Things to Ponder: 1

What if poop particles from a fart traveled faster than sound?  You’d be standing across the room from somebody, the smell would hit your nose, you’d look at the person suspiciously, and before you had time to say anything: PFFFttttttt.  Kind of like thunder and lightning.  Maybe you could even count the seconds after you smelled a fart to figure out how far away the farter is. 

So dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago.  Picture an advanced alien species living on a planet that is 65 million light years away, and these aliens have incredibly advanced telescopes that allow them to see with such detail that they could spot an ant on planet earth.  What would these aliens see, if they were looking right now?  They’d see dinasaurs roaming the earth! 
       This is why every so often you’ll see me lift my head to the sky and scream, “The dinasaurs are extinct!  Humans are now the dominant species!”  (just in case they can hear me.  And, ummmmm, just in case sound travels faster than the speed of light….okay maybe I should rethink that.)
       Anyway, so really if you think about it, although dinosaurs have long since died, and all of us will die, a “photograph” is theoretically sent into space for all time, a tiny wave that will travel through space forever. And YOU’RE in it. 
      (just watch out for black holes)

Underwater the Fish Don’t Stink

“Underwater the fish don’t stink.”
    -Bobby’s World
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggkQ6JPew2E

Generally, when something stinks, it’s a good indication that something or someone is in the wrong place.  For instance, if you have a dog, and you come home and your house smells like shit, your first assumption will probably be, “Oh man, my dog shat in the house again.”  Which is, of course, the wrong place for your dog to shit.

Conversely, if you walk into a bathroom after someone has just taken a massive dump, and the stench is so bad that it wraps around your face like a wet towel, your first reaction will be, “I am in the wrong place. I need to go.”  You know there is nothing inherently wrong with the bathroom, because bathrooms will sometimes stink (although depending on how bad the smell is, there could be something wrong with the previous users’ digestive system).  Anyway, in this case the problem is yourself.  You walked into the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Same thing with jobs, relationships, mindsets, perceptions, desires and dreams.  If it stinks, something is in the wrong place.  If you want it to stop smelling, you’re going to have to move some things you don’t want to touch.  If you leave the dogshit in the living room, it’s going to stink.  Sure, you can spray Febreeze and light scented candles, but that only goes so far.  At the end of the day, you’ve still got a pile of shit on your floor.  I know it’s messy, but you’ve got to pick it up. 

Or to restate differently:

Like on a map at a rest stop, You Are Here.  Physically, emotionally, spiritually.  But sometimes you make the rest stop your home.  You bring in a bed, you wheel in a TV, you start using a hotpot to cook Raman Noodles in the bathroom.  You forget that this place is a rest stop on the interstate.  You forget (maybe you never knew) where you wanted to go in the first place.  But deep, deep down, you want to be somewhere else. Meanwhile you’re eating dinner every night from the vending machines, scrubbing yourself with hand sanitizer in the bathroom, reading pamphlets about theme parks and campgrounds like they’re literature, and telling yourself, “This is good.  This works.”  But this is not good.  You Are Here.  But you don’t have to stay.

Or to restate differently:

You walled off the door to your basement, maybe a long time ago.  You forgot you even had a basement.  But now the wall has come down.  You stand at the foot of the steps.  It is dark, and you’re scared to descend.  It’s okay.  If you want, you can take the hand of someone you love.  They can go with you (to an extent).

I’m writing this for myself, to remind myself.  To listen to that Voice, the good voice, the One who whispers but rarely screams.  It speaks of hope.  When I listen very closely, it tells me

I can be truth
I can be love
I can be beauty
I can be
I can shake the foundations of stagnancy and deceit, wherever I set my gait and gaze. I can walk through myself (I have, and will again) to discover, to praise, to condemn, to nurture and to raze, and yet always know that I can be

I don’t always know what is good, and never what is best, but I understand that there is good.  And I believe that I can be 

I suppose the point isn’t to fix yourself, bit by bit like some poorly-built machine, until finally you can say to yourself, “I flawlessly operate.”  No.  No.  But to move, to always move, with courage and the best of intentions, with of a vision of God (albeit often faint) as a light in the distance, and a light inside yourself.  To fuck up. To hurt. To feel moments of rapture, and sorrow, and loss, and unimaginable gain. To operate, not flawlessly, but with as little preprogramming as possible.

This is what I have to remind myself.  Cus, you know, it’s easy to forget.

The Songs you Begin With

So the other morning I got up, threw on some clothes, brushed my teeth, put on deodorant, looked in the mirror and said, “You know what the difference between me and you is?  I make this look goooood,” and then I jumped into my car and headed for work.  As I drove I scrolled through my MP3 player looking for the right song to start my day.  I ended up choosing the song Hurt by Nine Inch Nails.

“I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel.  I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real.”

After about 15 seconds I wondered what the hell was wrong with me.  Who in their right mind begins their day with this song?  A day that starts with “Hurt” ends with you chained to the floor in a Slovakian Hostel.  So I quickly changed it to Baba O’Riley by The Who.  Ecstatic synth, then comes the booming piano chords!  Then the drums!  And then

“Out here in the fields!  I fight for my meals!”

Yes!  When you start a day with Baba O’Riley, you embark on a life-changing journey where you make two best friends, fall in love, find a hidden treasure and learn some poignant lesson that echoes through the rest of eternity. 

It’s important to start your day with the right song.  Now if you head to work feeling miserable every morning, there is either something wrong with your job or something wrong with you.  Probably the best thing to do would be to figure that out and fix it, but this is a lot of work.  So as an alternative, start your day with really great music, and keep listening to really great music all day long.  It won’t actually fix anything, but it will temporarily trick your emotions into feeling happy and hopeful.  Then, by the time you realize that you’re actually miserable, it’s time for bed. 

And repeat.

But music is actually very powerful.  One time I felt depressed for like two months and I couldn’t figure out why.  Then I realized I had been listening to nothing but The Counting Crows and Damien Rice.  I immediately went home, put some Gin Blossoms in the CD player, and I was cured.

“Tell me do you think it’d be alright, if I could just crash here tonight!”

The problem is that we’re so overexposed to music (and crappppppy music), that we forget how powerful it actually is, how it’s been around for thousands of years, how it hypnotizes people and even certain animals.  I’m so convinced of this that….well, let me give you the following scenario:

Pretend you’re standing in an open field in African wilderness.  Suddenly a lion is running at you full speed.  You pray to God and God grants your prayer by giving you one item of your choosing to save you.  What do you pick?  A rifle?  A jet pack?  A lion suit?  “Hey lion, it’s just me, another lion.”

Not me.  I pick a CD player blasting “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens.  Because nothing bad can EVER happen when Peace Train is playing.  I guarantee the lion starts rolling around in the grass, playfully batting at butterflies with its gigantic paws.

“Now I’ve been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come! And I believe it could be, something good has begun.”

That’s all I got.

Judging Books and Other Stuff, Too

You can’t judge a book by its cover.  Unless it’s a nudy magazine–then you can pretty much tell what it is. 

I feel the same way about people.  Now normally I don’t like to judge someone by their appearance, but when the guy sitting next to you on the subway has a spider tattooed on his face, clearly he has problems.  This is not a guy I’m thrilled to strike up a conversation with.

ME: How about this weather?

SPIDER FACE: Ksssssssst!!! [scary spider noise]

Also, there are some book covers you can absolutely judge.  For instance, if the cover is a picture of the author’s face wearing a big, toothy grin, you know that the book is going to suck.  This is a universal law, and you can depend upon it like gravity.  The only possible exception would be in some crazy future where Spider Face writes a self-help book titled something like, “Eight Legs and All: What Spiders Taught One Man About Love.”  That book could be cool.

Actually, I’d kind of like to write it myself.

CHAPTER I
It was a rainy Saturday morning.  I sat on the porch, watching the driveway fill up with puddles, already on my fourth beer.  My next door neighbor, an old woman with an afghan draped over her shoulders, shooed her cats out with a broom.  Her screen door slammed shut and she stared at me for a moment, silently judging, before returning to her soaps or crossword puzzles.  She had probably heard the fight last night, the shouting, and maybe even seen my wife drag a suitcase to her car, and the headlights, and heard the engine rolling over, and the crunch of gravel beneath the tires as she drove off into the night. 
    Last night I had been furious.  But now, more than anything, I was scared that she would come back to me.  And if she did, and I knew she would, we would begin the whole process anew, where we slowly, unintentionally, ruin each other’s lives.  I knew it was coming, but I was powerless to stop it from happening.
    That’s when I saw it, a wolf spider on the railing, front legs raised into the air as if it were taunting the rain.  It occurred to me then that she was terrified of spiders.  And if I were to tattoo one on my face, she’d stay away forever.

Boom!  First chapter, done.

Actually, on second thought, maybe it is never a good idea to judge someone based on appearance.  I mean, even Spider Face turned out to be a decent enough guy.  Plus, it never feels good when someone judges me like that.  For example:

A few years ago I managed to get courtside seats to a Detroit Pistons playoff game.  At the end of the first quarter, their star point guard Chauncey Billups went down with an ankle injury.  Insanely, they had no backup. At this point, in desperation, the coach turns to the crowd and yells, “Does anyone here know how to play basketball???”  I shouted, “Yes! I do!  I’m really really good!”  But you know what?  That coach took one look at me, saw that I was short and white, and he passed right over me. 

Okay, that maybe didn’t happen.  Who can say for sure?  The point is that we shouldn’t judge people based on appearances.  Although I think we’ve established that there are certain books we CAN judge by their cover.  And also many things you may purchase at a store, you can judge those based on their packaging.  That’s a safe bet.  For instance, if I want to buy a toaster I go look for the box with the word toaster on it, and usually a picture of a toaster as well in case I can’t read.  Also, certain events you may experience in life can be “judged by their cover,” metaphorically speaking.  Like if some guy in a ski mask puts a gun to your head and says, “Give me your wallet,” it may behoove you in that moment to take him literally.  Although later, if you were to develop PTSD or something, I guess you could look back on that event and say, “He took my wallet, but metaphorically he took my courage.”  So I suppose it’s not cut and dry…

Yeah that’s all I got.

They Come From Up

The other day I was watching an old episode of Larry King Live on YouTube.  I know that seems ridiculous, but hear me out. 

READER: No, you loser!

ME:  You don’t understand. 

READER:  You’re right, I don’t understand.  Who in their mid (to late) twenties watches Larry King? And loves it so much that he searches for more on YouTube?  Freak.

ME: No listen, it was about aliens and it was really cool!

It was about aliens and it was really cool.  He had all these reputable people on the show, like former military officers, pilots, and even a senator, testifying to having encountered UFOs.  They were very convincing.  They started to convince me.  I began thinking, how can there NOT be aliens? Which is a confusing question to try and answer.  Go ahead and try.

How can there not be aliens?

Anyway, then this scientist came on the show via satellite because he was too good for them or something, and he ripped them all apart.  He said, (paraphrasing) “We still have no evidence.  This is all anecdotal.  I’m sure you believe you saw UFOs, but you didn’t.  I’m really smart so I know.”

Then one of the army guys was like, “Dude I touched it with my bare hand.”

And the scientist shot back,”You touched yourself with your bare hand.”

Just kidding.  But anyway, I really hated that scientist.  I started to fight him in my mind, you know?  Like I’m picturing him sitting next to me on the couch and I’m verbally thrashing him. 

You think you know everything because you’re a scientist?  Well check it– about a hundred years ago all these know-it-all scientists thought that everything wasn’t relative.  Then some guy came along and proved that it was.  Maybe you’ve heard of him.   

Then, in my mind-fight, he gets all flustered and eventually gives up.  He says, “You’re right.  You, a lowly social worker, have humbled me.”

[By the way, this is how I win all my imaginary fights with scientists: I invoke the name of Einstein to somehow prove my point.]

Anyway, after I watched Larry King, had the imaginary fight with the scientist, and spent a few minutes thinking about how cool Einstein was, I was fairly certain that aliens exist.  I walked outside, narrowed my eyes, looked up into the clouds and whispered, “Where are you guys?”

But as the day progressed, I became less and less sure of my new found faith.  Everyone I encountered that day seemed to know that I believed in aliens now, and they were mocking me.  Even the clerk at the gas station.

ME: 20 bucks on pump 4 please.

CLERK: No prob.  Will you be paying with American currency or Space Bucks?

I even passed a guy on the road who looked like a fat, docile version of David Duchovny.  I swear he mouthed to me, “The truth is out there,” but he was being sarcastic.  He probably turned to his wife in the passenger seat, who was a Chinese version of Gillian Anderson, and they shared a good laugh on my expense.  ”Some people, right?”

Well regardless, I’m glad that in the fat, Chinese version of X-files, Scully and Mulder finally get together.

By the end of the day I had given up altogether.  It’s too much pressure, you know?  I can’t be one of those guys who walks around spouting the truth about Area 51, government cover-ups, and religously watches UFO documentaries and the made-for-TV film Fire In The Sky (starring Gary Sinise), which is an underrated movie, by the way.  I mean, I’m already the guy who looks up Larry King on YouTube. 

Sorry aliens, you’ll have to find somebody else to take the torch. 

All that being said, I remember as a little boy I asked my father, “Daddy, where do babies come from?”

And he said, “They come from mommies.”

So then I said, “Daddy, where do aliens come from?  From mommy aliens?”

And he said, “No son, they come from up.”

Which is true.  Aliens don’t live among us.  They are always, perpetually above us–looking down, knowing more, saying things like, “Foolish creatures, their hatred will one day destroy them all.  If only they could see their potential.”

Kind of like Optimus Prime from the Transformers or something.  They are up, up, always up.  They are what we one day hope to be. 

Except for the movie Independance Day.  Which, thank God, we vanquish the aliens on July 4th.  Can you imagine if we had killed them on like January 7th?  I can see Bill Pullman saying, “Today…..is…..our Independance Day!  And so is July 4th.  We have two days of independance!  Hooray!”

Whatever.

Signs

The other day I saw a church sign that read, “When your back is turned to God, no direction is the right one.”

I immediately thought, Well what about backwards?  Wouldn’t that be the right direction?

At CVS I saw a sign that read, “If you look to be under the age of 38, we will card you for tobacco products.  We are truly sorry for the inconvenience.”

This sign has so many weird aspects that I spent 10 minutes pondering it.  First of all, the word truly strikes me as very odd.  Are they really, truly sorry?  Are the CEO’s of CVS in spiritual anguish over this policy?  Are they taking long walks, tears streaming down their faces as they think about all the customers with youthful faces who will now be forced to show their IDs?  I mean, why put the word truly in there?  Maybe Walgreens has a sign that simply says, “We apologize for the inconvenience,” and CVS thought, we can do better than that. We can be truly sorry!  We can passionately mourn this inconvenience.  We can rip out tufts of hair and gnash our teeth over how f–ing tragic this whole situation truly is!

Secondly, why pick 38?  How do you even tell, definitively, if someone looks to be older or younger than 38?  I mean, some people you could, like babies or Mr. Miagi, but there is a huge demographic of people out there who could go either way.  So, following this logic, as a cashier you’d have to say, “I can’t tell if you look like you’re under 38, but you do look like you don’t look like you’re way older than 38, so I’m going to have to card you.”  Then your brain explodes. 

And when that happens, CVS is seriously, honest to God, truly sorry for the inconvenience.

Stupid is is Stupid is

I wonder how smart rocket scientists actually are.  It seems like a fairly limiting field as far as science goes.  All they can do is make rockets.  And are there stupid rocket scientists, ones all the other scientists make fun of?

“Carl’s rockets never work.  Guy can’t calibrate worth shit.”

Everyone thinks they’re smart.  The few people who say they’re not are just too lazy to argue the point.  Ask anyone if they’re smart and they will either say yes or “What do you mean?”  They’ll want some clarification of “how smart,” but invariably everyone thinks they are at least just smart enough to not be stupid.    

Nobody thinks they’re stupid.  And everyone knows someone who is.  Interesting. 

Once a week I ask all my friends if “I’m the stupid one,” just to make sure.  They all say yes, but they’re all idiots, so…not exactly reliable sources.  

     [Don't get upset...I'm not talking about YOU.]

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but I wouldn’t consider myself stupid.  But how can I know for sure?  I wish there were a reverse IQ test, one that tests how stupid people are.  If such a test did exist, it would probably look something like this:

Please read the following statements and circle True or False:

1) I watch a lot of reality TV.     T        F
2) I am a huge fan of the Twilight Series, and I am not a 13-year old girl.  T     F
3)  People are consistantly baffled and/or horrified by the choices I make.    T      F
4) I love Rush Limbaugh.    T      F
5) I own a T-shirt that says, “I’m with stupid.”    T     F

Now please answer the following multiple choice questions:

5) The best way to describe me would be to say “I am…”
             a) Stupid
             b) Not not stupid
             c) Not not not stupid
             d) None of the above
             e) All of the above, including d

6) The saying, “There is more than one way to skin a cat,” implies that:
            a) There are usually multiple ways to achieve a goal.
            b) There is only one way to achieve a goal, and that is to skin a cat.
            c) Animal cruelty is socially acceptable.
            d) Cats are stupid.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is that none of us are stupid.  We’re all smart in our own special way.  At least that’s what my mom told me….many, many, many times. 

Are you stupid?  Click here to find out for sure.

Three Dimensions of Crap

I am not on board with this new resurgence of 3D movies and television.  I am not.  In fact, I despise anything that pretends to have more or less dimensions than it actually does. As my roommate Lisa pointed out, “Life is already in 3D.”  In real life, things actually do move towards me and this is not impressive.  If I get into a bar fight, and a guy is punching me in the face, I am not thinking, Wow, it’s like his fist is coming right at me! 

But sadly, the 3D trend is back, albeit not for long.  Here is a list of some of the recent stuff:

My Bloody Valentine 3D
Bolt 3D
Mummies 3D: Secrets of the Pharaohs
Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
3D Super Bowl commercials
 
Clearly, the target market for 3D entertainment is kids 12 and under who haven’t yet figured out how stupid they look in those glasses. And this is how it should be, because as stupid as adults are, they aren’t so stupid as to give two shits about 3D movies.  But there’s some 3DCEO out there who doesn’t understand this, who is convinced that 3D is the next entertainment medium or something. That’s why R-rated horror films are being released in 3D and why CVS was handing out millions of 3D glasses to customers for the Super Bowl.  

The worst thing about 3D movies is that 3D is always in the title.  It’s obnoxious.  Like the guy who makes six figures a year and constantly reminds people about it.  Or the guy who is always trying to be the deepest thinker in the room.  We get it–you have an extra dimension.  Great.  

The 3D movie is the film that all other movies think is stupid and feels sorry for.  Die Hard is sitting with Steel Magnolias and talking about The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D.  

“No, I’m serious, Sharkboy really thinks he has a third dimension,” says Die Hard.

“Give em more credit than that,” replies Steel Magnolias.

“Steel, listen, just last week he refused to come to my party because it would be, quote, teeming with two-dimensional bores, end quote. Yipeekiyaa mother f—er!”

“Why do you always say that?”

“Why does Julia Roberts die at the end of you?” 

“Touche.”

Anyway, I think the entertainment industry’s next move will be to skip a dimension and go straight to 5D, the dimension of pain.  Not only does it look like a fist is coming at you, it actually breaks your nose.  Every theatre has medics on standby.  Of course, when they rerelease Saw V in 5D, the MPAA might have to step in and give the film a brand new rating, which would be “WE BEG YOU NOT TO SEE THIS FILM AS IT WILL LITERALLY TORTURE AND KILL YOU. PLEASE. PLEASE.  THIS IS IN NO WAY A JOKE. WE WASH OUR HANDS OF THIS.” 

Of course, you’d still have millions of people who watch that preview, then turn to the person next to them and whisper, “That looks good.”

Haiku time

It’s Haiku time.  Here we go:

 

A dragon breathes fire
A human does not breathe fire
Dragons are better

 

When I spilled my milk
I couldn’t stop crying–so
I stopped drinking milk

 

Trees don’t run, even
When you close your eyes and ask,
“Where did the trees go?”

 

The world is made of
Little Haikus that rarely
Count their syllables 

 

Fly too high and your
Wings will melt–then you’ll have to
Take the bus to school 

 

People are always
Falling in love–forgetting
Directions at home 

 

The traffic was an
Old janitor who made us
Walk to class. Bastard. 

 

Feel free to send me your own haikus.  If they’re good enough, I’ll print them out and bury them in a time capsule.  Then I’ll write a poem about it:

I buried all your
Haikus. I don’t remember
Where. Please help me dig.

YOU are in my way.

Why is everyone always getting in my way?  I’m serious.  Anything I ever attempt to do in public, someone is there to slow me down.  A few examples from the past few weeks:

a) I was driving behind a school bus when it stopped at the railroad tracks, because a school bus “STOPS AT ALL RAILROAD CROSSINGS.”  Stupid.  This wasted a solid twenty seconds of my life.  

b) I went through the McDonalds drive-thru to get a plain double cheeseburger.  There were four cars ahead of me.  Four cars!  Go home people!  Don’t you understand that I want what I want the exact moment I want it?  

c) I was walking through downtown Indy and all these other people were walking, too.  Are these thousands of idiots actually going somewhere?  Or are they just walking in circles around the block, wandering aimlessly, taking up space I could be using.  Go home!  I want to be able to walk in a straight line without ever having to move for anybody.  I want to be able to walk a zigzag pattern with my eyes closed.    

It’s getting worse everyday.  People are “doing it” (having sex for the layperson) and making babies at an unprecedented rate.  Take a look at these statistics:  In 1609, the world population was at 127 people.  By 1909 this number had doubled.  But today, in 2009, the world population has risen to 6 trillion (this number includes people and insects).  Overcrowding is happening everywhere.  I fully expect in a couple years to see droves of people just standing on my front lawn, looking at each other.

“What are you doing here?” asks one guy.

“This is the only spot left to stand.”

It’s gotten to the point where I watch “I Am Legend” like it’s a future utopia.  I get jealous of Will Smith: look at how much space he has! Those infected zombie creatures are scary, but at least they won’t be standing in front of him at the gas station, buying lottery tickets.

But the worst is when one specific person continually gets in my way.  The other day I was at CVS to pick up a few items.  I wanted to get some cough medicine and this stupid woman was in the way, reading the backs of boxes, comparing ingredients.  She was exactly where I needed to be.  So I had to wait to her left, pretending to examine the Tylenol.  I didn’t need Tylenol.  She was forcing me to live a lie.  Finally she moved, but about three minutes later, on the other side of the store, the same thing happened again.  It was like she knew what I needed and was intentionally trying to slow me down.  Lady! Get the hell out of my life!  

I’m going to start carrying a sign around that says, “You are in my way. Move!”  But people will probably think I’m picketing something and join in.  Then I’d be surrounded by protesters holding signs that say things like, “Make way for us!” and “Move the Man!”  And I’d be saying, “There is no us.  This sign is about you.  Get the hell out of here.”

“Yeah!  Get the hell out of here!  That’s what we say!”

Whatever.