It must've been tenth grade....I'm at this bitch's house for a big ass pawty, excuse me....I have to pull my shawts lowuh past my crack to get into character. For brief shits, this'll be delivered in the upper-to-middle class white ebonics we spoke in 96'. This pawty was awff the chawts, I mean, shit had a fuckin full-size puttin green in the back yawd, shaved to the smoothest little surface it looked like a crop circle bic'ed onto a nice freshman's bald beautiful..........anyway. Back to the pawty...so yea, we're inside pumpin the ghetto shit in Alison's Muttontown mansion. Haha das funny, da bitch's name was Alison....could be a fantastic broad now, but back then...well, like I said... So anyway, the hip-hop's bangin, the bass is shaking a few B-Cups hea and thea and we're all excited ya know, because we're white and wantin to be black but happy because we know we'll always be white. On comes the hottest new song by The Fugees called 'Ready or Not.' Our hands are up in the air and shit, singin da lyrics of a woman who said she'd rather die than have a white man's baby....but we're psyched cause she's Lauryn Hill, and who are we....fuckin white asshole losers who have it easee fo sheezee. Lauryn said it, so it's gotta be! Word... so we're sophomores in high school, we know nothin. All I gotta know is what door to take when grazing my girl's pasture.....ohhhhh, high-fives from all of my boys...uppp, quiet down, here comes that dog Wyclef's part, I lud dis shit. He starts cacklin his jive, makin us all irie and cravin some Red Stripe......no Problem Mahn! Mmmmm antishipatin dat line we lud to recite like da pledge a' leeeshuns........"I refugee from Guantanamo Bay...." finishin it awff wit da rest of my slices, all JNCO Jeaned and White Structure Sweatered-Out....we don't give a fuck!! Shout-out, Sowth SHaw Strong Isle baby!
Present time:
(Speaking more like Dave Chapelle's impersonation of Tiger Woods during the nationality draft....)
Like most kids do, they memorize the lyrics of songs and sing them because they're catchy. I remember singing a Dead Kennedy's song about Pol Pot and knowing less than an excreted nugget of what the man did, but I skateboarded down my suburban block with a sandwich in my hand and headphones tucked into my ears, singing like mass killings were common and you could catch one down at the local sump whenever you felt like it.
“Gitmo”, as the savvy news reporters like to call it, became a topic of conversation amongst bigwigs the day after Obama’s inauguration. Barack said the place would be shut down within a year as offered explanations for its existence are cloudy and equivalent to a Cliffs Notes book report. Now, hating my ignorance of such topics and the flitting disregard of those lyrics I sung like I'd sat next to Wyclef helping him write them...it was about time to research what was being said to soon close down.
Originally the place housed Haitian and Cuban refugees and acted as an asylum before sending them back to their governments as dissidents. Far worse than the Principal’s office, these were not welcoming home parties; your balls on a platter and whenever you got hungry your food was available. Why in my gracious lord’s name we keep this steel labyrinth off in the country we despise second most, I’ll never know. We can’t buy cigars from them, but we can house our world’s most random with confidence in the hands of a dictator we haven’t agreed with since the day he jumped out of the woods. Because it's illegal for us to visit the country, it's smartest to keep it there? Then why even have maximum security prisons here where psycho killers sleep in the same state I do. Send those assholes to Cuba if you think it's safer.
This modern day Alcatraz our government keeps healthy by paying Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s company) 1 Billion dollars to build state of the art facilities. Talk about dipping the pen in company ink; a literal and architectural hell on earth, this thing was like rigging the lottery on Cheney's behalf. After 41 reported unsuccessful suicide attempts by prisoners, the Pentagon re-named the term “self inflicted injurious behaviors”. Way to make up for it guys....did you hold an elementary school competition on who could come up with the best synonym for suicide, and the winner got a shiny new computer lab for their fellow students? Could you imagine if they’re actually reporting 41 attempts, how many there's truly been? Everyday at lunch time...."shit, it's noon, there goes Benny smashing his doggy bowl over his head until he's unconscious...I betcha 20 push-ups he wakes in less than 5."
The problem with this place is that no one wants to be there but no country wants them back. Most of the criminals there now are those involved in terrorist groups, and since that's the case, no country wants to admit they harbor terrorists. Some men await trial and others are just waiting......waiting for the day they can pick up the Kur'an again and read some religious nonsense that got them there in the first place. And by the way, they don't let them have any holy books while in prison and this causes animosity. Personally, I think it's a catch-22. If these guys get out, they hate you and our country for denying them their opportunity to educate themselves in their faith and therefore they blow themselves up to kill Americans because that somehow is holy. On the other hand, you can give them their holy books, they become obsessed fundamentalists and take snipits of dialogue from the text, misconstrue it into something totally absurd like, 'kill kill da white man"(howard stern in "Private Parts").....and they go ahead and draft up a plan to fly airplanes through our tallest buildings. It's a Bush family choice that Obama's working to make obsolete.
What it all comes down to really is whether or not the release of these prisoners is in the best interest of our country and whether or not they are given a trial for whatever it is they're being detained for. If it's prison because the guy is religious and suspected of enjoying terrorism, I still don't believe you could hold someone prisoner on a hunch. If the guy willfully committed a crime then like any other jailbird, keep em locked up. If he was trying to escape his country illegally then ask him which he would rather do, go back to his country and hope not to get killed or stay in the jail. But seriously, you've gotta let those people go that you have no evidence on...unless somehow you prove they're insane and need constant medical attention......in this case, every chicken is labeled in the pen as inflicting self-injurious behaviors...therefore, they're all a bit crazy...we just have to find which pharmaceutical company Cheney owns so he can profit while drugging them up.
.........i've always wanted to say this...."fo shizzle'......
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Selectivity of Attention Deficit
I've bumped into an assload of these posers who pull a card everytime they're rude. Every one of them are liars, I don't care what you say. We're to blame because we gave them that card. Satisfying their wish to be deemed half-retarded yet their IQ equates mine. Sweeping their blatant mid-sentence interruptions or departures off our shoulders because we make like they didn't know. If you call them on it, they know they did it, "yea, my bad I've got A.D.D." Nope, sorry, not okay...maybe if you plead insanity and didn't accept fault because you never knew you did it; then we'd be cucumbers.
These people are just prioritizing their interests every second like everyone else in the world, except they choose to not sacrifice their time to the task that just fell a rung on the pyramid. That choice is what pisses me off, because it's a controllable action....it's not insanity.
How many times in your life had you actually had to concentrate?....I mean really fucking focus because your life means something so important in that moment...
You're there on your mother's death bed and she's trying to say her last words but she's coughing and it takes her almost twenty minutes to catch her breath before she gets another word up.......it's the thanks she feels..... and although it's the wrong name of her son that she's loved your whole life, you know what she meant and you got to hear all you could've ever regretted.
Taking the controls of the plane you've manned for 22 straight years, this day is no different than the rest. 150 passengers trust that yours are the best hands to put their lives in. On your millionth mile, your engine celebrates. Spewing fireworks mid-flight, you're left with nothing but a descent to ground and several minutes to react. In those minutes you decide to save everyone's lives.
The ballet has been a dream of your wife's and she's finally bought the tickets. Dead center, they couldn't be any better. She wraps her arm in yours and leans into you; the only person she'd ever want to share the experience. You slide your winter jacket on the armrest to make it more comfortable because you know the next 2 and a half hours are for her.
A gorgeous brunette catches your eye tonight so you decide to talk. You make it back home and somehow you know she's the one. It might've been the way she smiled, or those eyes that revealed the depths of those lives you'll create in the years ahead. You laugh for hours, until she finally falls asleep holding your pillow. You begin imagining what it'll be like waking up next to this girl every single day if she chooses you, and just in case she doesn't, you promise yourself you won't take your eyes off her until the sun rises.
In these situations and the million others that are similar to our everyday lives, I know someone who's deemed themselves retarded, chooses not to be. They know better than to ever pull that card in that moment.
Every single one of us has A.D.D. We're aware of our surroundings, our options, what we enjoy the most, where we'd rather be, how we should act and what deserves our time. When making decisions in those silent seconds that only you know the competing options you're contemplating, you have the right to remain silent. The ability to choose your direction and who you want to be. What you want to sacrifice for others. If you want to be the guy who saves everyone's lives, you're going to pay fucking attention and land that damn plane. If your mother never gets to speak another word, it won't matter how long she takes to say it, your attention will never waiver. And whether savoring one moment with a new love takes all night, or investing time in your marriage means being clasped tight at the ballet like a statue for hours....you, the retarded one, will do whatever you have too, no matter if it takes every ounce of your energy, to hold back from doing something else that's more appealing.
You truly don't have A.D.D., you just choose that stupid ass card whenever the shoe fits.
These people are just prioritizing their interests every second like everyone else in the world, except they choose to not sacrifice their time to the task that just fell a rung on the pyramid. That choice is what pisses me off, because it's a controllable action....it's not insanity.
How many times in your life had you actually had to concentrate?....I mean really fucking focus because your life means something so important in that moment...
You're there on your mother's death bed and she's trying to say her last words but she's coughing and it takes her almost twenty minutes to catch her breath before she gets another word up.......it's the thanks she feels..... and although it's the wrong name of her son that she's loved your whole life, you know what she meant and you got to hear all you could've ever regretted.
Taking the controls of the plane you've manned for 22 straight years, this day is no different than the rest. 150 passengers trust that yours are the best hands to put their lives in. On your millionth mile, your engine celebrates. Spewing fireworks mid-flight, you're left with nothing but a descent to ground and several minutes to react. In those minutes you decide to save everyone's lives.
The ballet has been a dream of your wife's and she's finally bought the tickets. Dead center, they couldn't be any better. She wraps her arm in yours and leans into you; the only person she'd ever want to share the experience. You slide your winter jacket on the armrest to make it more comfortable because you know the next 2 and a half hours are for her.
A gorgeous brunette catches your eye tonight so you decide to talk. You make it back home and somehow you know she's the one. It might've been the way she smiled, or those eyes that revealed the depths of those lives you'll create in the years ahead. You laugh for hours, until she finally falls asleep holding your pillow. You begin imagining what it'll be like waking up next to this girl every single day if she chooses you, and just in case she doesn't, you promise yourself you won't take your eyes off her until the sun rises.
In these situations and the million others that are similar to our everyday lives, I know someone who's deemed themselves retarded, chooses not to be. They know better than to ever pull that card in that moment.
Every single one of us has A.D.D. We're aware of our surroundings, our options, what we enjoy the most, where we'd rather be, how we should act and what deserves our time. When making decisions in those silent seconds that only you know the competing options you're contemplating, you have the right to remain silent. The ability to choose your direction and who you want to be. What you want to sacrifice for others. If you want to be the guy who saves everyone's lives, you're going to pay fucking attention and land that damn plane. If your mother never gets to speak another word, it won't matter how long she takes to say it, your attention will never waiver. And whether savoring one moment with a new love takes all night, or investing time in your marriage means being clasped tight at the ballet like a statue for hours....you, the retarded one, will do whatever you have too, no matter if it takes every ounce of your energy, to hold back from doing something else that's more appealing.
You truly don't have A.D.D., you just choose that stupid ass card whenever the shoe fits.
Friday, January 9, 2009
A Red Velvet Car Crash
The sun's bright, your wife's beautiful and you can still taste her lipstick from the moment you left....you turn on some Bruce and you start reminiscing about the vacation you took to Hawaii, the jacuzzi, the sunset, how it just reflected your whole life in colors you've never seen off each rolling wave.
If only you were there again. You thank some brief second you lose breath in your lungs, realizing what you've got in life. Singing some lyrics, you scream them in your mind but whisper them to your windshield because you've never been a man to express your emotions. You're too strong for that, for them. New Years is over, Christmas is gone and what's left to look forward to but another day at work, another year of inevitable existence. Maybe you'll lose a friend, maybe you'll gain another...you didn't shave and a hair just gripped your collar, so you gash at it with four nails because you deserve the pain, it lets you know your alive. The thought of anything out of your control getting the best of you is sickening yet you want something to happen because you know you'll learn from it. To become that thinker that you know you are. You punish yourself for not trying harder, for a conversation you never had that haunts you everyday since that day....the fog settles in.
You don't care that you can't see because nothing ever happens. The flowers on the tree you pass are just some dumb kid....some idiot that drove drunk. The broken divider on the bridge where wood and steel brace together what was miles of poured concrete you chalk up to a design flaw. Your headlights reflect off the gray sheet that engulfs your car like fondant....a projector lighting up a curtain you use to watch your life reel by. If there's something you've never understood it's real loss, so you can't imagine the risk in your actions....
You have control, you're confident, they weren't.
Red and yellow lights come up fast like a hard twitch that jolts your dreaming body from the chair you'd spent years making warm. The steel in front of you folds....you've seen this before...you were trying to fit the cake box from your son's birthday into the recycle bin. Red velvet, there was some squishing out the side when you applied pressure. You ask yourself how cake could've gotten into your eyes as you stare at your shaking hands. Coming to, you sense what happened and feel like laughing because there's nothing you could've done, you couldn't foresee this, but you've asked for it so many times. Wondering if you'll die you wait until the mat is fully soaked beneath the shoes you've shined so many times. You begin to cry just thinking of the light that creeps in the one blind that's missing from your window, and how that light used to look like a scar down the belly of your wife...how you wish her skin was at your fingertips, at your lips forever. To feel its warmth and the goosebumps it'd get having been exposed....you wanted it now more than ever because you'll never have it again. Your crooked rear view mirror shifted to you, the bloody mess that you've become....far different than those men not deserving the fate you've received.... the person who worked two jobs everyday but fell asleep at the wheel and hit that tree, or the man who hydroplaned in a downpour over the bridge when trying to pick up his daughter at her friend's. You'd written off these men, as the world has now done the same to you, except the world's right about you. You realize this is your life, no one else's, and you had control. You had as much to do with it as anyone else driving that night. Who were you to judge. People had died before you because they too had momentum....they too were men making decisions. Yours though were based on radical invincibility. On logic misconstrued by arrogance your father had on phone conversations you'd overheard and took as legitimate ways to conduct ones self.
You hadn't bit your lip but you now taste your own blood. The logic of cause and response no longer means anything. You apologize for being so immature, for that time you fought with her because you were jealous and insecure but wouldn't admit it...for that time you passed by the homeless woman on the street and spit between your teeth blaming her for her position. You apologize for ever asking for this, for ever wishing you were gone so you could see how much people actually loved you. The selfish reasons one wishes for death are what you thought would finally make you full and happy, except now it's the tucking in of your family that you wish you could do until the day you die...seeing their shadow and smelling their hair....sitting and watching the sheets go up and down....imagining what their dreams would be that night and what they had to look forward to in life....the hardships, the struggle, the lessons.
Sitting in the car smelling the burnt rubber and flesh of your arm, the passenger airbag explodes. You don't flinch, smile or laugh, just stare and say out loud to hear your own words.... "now that's a design flaw."
As the brakes screech loudly once again you're replaying the accident in your mind except this time the back windshield disintegrates like mist from the hairspray bottle you used before the prom. You think how great of a time you had dancing as your head lunges forward, resting your chin on her shoulder you start counting your steps from that day out loud....the cold sensation coming down your neck though is new to this memory. It reminds you of your mother washing the back of your hair the time you had lice....how she'd do anything for you. You wish you could call her and tell her thanks, tell her how much you love her. Your breathing is so short that maybe it's the wind getting knocked out of you like that time the waves crashed so hard on you and your dad holding hands trying to ride the white wash into shore. The only thing that made it to sand that day were those smiles and screams of joy for your life was exactly what it should be. You remember seeing those glimpses, those reflections held in time and played back over that ocean's sunset in Hawaii. You realize you had noticed it after all, you'd appreciated it more than you ever thought......the meaning of your life. You hadn't missed its true purpose at all, you had it all along....and so you can now let go.... knowing, smiling....... for the lesson you always knew would come....finally had.
If only you were there again. You thank some brief second you lose breath in your lungs, realizing what you've got in life. Singing some lyrics, you scream them in your mind but whisper them to your windshield because you've never been a man to express your emotions. You're too strong for that, for them. New Years is over, Christmas is gone and what's left to look forward to but another day at work, another year of inevitable existence. Maybe you'll lose a friend, maybe you'll gain another...you didn't shave and a hair just gripped your collar, so you gash at it with four nails because you deserve the pain, it lets you know your alive. The thought of anything out of your control getting the best of you is sickening yet you want something to happen because you know you'll learn from it. To become that thinker that you know you are. You punish yourself for not trying harder, for a conversation you never had that haunts you everyday since that day....the fog settles in.
You don't care that you can't see because nothing ever happens. The flowers on the tree you pass are just some dumb kid....some idiot that drove drunk. The broken divider on the bridge where wood and steel brace together what was miles of poured concrete you chalk up to a design flaw. Your headlights reflect off the gray sheet that engulfs your car like fondant....a projector lighting up a curtain you use to watch your life reel by. If there's something you've never understood it's real loss, so you can't imagine the risk in your actions....
You have control, you're confident, they weren't.
Red and yellow lights come up fast like a hard twitch that jolts your dreaming body from the chair you'd spent years making warm. The steel in front of you folds....you've seen this before...you were trying to fit the cake box from your son's birthday into the recycle bin. Red velvet, there was some squishing out the side when you applied pressure. You ask yourself how cake could've gotten into your eyes as you stare at your shaking hands. Coming to, you sense what happened and feel like laughing because there's nothing you could've done, you couldn't foresee this, but you've asked for it so many times. Wondering if you'll die you wait until the mat is fully soaked beneath the shoes you've shined so many times. You begin to cry just thinking of the light that creeps in the one blind that's missing from your window, and how that light used to look like a scar down the belly of your wife...how you wish her skin was at your fingertips, at your lips forever. To feel its warmth and the goosebumps it'd get having been exposed....you wanted it now more than ever because you'll never have it again. Your crooked rear view mirror shifted to you, the bloody mess that you've become....far different than those men not deserving the fate you've received.... the person who worked two jobs everyday but fell asleep at the wheel and hit that tree, or the man who hydroplaned in a downpour over the bridge when trying to pick up his daughter at her friend's. You'd written off these men, as the world has now done the same to you, except the world's right about you. You realize this is your life, no one else's, and you had control. You had as much to do with it as anyone else driving that night. Who were you to judge. People had died before you because they too had momentum....they too were men making decisions. Yours though were based on radical invincibility. On logic misconstrued by arrogance your father had on phone conversations you'd overheard and took as legitimate ways to conduct ones self.
You hadn't bit your lip but you now taste your own blood. The logic of cause and response no longer means anything. You apologize for being so immature, for that time you fought with her because you were jealous and insecure but wouldn't admit it...for that time you passed by the homeless woman on the street and spit between your teeth blaming her for her position. You apologize for ever asking for this, for ever wishing you were gone so you could see how much people actually loved you. The selfish reasons one wishes for death are what you thought would finally make you full and happy, except now it's the tucking in of your family that you wish you could do until the day you die...seeing their shadow and smelling their hair....sitting and watching the sheets go up and down....imagining what their dreams would be that night and what they had to look forward to in life....the hardships, the struggle, the lessons.
Sitting in the car smelling the burnt rubber and flesh of your arm, the passenger airbag explodes. You don't flinch, smile or laugh, just stare and say out loud to hear your own words.... "now that's a design flaw."
As the brakes screech loudly once again you're replaying the accident in your mind except this time the back windshield disintegrates like mist from the hairspray bottle you used before the prom. You think how great of a time you had dancing as your head lunges forward, resting your chin on her shoulder you start counting your steps from that day out loud....the cold sensation coming down your neck though is new to this memory. It reminds you of your mother washing the back of your hair the time you had lice....how she'd do anything for you. You wish you could call her and tell her thanks, tell her how much you love her. Your breathing is so short that maybe it's the wind getting knocked out of you like that time the waves crashed so hard on you and your dad holding hands trying to ride the white wash into shore. The only thing that made it to sand that day were those smiles and screams of joy for your life was exactly what it should be. You remember seeing those glimpses, those reflections held in time and played back over that ocean's sunset in Hawaii. You realize you had noticed it after all, you'd appreciated it more than you ever thought......the meaning of your life. You hadn't missed its true purpose at all, you had it all along....and so you can now let go.... knowing, smiling....... for the lesson you always knew would come....finally had.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Internet Porn or a Happy Ending: Which Would You Choose For Your Husband?
With a beer in hand, I gesture from across the table at Christmas dinner....
"if I were you, I'd rather have my husband in the room next to me jerking off to his computer rather than getting some blowjob from a hooker with the family's grocery money."
She comes back....
" Really?... I don't know, it doesnt make sense to me how someone can get off when there's no physical contact there..."
In this light, she actually chose the slutty, STD infested streetwalker rather than the privacy of an Apple, and who wouldn't agree that "head" is physical contact. Let's be honest, the woman's jealous b/c her hubby's staring at ladies that literally blow her away, and the thought of her husband straying from her own legs would be impossible...therefore, she'll choose the assumed impossible.
My buddy once told me he'd go with clients to get "happy endings". It was a great way to end a meeting or dinner....just swipe the corporate card and everyone gets off. This was Wall Street bankers and traders like anyone else sitting on the train with two kids and an oblivious wife back home. Mommy's meatloaf's in the oven while her loving husband's pitching wood at some Asian massage parlor answering the repeated words of David Spade's best housekeeping impersonation. In order to fully understand the audacity of these men, just look out your window....it's your neighbor or your brother in-law or whomever you never expect. It's any man that has a woman back home with zero sex drive and the bedside creativity of a tuna yanked on-deck. The problem is you want the happy, faithful man that comes with once a millenium sex.
Girls don't understand how ridiculously easy it is to make a man happy.....ten minutes every day. Holy shit, I know, ten minutes....you might miss a re-run of Will & Grace. Instead you'd rather have a sexual tension argument ensue at 11pm over a comment you took differently than it was meant, such as "did you do anything today?.........(you respond) "what do you think I sit on my ass?!?!" If you just took those ten minutes all would've been peachy and you might have enjoyed yourself too. In fact, I don't understand why a woman in a relationship ever even masturbates. If you have a boyfriend/husband, call that fucker up...guarantee he'll drop hammer, leave work and fly from London if you're in the mood. Trust me......you should never waste that once a month urge on anything but keeping you both happy.
Guys need to relieve themselves otherwise they're ornery, miserable, frustrated and short-tempered. Some several times a day, and I say that to give you a comparison of how often we want it versus you. The internet I think you women should consider a blessing. As you know from my previous blog on marriage, over 50% of married couples get divorced in the US. The number would be far less if the temptation for other women wasn't there. And that temptation can be highly subdued if not erased, by masturbating to the options left safely for you online. This way he's not out there doing shit behind your back, spending your mortgage payment because you bitched at him for looking at porn without alternatives.
You tell me ladies......... you either remain in control with the options you have, or forego the responsibility and pretend your man wouldn't dare. To me the internet's a no-brainer, pun fully intended.
"if I were you, I'd rather have my husband in the room next to me jerking off to his computer rather than getting some blowjob from a hooker with the family's grocery money."
She comes back....
" Really?... I don't know, it doesnt make sense to me how someone can get off when there's no physical contact there..."
In this light, she actually chose the slutty, STD infested streetwalker rather than the privacy of an Apple, and who wouldn't agree that "head" is physical contact. Let's be honest, the woman's jealous b/c her hubby's staring at ladies that literally blow her away, and the thought of her husband straying from her own legs would be impossible...therefore, she'll choose the assumed impossible.
My buddy once told me he'd go with clients to get "happy endings". It was a great way to end a meeting or dinner....just swipe the corporate card and everyone gets off. This was Wall Street bankers and traders like anyone else sitting on the train with two kids and an oblivious wife back home. Mommy's meatloaf's in the oven while her loving husband's pitching wood at some Asian massage parlor answering the repeated words of David Spade's best housekeeping impersonation. In order to fully understand the audacity of these men, just look out your window....it's your neighbor or your brother in-law or whomever you never expect. It's any man that has a woman back home with zero sex drive and the bedside creativity of a tuna yanked on-deck. The problem is you want the happy, faithful man that comes with once a millenium sex.
Girls don't understand how ridiculously easy it is to make a man happy.....ten minutes every day. Holy shit, I know, ten minutes....you might miss a re-run of Will & Grace. Instead you'd rather have a sexual tension argument ensue at 11pm over a comment you took differently than it was meant, such as "did you do anything today?.........(you respond) "what do you think I sit on my ass?!?!" If you just took those ten minutes all would've been peachy and you might have enjoyed yourself too. In fact, I don't understand why a woman in a relationship ever even masturbates. If you have a boyfriend/husband, call that fucker up...guarantee he'll drop hammer, leave work and fly from London if you're in the mood. Trust me......you should never waste that once a month urge on anything but keeping you both happy.
Guys need to relieve themselves otherwise they're ornery, miserable, frustrated and short-tempered. Some several times a day, and I say that to give you a comparison of how often we want it versus you. The internet I think you women should consider a blessing. As you know from my previous blog on marriage, over 50% of married couples get divorced in the US. The number would be far less if the temptation for other women wasn't there. And that temptation can be highly subdued if not erased, by masturbating to the options left safely for you online. This way he's not out there doing shit behind your back, spending your mortgage payment because you bitched at him for looking at porn without alternatives.
You tell me ladies......... you either remain in control with the options you have, or forego the responsibility and pretend your man wouldn't dare. To me the internet's a no-brainer, pun fully intended.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Arranged Marriages: A Blind Box Success or Wool Over Your Eyes
You never know who you're going to meet, and where.
In the middle of the Grand Canyon, we finally finished bopping over Class II rapids before settling in to a warm fire, an Indian guy with a reservoir of memorized jokes and a cot with nothing over it but the stars. Earlier in the trip we were introduced to our companions and smiled out of appreciation for a common purpose....we each wanted to ride the Colorado River. After taking pictures dunking one another in muddy brown water to cool off, we got a little more comfortable and a lot more personal.
Out of the 6 couples on the boat (my father and I exclusively seeing each other), two of the couples were Indian. They had brought along with them a bond we knew nothing about even after we asked them how long they'd been married. Like the layers of rock around us and the carved out story its waters continue to write, these people too had a tradition that's flowed sacred and true through the veins of the ones they've loved before them. After doing the math on the years in which they'd been married and how old they actually were, we got right down to the arrangements made by their parents. At a young age he told us, they mix you amongst those kids that are within your societal class or caste, and you literally pick who you would like to meet or be friends with and you're introduced to them. He said families often will pick for you if they've already had a family in mind that they'd like their child to be associated with for the rest of their life. Although it's pretty simple, the families often know each other and court one another during the process, making most of the decisions beyond the initial union. I believe things these days have changed and the time for dating has come into play a bit, but only for a short amount of time before the families push hard for a decision. I can picture a middle school dance with my peers all around me drinking kool-aid and eating Italian subs and Oreos, except we're unaware that our wife or husband is across the hardwood gym floor. Could the decision be that easy, for eternity?
Who are we to know.....our country has a divorce rate right around 50% for new marriages. When we say "I do" we know in the sleeve of our tux we have a Joker stashed just in case. If we ever want to leave and wipe our brows clean of the difficult, no one's going to ostracize us.... especially not our families. But whatever happened to the love then that you thought you had? You got weary of fucking the same person? You met a nice new girl at work that looks prime? You resent not having a bigger house or better car so therefore your marriage must be a failure? People please.....if you don't think there's always going to be someone with more, or someone prettier than what you have, you're an idiot. Relationships aren't easy, and if they were, everyone would be in them. You either sacrifice your immaturity and realize too that the person sharing your life also gave up their anxious options of sleeping with the next best offer....and appreciate that you're setting in stone the groundwork and foundation for a child's upbringing. In India, the divorce rate is around 2%!! So much for needing to fall head over heels or date just enough people to know exactly who you may like best....or finally feel fulfilled that you had enough sex partners to justify a comfort for having enjoyed yourself while young, and now you can settle down. These people never had those options and yet they're more successful?
As I research this I keep seeing the idea of 'growing' in love with one another versus 'falling.' They think they grow, while we inadequately fall. God damnit, let's fucking prove them wrong. I think that reasoning is a bullshit excuse for success in those countries with arranged marriages, such as Iraq, Iran, Japan, India and Afghanistan. We should have a ridiculously better shot at success considering we get to do both. First we "fall" after finding the right person. Getting to live that amazing infatuation stage where public displays of affection and giddy reasons to grab some one's waist are priceless...and then "growing" through the many layers of depth, the days of sickness or fights that wrench ones normal reaction to walk away into a tighter more compromising grip, that any arranged marriage might drill you disinterestedly through. I think we all want the excitement in the roller coaster ride we take. We want the creeping anticipation and the building up towards the big plunge. We want the upside down loops to challenge us and change our perception of the world. The corkscrews, twists and turns leaning harder on and by each other's side. I think we're lucky our ride is different, in fact I love our ride. It contains what anyone should want the most, what we deserve the most....and that's the butterflies.......when the track "falls" out from below you and you're suspended but for a moment in a neck hair tingling sensation that reveals the peculiarity of our position. The risk in one's own choice and the clarity that it is in fact theirs. We've earned the right to feel it....in our gut. And if those opportunities to "fall", if they're going to be misconstrued, damned and relegated to picking a suitor from a lineup...then I choose butterflies...I choose falling.
By your family making it be.......doesn't mean you'll really ever know it was meant to....
In the middle of the Grand Canyon, we finally finished bopping over Class II rapids before settling in to a warm fire, an Indian guy with a reservoir of memorized jokes and a cot with nothing over it but the stars. Earlier in the trip we were introduced to our companions and smiled out of appreciation for a common purpose....we each wanted to ride the Colorado River. After taking pictures dunking one another in muddy brown water to cool off, we got a little more comfortable and a lot more personal.
Out of the 6 couples on the boat (my father and I exclusively seeing each other), two of the couples were Indian. They had brought along with them a bond we knew nothing about even after we asked them how long they'd been married. Like the layers of rock around us and the carved out story its waters continue to write, these people too had a tradition that's flowed sacred and true through the veins of the ones they've loved before them. After doing the math on the years in which they'd been married and how old they actually were, we got right down to the arrangements made by their parents. At a young age he told us, they mix you amongst those kids that are within your societal class or caste, and you literally pick who you would like to meet or be friends with and you're introduced to them. He said families often will pick for you if they've already had a family in mind that they'd like their child to be associated with for the rest of their life. Although it's pretty simple, the families often know each other and court one another during the process, making most of the decisions beyond the initial union. I believe things these days have changed and the time for dating has come into play a bit, but only for a short amount of time before the families push hard for a decision. I can picture a middle school dance with my peers all around me drinking kool-aid and eating Italian subs and Oreos, except we're unaware that our wife or husband is across the hardwood gym floor. Could the decision be that easy, for eternity?
Who are we to know.....our country has a divorce rate right around 50% for new marriages. When we say "I do" we know in the sleeve of our tux we have a Joker stashed just in case. If we ever want to leave and wipe our brows clean of the difficult, no one's going to ostracize us.... especially not our families. But whatever happened to the love then that you thought you had? You got weary of fucking the same person? You met a nice new girl at work that looks prime? You resent not having a bigger house or better car so therefore your marriage must be a failure? People please.....if you don't think there's always going to be someone with more, or someone prettier than what you have, you're an idiot. Relationships aren't easy, and if they were, everyone would be in them. You either sacrifice your immaturity and realize too that the person sharing your life also gave up their anxious options of sleeping with the next best offer....and appreciate that you're setting in stone the groundwork and foundation for a child's upbringing. In India, the divorce rate is around 2%!! So much for needing to fall head over heels or date just enough people to know exactly who you may like best....or finally feel fulfilled that you had enough sex partners to justify a comfort for having enjoyed yourself while young, and now you can settle down. These people never had those options and yet they're more successful?
As I research this I keep seeing the idea of 'growing' in love with one another versus 'falling.' They think they grow, while we inadequately fall. God damnit, let's fucking prove them wrong. I think that reasoning is a bullshit excuse for success in those countries with arranged marriages, such as Iraq, Iran, Japan, India and Afghanistan. We should have a ridiculously better shot at success considering we get to do both. First we "fall" after finding the right person. Getting to live that amazing infatuation stage where public displays of affection and giddy reasons to grab some one's waist are priceless...and then "growing" through the many layers of depth, the days of sickness or fights that wrench ones normal reaction to walk away into a tighter more compromising grip, that any arranged marriage might drill you disinterestedly through. I think we all want the excitement in the roller coaster ride we take. We want the creeping anticipation and the building up towards the big plunge. We want the upside down loops to challenge us and change our perception of the world. The corkscrews, twists and turns leaning harder on and by each other's side. I think we're lucky our ride is different, in fact I love our ride. It contains what anyone should want the most, what we deserve the most....and that's the butterflies.......when the track "falls" out from below you and you're suspended but for a moment in a neck hair tingling sensation that reveals the peculiarity of our position. The risk in one's own choice and the clarity that it is in fact theirs. We've earned the right to feel it....in our gut. And if those opportunities to "fall", if they're going to be misconstrued, damned and relegated to picking a suitor from a lineup...then I choose butterflies...I choose falling.
By your family making it be.......doesn't mean you'll really ever know it was meant to....
Monday, December 22, 2008
Our Access To Resources And Our Desire to Leave Something Behind
I really got into that John Adams series after reading the book by David McCullough. One of the things I remember most vividly was a journey he had taken from Cambridge to Philadelphia. A distance I am well aware of being from the East Coast and bordering the New England states. By car it might take you 6 hours depending on traffic. By our standards and tolerance of patience, many consider that to be a bit of a trek. It took John Adams 12 days by horseback......12 friggin days of nothing but counting the minutes...gauging the distance he'd traveled by map and a few wooden road signs. Stallion tachometers weren't invented yet. This type of stagnation baffles me as to the extent by which this man still achieved things. Not just John Adams, but any man representative of that time. They were well read to the point of fully stacked libraries within their homes. They took four full weeks just to get across the Atlantic, and another month to get back. I get annoyed if a website doesn't load in two seconds. How on earth did these men cement such acclaim without telephones, email and airplanes?
Sometimes I wonder to myself what is the meaning of life. I've drawn several conclusions after much thought, and at one point the answer I'd given myself was to leave something behind. To make my mark on the world no matter how great or tiny. Besides for a long drawn out explanation of life's end goal, I got to thinking about the accomplishments or marks of mortals, with a great many more barriers than I. A couple of John Adams' greatest achievements in the eyes of the public were the hand he had in drafting the Constitution, the establishment of our independence from the United Kingdom, and becoming the President of the United States....including a son that followed soon behind. These things are the dreams of many. Though lofty, flighted aspirations these days........back then they might have been considered a natural progression of leadership and a newly created vacant position that needed filling. For myself, I worry I'll never make my mark, and I contemplate whether that's due to my desire to juggle several life goals in the hopes that one or two come through, rather than dedicating oneself to a specific task or specialty for years on end which might lead to the highest professional mastery and a rank deemed worthy of respect and awe. On the flip side, said dedication to ones work instills fear in me of the men who have come before us, institutionalized in their repetition and alienated from their original motivations toward personal achievement, having accepted their monotony as a necessary evil leading to the greater good of others.
Take this example for instance.....If I was a miner, spending 22 years of my life 1 mile below the earth's surface, honing my craft and becoming the best damn miner I could be....would that earn me the mark I'd have wanted to leave behind? Well I guess that'd be a personal opinion or ones relegation to the individual's episodes outside his line of work such as.....was he a great father? Did he support his family as best he could at all times gravest? Did he ever give back to the community? I mean, these are all things one could consider, and ones I actually hold much more important to the success of a human being than the accomplishments of ones work, however the argument is about making ones mark. Was John Adams' making those marks through his textbooked stories recited in history class? Did he look at those titles or speeches he'd made as his life's work? Some might disregard his work altogether when considering his life. How was he as a father, did he fail? Maybe with one son.....or in some people's minds, maybe every day that he chose his work over his family he had failed from sun up to sundown. In my mind the troubling yet exciting combination is how a man can achieve national acclaim with so little time and resources.....and with what I or my peers have today, why we can't do one better? Are we doing one better without knowing it? Maybe we've already begun stepping down that path without knowing it. Was this man thinking he was wasting time when spending full seasons farming and laying seed, or hours upon hours behind the pages of books? Did he think that any of it would ever make him the President? I honestly doubt he'd ever expected it until he saw it presented as an option. Am I holding a man's full long life up to a light and expecting to match its success without working for it? Quite possibly... I would like to think it's more than just patience...maybe we haven't sacrificed yet...maybe the children, wives or homes we'll bed haven't yet become our motivation to strive for better. And once we become so determined and adamant that we're men worth a damn, there'll be no stopping us and any step we take will be a stride toward the greater good. What is "better" anyway? More education? Longer hours? Perfecting ones craft? Raising our kids with enough time to make it to all their events?
I think what this raging contemplation of the inept, confused and discontent.....this purgatory of purpose and clouded forecast on ones horizon of dreams.... is a struggle with what makes someone happy in their own rite. What they'll be most proud of in their final moments. Not whether I succeed in making my mark because I'll really never know if I keep looking forward. I think working as hard as I can towards what makes the ones I love around me happy, will actually become the mark itself...not a title, or national beacon exposed to the many, but for those it's solely meant, in the hours I press its meaning.
Sometimes I wonder to myself what is the meaning of life. I've drawn several conclusions after much thought, and at one point the answer I'd given myself was to leave something behind. To make my mark on the world no matter how great or tiny. Besides for a long drawn out explanation of life's end goal, I got to thinking about the accomplishments or marks of mortals, with a great many more barriers than I. A couple of John Adams' greatest achievements in the eyes of the public were the hand he had in drafting the Constitution, the establishment of our independence from the United Kingdom, and becoming the President of the United States....including a son that followed soon behind. These things are the dreams of many. Though lofty, flighted aspirations these days........back then they might have been considered a natural progression of leadership and a newly created vacant position that needed filling. For myself, I worry I'll never make my mark, and I contemplate whether that's due to my desire to juggle several life goals in the hopes that one or two come through, rather than dedicating oneself to a specific task or specialty for years on end which might lead to the highest professional mastery and a rank deemed worthy of respect and awe. On the flip side, said dedication to ones work instills fear in me of the men who have come before us, institutionalized in their repetition and alienated from their original motivations toward personal achievement, having accepted their monotony as a necessary evil leading to the greater good of others.
Take this example for instance.....If I was a miner, spending 22 years of my life 1 mile below the earth's surface, honing my craft and becoming the best damn miner I could be....would that earn me the mark I'd have wanted to leave behind? Well I guess that'd be a personal opinion or ones relegation to the individual's episodes outside his line of work such as.....was he a great father? Did he support his family as best he could at all times gravest? Did he ever give back to the community? I mean, these are all things one could consider, and ones I actually hold much more important to the success of a human being than the accomplishments of ones work, however the argument is about making ones mark. Was John Adams' making those marks through his textbooked stories recited in history class? Did he look at those titles or speeches he'd made as his life's work? Some might disregard his work altogether when considering his life. How was he as a father, did he fail? Maybe with one son.....or in some people's minds, maybe every day that he chose his work over his family he had failed from sun up to sundown. In my mind the troubling yet exciting combination is how a man can achieve national acclaim with so little time and resources.....and with what I or my peers have today, why we can't do one better? Are we doing one better without knowing it? Maybe we've already begun stepping down that path without knowing it. Was this man thinking he was wasting time when spending full seasons farming and laying seed, or hours upon hours behind the pages of books? Did he think that any of it would ever make him the President? I honestly doubt he'd ever expected it until he saw it presented as an option. Am I holding a man's full long life up to a light and expecting to match its success without working for it? Quite possibly... I would like to think it's more than just patience...maybe we haven't sacrificed yet...maybe the children, wives or homes we'll bed haven't yet become our motivation to strive for better. And once we become so determined and adamant that we're men worth a damn, there'll be no stopping us and any step we take will be a stride toward the greater good. What is "better" anyway? More education? Longer hours? Perfecting ones craft? Raising our kids with enough time to make it to all their events?
I think what this raging contemplation of the inept, confused and discontent.....this purgatory of purpose and clouded forecast on ones horizon of dreams.... is a struggle with what makes someone happy in their own rite. What they'll be most proud of in their final moments. Not whether I succeed in making my mark because I'll really never know if I keep looking forward. I think working as hard as I can towards what makes the ones I love around me happy, will actually become the mark itself...not a title, or national beacon exposed to the many, but for those it's solely meant, in the hours I press its meaning.
Friday, December 19, 2008
We All Know As Much About Anne Frank as Otto
Sticking around the topic of my Amsterdammmian experience, my guys and I shuffled along a line that snaked a city block in order to see where 8 people hid out from Nazi fucks for two full years. I remembered reading aloud from some little girl's diary around the 7th grade....nervous I'd screw up the words as fellow students followed along in their own books. "Am I reading every word correctly, please voice don't crack on me, god I wish Id gotten a haircut..." Never appreciating the words, or that the girl next to me could've written them...after all we were about the same age as Anne Frank when she wrote it. We don't concentrate on comprehension unless we're interested in what we're reading.....and I would've been if the teacher just walked up to me and said "this girl about your age wrote this book while hiding in a room the size of a shoebox with her whole family...shitting, pissing, eating and sleeping within twelve square feet of eachother for 2 years....worried that any next minute they could be split up forever or killed for being born....and she was... so you might really try and take this one in." Never hearing that, instead I danced over her words as fast as I could with no passion, no empathy, no clue....I'd have known more of who I would celebrate one day 20 years later.
Tapping any bit of my memory to try and relate to the bookcase we were about to move, a hole revealed itself to the height of an 8 year old. Anyone taller had to duck to get in. This was their hiding spot...a home within a home that began behind a piece of furniture in any normal bedroom. The deeper we went, the quieter we got....wincing at wooden creaks at my feet....if the gestapo had heard,we'd be shot on site. They weren't allowed to move around during the daytime as the workers in the rooms below them might hear and become suspicious. You would think in such confined spaces you might get to know one another pretty damn well. Well that's where this bit gets more to the point rather than walking you through the fantastic tour we endured. One of the last things before you leave the Anne Frank house is an audio interview with Otto Frank, Anne's father. He was the only one who had survived the concentration camps that killed Anne, her mother Edith and sister Margot after their hiding place had been revealed by an unknown source. Otto received Anne's Diary from a friend who'd helped them while in hiding when he returned to Amsterdam after the war ended. He couldn't believe he never knew that Anne had so much on her mind. Such depth in her feelings, concerns and conflicts....even while only feet away. This is where I'll never forget the most important point made that day and the reason for writing this......Otto had concluded after reading the thoughts of his daughter and the reality of her being gone forever, that the opportunity to ask questions was gone. And that a harsh generality does in fact exist, and that is "most parents truly don't ever really know their own children."
It seems so easy to me....to know your own children, because I've had a ridiculously open relationship with mine. No matter what the topic is, whether sex, drugs.......no not rock and roll you douche.....depression, love, respect, manners, morals, opinions, politics, religion.....it was always open for discussion. In fact, all of it was drained out of us by morning wake up calls and bedside questioning for details of the night prior. You couldn't escape unless you'd really delved into what happened.....it wasn't like they waited for us to come and open up to them...it was instilled early on, it'd be part of our relationship. I feel bad for people who don't share the same feeling about this as me because I bet their parents would want such a relationship with their own child no matter what they think. And hopefully something so drastic doesn't need to occur in order for either of them to realize the moment's passed. One of my uncles was hysterical at my grandmother's funeral...she died in her 80's. His family's well known for not showing up to family gatherings and always finding an excuse. The only thing he could say was "I wish I had gone to see her more...just talk with her.....I knew she was getting older but I never thought she'd be gone." This is a man in his fifties we're talking here. Seriously people, if you're not old enough yet to have kids or even if you do and your grandparents are alive, start with them first...sit them down and ask them about their lives. What they wished they had done....what they learned, the favorite place they traveled, the wars, the depression, what it was like being a mother or a father, what they think the goal of life really is...who's more wise to answer that question....and you, the more ridiculously intelligent for asking it and taking the time to hear their answers. I wanted to smack this guy Otto. In my mind, he was a failure as a father. If that's what you come away with, regret that you didn't even know your own child.....and it took her death to figure it out....well you didn't do enough to savor those years you'd be given extra that many other Jews never had with their families. I don't care if your kid's shy or standoff-ish...this girl was sitting in the seat across the room, and yet he had no idea how to talk to her? To grab her diary in the middle of the night when she was asleep and see what she was writing about after a full year of watching her scribble. Give me a break on privacy people if that's your consolation....a kid comes home from school and gets a "D" on a paper he wrote....you're not going to ask to read it? You accept that this little kid of yours who represents your family while at school, and with whatever he's written that has awarded him a "D", you're going to accept his privacy without even knowing why he got the grade? Bullshit. Step it up...know when both you and your kid are better off for having each other rather than assuming everything's peachy because they made it home that night. If you're thinking I'll be overprotective you're out of your mind...what you're doing is correlating interest in one's life with an overbearing nature. Sorry but you're parallel lines are convoluted intestines when penciled on paper. You're off somewhere worried about curfews and bedtimes and a structured set of guidelines for your child......the freedom and comfort you receive from knowing your kid so well that you can trust them automatically affords you the luxury of less anxiety over their actions and less need for discipline. Everyone has a different circumstance of course, and life doesn't deal us all the perfect cards...but it's never too late to start asking some questions....at this time of year, there's always someone you love sitting right across from you....get over yourself and make the first move.
Tapping any bit of my memory to try and relate to the bookcase we were about to move, a hole revealed itself to the height of an 8 year old. Anyone taller had to duck to get in. This was their hiding spot...a home within a home that began behind a piece of furniture in any normal bedroom. The deeper we went, the quieter we got....wincing at wooden creaks at my feet....if the gestapo had heard,we'd be shot on site. They weren't allowed to move around during the daytime as the workers in the rooms below them might hear and become suspicious. You would think in such confined spaces you might get to know one another pretty damn well. Well that's where this bit gets more to the point rather than walking you through the fantastic tour we endured. One of the last things before you leave the Anne Frank house is an audio interview with Otto Frank, Anne's father. He was the only one who had survived the concentration camps that killed Anne, her mother Edith and sister Margot after their hiding place had been revealed by an unknown source. Otto received Anne's Diary from a friend who'd helped them while in hiding when he returned to Amsterdam after the war ended. He couldn't believe he never knew that Anne had so much on her mind. Such depth in her feelings, concerns and conflicts....even while only feet away. This is where I'll never forget the most important point made that day and the reason for writing this......Otto had concluded after reading the thoughts of his daughter and the reality of her being gone forever, that the opportunity to ask questions was gone. And that a harsh generality does in fact exist, and that is "most parents truly don't ever really know their own children."
It seems so easy to me....to know your own children, because I've had a ridiculously open relationship with mine. No matter what the topic is, whether sex, drugs.......no not rock and roll you douche.....depression, love, respect, manners, morals, opinions, politics, religion.....it was always open for discussion. In fact, all of it was drained out of us by morning wake up calls and bedside questioning for details of the night prior. You couldn't escape unless you'd really delved into what happened.....it wasn't like they waited for us to come and open up to them...it was instilled early on, it'd be part of our relationship. I feel bad for people who don't share the same feeling about this as me because I bet their parents would want such a relationship with their own child no matter what they think. And hopefully something so drastic doesn't need to occur in order for either of them to realize the moment's passed. One of my uncles was hysterical at my grandmother's funeral...she died in her 80's. His family's well known for not showing up to family gatherings and always finding an excuse. The only thing he could say was "I wish I had gone to see her more...just talk with her.....I knew she was getting older but I never thought she'd be gone." This is a man in his fifties we're talking here. Seriously people, if you're not old enough yet to have kids or even if you do and your grandparents are alive, start with them first...sit them down and ask them about their lives. What they wished they had done....what they learned, the favorite place they traveled, the wars, the depression, what it was like being a mother or a father, what they think the goal of life really is...who's more wise to answer that question....and you, the more ridiculously intelligent for asking it and taking the time to hear their answers. I wanted to smack this guy Otto. In my mind, he was a failure as a father. If that's what you come away with, regret that you didn't even know your own child.....and it took her death to figure it out....well you didn't do enough to savor those years you'd be given extra that many other Jews never had with their families. I don't care if your kid's shy or standoff-ish...this girl was sitting in the seat across the room, and yet he had no idea how to talk to her? To grab her diary in the middle of the night when she was asleep and see what she was writing about after a full year of watching her scribble. Give me a break on privacy people if that's your consolation....a kid comes home from school and gets a "D" on a paper he wrote....you're not going to ask to read it? You accept that this little kid of yours who represents your family while at school, and with whatever he's written that has awarded him a "D", you're going to accept his privacy without even knowing why he got the grade? Bullshit. Step it up...know when both you and your kid are better off for having each other rather than assuming everything's peachy because they made it home that night. If you're thinking I'll be overprotective you're out of your mind...what you're doing is correlating interest in one's life with an overbearing nature. Sorry but you're parallel lines are convoluted intestines when penciled on paper. You're off somewhere worried about curfews and bedtimes and a structured set of guidelines for your child......the freedom and comfort you receive from knowing your kid so well that you can trust them automatically affords you the luxury of less anxiety over their actions and less need for discipline. Everyone has a different circumstance of course, and life doesn't deal us all the perfect cards...but it's never too late to start asking some questions....at this time of year, there's always someone you love sitting right across from you....get over yourself and make the first move.
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