these aren’t your father’s dirty unwashed hippies
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“As the first black female leader of the KKK, all i have to say is… America stinks!”
— Franklin Sherman, The Critic.
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I’m honestly a little worried about this move because of… my back. Once or twice a year, i’ll get this weird lingering back pain. There’s no cause for it, i’ll just wake up one morning and my back will be stiff and sore beyond belief. And the pain migrates to my right thigh and kidneys and it makes me piss more than usual. And then it slowly gets better.
It’s slowly getting better now, but i’m afraid that the first time i lift a table or a heavy box my spine will explode and i’ll collapse on the floor moaning like a creepy weak bastard.
Get better, lousy spine. T-minus 12 days and counting.
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I’m not against guns. Not really. There are countries in the world that have tons of guns and a near total lack of gun violence. I completely agree with the Amazing Atheist’s argument that any sort of comprehensive gun ban would be an even worse idea than banning drugs; guns would still be everywhere, and our prisons would be full of otherwise law-abiding people guilty of “buying firearms with the intent to distribute.” It would be the worst move ever. Obama’s not going to do anything of the sort, so quit worrying.
But i want to give the emotionally-overwrought anti-gun people the benefit of the doubt. I think they realize that if they maximize their efforts, create an apocalyptic scenario in which something must be done, and turn the tide of American public opinion as far against guns as it possibly can go, then…
…they might get some restrictions on clip capacity, maybe close the gun show loophole. That’s the most they could do.
The problem with America is fucking Americans. Americans can ruin anything. You know this is true. And we’ve ruined guns just like we’ve ruined lots of other things that should be really easy to figure out.
Sports?
Sports are great, exercise and healthy competition, a cornerstone of human activity since the dawn of time, you can’t have a world without sports. But what is our most popular sport? Football. A sport that forces bulked-up players to smash their heads together for no real reason, leading to nasty, brutish, and short careers, before they all retire at 35 and end up as brain-damaged sad sacks. The media is figuring this out just now, despite the long history of the stock comedic character of the football player (or boxer) who “took too many hits” and runs a restaurant where he stumbles about in a blazer embarrassing himself in front of diners. And to top it all off, football remains the most excruciatingly boring sport to watch, ever. Tennis? Gymnastics? Ice skating? Soccer? Fuck that gay shit, we’re Americans. We want football. I want to see those giant motherfuckers ram heads until their brains are floating around in pools of blood, yeah!
Food.
Food is essential. Our entire human story has been based on the production of food, which until recently has usually been in short supply. In America, for the first time ever, we have the means to produce enough food to feed everyone… and we fuck it up. We make greasy hamburgers on bleached white crap bread the standard, accompanied by fat-drenched fries, snack cakes, oversalted chips, and Coke. Coke — a substance containing no nutritional value, just so much goddamned corn syrup that your body would reflexively vomit it back up if the cloying sweetness wasn’t moderated by some phosphoric acid. Yeah, Coke. Let’s make that the default drink. That would ruin everything. Fuck yeah.
And we’ve done the same thing with guns. Perfectly reasonable tools for hunting and self-defense, right? Sure, until rappers use them as badges and fashion accessories. Until they’re fired over and over again in so many movies that most people will knit their brows in bafflement when told that most police officers will retire without ever firing their gun at anybody. Seriously, most do.
See, when Krysten says she wants a gun because roving fuckheads have broken into her house, that’s an argument i get. That’s perfectly reasonable…
…but when panicky rednecks start stockpiling them because they suffer from apocalyptic delusions of “inner-city youths” going crazy and overrunning the suburbs after a future Republican president cuts off their EBT benefits? That shit ruins everything. I’ll never forget my brother’s idiotic gun-hoarding racist buddy who bragged about the gun he kept in his driver’s side door, saying…
“Man, i wish some n*gger would just walk up to me one day and try to start shit. I fucking wish that would happen.”
…that’s the stuff that turns me back into a hippie.
I mean, you have these 55-year old conservatives who, on their blogs, reminisce about being the high school tough guy and roaring around town in a pick-up truck with their drinking buddies like the seniors from Dazed and Confused, living life all reckless and terrorizing the wimps and the faggots. But now they’re old and weak, and are scared of all these muscly young men, many of whom are black and scary, who are sauntering around and doing what they did thirty years ago. So they buy guns, and carry guns, and go to messageboards and assure one another that if any of those young guys gets out of line, they’ll fucking whip out their penis gun and blow them the fuck away…
…and then they’ll get all misty-eyed and talk about John Wayne and Dirty Harry, and how sad it is that kids these days don’t have those real men to show them how to live and watch all this pussy faggot Harry Potter shit instead.
And yeah, a lot of those young black guys are also carrying guns, because everyone knows that guns make you cool. If the old white people have them, why not me?
Americans. We can ruin anything.
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Blaah.
I don’t have a gun. But my brother has like four of them. If society ever starting falling apart for real, i’d have him give me a crash course in firing them. But we’re not there yet.
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Fuck this rant.
Movies!
I’ve seen so many random movies this week.
The second Twilight movie? Obviously horrible, but pretty funny. I still can’t believe anyone would take the vampire cliche and totally rob it of any darkness or angst, and make being a vampire the same thing as being a rich kid. Yeah, it’s great being a vampire. We look pretty, and have a nice house, and we can have sex, and we have lots of money, and this cool guy who’s kind of like a dad, except he’s a really cool dad who never tells us what to do or anything, and we can walk around in the day and we don’t have to kill to stay alive or anything. It’s a win-win-win-win-win situation, this being a vampire. Yaaay!
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance? Has two or three really unexpected and entertaining bits, but mostly it’s a lame action movie so bad and predictable that i could feel my tolerance for lame action movies drain from me. My brain sat there thinking, i don’t need to watch one of these ever again. Ever. Stop exploding. Please, stop exploding. This movie has the same fatal flaw as the first one — Ghost Rider is just way too strong and is able to kill the bad guys waaaaay too easily. It’s even worse in this second one. It’s like, okay, he’s decided you need to die, so he gets you and you die. The villains are the underdogs? What kind of way is this to make a dumb movie? I love Nicolas Cage, but even he can’t save this turd.
Pixar’s Brave? Not bad. It’s pretty lame compared to The Incredibles or Wall*E or Ratatouille, but it’s okay. The worst part of this one is how characters spend the entire movie stumbling, bumping into things, running around in an off-kilter manner, bouncing off of walls and stuff. But i do give it credit for being different. It starts off with a spunky princess who doesn’t want to marry her oafish suitors and would rather ride her horse and do archery — oh, i get it, she’s going to go off to war, prove that girls rock!, and win the heart of a studly warrior guy but only after she beats the bad guy and saves the land. But then none of that happens. What actually does happen is kind of non-epic, but it was different. And that’s good.
I like movies more than guns.
Fuck, i spent too much time writing this entry and now i gotta go to work.
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the business around food is what really pisses me off. GMOs and monsanto poison and ARRGH it’s all a goddamn mess and that’s another thing no one wants to talk about or change. everyone buys their saran-wrapped junk at walmart for cheap and they’re happy because their kids are fed. it’s a sad cycle. seen the hobbit yet?? can’t wait to hear you talk about that.
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I don’t think we’re doing so hot with democracy right now either 🙁 r – your last note. i’m sorry but i forget what you were responding to.
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Yea I was surprised with Brave that it turned out like it did. I was just happy that for once the princess didn’t marry anyone.
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America keeps bumming me out. I am reading this book about misogyny and mythology in the media immediately following 9/11. I have been in a 9/11 state of mind. and now this. this.
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r – gotcha. now i’m thinking he must have typed that note really fast and forget to but the negative verb in there somewhere. no rational person could admire Nero, right? that’s not a thing that can happen in any possible world.
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Rahhh, I was hoping you would write about the Hobbit too! To use a cliche metaphor, the US totally is an unruly, teenage boy.
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I thought Brave was a little bit boring but it was cute. And not that bad. Your back pain? May not be back pain, darlin’ you need to get checked. It could even be your kidneys or something. NOT trying to freak you out if you are the type to freak out but it COULD be something else…especially if it’s recurring.
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