Just Details

Write about something positive, Laura says to me. You're so negative about everything, Audrey tells me. Finally, last night, Ron offers the opinion that I must be sad and depressed all the time, because of my cynical and nihilistic views of the condition our world is in. Really? Is that what everyone thinks of me? That I couldn't possibly be happy, just because the world is falling apart?

Look, the fact of the matter is, things suck, and they're only getting worse. That's just the nature of the universe. Chaos is always increasing. The way we know that time has elapsed is because there is more chaos now than there was a minute ago. You might see a glass fall off the table and shatter on the floor, but you'll never see the glass gather itself back together and leap back onto the table. That's because there is always more chaos in the future than there is in the past. Therefore, if chaos is always increasing, then the universe is just going to continue to get more chaotic, and things will keep breaking down. Remember a few weeks back when I wrote about all those earthquakes we've been having recently? Well, they're still happening. But I'm not cynical about that. That's just a fact of life.

Our government is a joke. It doesn't serve the people, it just distracts them. They don't want us united. Oh, sure, they say they do. But then they turn around and make every effort to polarize us. You know why? Because divide and conquer, that's why. The more divided we are, the more power they have. Do we really want a government that has more power? They tell us we're free, but we're not fucking free. Yeah, we have choices. We can eat at McDonald's or Burger King. We can use an Apple or a PC. We can call or text. We can vote Democrat or Republican. Those are our alleged choices, but ultimately, you get the same thing either way. That's not a fucking choice! We can choose, but we can only choose from the options they want us to choose from. If we choose something else, we're ostracized. We haven't managed to fit in with the societal norms, so we get marginalized, at best. We don't matter.

Back to my original point. Yes, I'm pretty cynical, and yes, I'm pretty nihilistic. But it's just the reality of the situation. The difference between me and most other people is that I've accepted it for what it is. There is no realistic hope of changing it; we're all beyond help. It's all good, though. This is the situation we've all been thrust into, but why should I let it drag me down? Sure, it's frustrating, and it makes me angry quite a lot (hence this blog), but I don't see why it should prevent me from generally enjoying the life I've got. I think I'm in a pretty good mood on the whole. I'm rarely sad, and even if I'm angry, I try to keep my sense of humor about it, because I realize that, at the end of the day, that's all I can really control, and it's the only thing that actually matters. Everything else is just details.

Of Monkeys and Minors

Have you ever been to Wisconsin? I have. I was lucky enough to be there briefly during the summer maybe half a dozen years ago, and I was very impressed. Milwaukee looked to be roughly Cincinnatian in size and in aesthetic qualities, but was mysteriously lacking in a bunch of people being killed all the time. We drove through Madison, with all those pretty lakes, right around sunrise, and that was downright beautiful. There was so much green...it was really the highlight of my trip out west. But today, Wisconsin is disappointing me.

A district attorney in Juneau County has informed high schools within his jurisdiction that teaching students about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases will result in prosecution. How does this work, you ask? Well, according to the DA, teaching sex ed to teenagers amounts to nothing more than contributing to the delinquency of a minor! Really? But wait, this gets even better. These schools are not required to teach sex ed, but those that do are required to teach students about birth control and STDs! That is to say, by teaching students about these things that the DA refers to as "sick and shameful", the schools would be following the explicitly stated law!

I really, sincerely hope that some teacher challenges this and teaches the proper curriculum anyway, in order to challenge the district attorney's decision on this matter. It'll be the Scopes Trial all over again (yes, I know that Scopes was found guilty, but that was teaching evolution in 1920's Tennessee. That wouldn't even go over there today!) I can't imagine that any of this would stand up in a court of law (though I have not the greatest faith in our legal system) as anything resembling contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

On a side note, when are people going to finally give up this notion that teaching sex ed to teenagers is a bad thing? Has it not been shown pretty conclusively that telling kids not to have sex, then sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming until the devil goes away, does not really do anything towards actually stopping kids from having sex? Give up already! They're kids, it's what they do. You need to just accept that and teach them how to do it in a way that won't get anyone pregnant or give anyone the clap. We're a fucking decade into the twenty-first century here people, isn't it time we stopped acting like it's the goddamn 1950s?

Inside the (Terrible) Actors' Studio

You know something? This is my blog, damn it, and I can and will write about whatever I like. It doesn't always have to be about the latest political news, or supposedly important stuff. Hell, I don't write about that stuff because it's important, I write about it because it's interesting to me. And today, what is interesting to me is to write about how I despise Ray Romano. You know why I can't stand the guy? Because fuck Ray Romano, that's why. However, this is a blog, and I can't leave it at that. Surely you, my valued reader, demand more detail as to what it is about Ray Romano that just doesn't chop my liver.

See, the thing is, Ray Romano doesn't do anything that Tony Danza and Joe Mantegna haven't been doing better for much, much longer. Everybody loves Raymond, yes. But where, my friends, is the love for Tony Danza and Joe Mantegna? Ray Romano wouldn't even have a stereotypical Italian patriarchal role to butcher if it wasn't for Tony Danza. Who's the boss? Well, it ain't Springsteen, and it sure the hell ain't Ray Romano. Fuck no, it's Tony Danza! And now I have to say something about Joe Mantegna to defend my position that he is better than Ray Romano, so here's that: Ray Romano appeared on one episode of The Simpsons, whereas Joe Mantegna has been on the show numerous times over the previous two decades. That is to say, wherever somebody is playing a crappier version of "that Italian guy" on any TV show, Ray Romano is there. Whenever I see Ray Romano on TV, it almost makes me wish I was watching the Golf Channel. Almost.

Seriously, what kind of country is this that some guy can just go and steal the character already played successfully by two other talented actors, do a piss-poor job of it, and make millions of dollars at it? Oh, right. It's that kind of country.

Next week on my feature on actors who should just give up, I haven't decided who annoys me more, Ben Stiller or Kevin James, but it'll be one of them. Or I'll be lazy and not write about it. But let it be known that the world is worse for their presence.

That Would Make Sense

At work today, I was stocking shelves over in the toys department. Sally, a tiny woman who looks to be forty-ish, was the only other one in the area. We were finishing up there, and over in the adjacent sporting goods section, a couple of small children were running around, babbling loudly. Sally remarked that she remembered when her kids were that little. I replied that a number of people had told me that they couldn't picture me as a little kid, that I must have just appeared somewhere as a teenager. Mom tells me that I was like an old person, even when I was very young. I doubt it's what she was referring to, but I was certainly advanced, particularly with words. I could read before I started school, and was reading at a high school level in second grade. Thing about that is, the school I attended was Clermont Northeastern, a place which does not exactly represent the pinnacle of standards in education to begin with. Naturally, they didn't know what to do with someone like me. In the early grades, work was assigned for the coming week on Monday, to be completed by the end of the day Friday. I would finish my work on Tuesday or Wednesday, and spend the rest of the week doing reading of my choice. Or at least, that's what I wanted to do. CNE, being CNE, decided that the best thing to do with a smart kid who was eager to be intellectually stimulated was to punish him. What, was that intimidating or something? Have there never been gifted students before? Is this the nineteenth century? Why have we not figured this shit out yet?! And believe me, it's still going on. There is no celebration of individuality or of actual intelligence. They just want you to pass their standardized tests, and then they dump you out into the real world with not a clue what to do once you're there. Aw, hell, ain't that what college is for? Right, but we're not prepared for that either, so if we do go to college and get that $50,000 piece of paper that reads, "Yay, you bought a piece of paper!", we spend that four-plus years just catching up, and by the time the university spits us out, we missed all that stuff that was supposed to help us. But I digress.

Back at CNE, I wasn't allowed to read my books, and I was discouraged from doing anything not school-approved (that is, anything that I thought of on my own was no good at all). So, I got to be bored, and I started acting out because what the hell else was there to do? And then I got punished for that too, and now everybody wonders why Ryan has no ambition? Maybe it's because anytime I ever tried to do anything I wanted to do, somebody rapped my knuckles with the proverbial ruler. Really makes a guy feel like he just can't do anything right, so why try? I'm not saying that's right, and it's not an excuse or anything, it was just something that occurred to me. So, thanks for psychologically crippling me, CNE! But also, thanks for convincing me that what I really needed was a college education, so that I could be one of millions of college graduates who can't get a real job because the job market is so saturated with people just like me, who blew thousands of dollars to get that degree that was supposed to land us the big bucks at some indefinite place down the line...but the system just can't support that, and we need to face that reality. Otherwise, we spend our lives convincing ourselves that all kids are equal when they're not, so that all young adults believe that they're equal to all other young adults, when they're not, so they all go and get those pricey pieces of paper, and most of them will no longer earn enough more in a lifetime than a non-college graduate to justify the cost (that's true, go look it up). Yes, it's a great education system we've got here.

In other news...actually, I guess it's the big headline today...the health care thing passed. I'm actually surprised that even that relatively weak bill managed to get through in this country. It's...well, I guess it's progress, or something. I mean, it is a step in the right direction, though I still think that what we really need to do is scrap the whole system and have the government pay for everybody's health care. I mean, why does everything in this fucking country have to make money? Shouldn't access to health care be one of those things that's for the public good? Instead of having everybody essentially gambling, putting money into something with no guarantee that they will get the equivalent back in health care, why don't we all just pay towards it in our taxes relative to how much we make, and that goes to pay the doctors and provide the medicine and procedures as needed? Yeah, that's socialism, but so goddamn what? It's fair, and it makes sense! Why does that scare everyone so much? But the worst thing about the bill we've got now is that it penalizes people for not having health insurance. Hey, quick question here. Anybody have any idea what the number one reason is that people don't have health insurance now? Because they don't have enough money to pay for it! So we're going to fine them? Oh yes, that makes sense. Let's fine the people who don't have any money. Then we can have debtor prisons again, because we're not already wasting enough money imprisoning people on harmless drug charges. You see how everything ties together like that? Maybe we'll get all this stuff right eventually...but probably not.

We have a saying down at Target: "You know what the most commonly uttered phrase is among Target employees? 'That would make sense.'" Think about it.

Expletive (Not) Deleted

Some things are very black and white in my book. For instance, Gold Star is good, Skyline is bad. This is a fact, there are no two ways about it. There are a few other things that are etched in stone as far as I'm concerned. So, here's the thing about Chicago: fuck Chicago. It is the worst place humanity ever conceived of. I've had the pleasure of spending a total of about six hours in Chicago in my life, and every one of them ranks among the worst hours of my life. Those of you who know me that well will probably point out that I was passing through Chicago going to and from Montana on a Greyhound bus, so most of that time was spent in a bus station, and that's not representative of the real Chicago, right? Bullshit, that is perfectly representative of Chicago! But Ryan, you ask, you must have been in a lot of bus stations on that trip, and there must have been shitty people in every one of them, right? Not a chance. People were perfectly nice at almost every single one of them, and at the various other places I saw along the way. But in Chicago? No, anybody I had to communicate with for any reason was nothing less than a complete douchebucket. I've never been to New York, but I cannot imagine that New Yorkers are more horrific people than Chicagoans. Chicago is that place that Hell spewed forth from its seventh circle, then promptly disowned for being too disgusting. For those of you who haven't been to Chicago, have you ever maybe been channel-surfing, and you happened upon a Chicago Cubs game on WGN? Have you seen the kinds of people who attend those games? They're the kinds of people who throw baseballs onto the field, who steal the cap off the heads of the players in the visiting team's bullpen, and who dump beer on the opposing outfielders. Real classy, Chicago. Hey, I know, there are shitty people everywhere, even here. But damn, it's like Chicago has been holding an Asshole Convention non-stop for the last century or so.

Okay, that's all of my anti-Chicago rant there. In other news, I had a pretty lousy day yesterday, bad enough that I'm actually bothering to bitch about it here. It's actually not really to complain, but rather to astonish you, my beloved readers, that a day can, in fact, be that lousy without a loved one dying or something. Okay, it wasn't really that bad in retrospect (and not compared to Laura's...as she told it, hers made mine look like a walk in the fucking park, but nonetheless). It started with me waking up at 3:30 AM, better known as the middle of the fucking night, and still two and a half hours before I had to be at work. For reasons known only to...well, nobody really, my brain decided to switch itself on and begin galloping at top speed. So that was it for sleeping for me, in spite of my efforts to get back to sleep, which I needed to do badly. An hour later, I gave up and went to sit in front of my computer. However, upon turning it on, I discovered that it decided that it wasn't going to locate my hard drive. I don't know a ton about computer problems, but I know enough to realize that "Hard Drive Not Found" sounds pretty bad. With no other options presented to me, and since I couldn't get to Windows, I ran some sort of diagnostic thing, and left it running while I went to work and spent my shift wondering how I was going to afford a new computer. Feeling about the worst I've ever felt at work, I worked my usual exhausting spot on the line while we unloaded a 2100-piece truck, the most difficult one I've done yet. I was offered an extra half-hour at the end of my shift, which I could've used, but I was supposed to meet Old Gary to get some back pay, so I had to decline. Naturally, Old Gary was late enough that I could've taken the extra work anyway, so that was great. I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning the living room, washing dishes, and trying to plunge the toilet that randomly refuses to flush. On the plus side, my computer magically fixed itself while I was gone, apparently, but I'm still a bit paranoid that it might go out again and not come back. Ain't technology great? My space bar also isn't working so great, I have to keep backspacing so my words don't run together, but I guess that seems pretty minor after all the rest, eh? Okay, so yeah, not really the worst day ever, but worth the recounting anyway. I also meant to do some writing, but I never could get my brain into the right gear for it, hence this lengthy blog today. Not altogether my usual sort of blog, I know, but it's good to mix things up occasionally.

This So-Called Progress

This should be a quick thing, because I was griping to Audrey about how much bullshit planned obsolescence is, and she said I should blog about that, so here it comes.

You guys know what planned obsolescence is, right? It's when a company makes a product designed to last only for a little while, so that in a couple years or whatever, you have to buy the new, updated version, or else you'll be behind everybody else and won't be able to use the product. For example, we had VHS tapes to be played on a VCR for awhile there, but those eventually gave way to DVDs, and even they are about to surrender their throne to Blu-Ray discs, whenever the price goes down or the economy recovers enough to support a Blu-Ray player in about three out of four households. Remember cassette tapes? They were what we played music on before there were compact discs. Their predecessors were actual vinyl records. They're both gone now. Even CDs are in their death throes now. Digital music dominates. Before long, we'll be able to watch movies or concerts in hologram form. It'll be just like being there, or something! All that is no accident. It is completely planned out. In most industries, the progression already contains several generations beyond what is on the market now. They're just waiting until the time is right to roll out the next round. The media companies in particular know that, sooner or later, enough people will have a Blu-Ray player that, if you're one of the ones who doesn't, you'll start to feel compelled to get one, either via old school peer pressure (they used to call that keeping up with the Joneses), or by gradually eliminating the previous generation so that you won't even have the option anymore. Don't have a DVD player yet? Want to get your own copy of the newest Harry Potter movie? Boy, you're boned there. They don't make 'em on VHS anymore. Looks like it's time to upgrade! And since a DVD player is better quality than a VCR ever was, why don't we just update our whole video library while we're at it! But don't you know, in another few years, you'll be hard-pressed to find the newest movies on DVD. So you'll have to finally get a Blu-Ray player, and you want all those awesome new features, so you'll turn your whole collection over to Blu-Ray, and the companies that produce all that stuff become a whole new level of rich off of the unsuspecting consumer. Do we see how that works, kids?

And keep in mind, it's not just with movies or music. Very nearly everything you've got, you better believe there are new and (maybe kind of slightly) improved versions right around the corner, but they'll convince you that you've gotta have the new one! Even if it's just about exactly the same! Even books and newspapers are on the way out. Do you even know what those are still? Probably not, since you can read whatever you want on this newfangled internet thing (look who's talking, the guy who wants you to read this on that very medium. But I still love my books, damn it!) Print may not be dead quite yet, but it is about to give up the ghost. Look, I'm all for progress, but too often when we actually get some, we lose a little bit more of our heritage and a little bit more of our culture. And that ain't no good, because it means that sooner or later, we'll forget who we are collectively as a people. We'll still be people, but we won't even know who or what we are. We'll be too busy all being kept alive artificially and stimulated just enough that we won't notice. So yeah, it'll be kinda like the Matrix. And we won't even realize that we've done it to ourselves, just by not being aware of what's going on around us.

We're All Mad Here...But Not Nearly Mad Enough

Anybody notice that there's been an awful lot of seismic activity on this planet lately? First Haiti, then Chile, one in Taiwan the other day...even some rumblings along the New Madrid Fault. I know that there's always some tectonic movement going on, most of which goes unreported because it's pretty minor. But those first three were all pretty big ones, all pretty close together...does anyone else think that's a bad sign? I mean, that's some end of days shit there! Okay, maybe we don't have birds falling out of the sky or the dead rising from the grave or anything, but still...

Actually, I'm really more thinking along the lines of, this planet is fucking rebelling against us (the human race, that is). We sprung up accidentally from the primordial ooze, and we've pretty well been trashing the place ever since, like teenagers with too much beer and too little supervision. This isn't any sort of environmental rant, mind you. I think we've long since passed the point of no return, and anything we try to do to fix it now is just gonna be a day late and a dollar short. So no, this is not a plea to recycle and reduce your carbon footprint or any of that. Think of it more as a smack to the back of the head. Look what we've done, because we can't possibly manage to think of anything larger than our own little world. Oh, there are other people who might be affected adversely by my actions? I'm sorry, I didn't know! Well, it's broken now, and there's no going back and fixing it. We only had one planet, and we've gone and pissed it off so bad that it'll never forgive us. You know all those earthquakes? That's the earth trying to shake us off like a dog shakes off fleas. That's all we are, a bunch of fucking parasites. Think that's a little harsh? Bullshit, it's a reality, and if you can't accept that reality, then you're more than just a little deluded, my friend. You're not cynical if it really is as bad as you say.

So, I'm sure we'll be able to hang tight for a little bit longer, maybe even until the last members of my generation are pushing up daisies (if we haven't managed to wipe daisies out by then). But it's only a matter of time before the earth decides it's finally had enough and comes up with a way to get rid of all of us for good, and then...that's all, folks!