You all should fire me. Find a new blogger. Kick my ass to the curb and tell me to get a real job. I've gone weeks without any updates. It's terrible, but it also is exactly what happens when I have no readers. No accountability, no need to actually hold to what I had said.
Integrity? Holding myself to a vow that I made to imaginary readers? ...mmmm...eh. At the end of the week, it really came down to how it is difficult to write a blog that is more than just opinion. If I wanted this blog to contain more than just my opinions, I needed to do some real work. That is time consuming. And time is not cheap. I needed to occupy myself with jobs that actually paid. I still do. I'm just taking a small break to update this because I feel guilty for not updating this.
Gibberish is an update. Not worth reading, but it's an update. We'll see if I can spare an hour or two this week to pull together a real column.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Sweet, succulent hypocrisy with a side order of politics
Deadlines are great and terrible things. Great because they ensure something gets done. Terrible because they often result in things getting done in a slapdash manner that a monkey at a typewriter could probably pull off if it really tried. Well…it’s that time for me to be the monkey again.
I’ve not yet really decided what the central theme of this blog is going to be about. I really don’t want to make it about myself. There are enough blogs out there with people telling their life stories. Mine is no different or more special than anyone else. I could entertain you with all the crazy shit that happens in my day to day life, but really…that’s just not that important or interesting. My life is just another one in seven billion and I hope that maybe by the end of it I’ve accomplished something that makes at least a ripple in the pond of eternity. It doesn’t even have to travel far. I’d call it a damn good success if I make it through this life helping more people than I hurt. If I leave the world with a net plus of happiness then I’ll die happy. Strangely enough, this week’s column seems to be turning into an autobiographical one even as I criticize autobiographical blogs. Ah, hypocrisy, my good friend. You are so good at pointing out how blindly we walk around these days.
Hypocrisy is a great lead into where I really wanted to go: politics. It’s a strange, weird world where people consider it normal that the most hypocritical behavior comes from our elected representatives. What does that tell us about our society that we end up electing these people as our representatives? Do we have some serious self-loathing going on that we want these people to represent us? Do we elect these people because we secretly like the feeling if fucked up people can succeed, so can we? The fun in the news cycle today isn’t even focused on the current GOP primaries. There’s plenty to look at there with Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and the others clinging to their 15 seconds of fame until the next round of primaries. The argument against Mitt Romney these days is that his business Bain Capital sometimes would lay off people after acquiring a business. Bain Capital laid off people to increase profits. The “free” market allowed Bain to cut some excess off the companies and turn them into faster, leaner, more profitable companies…with the standard low paying jobs for most workers, well paid executives, and outsourcing of jobs. Republicans are criticizing this. Everything that was touted as part of a well-oiled capitalistic society for so long is now being criticized by the people who pushed it so long. These days it is all about “job creation” and anyone who is involved in laying off people is a marked man in the political arena. It won’t hold probably because even hypocrisy has a tensile strength. The strength of the criticism will break and everyone will forget it ever happened in favor of the newest piece of juicy hypocrisy.
Local politics aren’t immune from hypocrisy either. Besides the “I won’t run as mayor in the next election if I am appointed interim mayor” from now elected San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, San Francisco and their new sheriff, Ross Mirkarimi gets his time in the hypocrisy spotlight. It’s really a spotlight reflected off a disco ball attached to a spastic washing machince drum. In seconds, it will go from all dark to blindingly bright to ghostly sparkles dancing in front of your eyes as you try to recover from whatever madness that just happened. Mirkarimi has been a San Francisco supervisor since 2005 and did a good enough job that he got elected to sheriff in the last election cycle in 2011. Sounds remarkably uneventful. It was until he came under investigation for alleged domestic violence. Yep. San Francisco’s new sheriff is being investigated for misdemeanor or possibly felony domestic violence. That’s some high level hypocrisy you got going there Mr. Sheriff, sir. Sounds like you’re preparing yourself for some national level offices. Why even run for sheriff? You should aim for a higher office than that if you can manage that level of hypocrisy so early on in your career. Obama might still trump your hypocrisy with his signing of the National Defense Authorization Act and complete reigning in of his pledge to shut down Guantanamo Bay, but you’re still getting started. A couple more years of practice and you’ll be raring to go play with the big boys in 2016. That is provided you get to keep your job if found guilty of the domestic violence charges. A sheriff who can’t carry a gun because of a domestic violence conviction? That’s so bizarre it almost qualifies as a failed sitcom from the 1980s. But who knows…it might just add to that wild-eyed crazy charm San Francisco flashes to the public to draw people into the city. Come! See our gunless sheriff after touring the legal public nudity of the Castro District and marveling at the slope of our streets which give mountain climbers pause!
Friday, January 6, 2012
Before looking forward…
…it’s always good to take a look back. It’s like crossing a street except temporally instead of spatially. Look both ways otherwise you might get splattered across the space time continuum by several tons of speeding karma. Or maybe just a car. Sometimes things just happen for no good reason. It’s up to us to assign a meaning to make it a “worthwhile” experience.
2011 proved to be an interesting year. Have you noticed how many people have talked about what a hard year 2011 was? I’m not surprised by all the news exclaiming how brutal a year 2011 was because the news media is terribly inbred. One person says it’s a hard year and next thing you know every news station is trying to top the others with the most depressing stories of how hard the year was. The Year of Wild Weather! The Year Mother Nature Turned Against Us! The Deadliest Storm Season Ever! Apocalyptic! Armageddontastic! All the floods, droughts, tornadoes, and wildfires seemed to be a big thing in the year end wrap up in the news, I noticed. Now maybe people watched the news a lot and took it way too seriously (always a bad idea if you want to maintain any shred of optimism). Maybe it was a trickle-down effect where enough people had shitty days that they passed it around like a particularly bad virus. “Good morning!” cheerily exclaims the uninfected. “How are you doing this fine day?” “I hate the world and especially you for bothering me with your insipid cheerfulness. I want to crush your soul so just you’re as miserable as me,” growls the virulent. It takes a toll on a heart after a while.
It was a rough year, but shit can become top quality fertilizer if handled correctly. See there’s that optimism I mentioned before. Here’s to 2012. I’ll be doing my best to turn the shit of 2011 into some sweet smelling flowers.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Originality is a fiction...
...but we enjoy being lied to. Oooo...first sentence into the blog and I'm already breaking grammatical rules. That is a fantastic way to start a blog that is being started to improve my writing skills. Perfect. Wouldn't have it any other way. Let's break all the rules. Speak in Yoda, I might. Though that's way to annoying to sustain for any length of time.
Welcome. Don't be shy. It's my first time here too. I feel a short introduction is appropriate. *ugh* Sorry. It's like trying to write an introduction or the beginning of a story. The vast gulf of emptiness in front of me results in an absolute dread of being able to produce anything of meaning, worth, or even entertainment. Confidence? Low. Hope? High. Expectation? Somewhere in the middle. To be determined.
Ground rules: I will update this weekly with some new content by every Friday. No holidays. It might show up a day or two early, but by Friday there will always be something new. Dear readers (once I eventually have some) I'm going to treat this as a weekly column where I bring to your attention something I value. It might be a personal rant. It might be an interesting news story. It might be a random thing that struck me as worth sharing. It might be a story. Story time is always fun. The one thing I promise you is that I will tell you the truth. Really. Trust me. I'll be telling you the truth the way only an anonymous blogger can tell the truth.
Fearlessly.
I'm going to say controversial things. (Israel and Palestine. I don't even need to say any more. Simply bringing it up makes people start hissing and spitting like a sack full of tomcats.)
I'm going to swear. (Fuck, shit, piss, bollucks, cock, cunt, bitch, bastard, mother fucking clit licking father fucking, wanker, cum gargling ass muncher. One day I do aspire to compile a list of every single offensive word in the greater English language. This will be a post eventually, I'm sure.)
I'm going to say things that will offend some of you. (See above. Take your pick.)
I'm going to occasionally get up on my soapbox, scream incoherently, gibbering like a comedic youtube video of your drunk Uncle Charlie on Thanksgiving, then pass out in a pool of my own mangled alphabet soup. (See entire post. No? Not like a comedic youtube video? Oh well. Give me a break. First time and all. I've not yet mastered Uncle Charlie's drunken gibbering.)
It will be just as good a time waster as stalking your friends on facebook hoping someone posted something new for you to kill another dull moment of life in front of your computer. I guarantee it.
Welcome to my world.
Welcome. Don't be shy. It's my first time here too. I feel a short introduction is appropriate. *ugh* Sorry. It's like trying to write an introduction or the beginning of a story. The vast gulf of emptiness in front of me results in an absolute dread of being able to produce anything of meaning, worth, or even entertainment. Confidence? Low. Hope? High. Expectation? Somewhere in the middle. To be determined.
Ground rules: I will update this weekly with some new content by every Friday. No holidays. It might show up a day or two early, but by Friday there will always be something new. Dear readers (once I eventually have some) I'm going to treat this as a weekly column where I bring to your attention something I value. It might be a personal rant. It might be an interesting news story. It might be a random thing that struck me as worth sharing. It might be a story. Story time is always fun. The one thing I promise you is that I will tell you the truth. Really. Trust me. I'll be telling you the truth the way only an anonymous blogger can tell the truth.
Fearlessly.
I'm going to say controversial things. (Israel and Palestine. I don't even need to say any more. Simply bringing it up makes people start hissing and spitting like a sack full of tomcats.)
I'm going to swear. (Fuck, shit, piss, bollucks, cock, cunt, bitch, bastard, mother fucking clit licking father fucking, wanker, cum gargling ass muncher. One day I do aspire to compile a list of every single offensive word in the greater English language. This will be a post eventually, I'm sure.)
I'm going to say things that will offend some of you. (See above. Take your pick.)
I'm going to occasionally get up on my soapbox, scream incoherently, gibbering like a comedic youtube video of your drunk Uncle Charlie on Thanksgiving, then pass out in a pool of my own mangled alphabet soup. (See entire post. No? Not like a comedic youtube video? Oh well. Give me a break. First time and all. I've not yet mastered Uncle Charlie's drunken gibbering.)
It will be just as good a time waster as stalking your friends on facebook hoping someone posted something new for you to kill another dull moment of life in front of your computer. I guarantee it.
Welcome to my world.
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