The Least Interesting Man In The World

Can you imagine just how boring the next President is going to be? Remember how exciting Obama seemed to be last time? Now you realize just how boring he actually is! I'm not sure but I bet Mitt Romney is even less interesting. The only fascinating thing about either of these guys are their names. Barack is a pretty weird name, too bad it belongs to a guy who could be more accurately named  Ho Hum. Ho Hum Obama is still a pretty weird name though. Mitt? Really! Who gets a name like Mitt? Actually it's a nickname his real moniker is Willard! Now that fits him! Willard Romney amateur philatelist wants to be your president. Because Willard was too fitting for him Willard decided to name himself after a baseball glove. Who does that? Suppose Mitt was already taken what would he have called himself? Golf Tee Romney? Helmet Romney? Jock Strap Romney? You know who was accurately named? Newt Gingrich! Sounds like some sort of skin disease afflicting salamanders. Too bad he's no longer a candidate. Fortunately he's still a media whore. The next four years we are probably going to have the least interesting man ever in the Oval Office.

Outside of politics I think those Tuttle guys on "American Chopper" are not interesting at all. I mean a show based on a father and son who yell at each other! Who's brainchild was that? I do like the bikes. But the fact that they're built by a temperamental old grouch and his whiner son is not fascinating at all! I have a suggestion, they should have Ben Stein narrate all the dialogue on "American Chopper." Now that would be interesting! Until that happens The Paul Sr. and Jr. will remain the least interesting men on a reality show.

You know who else is pretty fucking worthless? Tosh point O, or is it  Tosh Zero? It should be zero because he is zero funny. Seinfeld was supposed to be about nothing. Tosh is nothing. I admit he does know how to be offensive and maybe that is something. I don't mind offensive if there's a point to it. I agree with John Cleese who famously said that "some people need to be offended." It is good to offend those people. People who watch Tosh Zero are those people. They should stick to gawking at traffic accidents, ogling maggots, lighting farts and shopping at Spencer's Gifts so that the airwaves an be free of stupid buffoons like Tosh Zero. He's the world's least interesting comedian.

George Will hasn't had an original thought since 1980, Rush Limbaugh is a big fat boor! George Stephanopoulos has nothing to say, Robin McNeil is dead. I could go on but why? All the TV talking heads except Stephen Colbert and John Stewart are absolutely uninteresting. Do you really need to listen to Ed Shultz or Bill O'Reilly to know exactly what they think about anything? If you do, you're either five years old and should stick to Sponge Bob, or you are Sponge Bob. All these people are in a dead heat for being the least interesting commentators on TV.

I'm bored with most sports personalities too. Have you ever listened to Mike Tyson? You will never get that time back! It's gone forever, utterly wasted! But don't feel too bad you would have wasted just as much time listening to any sports figure. I know some people really like listening to sports talk (they will never read this) they even like quoting sports figures. They use sports metaphors in conversation. These people are truly the least interesting people in the world.

I don't drink beer anymore but if I did it would be a whole lot of beer. Drink life and stay thirsty my friends.





Russell

"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn" - Jim Morrison

Why is some murder punished and other murder rewarded? It makes absolutely no sense at all. We say we believe in law and order, that we are a country of laws but, that's a lie! We talk about America as a country of fairness under the law, again a lie. There are crimes we punish and crimes we reward. The crimes we reward are far worse than the ones we punish! We are essentially a criminal organization run for the benefit of the biggest criminals. We punish the petty criminals to keep the sheep in line.

The above may sound crazy like some lunatic raving but the facts bear it out. Take a mild example, say "mountain top removal." If you were some kind of a jerk wad vandal and went around "tagging" other people's property, well that would be a crime. And if you were caught you would be rightly punished. Now say you are some mega fucking corporation and instead of defacing some merchant's store front, you're flat out leveling one of the wonders of nature, murdering countless wildlife, poisoning the air and dumping your shit into pristine mountain streams, well you get a big fucking reward for that crime! If destroying mountains isn't a sin then nothing is! Yet we persist in punishing other lesser crimes.

Scientists recently confirmed that the BP oil spill is responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of sea mammals, as well as birds, fish and probably turtles. BP has responded by sponsoring a public relations campaign for the coastal states they poisoned. The campaign is designed to white wash the disaster they created. Meanwhile your neighborhood association can foreclose on you if fail to maintain your lawn adequately.

Do you know that the Coca Cola Company has a goal of buying all the water rights in developing countries? They  want to sell water to victims of drought. Monsanto has virtually taken over agriculture in India. Through their genetic modification scheme they are the soul source of seed for Indian farmers. Their prices are so high that subsistence farmers cannot afford them. The farmers have become so distraught that suicide has become an epidemic in rural India. Thank you Monsanto, thank you Coca Cola. Coca Cola wants the world to sing in perfect harmony but only for the pleasure of their corporate overlords.

Bob Dylan said "money doesn't talk it swears." Shit he said that decades before corporate feudalism was secretly installed as our actual political and economic system. This system rewarded the corporations that ruined our economy. The Wall Street criminals that pedaled bogus securities based on fraudulent mortgages were rewarded. Their victims lost their homes. If you write a hot check you can be arrested, you will pay fees and fines and maybe get a criminal record. If your bank writes a hot check they'll get a bail out and their CEO will get a bonus, but only if they are a big ass bank!

What can you do? We may not have passed the point where some form of peaceful reform can take place but, we are headed for that point at break neck speed. The amoral philosophy of unfettered corporate greed has turned into some kind of hell bound juggernaut! "Casey Jones you better watch your speed."



Russell

Living In The Mean Time

Everybody has been talking about the recent massacre in Aurora Colorado. In some of the media and from some friends I have heard the concern that this guy was a genius and that geniuses are liable to pull this kind of crap. I disagree, on the whole I think stupid people are much more likely to kill people than smart people are. Killing people just seems like a stupid thing to do. Isn't "stupid is as stupid does" a line from Forest Gump? Not that I think we should be quaking in fear of stupid people either. Most of them are just as innocuous as your typical Mensa member. I think the problem with evil geniuses is that like most intelligent people they are just really good at what they do. Dumb killers don't go about systematic planning, they just get a hankering to kill folks and act on it without planning or forethought. Evil dumb-asses just grab a weapon and start killing. Clearly monitoring of intelligent people is a red herring in regards to preventing massacres.

Of course a lot of people are amazed at the rapidity with which this latest nut-job managed to amass a cache of weapons. This concerns me too. I don't, think any amount of gun control can stop a dedicated killer. At the same time it would seem that this particular killer's preparatory behaviors should have aroused some official concern somewhere, but it doesn't sound like it did. Europeans will be shaking their heads and fingers at us once again. I remember being on vacation in Germany a whole bunch of years ago. We asked some Germans  about going for walk in their town (we really just wanted to make sure we didn't get lost). The Germans enthusiastically assured us that it was indeed safe to walk in their town. They actually told us nobody would shoot at us! We lived in Houston at the time and had not yet had to shoot our way out of the neighborhood we lived in. The Germans seemed to presume we routinely engaged in gun battles. The truth is that Germany has more shooting massacres than we do on a per capita basis (according to a report on NPR). If you look at Europe as a whole instead of country by country and compare it to us they are just as violent and crazy as we are. So controlling access to weapons doesn't work out all that well, too bad!

I guess the one thing we always hear is that nobody knew what any of these killers were up to. Sometimes after the massacre all kinds of evidence pops up, and there were warning signs but nobody took them seriously enough, nobody took preventive action. I am unable to blame people too much for their inability to recognize that a friend, family member, coworker or neighbor is about to go berserk and start killing people. I have a lot of friends and always have had. I have had friends do all kinds of stuff that I never could have anticipated. Later the evidence was clear, after the fact. People are unpredictable. They do some crazy shit! I have done some crazy shit! I am not worried that me or any of my friends are going to commit a massacre. That's the point! Nobody ever expects anybody they know to become a homicidal maniac. I guess we can blow off the idea of developing some profile we can all measure our buddies against, "Ed seemed a little short with the waitress earlier, do you think he could be planning some kind of genocide?" That conversation is never going to happen.

So what do we do? All we can do is appreciate the people in our lives while they last, before they go nuts, before someone mows them down. Chances are it will never happen and even if it does we can enjoy them in the mean time.



Russell

Toward More Effective Communication

A friend of mine was describing an argument he'd had. He admitted using some pretty bad language but justified this as being due to someone else's condescending attitude. This other friend of mine said she'd learned how to use the "when you talk to me in a condescending manner it makes me feel..." system of communication to great effect. She allowed that it was difficult to master but said it kept arguments from getting too heated and prevented her and her significant other from saying things they wound up regretting. It got me to thinking.

We are all familiar with this style of arguing I think. I mean therapists have been advocating this "When you..., I feel" stuff for decades right? Still hardly anybody has actually adopted it (actually the above mentioned friend is the only person I have ever heard who admits to arguing this way). I think I know why.

Suppose someone treats you in a really condescending manner and you say, "When you treat me in a condescending manner I feel as if you are devaluing my feelings, would please refrain from condescension when speaking to me?" They respond, "What kind of weenie are you?" So you say, "When you call me a weenie it makes me feel..." Clearly this won't do.

I think I have a solution! Suppose someone talks to you in a condescending manner. So you say, "When you treat me in a condescending manner I feel blah blah blah..." (you know the above). And they respond with more condescension, so now you say, "I'm serious when you behave condescendingly it makes me feel like responding in a less than healthy manner." Of course they insult you again. So now you say, "Honestly your condescending manner is stimulating some potentially dangerous hormone flows in my autonomic nervous system." Again they pop off with an insult. You respond, "Oh dear your insulting behavior has resulted in an almost overwhelming urge to kill."

I think this method of communication just might work. I can imagine using it in lots of different circumstances. For instance imagine someone ignores you, you could respond, "When you ignore me I feel like having sex with your friends in order to get your attention." If somebody is angrily staring at you, you could say, "When you glare at me I wonder where my grapefruit spoons are and if I could scoop your eyes out with one." If you work in a restaurant and some customer is demanding and rude you could say, "I am sorry you are dissatisfied but you know what, It's funny how often dissatisfied customers wind up with intestinal problems."

Learning to communicate clearly and effectively is so important, it truly deserves all our attention.





Russell

Freeway Moses Lays Down The Law

I really liked that old Cecil B. DeMille movie The Ten Commandments. Moses became kind of buzz killer in that movie. Everybody was having fun partying down getting funky with their golden calf when Moses shows up with the Ten Commandments and the party is over. I think that whole golden calf worship bit was some kind of sideways sucker punch at Hinduism but what do you expect from hyped up proselytism via Hollywood?   But that's not really where I was wanting to go with this.

I was up in the Kingwood  area earlier today. Getting there was a real ordeal. I mean the scene on the Gulf Freeway made Exodus look like pleasure trip. People were not behaving well either. It was clear they could benefit from some clear directions, like get out of my way! (Just kidding, sort of) Anyway there was some sort of accident that led to the whole thing coming to a halt for an extended period. This gave my mind an opportunity to wander (it ceases every opportunity it gets).

So in my mind I see Moses coming down the exit ramp with a giant I-pad. He looks pissed! He has just spent 40 days and 40 nights at the Sinai Exit Rest Stop subsisting on vending machine cuisine. His hair has turned grey and his beard is full of fluorescent orange Cheeto dust his eyes are flashing daggers of righteous rage! In a booming voice he harangues all present his voice mystically emanating from car stereos and On-Star systems. The rightness of his message mesmerizes the throng of misguided motorists.

He pronounces the Lords latest commandments;
I - Thou shalt not drive in a sluggish manner in the left lane, and wilt use this thy Lord's lane only to pass!
II - Thou shalt never cross an intersection when the light is red lest thou lose thy soul!
III - Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors parking space!
IV - Thou shalt yield when the sign of the Lord instructs thou to yield!
V - Thou shalt not tailgate!
VI - Thou shalt signal every turn and lane change!
VII - Thou shalt share thy lane with thy neighbor!
VIII - Thou shalt not text while driving!
IX - Thou shalt not obstruct the path of an emergency vehicle!
X - Thou shalt not drive like a %#&@ *&#$ #$&@-ing jerk!

How many commandments do break each day? I've broken them all. I wonder if Freeway Moses could get me to straighten up?




Russell

New Species: Homo Touristas

Okay its officially summer now. Here on the island the beaches are covered with seaweed and tourists and both of them are starting to stink! The weed less so. I know that's a mean thing to say and I'm probably a mean and crabby old  dude for saying it but hey I kind of like being mean and crabby. I could lose the old part maybe. Then again being young in my case means being dumb and I've still got plenty of youth if you know what I mean.

There were some good waves the other day so I grabbed my boogie board and fins and caught some fairly decent waves. There really is nothing better than living by the beach. Whether I'm riding my bike, floatin on my cheapo pink inflatable raft, sponge boarding or just baking on the beach with a paperback mystery this is the life. I can't really blame the tourists for coming but they have passed the saturation level. The Seawall has ceased to function as a travel corridor. It is now a slow moving exhibit of the species homo touristas.

A number of years ago after some foreign travel I remember thinking that as a tourist I had to learn to wait in line and follow directions. I decided this was a pretty good approach to life in general. You know, that old "I'm just visiting this planet" attitude. I still feel that way. However I no longer see myself as a tourist, tourists are too disrespectful for me to continue to identify as one. I would like to see myself as some kind of naturalist. Actually that sounds just about right.

Naturalists aren't necessarily scientists but they have that sort of respect and awe that scientists have. My problem is I should probably have that sort of awe for my fellow human beings but I don't. I mean a scientist studying gorillas will spot some silver back with a huge belly gobbling termites and be dumbfounded and inspired. But when I see some hairy back tourist gobbling fried chicken... well inspired isn't the word. Some tourists are more fun to look at than others and there is nothing too scientific about figuring that out.

I am blessed to live somewhere so many people want to be, if only it weren't so easily accessible.





Russell

I call my dad pop

My dad is fading away. It's a long slow process. I feel sorry for my dad. In some ways I guess it gives us lots of time to prepare for his death. I just wish his suffering wasn't dragging out so long. Shit! I don't want my dad to suffer at all. I refer to him as dad but to his face I am just as likely to call him Pop. I like that way of referring to my father.

Pop has a nice friendly sound to it. My dad still has some of his sense of humor. I leaned over his bed and asked him if he was giving the staff at his nursing home a hard time. In a breathless whisper he said "yeah." I said "That's good I'm glad to hear that Dad." It may not be a lot but it's a joke we can still share.

My dad and I always joked around. Sometimes we would absolutely flog a pun to death! We would totally punish it! People listening thought it was torture. They felt like victims of some punish inquisition. Once we got started we just kept on racking them up. This kind of really dumb stuff is so cool. I would love to be able to remember every single stupid joke we made.

Dad almost got in trouble with the cops once over one his jokes. Our next door neighbors were avid Democrats and the ones across the street were dedicated Republicans. One election year they got into a serious signage competition. Their front yards sprouted signs like weeds, they even had big signs on the roofs of their cars. It was crazy! So my pop decides to yank their chains. He switches all their signs! The Dem's next door were now supporting the GOP and the Republicans across the street were now supporting the Democrats! It was really funny until the lady next door had a cow and called the fuzz!

A squad car showed up and soon the cops were knocking on our door. The neighborhood kids had narced my dad out! The neighbor lady declined to press charges once she found out it was my dad that had perpetrated this heinous act, probably because they played bridge with my parents.

Dad has played lots of jokes on people. He and I played one on my little sister that sort of backfired. She wanted him to beat with stick one time, probably over being teased by me. She selected one with a nail in it! Dad talked her out of that but did find a suitable board to whack me with. He made her wait outside a closed door while he clobbered the shit out of a sofa cushion and I moaned in mock agony. Then he brought her in while I pseudo whimpered. My baby sister had a satisfied smile on her face all she said was "good." We cracked up laughing! She wasn't too disappointed.

Man I love my dad! I am going to keep making jokes with him for as long as we possibly can.




Russell