Tuesday, August 23, 2011

So stuff happens, and the president is playing golf.

Nothing ever really changes.

Every president, no matter the climate of the country or the world, ends up playing golf somewhere. It's like they're all the same person; different decade, same silhouette. The Figurehead of the Traveling Khakis. Air Force Polo Shirt.

I hate golf.

What is it about golf that turns people into smug assholes? It's like "I'm on a boat motherfucker," except "I'm on a golf course" and not funny. Why do presidents play golf while their country is in turmoil? There's something very let-them-eat-cakey about it. Bush personified it to the point of stereotyping it, as Bush was wont to do. "We're gonna catch those evildoers... now watch this swing!"

I guess I can't fault Obama, he's human and he needs a vacation. It's just... fucking golf! It fills me with rage. I'd rather see him on a boat, motherfucker. There's something real about a boat at least. Out in the elements, man vs nature. Golf is like... artificial nature. Like here's a tree and here's a lake and it's all real, yet somehow plasticy. They're spaced too perfectly and there aren't any weeds and you can tell some rich asshole put them there, probably digging up real nature to plant his imported fakey grass. They're beautiful I guess, but in the way an overprocessed supermodel is beautiful. Golf courses are the boob jobs of nature. You can totally quote me on that.

Golf courses are also the auto-tune of nature. Yeah, that's a good one.

I used to enjoy watching the PGA tour (somehow people who play golf for a living don't annoy me like politicians and rich assholes playing in their leisure time while the people who work for them are worrying how they'll make their house payment). Specifically, I enjoyed watching Tiger Woods. Then Tiger went from selling fancy razors to a massive trainwreck overnight, and the top players went from superstars to random names out of a phone book. "Joe Wilson wins the Masters!" "Who the fuck is that?!" Thank you, Tiger Woods' genitals, for ruining the only thing that was remotely interesting about golf.

So, this post ended up being about golf. Ok.

One more thing about Obama. I supported him and still do. I think more was expected out of him than he could ever deliver, especially with the crew of Cruella DeVilles the republicans elected to skin puppies, I mean, foil him at every turn. (Michele Bachmann has a coat made out of puppies somewhere. You KNOW she does.) However, he could fight harder instead of coming off as the Harried Dad from a Sitcom. The tea partiers might be spoiled, unruly children but that doesn't mean you give in to them. You stand up and say "I'm the father and I'm in charge here, BECAUSE I SAID SO!" It kind of feels like his campaign slogan should be "Obama 2012: Because everyone else is batshit crazy." Doesn't have quite the ring of "Hope and change," but it beats the hell out of his opponent's slogan "Cruella DeVille 2012: If she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will!" (Just substitute he for she in case of Rick Perry. Still totally works.)

And uh, no more golf, please? Can we put an end to the golf thing for politicians? Just because it fills me with possibly irrational anger? Thanks. (Okay, not so irrational. Because it makes you look like Lord Khakipants von Countryclub the Third instead of a public servant. That's right, I said it. LORD KHAKIPANTS VON COUNTRYCLUB THE THIRD. It has already turned John Boehner orange with privilege, do not let this happen to you!)

We now return to your regular silliness. No, I am not counting Lord Khakipants von Countryclub the Third as silliness. That is serious political discourse, dammit!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

If I had a billion dollars, I'd buy back my old room.

This pretty much sums up my life lately. I feel so lost, and want to return to what's familiar. But sadly that was lost a long time ago. The town I grew up in is still pretty much the same, the house I grew up in is still there, but someone else lives in it. They have for a long time. Parents never consult the kids when they sell off their childhoods. Now I want it back. I feel like everything that's mine is still there, and everything that came after is fake. This probably comes from not having kids of my own yet and wanting them so badly. Their childhood will replace my lost one, and enrich who I am now to the point that maybe I feel real again. And I won't be so quick to sell theirs to the highest bidder, just in case they want to come back and visit. Reclaim that little piece of who they are whenever they start feeling lost in the foreign, adult world.

I grew up on a quiet, modest suburban street. Kids rode their bikes, dads watered the lawn, moms baked cookies in the kitchen. All the yards had fruit trees. You could walk almost anywhere in the town from my house, to the various parks and swimming pools, to the stores downtown, to the library, to school, to your friends' houses and back home again. It never felt anything but safe doing that, and no it wasn't the 1950s. Your house was... your house, part of who you were, not some transitive residence. You knew every nook and cranny. It was home.

I used to think this Everywhere USA of my childhood was cheesy, I took it for granted the way that only someone who "has" can. When everything is familiar, you crave unfamiliar. You feel like something must be wrong if you feel so content. Surely, there must be more to life than this!

And probably for some people, there is more. For me, that was bliss, but the kind you don't know you've got til it's gone. Like the Big Yellow Taxi. Paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. When I hear that song, I automatically think that childhood is the paradise, and the parking lot everything that comes after. It makes me sad. But then I think, you can plant a garden, you can recreate paradise. That's the answer. What you have lost, give to your children. Make sure they never lose it. Childhood isn't something to be abandoned but something to be built on. "Home" is important because you are important. I've lived in enough disposable apartments to know, after a while you start feeling disposable yourself.

I just wanna go home.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Here's something disturbing I've noticed lately: mean Christians.

We'll call them "Talk Radio Christians." I'm not saying one has to be all syrupy sweet and nice to be Christian, but I don't think men of the cloth should spout off like Rush Limbaugh. And I don't necessarily mean that politically, though I do think the unholy marriage between right wing politics and Christianity plays a part - the politicizing of evangelism. Or evangelizing of politics? Either way, scary stuff, and not just cause it got Bush elected twice, but because there is a hard edge to Christianity these days. Jesus embodied peace, humility, modesty, charity. He wore frickin sandals for pete's sake! I can hear one of today's oh-so-cool "politically incorrect" ministers making a whole sermon about guys wearing sandals being gay hippies, until someone kindly pulls him aside and explains.

These are not the majority of Christians, I know. But I think in a misguided, possibly unconcious attempt to be modern and hardcore, aided and abetted by political agendas, the soul and depth of spirituality is slowly being replaced by wordly hate and anger. And sneering. And if there's one thing Jesus would most definitely not do, it's sneer. Jesus would not be flippant. He would not be hard.

"For God so loved the world he gave his one and only son..." A prominent Evangelical politician made a bill about lightbulbs, and boasts about it as a big achievement. LIGHT. BULBS. You are seriously wasting God's time here people! Not helping the poor, healing the sick? You're really going with lightbulbs? What would Jesus do, you ask? Be fucking petty about anything that might have to do with hippies! Or queers! Damn straight! *fires off shotgun* Oh yeah, Jesus owned a gun, it's in the constitution!

When religion becomes too much about wordly things it isn't religion anymore. It's politics disguised as holy war. It's using God as justification for personal prejudices. Yes, the Bible has some anti-gay sentiment. It also has some anti-ham sentiment. And anti-tattoo sentiment. And pro-slavery sentiment. HI PEOPLE, TIMES CHANGE! That doesn't mean the basic teachings of the Bible should be thrown out with the bathwater, but if some parts are outdated it stands to reason others can be too. It's called THINKING OBJECTIVELY.

So enough enabling people to give in to their basest feelings and fears and call it virtue. Isn't spirituality supposed to lift people up? I'm tired of Christians acting the exact fucking opposite of what Christianity stands for. Be bold in your convictions, absolutely! No one's saying you have to be a cookie baking church lady. But... you do have to have compassion. This is not optional. It really, really is what Jesus would do. If it doesn't come from a place of compassion, I don't know where it comes from but it probably isn't good.

Monday, August 08, 2011

"A book? What is this shit?"

Dear universe,

I like books. Real, live, flesh and blood books. The kind with crinkly pages and an inviting woodsy scent. I do not want to read "books" on a cold, flat screen. I don't care if I can fit the entire works of Shakespeare into some little whojit the size of my bellybutton. Reading actual books is not hard! It's nice!

Just because you CAN do something with technology doesn't mean you SHOULD. Not everything needs to be "better." What's next, e-cheeseburgers? Who needs declicious gooey cheese when you can eat internet! We shall completely eliminate the need for napkins! And ketchup! And stupid BREAD!! Holy crap, I'm a genius. "Hahaha, you still eat bread? Buckle up Grampa, it's 2011 and if you're hungry, there's an app for that!" "But... food tastes good..." "SHUT UP OLD MAN!"

So please, awesome universe of the future, leave books alone and put your genius into curing cancer or something. Let's produce goods we can see, hear, smell, touch and taste before our nerve endings die off from lack of use.

"And now... new digital fingers, so you don't actually have to touch your new digital book!"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sometimes I want to wake up and have it be 1962.

Friday, August 05, 2011

I see that whatever replaced my long-ago avocados (or limes) has been replaced by pink birds. That's cool. I can deal with that.

Now on to the point of my post which is - guess what - I'm ANGRY about something! RAWRRR! I am entitling this post "Attack of the pc people," with a caveat.

There are some very extreme ideologies in this world. Sometimes it seems the ideology-ridden far outnumber the reasonable, moderate people. Well maybe that's not true. Maybe they're just louder. Let's take the "comments" section of Yahoo news I mentioned briefly in my last post. Every story about President Obama, you can bet there will be two ignorant assfucks who post stuff like "don't trust barack HUSSEIN obama!! hurrhurr" for every normal person who posts something like, actually relevant to the topic. Oh fuck it, there's probably more like 3 or 4 of 'em. So there's that. Which sucks, and is SURPRISINGLY prevalent in 2011. Like it even surprises me, and I pretty much think people are ignorant assfucks to begin with, so yeah. It's SHOCKING.

But what I'm writing about today is the flipside. Which is equally ignorant and reactionary. And possibly even more annoying because it's done by people you'd think would know better. Or that's what I used to think. Then I realized, you can't reason with people who run on pure ideology. Whether it's ignorant redneck ideology or so-called enlightened ideology. It's the EXACT SAME THING - basically if you don't agree with my rail-thin life view, FUCK YOU. Ahh, enlightened right? So...

Attack of the pc people!

I'm a member of a social anxiety community on LJ. I never post there because I'm not keen on opening myself up to strangers, even in a so-called "safe" environment. I read and respond to other people's posts occasionally. The community rules specifically state it's a "safe place" and no personal attacks are allowed. But that didn't stop the pc people from attacking.

A girl posted about an experience that makes her socially uncomfortable, one that also happens to make me uncomfortable: riding public transportation, with the sort of people who ride public transportation. People who are often publicly drunk or high and do not respect other people's boundaries. Pretty awful for anyone I'd say, but imagine how that kind of unsolicited encounter feels to someone with SA. For instance, it annoys the fuck out of me when a "normal" random person comes up to me and says something like HOT ENOUGH FOR YA (no I carry a toaster in my pants so I can be EVEN HOTTER, dumbass) or some inane crap like that. I feel momentarily uncomfortable, but it passes. Y'know, like gas. (Aren't comments like that just like verbal farts, really?) But when some random dude with stale beer breath and hair that looks like it needs to be jiffy lubed comes up and starts rambling to me about communism or something, I feel REALLY FUCKING CREEPED OUT. And awkward, and ridiculous, even though I'm the sane one in the situation. It's an awful spot for someone with SA to stuck in, which is the point this girl was making.

CUE: the pc people! OMG you're ELITIST, you're CLASSIST (um no... I'm just saying these situations make me uncomfortable) you're a PRINCESS (no... really... I was just hoping for some understanding about an SA issue... in an SA community) NO YOU ARE AN ELITIST CLASSIST PRINCESS AND I AM A POLITICALLY CORRECT SAINT WHO WOULDN'T HURT A FLY CAUSE THAT WOULD BE FLYIST (well your attitude hurt me... actually) NO YOU DON'T COUNT! YOU'RE NOT OPPRESSED! (but I have SA... just like you) NO YOU'RE A CLASSIST RACIST ELITIST FLYIST PRINCESS!!!

See... it's just too much. They couldn't look past their own ideological knee-jerk response to see her point about people who can't respect personal boundaries, just because some of them happen to be homeless and have other mental disorders. So, she's supposed to just ignore something that triggers her disorder for the sake of political correctness? Being so-called socially enlightened while judging people in the exact same way you're accusing them of doing and WORSE, resorting to name calling, is REALLY LAME. Do not do this, lest you be a giant poopyhead. This has been a public service announcement.

Be nice. But not so "nice" it makes you a jackass, eh?