The New Year began with nothing so spectacular as a raucous party or a mind numbing hook up, but rather with relative quiet serenity brought about by the blue wash of a television. Enjoying the company of close friends and relishing the warmth of being off the street and away from the chaos outside, it could have been more, but it most definitely could have been worse. Embracing the coming year meant accepting the passing of old things, lying to rest some juvenile tendencies, relishing the coming events and looking beyond my own shortsighted endeavors. Old friends had passed into the wayside, but new friends were made. I ended the most debilitating relationship I’ve ever been in, courted a new lady friend and realized that my powers of deduction and reasoning were not isolated to one person but that I could form a deep emotional connection with someone I hadn’t seen in a decade. While the ramifications of the realization served to splinter the dynamic, mainly out of fear, it did serve as validation of a talent that all too often I downplay and regard with humility. Aside from the relationship stuff I suffered some of the wickedest vitriol ever dished out by my father, saw the limits of my emotional capacity realized and found that I am capable of enduring incredible things. I welcomed my nephew into the world, which I’m still unsure of how to regard so indifference is the chosen response. I invested in my car, obtained two jobs, and realized above all else that I’m a better person than I give myself credit for being.
I’m not nearly as emotionally callous as I claim to be, unless I choose to be, and in that I’ve found that I’m exactly where I want to be, in complete control of my emotions, able to connect, commit, and feel as I choose. I have also learned incredible things. While the edict I clung to before my dalliance with Nicole was one which asserted all feeling to be a form of weakness, I now see that extreme emotion can be debilitating if left unchecked. I reeled in my own hubris, ascribed the worst of my habits to my own choices, and made conscious efforts to limit them.
Aside from all of the emotional growth, the relationship learning, and the sordid bouts of romance, let me leave you with something a bit more up lifting. Right now, for many, life is too mired in the shortcomings that we’re forced to recognize every day. Not enough money, too many bills, not enough time, too much drama, things seeming too hard, a slew of things, situations, people, and circumstances that seem far too daunting and imposing for us to endure or survive. But take it from someone who has seen the ugly side of what life has to offer, there is good out there. I have endured unimaginable things in my life, family so fractured and polarized as to elicit silent cries of emotional agony, the scathing expression of deep emotion that comes to little more than strung together sounds, and some of the most heart wrenching goodbyes you can imagine. But there is still good in the world. I’ve been lucky enough to surround myself with some of the best friends money can’t buy, a mind and an intellect sharp enough to accept and adapt to the ever changing circumstances, and an as yet unbreakable resolve to persevere and endure the worst the world can throw at me.
So do me a favor guys, before you go washing your hands of the passing year and relegating all that is to be learned from it, take a moment to reflect on all you’ve been through, all that you’ve seen, all of the good times, all of the bad experiences, every moment you can remember and embrace it for all that it is. Good cannot exist without evil, and thus we cannot appreciate our blessings unless we acknowledge our shortcomings. Be thankful for all you’ve endured because, trust me on this, it all works to make us far better people than who we would be otherwise. See you guys in the New Year, may it be better than the passing one, but just as enlightening and full of opportunities for growth.
-T
Thursday, December 31, 2009
It's not all bad...Right?
2009 saw numerous things for me personally. The New Year began with more of a whimper than a bang. I sat silent and nonplussed as the clock chimed twelve. The exuberance being felt at countless parties and relished by so many lovers across the land was lost on me. My love was no doubt cradled in the arms of someone else, her lips pressed against someone that was not me. Such was my lot in life. I sat quietly contented on the couch of a friend’s house, the TV serving more as white noise than anything to actually command my rapt attention. My phone idly buzzed and flashed messages of well wishing and celebration, but my heart hung heavy as I waited for the only message I really wanted. It arrived twenty-one minutes after midnight and simple said, “I love you baby, Happy New Year Pig. Feel me”. The euphoria that surged through me was unparalleled. For those brief few moments I was elated.
Nicole and I had endured the normal death knell of our relationship, the Holiday Season, and come out alive. No break ups, no terse words, no fighting, I even got her gifts. All seemed right with the world. The year progressed slowly, the days ticking by idly. Valentine’s Day came and went and little more was said than a passing acknowledgement of Singles Awareness Day. March began and served as one of the heaviest hearted months I’ve ever had to endure. Nicole’s two year wedding anniversary was looming just ahead and with it a deadline I’d imposed the previous December. She had to make a choice. As each day drew closer to the 24th, anxiety and fear permeated every fiber of my being. At last the Monday before arrived and she sat stoically upon my bed and delivered the words I hoped I wouldn’t hear. To be honest it came as no real surprise, her own fear and guilt had compounded in a way that left her unable to emotionally connect. Imagine my surprise at the realization that I had found and fallen for someone more emotionally stunted than myself.
The deadline came, harsh words were said, but still nothing changed. Within a month of that night we were back to behaving as though nothing had changed. Then came the announcement that she’d be moving by August and our relationship, such that it was, would end. I set out to try to make her stay and also to find ways to cushion the emptiness she would leave. No amount of talking, pleading, reasoning, deduction, or placating would bring about a reversal of what had already been set in motion.
The months wore on with little more being done or said to alleviate the impending chaos. I devoted time to my car, worked my ass off, and kept myself busy in a myriad of ways. The end of May saw my first face to face meeting with Natalie. I had stored her number in my phone back in February but had declined calling it as I was contented and too afraid of what may have been with Nicole. The meeting went well, albeit nothing of consequence happened. I returned to my life and embraced, as best I could, what was to come working diligently to keep the truth of the entire affair hidden from all but my most trusted friends. A month before Nicole was to leave me forever I set about making final preparations. I backed up the few letters and messages from my Myspace that held any meaning and deleted an account I had opened back in 2005. I also began to try to compartmentalize my feelings in an effort to keep them from consuming me.
A few weeks before Nicole took off, I found myself diverting my affections to a girl I’d not yet met. Entranced by a photo and enamored with what I could ascertain through my own observances I found myself intrigued and infatuated. Finally, through the facilitations of a mutual friend, Jessica and I finally came face to face. A most peculiar meeting to be sure, as she looked every inch the knockout I’d envisioned, and I was covered in sweat, grease, dirt, and countless other forms of grime. I’d spent the afternoon working on Jeremy’s Mustang and was covered in head to toe in the tell tale signatures of automotive work. Jessica and I began talking, and a mutual attraction seemed evident, but our own emotional hang ups served to be our undoing. I was nowhere close to letting go of Nicole, and Jessica still found herself harboring feelings for her ex. It was destined for doom before it began.
Nicole called me August 1 to say goodbye and less than a half hour later she and I were staring into each other’s eyes for what would be the last time. So many things left unsaid, so many feelings left unresolved, and yet we let it happen; heedless of the cost. Hours later I found myself trying to hold Jessica and recapture the feelings I’d had earlier that afternoon, to no avail. Jessica’s own proclivities toward physical affection were decidedly different than Nicole’s and trying to ascribe the same patterns of behavior to another person could only be described as being foolish at best. The late nights and early morning wore on and in the end all either of us had to show for our attempted trickery of ourselves was a couple awkward sexual encounters, some laughs, and a reaffirmed understanding that we really wanted people other than each other.
Silence is a funny thing. It can comfort you, give you peace, serenity, clarity, and an oneness with your own soul, or it can cripple you, wreak havoc on your mind and leave you battered and psychologically beaten. For me silence held solace from the immediate pain that followed Nicole’s departure and then it gave way to a chaos of the mind that, I have no doubt, would have consumed lesser men. Assailed by countless images and memories, eventually I managed to construct a mindset where I had achieved emotional detachment from the horrors that plagued me. While saying that I had found my peace from the devils of that time would be an outright lie, I have found a way to live each day without the pangs of want, longing, and misery that plagued me for so many days and nights. So in many ways I’m better. A part of me will always belong to her, will always be connected, and will always feel her. It’s inescapable that when you are that close to someone you begin to live in tandem. But persevere, survive, and endure I must, after all, no one else is going to save your sorry asses from the zombie invasion.
Nicole and I had endured the normal death knell of our relationship, the Holiday Season, and come out alive. No break ups, no terse words, no fighting, I even got her gifts. All seemed right with the world. The year progressed slowly, the days ticking by idly. Valentine’s Day came and went and little more was said than a passing acknowledgement of Singles Awareness Day. March began and served as one of the heaviest hearted months I’ve ever had to endure. Nicole’s two year wedding anniversary was looming just ahead and with it a deadline I’d imposed the previous December. She had to make a choice. As each day drew closer to the 24th, anxiety and fear permeated every fiber of my being. At last the Monday before arrived and she sat stoically upon my bed and delivered the words I hoped I wouldn’t hear. To be honest it came as no real surprise, her own fear and guilt had compounded in a way that left her unable to emotionally connect. Imagine my surprise at the realization that I had found and fallen for someone more emotionally stunted than myself.
The deadline came, harsh words were said, but still nothing changed. Within a month of that night we were back to behaving as though nothing had changed. Then came the announcement that she’d be moving by August and our relationship, such that it was, would end. I set out to try to make her stay and also to find ways to cushion the emptiness she would leave. No amount of talking, pleading, reasoning, deduction, or placating would bring about a reversal of what had already been set in motion.
The months wore on with little more being done or said to alleviate the impending chaos. I devoted time to my car, worked my ass off, and kept myself busy in a myriad of ways. The end of May saw my first face to face meeting with Natalie. I had stored her number in my phone back in February but had declined calling it as I was contented and too afraid of what may have been with Nicole. The meeting went well, albeit nothing of consequence happened. I returned to my life and embraced, as best I could, what was to come working diligently to keep the truth of the entire affair hidden from all but my most trusted friends. A month before Nicole was to leave me forever I set about making final preparations. I backed up the few letters and messages from my Myspace that held any meaning and deleted an account I had opened back in 2005. I also began to try to compartmentalize my feelings in an effort to keep them from consuming me.
A few weeks before Nicole took off, I found myself diverting my affections to a girl I’d not yet met. Entranced by a photo and enamored with what I could ascertain through my own observances I found myself intrigued and infatuated. Finally, through the facilitations of a mutual friend, Jessica and I finally came face to face. A most peculiar meeting to be sure, as she looked every inch the knockout I’d envisioned, and I was covered in sweat, grease, dirt, and countless other forms of grime. I’d spent the afternoon working on Jeremy’s Mustang and was covered in head to toe in the tell tale signatures of automotive work. Jessica and I began talking, and a mutual attraction seemed evident, but our own emotional hang ups served to be our undoing. I was nowhere close to letting go of Nicole, and Jessica still found herself harboring feelings for her ex. It was destined for doom before it began.
Nicole called me August 1 to say goodbye and less than a half hour later she and I were staring into each other’s eyes for what would be the last time. So many things left unsaid, so many feelings left unresolved, and yet we let it happen; heedless of the cost. Hours later I found myself trying to hold Jessica and recapture the feelings I’d had earlier that afternoon, to no avail. Jessica’s own proclivities toward physical affection were decidedly different than Nicole’s and trying to ascribe the same patterns of behavior to another person could only be described as being foolish at best. The late nights and early morning wore on and in the end all either of us had to show for our attempted trickery of ourselves was a couple awkward sexual encounters, some laughs, and a reaffirmed understanding that we really wanted people other than each other.
Silence is a funny thing. It can comfort you, give you peace, serenity, clarity, and an oneness with your own soul, or it can cripple you, wreak havoc on your mind and leave you battered and psychologically beaten. For me silence held solace from the immediate pain that followed Nicole’s departure and then it gave way to a chaos of the mind that, I have no doubt, would have consumed lesser men. Assailed by countless images and memories, eventually I managed to construct a mindset where I had achieved emotional detachment from the horrors that plagued me. While saying that I had found my peace from the devils of that time would be an outright lie, I have found a way to live each day without the pangs of want, longing, and misery that plagued me for so many days and nights. So in many ways I’m better. A part of me will always belong to her, will always be connected, and will always feel her. It’s inescapable that when you are that close to someone you begin to live in tandem. But persevere, survive, and endure I must, after all, no one else is going to save your sorry asses from the zombie invasion.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Phantoms...
Days later and still I find my thoughts muddled. My conscious mind consumed by something more than the simple conundrums of understanding, I am possessed that which is the most volatile of cancers, hope. Unable to let go of history, still wracked by the visions, bombarded by the stagnant phantoms of feelings what once was, pining away for what could never have been. Perhaps solace will find me in sleep, I think I need more Tool
Friday, December 25, 2009
Interesting Habits...
Why is it that the keys to our own damnation are sewn into the very fabric of our proclivities? I have been good, I've managed to stay the course and abide the terms of the handed down finality with little recourse or reason to seek absolution beyond what is readily given. Yet now I stand peering blindly into the past, heedless of the cost I know I will inevitably pay. No sin goes unpunished. I teeter, knowing full well what I'm in danger of falling into, what I will become. For all my inner strength, presence of mind, unconquerable will, every ounce of power I wield I am rendered impotent. I am left unable to assert myself, unable to accept logic and reason, so consumed by an aching heart...still the drama unfolds. Unable to escape, unable to fight, a titan muted and made a slave his own hubris. Pride is truly my sin, a sin compounded by limitless passion and unrivaled loved.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A Very Merry Fuck You, and A Happy Go To Hell!
December is for most a time when the hustle and bustle of gift buying and exchanging is paramount on their list of things to do, and they set about extolling their dangerous festive mindset to anybody within earshot. Self centered selfish kids make up mile long lists of shit they feel they are owed, and expect morbidly obese bearded man (who may or may not be a pedophile) to deliver them, no questions asked.
So where to begin with this shit storm of things that seek to induce projectile vomiting? Do we start with the fat man that defies all conventions of what children are taught? Or with the obligatory gift giving that permeates the month? Or how about the myriad of lame parties all seeking to show off someone’s home or reacquaint forgotten friends with each other in the hopes of expanding the haul of gifts? Or perhaps we begin with the spewing of good tidings from people we don’t know and how they impose the expectation that we stand behind their religious ideology for a holiday that has been too far commercialized to really have any religious symbolism left in it?
I think I’ll start with the fat man and see where we end up. Now most any realistic parent will tell you that they stable their dislike for the holiday and simply endure the bullshit for the sake of their children. Now these children are another matter entirely. Too many books written on positive reinforcement and how to properly discipline your child focusing on reasoning with the child instead of going old school and doing it the way your parents did it, have produced an entire generation of children that feel they are in charge and able to dictate to anyone how to have their way. So these kids are pandered to with TV shows so insipid and thought destroying that they begin to exist in a world where everything has a neat solution and nothing terribly bad ever really happens.
Now this same crop of snot nosed, self serving, juice box drinkers make up huge lists of demands to be forwarded to an morbidly obese fat man with the expectation that he’ll deliver a slew of crap free of charge and without expectation for recompense, furthering the belief these kids have of the world provided free lunches at every turn. Now the down side is that the majority of these kids will pitch a huge fit if their exact demands are not met in any way.
The true meat of this demon though is not just in the way that it furthers the idea of entitlement to a generation of kids that already feel they’re owed the world, or even the fact that it rewards children already so spoiled rotten that their parent’s bargain with them when they misbehave instead of just outright beating their asses, but instead, the problem lies in the double standard it promotes. All year long children are told to ignore and avoid contact with “strangers”. However for one month out of the year, kids are encouraged to write long letters flaunting all of the half assed good things they’ve done, exemplified, or exhibited over the past eleven months, most of which comes under the heading of just not being a complete ass of a child, and they mail their ramblings en masse through an already failing postal system to a guy they’ve never met, let alone actually seen outside of a TV special. The double standard doesn’t end here though, oh no. See I’m going to take it a step further, because when a child believes in an invisible fat man employing midgets in a socialist setting without the benefit of time off, pension plans, retirement, vacation, unions, or even a business model that falls under the eye of Fair Work and Labor Board, that child is considered young, innocent, pure, or unaware of the depravity that exists outside of his perfect little suburban life. However if an adult believes in anything unseen or verified by the rest of society at large (see Bigfoot, Son of Sam, or your local crazy hobo) or as is told in so many useless holiday movies, they actually believe themselves to be the slave driving white man with the beer gut and the dangerously high cholesterol, that adult is committed to a rubber room, made to stand trial, or just genuinely seen to be a massive pain in the ass for the rest of society. What makes it okay for a kid to believe in shit that makes no sense but it’s not okay for an adult? I mean we don’t institutionalize people for believing the bible, even though ninety percent of what comes from it is bullshit and used by people like the Westboro Baptist Church to promote hate, intolerance, and bigotry. So why the difference in treatment? I mean we’ll pay a guy to dress up in a red suit and let a slew of screaming, whining, selfish, sick brats sit on the guy’s lap and ask for useless shit, but if the guy in the suit claims himself to actually be the real douche bag he’s portraying then we have him committed for being a danger. It’s like adult society insists that you can’t adhere to the belief that Santa Claus is real, but by the same token, if you’re a kid you almost have to. Your parents actually promote you writing letters asking for free stuff to a guy that is essentially a slave driver making exclusive use of a class of people with a medically defined handicap that escapes crimes against humanity charges because he doesn’t turn a profit from the products he distributes.
All I’m saying is that if we’re going to teach children that strangers are bad, don’t promote a letter writing campaign to someone they’ve never met, and further more doesn’t really exist. And if it’s okay for kids to believe in shit that is very plainly not real, and perfectly acceptable for two thirds of the human population to believe in miracles, a bearded man living in the clouds, and a guy that dresses in drag that can turn water into alcohol, why are we keeping the more interesting among us locked up? It just doesn’t make much sense to me.
The gift giving is another issue for me because it’s not done out of genuine want, or even out of any sense of altruism, but rather out of obligation. My ex girlfriend hated receiving gifts, but dammit if she didn’t buy one for everybody (sans myself, which always seemed a little weird, it’s like she was married or something), but as much as she professed to do it out of her want to make people happy, I know she did it out of obligation. And most of you buy gifts the same way, you tell yourselves that it’s because you want to, because it will make the people you care most about happy, or that it’s all in the spirit of the season, but really it’s all out of obligation and the fervent hope that if you invest enough time and energy in it, you’ll get something in return that isn’t a huge steaming ball of dog shit. The exchange of gifts has become the primary reason for even passing acknowledgment of the season, with countdowns of how many shopping days are left, organized gift exchanges at both the work place and in social life, and countless commercials, emails, and advertisements championing the “perfect gift”. Just as Thanksgiving is a holiday set aside to promote gluttony, Christmas seems to have been established to encourage greed. Gifts are even given to people we hardly see or like, as peace offerings to bury long gone disputes shrouded in the mists of the past. In-laws that are greeted through clenched teeth, extended family that is hardly known or recognized is welcomed into the home so long as they have an object in hand, and all of them privy to heaps of useless, mass marketed bull shit.
Now if the pandering to kids and the mindless buy in by parents who know they’re perpetuating a bullshit story wasn’t enough, we have countless, and I do mean countless, songs, TV specials, movies, books, stories, shirts, and ceremonies that blast the holiday into the consciousness. You can’t turn around, spit, yell or punch someone without being told to have a happy holiday, wished season’s greetings, or hearing someone spout some tiding of good cheer. The songs are perhaps the most asinine as they promote things that are very decidedly un-Christmas. Rudolph is a ridiculed and insulted reindeer that is harassed, ostracized, insulted and generally disliked member of his species but when the fat man comes asking for assistance due to unforeseen weather conditions, the oft disparaged animal freely acquiesces and the night is saved. The song promotes acceptance of social out casting on the pretense that if suffered long enough individual talents shine through. It’s a topic for another post, but too often ridicule stifles natural development of what could be wonderful abilities in an effort to fit in.
The TV specials promote the notion that no matter how catastrophic the situation all can be made right with a song, a positive attitude, and good will. Sorry kids but the truth is that if your mommy, daddy, grandma, or uncle is on a plane that goes down somewhere in the Rockies, no amount of singing is going to save grandma from hypothermia or starvation. I think they should bring back episodes of The Twilight Zone just to show how weird the world really is.
The movies are just advertising gimmicks that seek to make people warm and fuzzy but reminding us what a family Christmas is all about in storybooks and how little real life is able to resemble it. Families scattered to the furthest reaches of the globe are supposed to come together for a single day of the year, bury old wounds, and share a meal in the interest of good tidings and cheer. In truth most families today are lucky to hear from long lost relatives, let along see them. Tall trees, heavily decorated homes and fresh made eggnog, with the biggest problem at hand being a good moral lesson needing delivery to make someone come home and feel loved, it makes for some really entertaining television. But the truth is that this fairy tale idea of families coming together and feeling closer and working through any hardship together is little more than fabricated fodder meant to call up ideas of a Leave it to Beaver idealism that is long gone and forgotten.
All in all, the holiday wouldn’t be so fucking abhorrent to me if it would just put aside the pretense and exhibit a little honesty. It’s a time of year set aside to promote commercialism, greed, and the accumulation of useless shit, wrapped in the ideation of goodwill and warm feelings, and topped with a bow of pedantic cheer and all of it meant to elicit the behavior of decency that we should show anyway. Dress it up however you like, it’s still an evil holiday, it still stands for little more than corporate greed and commercialism, and at the end of the day, the closest connection you can have with family is the same you share the rest of the year. Getting an overpriced piece of shit in a box isn’t going to endear someone to you anymore than they already are unless your affection can be bought, in which case you should just admit you’re shallow and kill yourself.
So where to begin with this shit storm of things that seek to induce projectile vomiting? Do we start with the fat man that defies all conventions of what children are taught? Or with the obligatory gift giving that permeates the month? Or how about the myriad of lame parties all seeking to show off someone’s home or reacquaint forgotten friends with each other in the hopes of expanding the haul of gifts? Or perhaps we begin with the spewing of good tidings from people we don’t know and how they impose the expectation that we stand behind their religious ideology for a holiday that has been too far commercialized to really have any religious symbolism left in it?
I think I’ll start with the fat man and see where we end up. Now most any realistic parent will tell you that they stable their dislike for the holiday and simply endure the bullshit for the sake of their children. Now these children are another matter entirely. Too many books written on positive reinforcement and how to properly discipline your child focusing on reasoning with the child instead of going old school and doing it the way your parents did it, have produced an entire generation of children that feel they are in charge and able to dictate to anyone how to have their way. So these kids are pandered to with TV shows so insipid and thought destroying that they begin to exist in a world where everything has a neat solution and nothing terribly bad ever really happens.
Now this same crop of snot nosed, self serving, juice box drinkers make up huge lists of demands to be forwarded to an morbidly obese fat man with the expectation that he’ll deliver a slew of crap free of charge and without expectation for recompense, furthering the belief these kids have of the world provided free lunches at every turn. Now the down side is that the majority of these kids will pitch a huge fit if their exact demands are not met in any way.
The true meat of this demon though is not just in the way that it furthers the idea of entitlement to a generation of kids that already feel they’re owed the world, or even the fact that it rewards children already so spoiled rotten that their parent’s bargain with them when they misbehave instead of just outright beating their asses, but instead, the problem lies in the double standard it promotes. All year long children are told to ignore and avoid contact with “strangers”. However for one month out of the year, kids are encouraged to write long letters flaunting all of the half assed good things they’ve done, exemplified, or exhibited over the past eleven months, most of which comes under the heading of just not being a complete ass of a child, and they mail their ramblings en masse through an already failing postal system to a guy they’ve never met, let alone actually seen outside of a TV special. The double standard doesn’t end here though, oh no. See I’m going to take it a step further, because when a child believes in an invisible fat man employing midgets in a socialist setting without the benefit of time off, pension plans, retirement, vacation, unions, or even a business model that falls under the eye of Fair Work and Labor Board, that child is considered young, innocent, pure, or unaware of the depravity that exists outside of his perfect little suburban life. However if an adult believes in anything unseen or verified by the rest of society at large (see Bigfoot, Son of Sam, or your local crazy hobo) or as is told in so many useless holiday movies, they actually believe themselves to be the slave driving white man with the beer gut and the dangerously high cholesterol, that adult is committed to a rubber room, made to stand trial, or just genuinely seen to be a massive pain in the ass for the rest of society. What makes it okay for a kid to believe in shit that makes no sense but it’s not okay for an adult? I mean we don’t institutionalize people for believing the bible, even though ninety percent of what comes from it is bullshit and used by people like the Westboro Baptist Church to promote hate, intolerance, and bigotry. So why the difference in treatment? I mean we’ll pay a guy to dress up in a red suit and let a slew of screaming, whining, selfish, sick brats sit on the guy’s lap and ask for useless shit, but if the guy in the suit claims himself to actually be the real douche bag he’s portraying then we have him committed for being a danger. It’s like adult society insists that you can’t adhere to the belief that Santa Claus is real, but by the same token, if you’re a kid you almost have to. Your parents actually promote you writing letters asking for free stuff to a guy that is essentially a slave driver making exclusive use of a class of people with a medically defined handicap that escapes crimes against humanity charges because he doesn’t turn a profit from the products he distributes.
All I’m saying is that if we’re going to teach children that strangers are bad, don’t promote a letter writing campaign to someone they’ve never met, and further more doesn’t really exist. And if it’s okay for kids to believe in shit that is very plainly not real, and perfectly acceptable for two thirds of the human population to believe in miracles, a bearded man living in the clouds, and a guy that dresses in drag that can turn water into alcohol, why are we keeping the more interesting among us locked up? It just doesn’t make much sense to me.
The gift giving is another issue for me because it’s not done out of genuine want, or even out of any sense of altruism, but rather out of obligation. My ex girlfriend hated receiving gifts, but dammit if she didn’t buy one for everybody (sans myself, which always seemed a little weird, it’s like she was married or something), but as much as she professed to do it out of her want to make people happy, I know she did it out of obligation. And most of you buy gifts the same way, you tell yourselves that it’s because you want to, because it will make the people you care most about happy, or that it’s all in the spirit of the season, but really it’s all out of obligation and the fervent hope that if you invest enough time and energy in it, you’ll get something in return that isn’t a huge steaming ball of dog shit. The exchange of gifts has become the primary reason for even passing acknowledgment of the season, with countdowns of how many shopping days are left, organized gift exchanges at both the work place and in social life, and countless commercials, emails, and advertisements championing the “perfect gift”. Just as Thanksgiving is a holiday set aside to promote gluttony, Christmas seems to have been established to encourage greed. Gifts are even given to people we hardly see or like, as peace offerings to bury long gone disputes shrouded in the mists of the past. In-laws that are greeted through clenched teeth, extended family that is hardly known or recognized is welcomed into the home so long as they have an object in hand, and all of them privy to heaps of useless, mass marketed bull shit.
Now if the pandering to kids and the mindless buy in by parents who know they’re perpetuating a bullshit story wasn’t enough, we have countless, and I do mean countless, songs, TV specials, movies, books, stories, shirts, and ceremonies that blast the holiday into the consciousness. You can’t turn around, spit, yell or punch someone without being told to have a happy holiday, wished season’s greetings, or hearing someone spout some tiding of good cheer. The songs are perhaps the most asinine as they promote things that are very decidedly un-Christmas. Rudolph is a ridiculed and insulted reindeer that is harassed, ostracized, insulted and generally disliked member of his species but when the fat man comes asking for assistance due to unforeseen weather conditions, the oft disparaged animal freely acquiesces and the night is saved. The song promotes acceptance of social out casting on the pretense that if suffered long enough individual talents shine through. It’s a topic for another post, but too often ridicule stifles natural development of what could be wonderful abilities in an effort to fit in.
The TV specials promote the notion that no matter how catastrophic the situation all can be made right with a song, a positive attitude, and good will. Sorry kids but the truth is that if your mommy, daddy, grandma, or uncle is on a plane that goes down somewhere in the Rockies, no amount of singing is going to save grandma from hypothermia or starvation. I think they should bring back episodes of The Twilight Zone just to show how weird the world really is.
The movies are just advertising gimmicks that seek to make people warm and fuzzy but reminding us what a family Christmas is all about in storybooks and how little real life is able to resemble it. Families scattered to the furthest reaches of the globe are supposed to come together for a single day of the year, bury old wounds, and share a meal in the interest of good tidings and cheer. In truth most families today are lucky to hear from long lost relatives, let along see them. Tall trees, heavily decorated homes and fresh made eggnog, with the biggest problem at hand being a good moral lesson needing delivery to make someone come home and feel loved, it makes for some really entertaining television. But the truth is that this fairy tale idea of families coming together and feeling closer and working through any hardship together is little more than fabricated fodder meant to call up ideas of a Leave it to Beaver idealism that is long gone and forgotten.
All in all, the holiday wouldn’t be so fucking abhorrent to me if it would just put aside the pretense and exhibit a little honesty. It’s a time of year set aside to promote commercialism, greed, and the accumulation of useless shit, wrapped in the ideation of goodwill and warm feelings, and topped with a bow of pedantic cheer and all of it meant to elicit the behavior of decency that we should show anyway. Dress it up however you like, it’s still an evil holiday, it still stands for little more than corporate greed and commercialism, and at the end of the day, the closest connection you can have with family is the same you share the rest of the year. Getting an overpriced piece of shit in a box isn’t going to endear someone to you anymore than they already are unless your affection can be bought, in which case you should just admit you’re shallow and kill yourself.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Welcome to the machine...
The holiday season, it’s a time for families to get together, people to put aside their differences and help each, a time of year when the whole of society comes together as one and we share in the harmony and company of our fellow man. NOT! This is the holiday season Hallmark would love to sell you. The kind of bullshit you see on TV and in countless specials, and for what point and purpose? How does any of this drivel make out lives any better? It’s mass commercialism packaged in such as to appeal to the basest instincts we still carry that we shouldn’t be shallow self serving assholes.
But let’s strip away the entirety of the coloring book veneer and look at what it really is. We’ll attack this hydra one head at a time and move forward. First on the list is Thanksgiving. A shallow useless holiday devoted to best excesses of our society. A day when already fat, unhealthy, lazy, useless middle class people gather together to consume exorbitant amounts of food and alcohol in the implied interest of sharing a meal with those closest to them. Now here’s my issue with this, Thanksgiving started as a puritanical holiday first idealized as a celebration for the sickly, starving, and barely functional puritans to commemorate a bountiful harvest. Not the first culture to do it. The ancient Romans would host entire week long events to show their gratitude for good harvests. But the puritans put out this lavish spread invite their peace loving Native American neighbors to dinner and sit down to a meal of quail and venison and preach god’s word to the savage people. And if you believe that story I’ve got some beach front property located in sunny tornado free Kansas just outside Topeka that I’m looking to sell for cheap. Don’t miss this great deal. It’s a bullshit story. The puritans barely had food to survive much less squander and thus chose to eat up and eat hearty while things were still fresh and had less chance of killing them. Somehow in the four hundred years since that first observation it has become a day when people gorge themselves on a myriad of foods and sweets and then spend the rest of the day mired in a personal hell of family and friends.
So enough with the history lesson and borderline evangelical touting of the intended religious ideation. The holiday as it stands today is a time for people to load up their loud, obnoxious children and tote them to all corners of the country to be with family they can’t stand and don’t want anything to do with, all for a free meal and some vacation time. But the relaxation never comes. Somehow there’s always a matriarch that is pulling her hair out trying to get everything done and coordinating the placement of tables, food, seating, which family members are going to be in attendance, and trying earnestly to pry her useless and uninterested husband from the couch for last minute errand to the store for salt, sugar, KY Gel, or whatever last minute trimming has been forgotten. The men sit around and watch a football game as though it were the Super Bowl while drinking ridiculous amounts of beer and chips. The children run screaming through the house, looking for anything to keep them occupied, while avoiding cousins they barely know and dodging grandparents far too steeped in boredom so as to become menaces to the privacy of the child. And that’s all before the meal is actually served. Inevitably there’s the single jaded aunt who’s pissed off for no decent reason you’re ever made aware of, that calls the children to their own table. Now here’s where the tone becomes entirely different depending on which table you’re at.
For the kids that have been relegated to their own table there is inevitably a toddler present that is made to be cared for by their slightly older sibling. All the way up to having to cut up the food and in some cases feed it to the spoiled little asshole. The other kids engage in conversations about how many presents and gifts they believe themselves due for the next head of this beast, Christmas. The conversation very quickly begins to mirror a school yard bout of “my dad can beat up your dad”. Then it becomes a contest of who has more friends, who got the best gifts the previous year, which game console is better than the next, why one kid is better because he has more games or accomplished some asinine feat of uselessness in a game no one cares about. Then it moves to a public verbal beating of the kid who wants books, hot wheels, movies, or computer related trinkets, over the latest video games, toys, or trend. Finally the entire thing culminates in the kids wanting nothing to do with each other or pairing off to tease and ridicule others. All of this occurs with hardly so much as a raised eyebrow from the parents.
Now at the adult’s table the conversation hinges on career, attitude, life style, parenting, discipline, why one cousin can’t seem to keep a girlfriend or why another isn’t married yet, or the ultimate topic why one set of snot nosed trouble making dick head children is better than another. There are always the parents that think they have their lives together and flaunt it without the slightest hint of modesty. They parade their honor roll kids around and espouse how well their doing in school and social clubs and the GPA, negating the fact that the kid is already in therapy for anxiety, hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since he was two and views the rest of the world as owing him a living. Then there are the nosy aunts that think they have some kind of sage advice to offer about how to manage one’s life and keep things in perspective. Then you have the grandmother that pesters the oldest single male at the table about when he’s going to find a nice girl, settle down, and start a family. All the while someone else at the table yells to the kids to quiet down, someone comments on how dry the turkey is, someone else is on the phone with a personal call, a screaming newborn is flinging food wildly into the air, and finally there’s an inquisition going on with one of the younger adults about grades, relationships, and career goals having to fit more in line with what the inquisitor was after at that age.
Paints a very beautiful picture huh? A masterpiece of chaos and insanity and it’s all done in the name of satisfying a social norm that has long outlasted its usefulness. In the age of teleconferencing, email, text messaging, and other forms of global communication, the ideation that Thanksgiving serves as anything more than a tradition held over from before the invention of the microwave is just ludicrous. You cram absurd amounts of people together in hopes they will get along for just one meal and when the gravy goes cold, everyone departs to their own corner of the world. For most though, the day doesn’t end there. Dinners are served early, children put to bed or left with sitters so that parents can slumber before the real reason that this pedantic ritual survives: Black Friday.
The one day of the year when people assemble en masse despite freezing temperatures, incredibly long lines, and sacrificed time with the “loved ones” that are supposed to make the holiday all worth while, and they do it all for one reason, to ensure that the ungrateful brat they brought screaming into the world can have the latest Jerk Me Off Elmo and other assorted useless shit.
We’ve reached the part of the story I like to call a complete indictment of our capitalist ideals. Huge retailers shave off insane amounts of money from the stickers of merchandise in hopes of attracting scores of people to their stores. People die, riots ensue, theft skyrockets, and all in the name of higher profits for companies already too bloated to provide even the most basic customer service. So these insane deals are put together, people stand out in the cold at odd hours hoping to be among the first into the store so that they can buy the latest combination toaster back scrubber and it’s all so that they can perpetuate the idea that they actually care about whoever is going to end up saddled with the thing.
Black Friday should be a head unto itself but because it can’t possibly stand without the mass commercialism brought about by Christmas, it’s lumped together. Christmas is intended to be a religious sacrament, a day when Catholics honor the coming of their savior, despite recent evidence pointing to a birthday in the spring. Christmas comes out of the old veneration for the winter solstice but has since been turned into a gift grab. It’s not about family, togetherness, or good will toward your fellow man. It’s about who can buy the most expensive shit for people they don’t really care about, who can throw the biggest party, who has the most friends.
People buy big expensive gifts in order to accomplish two things. They are trying to inconspicuously buy the affections of people that can’t stand them any other time of the year, and garner as many gifts for themselves as they put out. There’s an unspoken expectation, just as with birthdays, that if you purchase something for someone they have an obligation to reciprocate. So we spend copious amounts of money on a slew of valueless objects in the hopes of engendering better feelings upon those we associate with, while sitting through countless parties that seek to steal your soul, and all in the name of getting into the “Holiday Spirit”.
And we haven’t even begun to cover the true commercial end of things. From about two weeks before the day that venerates gluttony until the first week of January, advertisements everywhere tout new products, big savings, and bigger selections. The major companies choose the final months of the year to release their newest crop of merchandise in order to capitalize on the seasonal expectations. Video games, consoles, TV’s, cars, trucks, amusement parks, toys, board games, clothes, shoes, cell phones, cruises, shit even music is released en masse during that brief window of time and retailers are galvanized into working longer hours, increasing staff, and pushing higher levels of notoriety all in order to get as much retail market share as possible.
We’ve completely bastardized a holiday that is only supposed to be acknowledged by practicing Catholics and all in the name of consumerism. From what I actually know about Chanukah, yes there are eight nights of gift giving but for most Jewish families the emphasis still lies with the acknowledgment of the religion. Christmas is acknowledged by heathens, agnostics, and even cultures that have no veneration for the mythical figures from the bible. Society has stuffed the celebration down our throat so much that those who choose not to buy into the dog and pony show are called Scrooge, a Grinch, or any other of a number of anti holiday characters put forth in a media meant to up play the childhood indoctrination level and vilify those that operate differently. If you choose to speak unkindly of the season or refuse to acknowledge the spirit of giving, then you’re labeled as having something wrong with you. But what about the people who don’t acknowledge Guy Fawkes Day? Or the October Revolution? Both of those things were big events but because they don’t make major companies money (okay Guy Fawkes kind of did, but that’s another rant) they’re relegated to simply cultural holidays unworthy of even the most basic TV special or retail sale. Christmas has become completely bloated and over rated. Movies are released to capitalize on the time people have off, programming is changed to emphasize the season and really it does nothing to promote a sense of camaraderie with your fellow man. People are more concerned with making sure their thankless offspring have the latest toys and games than offering a warm meal or clean clothes to those less advantaged.
It was bound to come up, so let’s face it now. Are we really so debase as a culture that we need an entire commercially sponsored holiday to be decent and kind to one another? Has the foundation of our civilization crumbled away to much as to require that we devote an entire time of year to not being nasty, self serving, narcissistic cretins? If it truly is required that we have sponsorship of large companies and a forced idealism put in place in order to show any measure of compassion to our fellows than we have bigger issues than just breaking down the imposed consumerist culture.
But let’s strip away the entirety of the coloring book veneer and look at what it really is. We’ll attack this hydra one head at a time and move forward. First on the list is Thanksgiving. A shallow useless holiday devoted to best excesses of our society. A day when already fat, unhealthy, lazy, useless middle class people gather together to consume exorbitant amounts of food and alcohol in the implied interest of sharing a meal with those closest to them. Now here’s my issue with this, Thanksgiving started as a puritanical holiday first idealized as a celebration for the sickly, starving, and barely functional puritans to commemorate a bountiful harvest. Not the first culture to do it. The ancient Romans would host entire week long events to show their gratitude for good harvests. But the puritans put out this lavish spread invite their peace loving Native American neighbors to dinner and sit down to a meal of quail and venison and preach god’s word to the savage people. And if you believe that story I’ve got some beach front property located in sunny tornado free Kansas just outside Topeka that I’m looking to sell for cheap. Don’t miss this great deal. It’s a bullshit story. The puritans barely had food to survive much less squander and thus chose to eat up and eat hearty while things were still fresh and had less chance of killing them. Somehow in the four hundred years since that first observation it has become a day when people gorge themselves on a myriad of foods and sweets and then spend the rest of the day mired in a personal hell of family and friends.
So enough with the history lesson and borderline evangelical touting of the intended religious ideation. The holiday as it stands today is a time for people to load up their loud, obnoxious children and tote them to all corners of the country to be with family they can’t stand and don’t want anything to do with, all for a free meal and some vacation time. But the relaxation never comes. Somehow there’s always a matriarch that is pulling her hair out trying to get everything done and coordinating the placement of tables, food, seating, which family members are going to be in attendance, and trying earnestly to pry her useless and uninterested husband from the couch for last minute errand to the store for salt, sugar, KY Gel, or whatever last minute trimming has been forgotten. The men sit around and watch a football game as though it were the Super Bowl while drinking ridiculous amounts of beer and chips. The children run screaming through the house, looking for anything to keep them occupied, while avoiding cousins they barely know and dodging grandparents far too steeped in boredom so as to become menaces to the privacy of the child. And that’s all before the meal is actually served. Inevitably there’s the single jaded aunt who’s pissed off for no decent reason you’re ever made aware of, that calls the children to their own table. Now here’s where the tone becomes entirely different depending on which table you’re at.
For the kids that have been relegated to their own table there is inevitably a toddler present that is made to be cared for by their slightly older sibling. All the way up to having to cut up the food and in some cases feed it to the spoiled little asshole. The other kids engage in conversations about how many presents and gifts they believe themselves due for the next head of this beast, Christmas. The conversation very quickly begins to mirror a school yard bout of “my dad can beat up your dad”. Then it becomes a contest of who has more friends, who got the best gifts the previous year, which game console is better than the next, why one kid is better because he has more games or accomplished some asinine feat of uselessness in a game no one cares about. Then it moves to a public verbal beating of the kid who wants books, hot wheels, movies, or computer related trinkets, over the latest video games, toys, or trend. Finally the entire thing culminates in the kids wanting nothing to do with each other or pairing off to tease and ridicule others. All of this occurs with hardly so much as a raised eyebrow from the parents.
Now at the adult’s table the conversation hinges on career, attitude, life style, parenting, discipline, why one cousin can’t seem to keep a girlfriend or why another isn’t married yet, or the ultimate topic why one set of snot nosed trouble making dick head children is better than another. There are always the parents that think they have their lives together and flaunt it without the slightest hint of modesty. They parade their honor roll kids around and espouse how well their doing in school and social clubs and the GPA, negating the fact that the kid is already in therapy for anxiety, hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since he was two and views the rest of the world as owing him a living. Then there are the nosy aunts that think they have some kind of sage advice to offer about how to manage one’s life and keep things in perspective. Then you have the grandmother that pesters the oldest single male at the table about when he’s going to find a nice girl, settle down, and start a family. All the while someone else at the table yells to the kids to quiet down, someone comments on how dry the turkey is, someone else is on the phone with a personal call, a screaming newborn is flinging food wildly into the air, and finally there’s an inquisition going on with one of the younger adults about grades, relationships, and career goals having to fit more in line with what the inquisitor was after at that age.
Paints a very beautiful picture huh? A masterpiece of chaos and insanity and it’s all done in the name of satisfying a social norm that has long outlasted its usefulness. In the age of teleconferencing, email, text messaging, and other forms of global communication, the ideation that Thanksgiving serves as anything more than a tradition held over from before the invention of the microwave is just ludicrous. You cram absurd amounts of people together in hopes they will get along for just one meal and when the gravy goes cold, everyone departs to their own corner of the world. For most though, the day doesn’t end there. Dinners are served early, children put to bed or left with sitters so that parents can slumber before the real reason that this pedantic ritual survives: Black Friday.
The one day of the year when people assemble en masse despite freezing temperatures, incredibly long lines, and sacrificed time with the “loved ones” that are supposed to make the holiday all worth while, and they do it all for one reason, to ensure that the ungrateful brat they brought screaming into the world can have the latest Jerk Me Off Elmo and other assorted useless shit.
We’ve reached the part of the story I like to call a complete indictment of our capitalist ideals. Huge retailers shave off insane amounts of money from the stickers of merchandise in hopes of attracting scores of people to their stores. People die, riots ensue, theft skyrockets, and all in the name of higher profits for companies already too bloated to provide even the most basic customer service. So these insane deals are put together, people stand out in the cold at odd hours hoping to be among the first into the store so that they can buy the latest combination toaster back scrubber and it’s all so that they can perpetuate the idea that they actually care about whoever is going to end up saddled with the thing.
Black Friday should be a head unto itself but because it can’t possibly stand without the mass commercialism brought about by Christmas, it’s lumped together. Christmas is intended to be a religious sacrament, a day when Catholics honor the coming of their savior, despite recent evidence pointing to a birthday in the spring. Christmas comes out of the old veneration for the winter solstice but has since been turned into a gift grab. It’s not about family, togetherness, or good will toward your fellow man. It’s about who can buy the most expensive shit for people they don’t really care about, who can throw the biggest party, who has the most friends.
People buy big expensive gifts in order to accomplish two things. They are trying to inconspicuously buy the affections of people that can’t stand them any other time of the year, and garner as many gifts for themselves as they put out. There’s an unspoken expectation, just as with birthdays, that if you purchase something for someone they have an obligation to reciprocate. So we spend copious amounts of money on a slew of valueless objects in the hopes of engendering better feelings upon those we associate with, while sitting through countless parties that seek to steal your soul, and all in the name of getting into the “Holiday Spirit”.
And we haven’t even begun to cover the true commercial end of things. From about two weeks before the day that venerates gluttony until the first week of January, advertisements everywhere tout new products, big savings, and bigger selections. The major companies choose the final months of the year to release their newest crop of merchandise in order to capitalize on the seasonal expectations. Video games, consoles, TV’s, cars, trucks, amusement parks, toys, board games, clothes, shoes, cell phones, cruises, shit even music is released en masse during that brief window of time and retailers are galvanized into working longer hours, increasing staff, and pushing higher levels of notoriety all in order to get as much retail market share as possible.
We’ve completely bastardized a holiday that is only supposed to be acknowledged by practicing Catholics and all in the name of consumerism. From what I actually know about Chanukah, yes there are eight nights of gift giving but for most Jewish families the emphasis still lies with the acknowledgment of the religion. Christmas is acknowledged by heathens, agnostics, and even cultures that have no veneration for the mythical figures from the bible. Society has stuffed the celebration down our throat so much that those who choose not to buy into the dog and pony show are called Scrooge, a Grinch, or any other of a number of anti holiday characters put forth in a media meant to up play the childhood indoctrination level and vilify those that operate differently. If you choose to speak unkindly of the season or refuse to acknowledge the spirit of giving, then you’re labeled as having something wrong with you. But what about the people who don’t acknowledge Guy Fawkes Day? Or the October Revolution? Both of those things were big events but because they don’t make major companies money (okay Guy Fawkes kind of did, but that’s another rant) they’re relegated to simply cultural holidays unworthy of even the most basic TV special or retail sale. Christmas has become completely bloated and over rated. Movies are released to capitalize on the time people have off, programming is changed to emphasize the season and really it does nothing to promote a sense of camaraderie with your fellow man. People are more concerned with making sure their thankless offspring have the latest toys and games than offering a warm meal or clean clothes to those less advantaged.
It was bound to come up, so let’s face it now. Are we really so debase as a culture that we need an entire commercially sponsored holiday to be decent and kind to one another? Has the foundation of our civilization crumbled away to much as to require that we devote an entire time of year to not being nasty, self serving, narcissistic cretins? If it truly is required that we have sponsorship of large companies and a forced idealism put in place in order to show any measure of compassion to our fellows than we have bigger issues than just breaking down the imposed consumerist culture.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Birthdays & Halloween & Puscifer, Oh My!
Alright kiddies I’m back, and hopefully there are still some of you out there to read this. Sorry for the long delay and the angst ridden post of last time. Emotions got the better of me and left me seeking solace to something that wasn’t really broken to begin with. Oh well, you live you learn. Anyway enough with the disclaimers, so much has been going on since last I checked in here that I almost need a scorecard to keep it all straight.
Let’s start from the beginning; I had a birthday, which was royally kick-ass. Major props to everyone that showed up and watched me drink my fucking face off. So much fun, such good times, such wonderful friends and from what I remember, it was a super awesome night. I got to catch up and hang with my old friends Melissa and Andrew from Mt. Sierra which was a treat in and of itself. The Greeks showed up which made the night all the more awesome because I had my TA sisters present, I do wish more TA members could have been there but there’s always next time. Then there was Natalie who made the trek all by her lonesome, kudos to you. And then of course my cadre of buddies Jeremy, Eddie, and Mark came out to share in my drunken stupor. Christine made a rare public appearance and I thank her for that, much love. And of course my dearest and oldest friend good old Dean. He stayed sober to enough to get me home in one piece and even made sure I got into my own bed. What a guy. So many awesome people made that night so incredible I don’t think I’ve ever had a better birthday!
Then there was Halloween. Oh good god gravy that shit was so incredible. I got to roll down to San Diego with the Greeks to see the one and only Maynard James Keenan live and in the flesh as he did his thing on stage as Puscifer. Not only was the concert ridiculously amazing, but I had the privilege of being reunited with some of my TA brothers and sisters that I had the honor meeting back in August. We had such a good time with fun costumes, great stories, and of course plans to meet up again this coming Friday at the Baked Potato for a Volto show.
I’ve had a great past couple of weeks, despite fighting unyielding tooth pain, and a 24-hour cold. Good times with the best friends money can’t buy, and a genuine camaraderie with a caliber of people that getting harder and harder to find. I joined TA on a whim as a means to support my favorite band and hopefully to get something to tide me over until the release of their next album, what I got instead was a family of like minded, funny, engaging, and truly beautiful people that have shown me a true sense of belonging and the best times I think I’ve ever had in my life. Here’s to you, all of my friends, TA brothers and sisters, my Mt. Sierra peeps, and all others that I have had the pleasure of knowing. May the Jager keep flowing, the music keep playing, and the good times keep coming.
Until next time remember, “There is no problem in life so big or complex that it can’t be solved by throwing ridiculous amounts of money at it or killing everyone else involved!”
-T
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