back in Tampa. He's really a sweet guy and I hope he continues to do well. The party was great, and the after party was pretty wild too, as you can see below. I found a dude who was drunk, but asleep on his feet. This is one of many photos I took that kept some of us tards epically entertained for a good ten minutes:



I saw a funny cartoon about Pterodactyls today (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/ptero) that made me think of one of my odd quirks. Whenever I have to spell a "p" word out on the phone, I always say "P as in Pterodactyl". I'm an asshole, and I freely admit it.

At least I don't say "P as in PHONE", heheheh. =)