This Can Opener is a Jerk

Giving Zach Braff your money is bad and you should feel bad

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Recently Zach Braff launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for his new film Wish I Was Here. His goal to raise 2 million dollars was met in about three days. So it's a little late for me to suggest that maybe you shouldn't give him your money. Though if you haven't yet and are considering it, maybe you shouldn't. I have two big reasons why I don't think this project is worthy of money that could otherwise be spent on alcohol or schwarma or lighting a comically large cigar.

1. I didn't like Garden State. This is a personal opinion and not one you should really base your decision on. I just didn't like it. I found it cloying and twee and emotionally unsatisfying. It was everything people who don't like Wes Anderson movies are always complaining about, except for real this time.

But hey, you might be saying, I liked Garden State. I identified with it and found it to be a funny and tender romp through mid-twenties white person angst and I'd like to see a continuation of that. I think I'll go give WIWH twenty dollars. Okay, fair enough. But before you do, I ask that you consider reason number two:

2. Crowdfunding is being co-opted by cynical people for nefarious means. "But, wait! Zach Braff is an indie darling. Surely he's not swindling me!"

Maybe he isn't. But I think he might be. Let's watch his pitch video, shall we?

Ignoring the fact that he's using the inclusion of a Big Bang Theory cast member as a selling point, this video seems pure enough, right? He's doing it so he can present his vision untainted by the evil "money men" who want to ruin the script. But let's look a little closer. Zach never actually says exactly what it is these mysterious money men want to change, opting instead to provide humorous theoretical changes that include sexy poolboys and Denzel Washington. First off, even if money men were suggesting Zach offer the Donald Faison cameo to Denzel, I'm quite sure Mr. Washington has no interest in a tiny role in a 2 million dollar indie film, given his total lack of ever doing anything like that, ever.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Zach is honest in at least one regard. He admits upfront that there are people willing to fund his film. The problem is that these people are interested in seeing a return on their investment. Imagine that! An investor wanting to make his money back! The nerve!

Before any indie film nerds out there jump down my throat, I'm fully aware that money people can indeed be awful and that it's very difficult these days for movies, especially indies, to secure financing.

My problem is that I don't believe Zach Braff is being completely honest with us. First off, Zach is a wealthy man. He was the lead in a very successful sitcom that still enjoys a healthy syndication and he's starred in a few decent-size films.

Wealthy people, pretty much by definition, aren't who Kickstarter and Indiegogo were meant for.

Wealthy people are good at a few things, namely meeting other wealthy people, and turning their wealth into more wealth. The latter point is where I think Mr. Braff and other rich folk suddenly realized Kickstarter offers an ENORMOUSLY lucrative new revenue source. It's so obvious in fact, that I suspect they all collectively slapped their heads and made a "du-ooy" sound.

The current indie business model breaks down as follows: someone puts up the cash to get the movie made. Any revenue from the movie will first go to reimburse that initial funder. Hopefully the movie does well and that funder makes a bit on their investment, and then everyone else involved is able to make a little bit as well. That's about as good as you can hope for these days.

Now imagine there was an investor who was not only willing to front the money, but had no interest in getting it back. Ever. Instead, all they want is a signed DVD copy and maybe an IMDb credit or something.

That would be fucking amazing, right?? Because then if the movie does make a profit, who gets to keep it all? The director! The writer! The director's dog! Too bad there is no such investor. That would be madness! Oh. Wait...

That's what I think Zach Braff is up to. There's a very, very good chance WIWH will do pretty well. Garden State grossed about 35 million dollars on a 2.5 million budget. Plus it was purchased on DVD by every "deep" college sophomore in the country. That's a damn fine ROI. My guess is there's plenty of investors who would give Zach money with relatively little interference. After all, it's been 9 years since Garden State. I'm sure there's a wealthy trust fund thirtysomething out there who totally "got" that movie and would love to see the follow up. But why split the profits with some asshole when you can take money from a ton of assholes who not only never expect it back, but have absolutely zero legal recourse should they change their minds?

You literally couldn't come up with a better business model for cynical assholes who want to co-opt a wonderful idea. They can drum up interest, manipulate fans and completely avoid any financial risk while reaping huge potential rewards without having to share the profit with anyone. I love Kickstarter. I've used it successfully. I've given to other projects and I've seen friends use it to fulfill their artistic visions. It's a great idea and worth fighting to preserve. You know how people look at things like Comic-Con and SXSW today and complain about how they used to be so cool before corporations and PR firms came in and ruined everything? I think Kickstarter is SXSW ten years ago when a certain type of person began to realize there was a cool, hip thing happening that was not currently being exploited for financial gain. I think Zach Braff and Veronica Mars are the first early waves of a coming bullshit tsunami. Zach Braff is a wealthy Hollywood insider who doesn't need your money. He is the antithesis of who Kickstarter was meant for. I'm not saying millionaires can't have great ideas or make awesome movies. There's plenty of them doing that right now. Looper was awesome. Pacific Rim looks like it will be pretty sweet. I'm happy to pay those millionaires once the product is ready for my consumption.

Here's a thought. Maybe no one wanted to fund Zach's movie because it's a shit script just like Garden State was. Maybe it's a nightmare of saccarine pseudo-intellectual man-child bullshit filled with plaintively contemplative shots of Zach looking just so fucking forlorn. Maybe he thinks he's been teaching the kids, but in the end they've been teaching him. Maybe life lessons will be learned about what it means to be a man. Maybe we shouldn't fund a movie that will be, as a friend of mine eloquently stated, two hours of "Zach Braff sexually assaulting his ego."

Again though, that's my opinion. If you love Braff's work, fine. There's no accounting for taste. And maybe I'm wrong about everything and Braff only has the purest of intentions and everything he said in his pitch is completely true. Even if that's the case, I still think the crux of my argument is true. Crowdfunding is an incredible and dynamic fundraising platform that has the potential to disrupt and revolutionize entire industries. With that said, you're a fool if you think rich assholes won't try to exploit it like they do everything else. If you really believe in a project and want to support it financially, by all means do so no matter who is pitching it. All I'm asking is that we remain wary and cautious out there. We're entering uncharted waters full of sharks.

And sharks are assholes.

Forbes magazine is full of shit

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:56:00 +0000

I have a bone to pick with Forbes magazine, and not just for their continued refusal to include me amongst their list of the world's billionaires.

For those of you who don't read Forbes, they like lists. Like, Buzzfeed looks at Forbes and says, aren't you guys kinda overdoing it? Do you have a burning desire to know, in order, the Top Paid Tennis Stars? Or Tech's Top Deal Makers? Or Asia's Fab 50 Companies? Fear not, Forbes has the answers in convenient list form, presented in wildly inconvenient slideshow formats that never seem to goddamn work on a smartphone or tablet.

Anyway, one of Forbes more recent lists was the Best and Worst Cities for Jobs This Spring. Topping their list? Portland.

No, the other Portland. The one that doesn't have a TV show about it.

This doesn't count.

I've spent a cumulative four years living in Portland, Maine. "Robust, dynamic job market" is not a term I'd ever apply to the place.

Before I get into Portland-bashing too much, let's take a moment and look at Forbes' methodology for their list. It must be pretty exhaustive, right? Like, I'm sure they don't just take one set of data from one private enterprise and apply it to entire regions without any information about the types of jobs companies are hiring for, right? That would be a very incomplete, potentially misleading list, wouldn't it? I mean, if there are a lot of, oh I don't know, hotels in a specific region who participate in temporary seasonal hiring to prepare for the annual influx of tourists, that could lead to a skewed, incomplete vision of a city's hiring capabilities, couldn't it? I'm sure Forbes' crack editorial team would avoid something so nakedly incomplete.

I'm kidding, of course. That's exactly what they did. Forbes looked at the data of a single private enterprise, ManpowerGroup, and their polling of 18,000 private businesses in 100 metro areas. And what it found was that 23% of Portland's employers were planning to hire this spring compared to an average of 18% across the country.

Good on ya, Portland! 23% sure is higher than 18%! Hey, here's some trivia for you: Portland, Maine's primary industry is tourism. Portland's primary tourism season is summer. Buuut I'm sure that's not relevant here. Totally unrelated. Just felt like mentioning that, for some reason.

When contacted by Forbes, what did a Portland city representative have to say?

Chris Hall, chief executive of the Portland Regional Chamber, says he’s “very pleasantly surprised [to hear that the Portland area is one of the best cities for jobs this spring].

"Pleasantly surprised." Yes, it must have been a shock to everyone. For those of you who haven't been, Portland is a lovely little town. And I mean that. It's a beautiful, bucolic, picturesque burg where dreams go to slowly starve to death. But at least they can starve to death with reasonable rents and lovely views of Casco Bay.

Wait, there's a creative professional!... No, never mind, she's just visiting from Brooklyn.

The bone I have to pick with Portland is that it keeps trying to present itself as a city with a hip young "creative economy." Bullshit. That's not to say there aren't a lot of hip, young creative people living there, but none of them are making a goddamn dime being hip, young or creative. Which would be fine in any normal city where that sort of thing isn't expected. But Portland really wants you to believe it has an industry in applied arts, video production, music, graphic design, etc. It doesn't. If Portland advertised itself as a great place to be a waiter, middle manager at a bank, valet, or X-ray technician, I wouldn't argue.

"But without my MFA, I wouldn't have landed 'shift supervisor'!"

I'm going to use myself as an example. In the four years I lived in Portland, I made a combined total of about 50 bucks in my field of video production. Actually, that's not entirely true. Given that I purchased a new camera, computer and editing software, I actually made a combined total of about negative $2350. That doesn't mean I didn't make videos in a professional sense. I made quite a few, actually. I just never got paid for them.

So how did I pay the bills? In the tourism industry. When did I make the most money? In the spring and summer, when tourists arrived. When did the hotels I worked at expand their workforces? In the spring. When did they shrink their workforces? In the fall.

Eat a dick, Forbes.

Okay, you might be saying, maybe you just suck at life. Yes, that has crossed my mind. And I'll admit, I'm not great at it. But let's look at my situation now. I'm currently living in New York City. I haven't been here very long, about four months. Guess how long I was living in NYC before I was able to earn more in video production than I had the entire time I lived in Portland? Give up? Negative two weeks. I managed to work several paid gigs while I was still couch surfing in the city.

Is New York a difficult, expensive city to survive in? You bet. But that's pretty common knowledge, isn't it? When you hear the phrase "if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere," you don't think of Crested Butte. You think of New York. In other words, no false advertising.

Portland wants you to believe that it's full of exciting young professionals in the creative arts. It has a Friday Art Walk, an entire "arts district" even (if you consider three blocks a "district.") Check out the Creative Portland website! Click on some of those links, pay no attention to the total lack of links to, you know, actual job openings. I especially recommend you click on the Maine Studios link. What professionalism! When Portland's one and only soundstage opened up, the governor showed up to praise yet another great step forward for the city's creative economy. I know this because I was there. Also, a year later, the studio ran out of money and quietly shut down.

The vast majority of creative people I know who have lived in Portland are gone, they've moved on to real cities like Boston, Seattle, Austin, LA, DC and New York. Which would be fine, expected even, if Portland didn't keep trying to entice creative professionals to the area. Portland is the Ted Bundy of cities. It's handsome and lures attractive young people in with false promises and then murders them. Or at least it murders their ambition, until all that's left is a big fleshy pile of mediocrity.

One final note. The other area of job growth in Portland, as listed by that venerated institution Forbes? Construction. Indeed! Construction! Wonderful! Perhaps they're building a new cutting edge film studio or modern high rise for new tech firms or... nope, no, it's just four more hotels.

Eat a dick, Portland.

Roommate Wanted Trailer 2

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:39:00 +0000

We're getting close! Seriously, though. No, I mean it. This spring will finally see the release of "Roommate Wanted." In the meantime, here's another trailer to get your hearts all aflutter. Although, if your heart is actually afluttering, you should seek medical help immediately.

Enjoy!

Girlfriend Non Sequitur Triple Feature!!!1!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 20:57:00 +0000

I haven't posted in a while, and I especially haven't posted any GF non-sequiturs in a very long time, so I'm hitting your faces today with not one but three (3!) brand new GF NS's (trademark) to make up for lost time.

Just because I haven't posted any in a while doesn't mean GF has stopped saying comical and/or nonsensical stuff. There's quite a backlog of it, actually.

She's weird.

"You sound like you're in a Bob Ross painting!"

"I feel very earnest when I speak to rats. I feel like I can bear my soul to them."

"Isn't privilege a right?"

A tribute to my cars

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 22:10:00 +0000

I live in New York City now and for the first time since college, I don't own a car. I've been adjusting relatively well, and overall New York's public transit is as good as everyone says it is. It's just a little tough for me because I kind of love cars. I always have. Ever since I was a little kid and I would steer my father's old Dodge pickup down the dirt road we lived on. And also when my father left me alone in the truck to go get his wallet and I decided to back it into the front porch. I was three.

Now picture it surrounded by porch.

Fond memories.

With the exception of my freshman year in college, I've had a car every year since getting my license. So as you can imagine, this has been a tough transition. I was even kind of sad about canceling my Geico policy. I'd had it since I was 16. That policy lasted longer than most of my friendships.

Anyway, I thought I'd take some time to do a proper tribute to all the cars I've owned over the years. I loved each of them in their own way, with their special quirks, eccentricities and inabilities to pass emissions standards. I'm going to go in reverse chronological order.

Take a trip down memory lane with me, won't you?

Designed to resemble a cruise ship because, aerodynamics!

1991 Toyota Previa - 2011-2012

Wait a minute, you might be saying. This is the most recent car you owned? Like, you bought this as an adult? It wasn't some embarrassing hand-me-down from a dead great uncle or something?

No. I bought this vehicle of my own free will. I saw an ad for it and I bought it and I don't regret it for a second. Actually I think it's good to lead off this post with the Previa because it pretty neatly sums up my attitude about motor vehicles. I love weird vehicles like this. I think it stems from the kinds of cars my Dad always had when I was growing up (more about that later in the post).

Fondest memories: Being complimented on several occasions about my awesome minivan. Seriously, of all the vehicles I've owned, this one drew the most praise, even from teenagers! Pretty sure if I was single, I could've picked up chicks with this thing. Not sure what kind of chicks, exactly, but people with vaginas at the very least.

My favorite quirks: The van had AWD and came with studded tires, so it was a beast on bad roads. I'm pretty sure I could've scaled a mountain in the damn thing. It also had no rear seatbelts and the driver-side door would fill with water any time it rained.

My least favorite quirks: You couldn't really drive it through puddles. The distributor cap was upside down and on the bottom of the van, so anytime you drove through a puddle, it would fill with water and die. This was admittedly a bit of a nuisance. If this van were a 1930's movie villain, it would've been the Wicked Witch of the West. Also it had very little rust. Probably because no one ever drove it in the rain. Oh and it would leak a gallon or two of gas onto parking lots every now and then. Not too often, though.

Cause of death: Obama and his stupid inspection sticker laws.

Perfect if you're into women who were born during the Truman administration

1993 Oldsmobile Ciera - 2011

I didn't have this car long, six months as I recall, but it left a big impression. With a big American V6, a sky-blue paint job and bench seats that welcomed your ass with a cozy hug, this car screamed "cruise through the old folks home with the windows down and Bobby Darin blasting through the shitty factory speakers." Yes, this gem was from back in the days when America, well, America didn't really KNOW how to make cars back then, but it did make them super-comfy. Just put the ol' girl in drive and cruise. As long as you didn't go over 70, because then it would start to shake pretty violently.

Fondest memories: I got this car for free from a coworker who was going to junk it just because its undercarriage was all rotted out. And I was all like, "psh, I know a shady mechanic who will look right past that shit!" And they did and I got a sweet car.

My favorite quirks: The way you could hit stuff and it wouldn't matter because it was made of cast iron, I'm pretty sure.

My least favorite quirks: That whole rotted undercarriage thing kind of came back to bite me in the ass when I tried to sell it. Also the windshield leaked, and no matter how many times I vacuumed it, bits of broken glass kept appearing.

Cause of death: Sold it. Probably dead by now though, because Obama!

This is the nicest thing I will ever have. And I don't have it anymore.

2003 Nissan Altima - 2007-2011

This was the nicest car I ever owned, and by "owned" I mean "owed shitloads on to Wells Fargo." Yes, I had a car loan and it was awful. The car itself was fantastic though and I still miss it. The crippling debt, not so much.

I bought this car fresh out of college about a year before the financial crisis. It was a very different time back then. In case you've forgotten how easy it was to get stuff on credit back in '07, here's an abbreviated version of my conversation with the very lovely and not horrifically manipulative loan shark, er, Financing Specialist at the dealership.

Specialist: Do you have any credit history?

Me: No.

Specialist: Okay, how long have you had your job?

Me: Three weeks!

Specialist: Mm hm, and you're a bellman?

Me: Yes, I make a bit more than minimum wage.

Specialist: Great. Do you have any other debt?

Me: Oh my yes, quite a bit.

Specialist: I see. Your degree is in film production?

Me: Yep, I have no idea how to turn that into a career at the moment.

Specialist: And can you provide a down payment?

Me: Well, I have a twenty in my wallet, but I was going to use that to buy a 12 pack on the way home.

Specialist: And is your trade in worth anything?

Me: Maybe as scrap metal.

Specialist: Okay, I have all the information I need. Let's get you into a twelve thousand dollar car that has way more power and features than you need and give you a loan that will be far greater than the value of the car and will take you six years to pay off. Don't forget the incredibly expensive comprehensive insurance you're required to have!

Fond memories. In spite of all this, I never once missed a payment and I did truly love the car. It was incredibly reliable and fun to drive. It drove me from Maine to California and back. When I finally did sell the car, I was rewarded by Wells Fargo for my good payment history with a firm fuck up the ass. You can read about that whole ordeal in detail here.

Cause of death: I actually saw the car about a month before I moved out of Maine, so it's still alive. I bought the car with the assumption that my education would be worth something and that I was facing a bright future with large paychecks and fancy cheeses. That dream died when I sold the car. So to sum up, car: still alive. Dreams: very, very dead.

Seen here: Geo Prizm.

1995 Geo Prizm - 2005-2007

This was an incredibly boring car that I had almost zero emotional attachment to. It was beige. That was the color, but I feel like that's also the best way to describe it. Beige.

Fondest memories: When it would start and get me places.

Least fond memories: When it wouldn't.

Cause of death: Boredom. Traded it in for an awesome car. So really, the Prizm was responsible for most of my debt. Not me, the Prizm. Piece of shit.

Now picture it with more rust and fewer mufflers.

1990 Honda Accord - 2005

I didn't technically own this car, it was my Dad's. He gave it to me sophomore year of college. Now, my Dad isn't the best at maintaining cars. Hondas, especially the ones from that era, are incredibly reliable cars. So I credit this legendary reliability with the fact that it survived a full six months from the point Dad gave it to me.

Fondest memories: Doing a power slide across the front lawn of our college duplex during a party. Probably my life's finest achievement.

Least fond memories: Pretty much every week something new would break on the car, leaving me stranded in some part of town. Gary, the tow truck driver was a super nice dude.

Cause of death: A trip to McDonalds. My roommate Dave insisted we go to McDonalds for a hangover breakfast. Everything was going fine until the gas tank fell off at the drive thru. Worst part, when we got home I discovered McDonalds had fucked up my order.

The stupid hat came with the car, I swear.

1986 Toyota Corona - 2004

Wait, what the hell is a Toyota Corona, you might be asking. Well, it's only the most awesome car ever! I bought it for about 350 dollars during my semester abroad in New Zealand. As you can see, it was a station wagon painted sort of like a cow. Why on earth would you buy a car like that, some might ask. I would respond with Why on earth WOULDN'T you buy a car like that?

Fondest memories: Driving across the stunning vistas of New Zealand with no radio and no heat and some serious blind spots from the painted rear windows. Also occasionally nearly dying from accidentally driving in the opposite lane and having to shift in the opposite way you've been taught to shift because everything's on the wrong side. Stupid England and its commonwealth. USA! USA!

Cause of death: Orcs! No, but seriously, I sold it in Wellington for a couple hundred bucks. Long may you reign, weird cow car named after a shitty beer.

Great car, or the greatest car?

1992 Toyota Corolla - 2001-2003

There's just something about your first car, isn't there? Doesn't matter what it is, because the first car of a man's life is like the first woman. Sure, she may be awkward and embarrassing and you might not really know what you're doing and you're nervous and have trouble working the stick properly... but it's always special. My first car was a little red Corolla. It had no power, no A/C, no cruise, the headlights were dim, the trunk was small, there was no room for stuff, it wasn't cool in any way. But I loved it, and every car I've owned since then has been compared and judged against that first spunky little sedan.

That thing had chutzpah, too. I mean, I beat the hell out of that as only a 17 year old can beat the hell out of a hand-me-down Corolla. I used to do this thing where, as I was accelerating, I would engage the clutch and release it while keeping my foot on the gas because it would give the car a boost. I know, I'm cringing just thinking about it. But that car took it like a champ. When I got the car, it already had 260,000 miles on it and both my older sisters learned to drive stick with it. Then I learned to drive stick. Here's the crazy part, it still had its original clutch! Like I said, it was a tough little bastard.

That car survived being driven by this person. They don't make 'em like they used to.

My mom sold it when I went to college, which to me felt like the equivalent of her selling the family dog. I was heartbroken. She sold it to a guy in town and from what I understand, it went over 300,000 miles before finally going to that great scrap yard in the sky, or Burnham, Maine or wherever. I like to believe it's still out there though, maybe it's got some other teenager driving it now, trying to burn rubber with its tiny 14" wheels, getting into car chases with other idiot teenagers in their Dad's Plymouth Breeze, sitting patiently while that teenager awkwardly fumbles with a girl's bra in a Tim Horton's parking lot.

Genuinely fond memories.

A couple runners up: Neither of these vehicles I owned, but they left a big impression on me.

Now picture it with more wood paneling and dumbass teenagers farting in it.

First, my Dad's old 1988 GMC Suburban. We didn't nickname this thing "the Tank" for no reason. It was goddamn monstrous. It got about 12 mpg's, had the emissions of an Abrams tank and probably weighed the same. It had actual real wood paneling on the side and tinted windows, so it basically screamed, or rather, creepily whispered, "come closer if you're into being raped!"

It was awesome. Fucking awesome.

I have great memories of my friends and I cruising around during high school lunch break, cranking Meat Loaf and not impressing any girls even the slightest. Also one time we drove it to Montreal, Canada and were searched at the border for about three hours, because, well, look at that thing. It'd be weird if it didn't have pounds of coke stashed in the tires.

Now picture it with more thousands of gallons of water rushing past.

Second, my Uncle's 1990 Nissan Pathfinder. Back in the day, Pathfinders were incredibly capable off-roaders. I borrowed the truck to go to our family's camp in Northern Maine. Back then, to get there by vehicle, you had to ford a stream. Normally this wasn't difficult, but if it had rained the night before, for example, an intelligent person would just park the truck and hike the rest of the way.

And by "intelligent person" I mean "not an eighteen year old trying to impress his friends."

In hindsight, what really killed the poor Pathfinder wasn't so much that I drove it through a river, but that I drove it through a river three times. It was that third time that kinda sealed the deal.

I miss having a car. Cars are awesome.

This is the America Jesus would have wanted.

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 19:01:00 +0000

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

I've seen and heard this quote many times since the Newtown tragedy, most recently at the NRA press conference.

On the surface, it's hard to argue with that statement. I mean, unless you think about it. Then it becomes super easy to argue with that statement. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun ... unless of course the bad guy happens to be a better shot. Then you've just got a bad guy with two guns.

Just because the good guy is a better shot in all the action movies doesn't necessarily mean that's true in the real world. Take me for example. I like to think of myself as a good guy. The problem is, I've only ever fired a gun once. It was a gigantic 50 caliber rifle. I was on a movie shoot at a ranch in south Texas. The owner of the ranch took out his (vast) collection of guns and let us fire them. Admittedly, it was pretty fun. We were aiming at a hillside. I missed the hillside. Forget the side of a barn, my aim was so bad I literally couldn't hit the side of the planet.

So anyway, let's move on. What the NRA suggested was that we should station armed guards in all of our schools. Seeing as how there are about 100,000 public schools in America, I guess that could be a good way to hire a shitload of unemployed people. And you'd have to train all of them in gun safety. And do background checks on all of them. So that's even more hiring right there! Hell, this is a great idea! We'll keep our schools safe AND stimulate the economy! Brilliant! And it's a good thing there's so much surplus money kicking around for our public school system right now and we can afford to hire all these guards.

But wait a second. It's not just public schools that are at risk. Let's not forget that in the last couple of years, we've had shootings at movie theaters, shopping malls, supermarket parking lots, saunas and Sikh temples. So I guess we shouldn't just have armed guards in schools, we need them in literally every conceivable public gathering place. Parks, pizza joints, Apple stores, random street corners, churches, casino river boats, Honda dealerships, those tacky 50's style diners, hotel lobbies, Taco Bell parking lots. Is it a place that you can be in? Then it needs an armed guard!

Well hell, that just means we get to hire EVEN MORE people! At this rate, we'll be at like, 0% unemployment in no time! USA! USA!

A more guarded, militarized America is a safer America. After all, it's not like a gunman could ever open fire and kill a lot of people in a military establishment.

Now some of the pussies on the left are going to tell you that this isn't a logical answer. They'll say that there's more guns now than ever before, and there's also more mass shootings. They'll say reacting to a rise in mass shootings by arming more people is a little like reacting to forest fires by preemptively burning down all the forests. There are some who might say that this clinging to a fairly loose interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, that these cries over our loss of freedom are only, ironically, hastening the rise of an Orwellian paramilitary omni-surveillance dystopian future police-state.

Some people might argue that the real problem is America's culture of individualism, of the idea that "you" are more important than your neighbor, that "you" are special and that everyone else is a threat to your inevitable, pre-ordained rise to greatness. Some might say our culture of consumption, of being constantly bombarded about products that, if we don't own them, we're imperfect, might be just a tad unhealthy. Some might say that this constant, endless cycle of tiny disappointments through the failed promise of every new product to fulfill us leads to further isolationism and a deep-seeded anger as we watch an endless parade of the beautiful happy people we're supposed to be. After all, we bought that skin cream, and the cross-over Mazda CX-9, and the Microsoft Surface, so why are we still unhappy? (And Christ, why did we buy a Microsoft Surface??)

Some might say that this individualism coupled with a continued stigmatization of mental illness in popular culture causes us all to internalize our angers and fears. Some might ask us to stop and think about how many times we've seen, on cop shows, medical dramas, action films, the bad guys confessing to the heroes about their past traumas, their broken homes or acts of violence that led them on the path to deviance, depravity and corruption. Some might ask that you stop and consider the fact that pretty much everyone has experienced trauma, that no one's past is perfect. Some might ask you to admit that everyone occasionally has violent thoughts, fantasies of revenge. That we all occasionally hate, that we're all irrational and angry from time to time, and that maybe that's okay. Maybe we shouldn't bury those thoughts until we explode in acts of unspeakable carnage.

Some might say that it's our connections to each other that keep us grounded, and that the more we celebrate individualism and ostracize ourselves from the idea of community and shared space, the worse things are going to get. If we have armed guards everywhere, we're only going to continue to alienate the concept of public space until everyone just sits at home, staring at TV screens where 24 hour news media shrieks about every new threat and how everyone you don't know is crazy and out to get you in between ads for products that will fix your horrible, blemished face. There are some who will say that while gun control is important, it's impossible at this point to simply take away all the guns, and that we should put our energy into tearing down America's culture of alienation and in its place rebuilding a sense of community and our shared human experience.

Don't listen to those people. They're totally just liberal fags. You should go buy a gun quickly, before everyone else does.

My predictions for 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 21:12:00 +0000

While most people take time to reflect on the year past, I purposefully burn all my calendars and photographs, receipts and tax information from the year. Nothing like a fresh start, I say! No point looking back, only look forward into the future! The horrible, apocalyptic, smog-choked future!

Anyway, here are my predictions for 2013, the unluckiest year since 1913, which, according to Wikipedia, was the year the Women's Suffrage Parade took place in Washington DC. And we all know how that turned out.

After the horrible, devastating tragedy in Newtown, the nation finally sits down to have a frank, adult conversation about gun control. Unfortunately, the nation attempts to have that conversation with gun owners. After that doesn't work, the nation sits despondently watching and rewatching that clip of Michael Douglas's monologue in The American President and sighing wistfully about all that could have been.

You said you'd get the guns, Michael. You said you'd get them...

Another Spiderman reboot hits theaters, even though no one actually authorized its production. Sony decides to just roll with it, because what the hell, it's not like they've got anything else going on.

Remember these, Sony? Remember how easy life used to be for you guys?

That Dyson guy invents some more cool shit you can't afford.

Yeah, but can you make the Darth Vader voice with it?
Didn't think so.

The Mayan doomsday doesn't happen. So we can all totally just relax because everything's fine. No doomsday here. No sir. Just ignore the destruction of the eastern seaboard this past fall and the fact that 2012 was the warmest year on record and that the world had the highest CO2 emissions ever. And pay no attention to the arctic ice sheets melting at previously unheard of rates. And definitely don't worry about the drought that caused the largest food producing region on earth to lose a record-breaking amount of the largest crop on earth.

Yep. Doin' fine.

Maine and Washington are doing good. So our blueberry and weed supplies
should be fine.

Chastened by their losses in the election, the GOP will decide to forego their tactic of obstructionism and work together with the Democrats to fix the many issues facing the country, ushering in a new age of cooperation and bipartisanship. Also, scientists report their first successful genetic hybridization of a condor and a pig. It has the body of a pig, but the wings of a condor, so theoretically it can fly. Not sure why I listed this with the GOP prediction, it should really be it's own bullet point. Oh well.

Speaking of science, we all continue to be really impressed with the Mars Rover, until we consider that one time, a half century ago, we routinely put people on the moon, and had space travel continued to be funded and supported with the same vigor that computers, the internet, military weaponry, cell phones, and boner pills have received since then, the possibilities for where our species would be today are almost unimaginable. So instead we just pop in the Blu-ray of Prometheus and think, Well hey! At least it means that will never happen!

We'll never get to sleep with / exploit giant blue cat people at this rate!

You'll find comfort in the fact that the Pussycat Dolls haven't been relevant in like, three years! So that's something!

Justin Bieber grows a beard, somehow looks even more like a lesbian.

Did you know there's a company that will sequence your DNA for a hundred bucks? This isn't a prediction, I just think it's really cool.

Mitt Romney continues to deny John Kerry's friend requests on Facebook.

C'mon, Mitt! We have so much in common. So, so much.

Gary Busey does bath salts and eats Tom Sizemore's face. Nobody notices.

Worried about the failure of its newest shows, AMC ousts Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and orders a new season of the show. In it, Walt cooks a bad batch of meth that turns everyone into zombies. He and Pinkman flee to Georgia, where they meet up with a bunch of assholes in a prison and spend an entire season bickering about whether to let that black guy into the group, since he'll just be killed in a few days, anyway. Ultimately, they decide to let him in. Moments later, he's killed.

Jared from Subway and Flo from Progressive release the grossest, awkwardest and most confusingly arousing sex tape of the year.

You'd watch it.

The Coen Brothers better goddamn well release a new movie.

Apple and Google continue to fight until they're both hit with antitrust lawsuits from the US Government. Realizing the error of their ways, the two tech giants band together and purchase the US Government.

You decide to catch up on the TV show "Revolution."

40 minutes later, you decide to give up on the TV show "Revolution."

Jon Stewart does a bit where he really sticks it to Fox News. Man, they must be SO embarrassed! I'd love to see the look on Roger Ailes' face after that takedown!

Every remaining profession has a reality show made about it on A&E. Be sure to tune in to Telemarket-StarsⓇ Tuesdays at 9pm!

I know it's not original to complain about shows like this, but
come on! Who watches this shit? Masochists?

Actually, I would probably watch Telemarket-Stars.

A fun new Thai place opens up in your neighborhood! You should go! Maybe Chris and Erin would want to go too! You should Facebook them!

You suffer a sudden existential crisis upon the realization that "facebook" is a verb that is socially acceptable to utter and that you could very possibly be saying it for the rest of your adult life.

You have a powerful, deep urge to flee into the woods, far far away from civilization and never return.

You realize you don't have the courage to change your life that dramatically, so instead you stare silently at your desk for a few minutes as the full, crushing weight of life's meaninglessness presses on your chest like an anvil filled with failure and your own relentless mediocrity.

You pull it together. Deep breaths. Everything's fine. You wonder what Adam's up to on Facebook.

Oh look, Adam instagrammed his dinner! Looks yummy!

Oh, Jesus Christ, "instagram" is a verb now too! Motherfucker!

Still better than baby pictures, though.

An association whose sole purpose of existence is to own, promote, sell and fire guns continues to be one of the largest influencers of American politics, which isn't fucking crazy at all.

You realize you know three people named Eric and you don't like any of them.

Cuba Gooding Jr gets a gritty new cop drama on FX. See, he used to be a drug dealer, but then his buddy OD'd or something so he cleaned up his act and became a cop. But he still struggles with addiction or whatever. His wife is dead too. Or is she? It's called Do Gooding. No, wait, I can come up with something better. Give me a minute.

I finally make the switch to Tumblr, because who even uses Blogger anymore anyway? What is this, 2005?

It's called The Shield. That'd be a good name for a cop show.

We all continuously pass the coolest fucking people we'd ever meet on the street, like every day. People so awesome and friendly and funny that they would enrich our lives in ways we can't even imagine. But we don't actually meet or interact with them, because we all have places to be, right? Who has the time for that shit?

Get out of my way! Shipping Wars is on in 20 minutes!

Okay, those are my predictions! Also in 2013, my movie "Roommate Wanted" will be released. And you'll watch it. Because if you don't, I'll continue to toil in obscurity with this bullshit blog and I just can't do it anymore, man. I just can't ... Fuck. Man. Fuck...

Official trailer for "Roommate Wanted"!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 23:09:00 +0000

Hey everyone! Remember me? Yes, it's been a while. Lots of things have been happening since last I wrote at you. Mostly, those things involve moving to New York City.

As it turns out, it's a bit of a hassle to move. It's even more of a hassle to move to a city two days after it's hit by the largest storm in a century.

Despite that setback, New York has thus far been fantastic, and I've actually been working nearly every day I've been here. This is great for my wallet, but terrible for "Roommate Wanted." I've been woefully behind on my editing schedule with the movie. Fortunately I've had a few days off this past week and I've made excellent progress. There's still an almost comical amount of work left to be done. And by "comical" I mean "acid-reflux-inducing."

Anyway, here's the official trailer for "Roommate Wanted." I hope you like it. I like it. It's cool.

Enjoy!

Global warming? More like global whining! Right? Yeah!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:57:00 +0000

I've been trying to write a funny post for a while now. At least a couple of months. Unfortunately that effort has been thwarted by a potent combination of a heavy workload, a busy schedule, a long commute and probably a little bit of SADs (Seasonal Affective Disorder, the most perfect acronym ever) that were in no way helped by the fact that I currently live in a cabin that lets in about as much sunlight as a cave in Alaska in December that is also underwater. And draped in a heavy wool blanket. That's been spray painted black.

Fortunately spring is here and we can all return to not wanting to kill ourselves! Especially since it seems like spring is going to do a perfectly fine job killing us all anyway. I currently live in northern Maine. Last week it was 80 degrees. It had been well over 60 degrees for the past week. The normal temperature for this time of year is 44 degrees. So we were hovering somewhere around 40 degrees above normal.

No one seems really freaked out. People are freaked out in the same way that someone on a haunted hay ride is freaked out. Like, "oh man, that scarecrow was actually a real dude! Huh" freaked out. In my opinion, this is not the proper level of freaked out.

Hurry up, he's got to get back to his meth lab.

Let's turn the tables and pretend that it's mid September right now, when average temperatures are around 70 degrees. Now let's say we spend a week in mid September where it doesn't get above 20, and actually drops to the low teens for a couple days. Would people be all like "Oh man, weird weather today, huh bro? Welp, see ya later!"?

Of course not! They'd be freaking their shit! And rightly so! That would be some weird shit! But because it's the kind of anomaly that makes us want to wear bermuda shorts and drink things with limes in them, nobody seems all that upset.

Well I've got a few things to say on the matter. But I've been struggling with how to say them without it turning into a lecture or a diatribe or Al Gore (or should I say Al Bore! Ha!)

"Yes, mock me. I'm an Oscar winning Nobel laureate former Vice
President multi-millionaire TV network owner. But sure, I'm the boring one."

I think I've figured out how to say what I want to say, but it'll require some participation from you, the reader. Okay, so remember that time, freshman year of college, when you got really baked with your roommates and their buddy Dave from the second floor and you guys started talking, and man, everything people were saying was so true! Like, shit got deep, you know? And Dave had read some Nietzche and really knew his shit. You remember. Transformative, wasn't it? really opened your eyes to the world.

Right, so here's what you need to do, go find some weed and smoke all of it. Your neighbors, the ones who own the Subaru? They have some, just go ask. They're very friendly. One of them is probably named Alex.

Got it? Good. Smoke it all, put on Pink Floyd's Animals and pretend you're back in that dorm room with the glow in the dark Sublime poster just chillin' your shit out.

I need to break character for a second to say
how much I hate Sublime.

Okay, all settled in? Good. So here's what's up: We're fucked.

Sorry man. I know that's harsh, but dude, ...dude...it's true. Just hear me out. Dude. Just hear me out.

So I read this article today asking if all this weird weather is the new normal. It's a pretty popular phrase these days, "new normal." But here's the thing, man, there's no such thing as normal. There hasn't been for about 200 years.

I'll tell you what I mean. Yeah I know, this is a good track. Have you listened to the remastered Dark Side? Oh, dude, you gotta man! It'll change your life. Anyway...

What I mean is that we as a species are completely lacking in perspective. Our lifespans are too short and our cultural memories fade with each generation. We have no concept of the fact that we are an absolute anomaly within the entire 3.5 billion year history of the planet. Think about it! I don't mean humans as an animal are an anomaly, I mean our current status on this planet, as in the past 200 years. In the blink of a geological eye we've gone from your pretty basic omnivorous land mammal to discovering that we can burn pretty much EVERYTHING and use the energy it creates to push our asses across the planet at incredibly high speeds.

400 horses to move a single 175 lb man? It'd be stupid not to exist.

Nothing in Earth's history has ever done what we're doing. And we're doing it so rapidly that the only comparison in terms of sheer scale of destruction are super volcanoes and asteroid collisions.

Everyone keeps waiting for the big apocalyptic disaster. Nuclear war, asteroids, the Mayan calendar, Jesus returning and feasting on our brains I guess, Godzilla, etc. What everyone seems to be missing is that we're in it. Right now, we are mid disaster. It's not happening 1000 or 100 or 10 years from now. You are literally standing in the middle of the apocalypse right this second.

"The liberal media says our flesh is boiling. Clearly a conspiracy."

Fundamentally, it's a problem of scale. My environmental friends all like to say that the world's energy problems can be solved if we could only get those darned oil companies to stop being such jerks and start funding renewable energy, like wind, solar and rainbow kisses and shit. It's a nice thought, and sure, we should try to switch to clean energy, but it's not going to happen for a few reasons:

-Oil is like pure cocaine. Clean energy is at best, a Diet Pepsi. Sure there's still a little caffeine in there, but after the head rush of sweet uncut crude, you just can't go back. Oil is such a pure, compact, powerful hit of energy, everything else falters by comparison.

-Even if the technology of clean energy were to catch up or surpass oil and coal in terms of energy conversion efficiency (which it won't do at scale for at least another 20 years), the entire global infrastructure has already been built on oil. For my next metaphor: Imagine you have a house. It's a great house, but suddenly you find you're allergic to the wood used in the frame of the house (I never said I was good at metaphors), so you have to replace the entire framing of the house with new wood from the inside out. Think of the enormous amount of energy you'd need to exert to literally rebuild your entire house. You'd have to gut the thing. If we were to just switch to new energy sources, we'd expend so, so, so much energy switching all of the infrastructure that it would take us hundreds of years to regain what we'd lost in the conversion. Also in this metaphor, you can't just move to a new house, because the house is Earth. In case that wasn't clear.

Not actually a house. A metaphor. Got it?

-What no one is grasping is that when we talk about "normal" we actually have no idea what that means because none of us were alive to see it. As homo sapiens sapiens, we're about 200,000 years old. We've always been nomadic hunter-gatherers. You know how you just want to buy a van and drive across the country, man? That's your nomadic past talking. So we've had agriculture for a solid 10,000 years, which equals 5 percent of our whole existence. The industrial revolution kicked off around 1750. So we've had our "modern era" of machine-driven manufacturing and comforts for about 260 years, or about .13 percent of human history. Assuming the average human lifespan is about 65 years (if you factor in that lifespans have only increased dramatically this past century) then we've only been in modern times for about 4 full lifespans. Of course, humans don't wait until they're 65 to have the next generation, but that still averages out to about 10 generations, tops.

My point? My point, man, is that we aren't normal. None of this is normal. The reason everything is so fucked up is that we're built, biologically, to exist for about 35 years, have a few kids, run around after some wildabeests and then die. Wildabeest. That's a weird word, huh? Sorry, anyway, we all get fat on disgusting food because our bodies convince us that we may not have another chance to eat for weeks, so we'd better gorge now. We overpopulate the world because biologically, we expect 2/3 of our offspring to be eaten by wolves. We drive SUVs because, well, they're super comfy, I guess.

Clean energy is nice, conservation is nice. It's cool that you're driving a Prius and all, but the thing is, none of it matters. As long as there's 7 billion people consuming, and we have to consume, because that's what all animals do, we'll never fix anything. Here's what we're currently running out of:

-Land
-Soil
-Oil
-Precious metals (the things they use to make computer chips, phones, cars)
-Most metals, actually
-Clean water
-We're not running out of the ocean, but it is acidifying.
-Food. Pretty much all food.

Northern China and the American West, both huge food baskets, have been ravaged by droughts. Monocultures are destroying crop yields. Ethanol is using up perfectly good corn. Crazy shit like tar sands are using up hundreds of billions of gallons of fresh water in their production. We're currently in the midst of a mass extinction. Like, end of the dinosaurs-level extinction. So there goes biodiversity. If even a quarter of the rising Chinese and Indian middle classes manage to live up to the standards of the American middle class (which they're trying to do. Did you know the Chinese love Buicks?) then it'll make American waste look like an aerosol can in a hurricane by comparison.

I mentioned dinosaurs, so I needed to add a picture.
That's just a rule.

And it's all because people believe that the way we're living now is how we've always lived, and that we should continue living like this forever. People, especially Americans, are offended by the notion of sacrifice, that we may not always be able to drive 30 minutes to get Panda Express Orange Chicken 24 hours a day and spend only 8 dollars to do it. I like Obama just fine, and I understand why, politically, he always has to talk about getting the economy back to "growth" but as long as "growth" is our mantra, we're all fucked. Totally, 100 percent fucked. So yeah, vote for Romney if you really think that'll make a fucking difference.

People want renewable energy not to save the planet, but to ensure that they can still play Xbox. Even conservationists want to be able to take the subway and eat sushi and watch movies and shower with hot water. That shit's insane, man! Look at our lives. We talk to tiny screens that talk back while surrounded by unimaginably tall buildings and exotic fruits that we don't even eat because they have a brown spot while wearing a jacket made on the other side of the planet and built of materials that literally don't exist in nature. That's goddamn bonkers! That's some sci-fi shit right there!

These crossed entire oceans to be thrown in your trash.

Someday, our poor, ravaged, meager ancestors, if they're able to be anthropologists, will look back at this era, at the crumbling ruins of the cities, at the forever tainted surroundings of old nuclear plants, and marvel at the world that was. Like the people of the Dark Ages who gazed up at the ruined coliseum and aquaducts of Rome, they'll be weirded out by all the rotting Priuses with their acidic, leaking batteries and the glazed granite stone countertops in the mansions that all kind of look the same with their living rooms all filled with the same giant black rectangular slabs (televisions. I'm talking about televisions) hanging above fireplaces that can't actually burn wood.

The new Samsung Monolith.

80 degrees in March isn't an anomaly. We're the anomaly. We're the freak storm. We're the asteroid. We're the contagion. I don't mean human beings as a whole. Biologically, we're a pretty normal species. But human beings for this tiny span of time, from 1750 to 2050, will someday be studied by the super-intelligent slugs or whatever replaces us, as an unusual and unfortunate moment in Earth's history.

So yeah, I guess enjoy the weather. Let's have a cold beer brewed in Colorado with ingredients from China that were shipped across an ocean, packaged in a synthetic can that changes colors based on its temperature. And don't forget the lime trucked over from Mexico. Enjoy it. I'll be the first to tell you it's tasty. Just don't for a second think it's normal.

Why did we even bother living before these?

Girlfriend non-sequitur #9: In which Girlfriend makes a confession

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:01:00 +0000

"I've always been kind of an asshole to stupid smelly people."

At least she's honest. And in her defense, they are pretty much the worst.

Tebowing

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:15:00 +0000

I'm a football fan. "So what?" you may be saying as you sit in front of your iMac in your underwear (totally unlike what I am currently doing). See, the thing is though, it's a little weird that I'm a football fan, because I kind of hate sports. In both the spectating and playing of them. Let me give you a rundown of the most popular sports and my general opinion of them:

Basketball

Spectating: In the occasional moments between free-throws, gigantic men gallop back and forth on some laminated hardwood and throw a ball to each other all for the entertainment of Spike Lee and Jack Nicholson. Then they take a time-out to sell me Reeboks and Sprite.
Playing: A unique way to twist your ankle and remind yourself that you're still too short to dunk.

Soccer

Spectating: It's a cliche to say that Americans don't care about soccer, but dammit, I don't care about soccer! I do admire how fervent other countries are about it, to the point that people dying at the games is just sort of par for the course. And I certainly admire the athleticism and stamina of soccer players. But holy shit, the game goes on for like, 90 minutes, and at the end, if there's more than four points TOTAL, it's a high scorer! That's bananas, man!
Playing: A unique way to twist your ankle and remind yourself that you really need to work on your lung capacity.

Baseball

Spectating: America's pastime! Back in college, I lived with huge Red Sox fans and was there to witness their triumphant World Series win in 2004. So I really gave baseball a shot. I really wanted to like it. But then I noticed something: while watching baseball, I could actually hear my brain screaming.
Playing: A unique way to stand in a field and get sun poisoning and/or lyme disease.

Hockey

Spectating: Horrible to watch on TV. Just awful. Kind of fun to watch live for about a period and a half. Hockey actually reminds me of Nascar a little bit, in that you wait the entire boring time for a brief spurt of horrific violence, and it always ends up being a little underwhelming.
Playing: I actually kind of enjoy playing hockey, except for the whole not being able to skate backwards part.

UFC/Boxing

Spectating: Boxing's kind of fun to watch, but UFC should just admit it to themselves and put those guys in a coliseum with some swords and wild tigers. Also UFC fans: the worst people on earth. Really, just awful, terrible human beings. All of them.
Playing: Seriously? I don't even like to thumb wrestle.

Cricket

Spectating: What is this I don't even...
Playing: What is this I don't even...

Rugby

Spectating: After football, this is probably my least least favorite spectator sport, mainly because it combines the violence of football with the, um, running of soccer.
Playing: I tried once as a high school freshman on a coed team. I managed to accidentally tackle a girl's vagina and then had my face shoved in the mud by a senior who was literally twice my size. So a mixed experience overall.

Tennis

Spectating: Lots of opportunities to try not to be sexually aroused by the grunting sounds of the girls. And the prettier boys (looking at you, Nadal).
Playing: "Those guys have been there for a while, maybe they're about to leave. Let's just wait a few more minutes, one of the courts will probably free up soon." Ten minutes later: "Fuck it, let's go get whiskey-drunk and watch Futurama reruns on Netflix."

She just looks so good in a skirt

And that more or less gets us to football. It's weird that I'm a fan because I totally get how completely absurd the game is. A bunch of angry men with cartoonishly large muscles wearing tights push each other as they try to get a misshapen ball while their cartoonishly wealthy white overlord owners watch from above like Bond villains. It's a one hour game that takes three hours to complete and the brief moments of action are interrupted by Peyton Manning reminding me about my MasterCard debt. It's all just so silly. And yet I love it. I really do. Sitting on the couch, drinking beer, eating nachos. I genuinely enjoy inhabiting the lazy American male stereotype, if only for an afternoon.

So I'm a Patriots fan ( I know, boo, hiss. Well fuck you, losers. Can't wait to play the Jets in the postseason. Oh wait, what's that? Oh, well never mind then).

I'm not saying they look alike...Okay, I am saying they look alike.

Tomorrow is the Pats' first playoff game and it's against the Denver Broncos. In general my attitude is that while I obviously want them to win, it's not a huge disaster if they don't. After all, it's just a game, and a pretty silly one at that. There are no serious changes to my life should the Pats win or lose. With that said, I really want them to win tomorrow, because the game features everyone's new favorite sports star, Tim Tebow!

Tebow is the feel-good story of the year, a good Christian boy who was almost coat-hangered as a fetus, but then wasn't, and now he's a rich person throwing a ball at other rich people! It's an inspiring story if ever there was one! People like the guy because he's humble and takes himself and the game seriously. He kneels down and thanks God after his touchdowns, not like those other showboating heathens, spiking the ball and performing goofy dances. So inappropriate, those guys! Celebrating scoring points in a game instead of thanking God! I mean, when I get the Marvin Gardens block in Monopoly, I don't cry out "boo-yah!", instead I silently kneel down and thank Jesus Christ for helping me smite my sworn enemies in this fake battle with no actual consequences.

People seem to find Tebow's deference to God refreshing in the face of so much braggadacio and over-the-top machismo. I find it completely fucking offensive. Not because I'm not Christian or anything like that, but because it's a FUCKING GAME! Every time Tim Tebow kneels down to thank God for helping him throw a ball accurately, I just want to yell: "It's your job to throw that ball! I don't thank God every time I manage to point a camera and hit record successfully! It's what I get paid to do!" This is how I picture Tebow's version of God responding to his thanks:

"Yeah dude, totally. Glad to help. I had to let some seven year old die of Leukemia just now, but whatever, because you totally nailed that screen pass. High five!"

Apparently God favors Bros.

I like it when players celebrate with stupid dancing after scoring touchdowns, because it's a stupid, fun, goofy game. That's what you're supposed to do in games! "Oh, that Tebow's so serious!" No he isn't, he's an asshole! A rich, white American asshole who has the audacity, the raging narcissim, to think that the Creator of All Things gives two flying shits about him! You know what? Maybe there is a God and maybe He does influence the outcome of NFL games. I can't prove that that isn't the case. But if it's true, then that God is the worst fucking entity to ever exist. Because if God is actively helping Tebow score touchdowns, then that God is an interventionist God, which means He also caused shit like the Japan tsunami and the Haiti earthquake and my favorite cat being hit by a car and Rick Santorum as yet never having his genitals attacked by a swarm of angry possums (swarm? Posse? Flock?). My point is, if Tebow's God is the God controlling everything, then I'm done man. Not interested in playing anymore.

So to sum up, go Pats!

We all know who God's real favorite is.

My Predictions for 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:30:00 +0000

The beginning of a new year brings the hope of a fresh start, the desire to change, the thrill of setting new goals and the struggle to suppress the nagging inner monologue reminding you of the six pack abs you still don't have, despite it being a resolution every year since the Clinton Administration.

But this year is going to be different! We're really going to overcome our Asperger's and start making eye contact this time! Just as soon as we're done looking at this picture of a dog answering a telephone on the internet. Also on the internet: My list of Predictions About 2012!

Roland Emmerich's epic film 2012 will turn out to be eerily accurate, though only in predicting the death of Woody Harrelson after he is last seen screaming incoherently from the roof of an RV somewhere in the backwoods of Yellowstone Park.

This was not the craziest pic I found. Google this dude.
He's giving Nic Cage a run for his money.

Every member of Congress, after having been visited by three spirits over their Christmas break, will return with a renewed sense of purpose and civic duty and vow to finally work together. Then Marco Rubio will call Dick Durbin a fairy within earshot of one of Durbin's aids, and things will quickly return to normal.

Brett Ratner will finally get his own reality TV show on E! and it will be far, far more entertaining than any of his movies. Just wait til the episode where he fingerbangs Tara Reid at the Viper Room!

It's a face only a coke dealer could love.

There will continue to be great new breakthroughs in clean energy, efficiency, conservation and resource management. However, there will also continue to be more than 7 billion people on the planet, so...oh well.

It's cute how much you won't save us.

I will continue to avoid children because of their filthy, bacteria-ridden little hands. Creeps me right out, man.

Speaking of children, I will, as of January 1st, unfriend every single one of you fuckers that posts pictures of your kids on Facebook. I recognize that you probably have friends and family who actually give a shit, but goddammit on a cracker, I don't. I really, really don't. My Facebook feed used to be pictures of parties and road trips and the beach. Now it's just weird tiny people who look like shrunken versions of people I don't talk to anymore. Also, when I look at pictures of your kids, this is what I see: "Hey look everyone, I had sex and then this happened. Yep, my vagina made this thing, and now it's got spaghetti noodles on its face. Too cute!"

The rapid descent of humanity from its nadir into a pit of food, water, oil, mineral and precious metal depletion leading to global unrest, mass starvation, political and social upheaval and vicious violence will in no way be slowed by the release of the iPhone 5. But it will have a really cool new screen!

Martin Ferguson of Nashville will die at exactly 2:34pm on November 9th, 2012.

If all goes as planned, I just made some guy in Tennessee shit himself.

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman will prove finally and conclusively that Christopher Nolan, talented as he is, can't cast women for shit. Think about it ... Carrie-Anne Moss, Hilary Swank, Katie Holmes, Maggie Gyllenhaal, etc. Clearly he has a type, and it is "mis-cast."

"I choose to portray Rachel Dawes as mildly annoyed
and a little sleepy."

Adam Sandler's new movie will just be him, Nick Swardson and Rob Schneider standing around farting on each other while Sandler screams into the camera, with tears of frustration streaming down his cheeks, "do you actually like this? Is this really what you want me to do with my time and money? Are you all brain-dead masochists or something??" It will gross 187 million dollars.

Don't you get it? He's testing us!

The Large Hadron Collider will prove the existence of the Higgs Boson, heralding a new age of understanding within the field of physics. Astronomers will continue to discover new exoplanets that closely resemble Earth, raising the very real possibility of finding extraterrestrial life within this century. Engineers will continue designing incredible consumer gadgets that were literally impossible a mere five years ago. Nanotechnology and gene therapy will march on in their destruction of disease and the effects of aging. But instead of looking at this thrilling new world of scientific discovery and progress with awe, Americans will continue to ignore it, instead choosing to draw their inspiration from a marginally talented quarterback who thanks God for helping him get that third down conversion.

Scientists invented a fuel cell that cleans water and creates energy
simultaneously. But yeah, no, this is totally super inspirational.

There's a pretty good chance someone reading this will die in 2012. Won't be me though, because I wrote it. Sorry, that's just how science works.

Jesus returns. Turns out he just took the weekend to visit his relatives in San Antonio. Thank goodness, too, because the cedar hedge really needs a trim!

Some African country will have some kind of genocide or something. Zimbabwe maybe? That's in Africa, right? Whatever. Also, Charlie Sheen gets a new TV show! Yay!

How about if no one gets indicted for child rape this year, huh? Just this one year, okay guys?

If someone does have to be indicted, let it be one of the Kardashian sisters.

No but seriously, no child rape this year. That seems like a goal that should be achievable.

Barack Obama wins reelection, crushing the hopes of the Republican party and, secretly, Barack Obama.

"Fuck. Fine, whatever. Where's Biden? I could use a shot of Jager."

Bank of America will leverage a new $12 monthly fee to all current Credit Union members.

A video of a cat falling out of a chair will be posted on Youtube. It will be hilarious! Wait til Tammy sees it! She will just die!

Your over-inflated sense of self worth will continue unabated, despite you being a completely useless piece of shit.

Occupy Wall Street will finally open everyone's eyes to the fact that the whole political and social system is engineered to benefit the wealthy and powerful while keeping the masses placated and docile with consumer goods and sports television. Then everyone will remember that they already learned this fact sometime around 9th grade civics class, and they'll go see what Brian is up to out back.

Julia Stiles will finally accept a role on a CBS procedural as a tough but vulnerable doctor or something. A district attorney, maybe. Also her mom was murdered when she was a kid I guess.

A lot of people will continue dying poor, alone, unloved and forgotten. But that's super depressing, so don't worry about it.

As a child, he wanted to be a firefighter. But that's okay, you've got
to meet Beth at Starbucks.

Some crazy shit will go down. Probably in the Middle East.

Kanye West is gay. He really likes fashion, guys. Just saying, it's possible.

Finally, everything will continue not going as planned. If there is anyone out there reading this who is actually capable of developing and executing a plan without everything going completely astray, go fuck yourself.

Happy 2012 everyone!

My bucket list

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I've decided to make a bucket list. You know, a list of things to do before you kick the bucket. It's all part of my new goal of sucking less. Can I achieve that goal? No, probably not, but this should be good for a few chuckles at the very least:

-Play poker more than once every three years so I can stop having to re-learn it every damn time.

-Smash a guitar. Preferably not my own.

-Win an argument. Just once. That's all I'm asking.

-Punch someone square in the face, ideally immediately after that person utters the phrase "this is a crunchy guitar riff, bro."

-Buy an old house and flip it. Literally. Like, with a backhoe or something.

-Wake up somewhere, not knowing how I got there, because it always seems funny when it happens in the movies.

-Speaking of movies: Make a movie. You know, since I went to school to learn how to do that and all.

-Make the best movie ever with Zach Galifianakis, because he's actually a great actor who hasn't been properly utilized yet. I've got the script mapped out and everything! It's really cool, it's like this post-apocalyptic thing, only it's more realistic, but also very absurdist. Lots of dialogue punctuated by moments of violence, like if Assassination of Jesse James and The Road Warrior crashed into a Robert Altman film. Dammit, I'm not explaining it right. It's awesome though, I promise.

-Work on my elevator pitch, apparently.

-Maybe get Stephen Merchant to be in my movie, too. Because he's very funny and he doesn't get enough roles.

Never not funny.

-Strike a balance between the wisdom of age and the vitality of youth through yoga or meditation or some shit.

-Meet Katherine Heigl in 20 years, long past the point that fame and success have abandoned her. Have someone tell me afterwards, "hey, that was Katherine Heigl." And I'll respond, "who?" and genuinely mean it.

-Ditto for Kim Kardashian.

-Own a trampoline.

-Learn math.

-Meet Bill Watterson. Because that guy is the JD Salinger of cartoonists.

-Befriend some fundamentalist evangelicals so I finally have some Facebook screencaps to indignantly post and mock on the /r/atheism subreddit. Think of the karma I'm missing out on!

kaaaaaarma!

-Become critically and commercially successful. Blow it all by immediately agreeing to direct Diet Dr Pepper ads featuring Flavor Flav.

-Leak some nude photos.

If you don't know what this is referencing, you lose at life.

-Become a gay culture icon. I'm not gay, but their parties are the shit!

-I'm always talking about how I want to end up a grizzled hermit living in a cabin in the woods. That's not really true. I don't actually want that. The problem is, I don't know what I want, so I say that instead to be funny and mask the existential crisis that is constantly gnawing at my soul, wearing me down into a thin, hollow husk. So, figure that out, I guess.

-See The Simpsons go off the air, because it's time, guys. It's time.

-Witness a glorious revolution in online media where great talent is able to flourish and succeed creatively and financially. There's no joke here. The Hollywood system is fucked, and I don't really want anything to do with it.

-Build a lasting legacy that will be admired and appreciated for years to come. By that of course I mean become an auto mechanic and build a working Subaru Legacy from scratch.

-That last one was really stupid. I'm sorry.

-Get a dog. Again, no joke here. I fucking love dogs.

Doooooooooooogs!

-Learn some coping mechanisms that don't involve throwing things.

-Learn to bake bread. It just seems very comforting, you know?

-Become a world champion rally-car driver. Retire young after an explosive high speed crash nearly kills me.

-Live in a world where the defensive coordinator for a pretty good football team at a mid-tier college isn't allowed by his superiors and coworkers to rape children uninterrupted for decades and dear god why do we not already live in that world??

-Go parachuting I guess? That always seems to be on people's lists.

-Be compared to Ernest Hemingway. But not in a "how he killed himself" way.

-Stop being angry about how all you old bastards spent eighteen years telling us kids that we could be anything we wanted when we grew up, and that we'd already earned greatness simply by being born, when you all knew it was total bullshit and you all fucked us over anyway, leaving us with an overpopulated, impossibly polluted, resource-drained mud-pit of a planet and then you bitch about us being entitled whiners even though it's your entrenched bureaucracy that's preventing any forward progress from being made, because god forbid you should be forced to deal with this enormous shit pile you've all dumped on us. Enjoy your retirement, fuckers.

-Ride a goddamned dinosaur. I'll even settle for a triceratops. Don't let me down, scientists.

If science doesn't follow through on this, I'm voting for Bachmann.

-From my years as a valet, I can name the make, model and year of just about every car made in the last three decades from about a hundred yards away. I can even tell what kind of car it is by just looking at the key remote. It would be nice if this skill could be useful in any other way, shape or form in my life.

-Grow my beard out to an "other people cross the street to avoid you" length. Then shave it all off with an Elliot Smith song playing quietly in the background. Because it's just so dramatic, that's why!

-Eat some really great cheese.

-I mean, some really, really great cheese. Like from France or something.

-Live in a city with culture. Sorry, Portland. I know you're trying, but it's just not happening. (Maine, not Oregon. I hear it's lovely over there.)

-Watch the new Mission Impossible movie. I figure it's good to have some goals here that are actually achievable.

He's still got it!

-Be a curmudgeonly old man who's set in his ways, only to have a precocious child come into my life and shake it up, teaching me to live and laugh again. Sell the story rights to Disney, make a fucking fortune!

-Learn the meaning of Christmas. Have it not be at all what I was expecting. Maybe it involves bears or flying carpets or almond butter or something.

-Find the Meaning of Life. Maybe I let a coworker borrow it? I'd really like to know where it is, because it's a great movie.

Heh heh ... Mr. Creosote. Gross.

Girlfriend non-sequitur #8: Macramé plant holders

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:32:00 +0000

"Do you like macramé plant holders?"

"In my 26 years of life, never once has that question ever arisen.
I have never considered macramé plant holders as a thing until
this very moment."

"So you don't like them?"

Just to clarify: they're fine.

Money

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:54:00 +0000

I will never be a rich person. Yes, much of that has to do with the fact that I wasn't born into money, that I put myself in a mountain of debt to get a completely useless college degree, and that the entire socioeconomic structure of America is basically one big positive feedback loop keeping us in whatever class we're already in. But as much as I agree and sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street people, I've come to the conclusion that my lack of funds, while certainly exacerbated by larger political and economic trends, is ultimately my own damn fault. Why? Well, I suspect it's because I'm an idiot.

In the four years since college graduation, I have failed in every way, shape and form to become a member of society. Forget being a contributor, I'm failing at even the basic functions. If society was a body and I was part of the brain, I'd be the part that keeps allowing sharts to happen.

Theoretically, I'm a reasonably smart guy. I graduated with a 3.6 GPA. I know the difference between there, their and they're. I get most of Kate Beaton's comics. I can have a conversation about the latest findings from the CERN LHC. I watch TED talks. I've read Vonnegut. Most importantly though, I understand on a very basic level what I would need to do to become financially stable, and I realize that I am capable of doing it. Starting today, if I so chose, I could be on my way to a lifetime of financial stability. Huzzah!

But I won't do it. In fact, I'm mere weeks away from once again plunging myself into total financial insecurity to "follow my dream" whatever that shit means. And this isn't the first time it's happened. I've discovered that this behavior is actually cyclical. It repeats itself, on average, every 18 months. Here's a breakdown:

When I get a new job:

I now have a decent job and I can pay my bills without having to eat Alpo!
Finally, I am making something of my life.

Six months later:

Sure, the money's good, but this job is literally worse than Hitler curb-stomping kittens.
It's prudent to stay, but I resent wasting my life serving The Man!

Two weeks later:

I'm moving to Texas! Life's more important than money!
No, I can't afford it, but it's fine. I'll just siphon gas from cars at Walmart.
That's what they get for supporting those capitalist pigs! Wooo!!!

Like I said, I'm an idiot. This shit happens all the time. Let me take you through a timeline of the last few years of my life:

2007: Graduate college. Move to Portland. Get a decent paying job that has nothing to do with my degree. Become financially solvent.

2008: Decide I'm too great a person and life's too short to put up with that nonsense. Move to Texas. Unemployed for first two months. Got a job in my field that pays about what you'd give someone you pick up in the Home Depot parking lot. Can barely pay rent. Give up and get a decent paying job that has nothing to do with my degree. Become financially solvent.

2009: Decide I'm too great a person and life's too short to put up with that nonsense. Move back to Maine. Unemployed for first two months. Get two bad paying jobs that equal one good job. Working too much to do anything relating to my degree. Become financially solvent.

2010: Decide I'm too great a person and life's too short to put up with that nonsense. Quit both jobs to help a friend make a micro-budget indie film. Film is a complete disaster in every sense of the word. Come as close to bankruptcy as I've ever been. Parents at this point must be wondering why they didn't just get a dog instead. Give up and get a good paying job that has nothing to do with my degree. Become financially solvent.

Present Day: I've decided I'm too great a person and life's too short to put up with this nonsense. Yeah, sure, I'm as financially secure as I've ever been. Yes, yes, I have enough money in my savings account to actually be deemed a "cushion." Fine, I can go out to dinner at places that don't have dollar menus. Okay, okay, I live in an apartment that isn't currently crawling with any things.

But it's just so fucking boring! Holy Jesus Christ on a FUCK it's boring! I mean seriously, who gives a flying SHIT about any of this crap?? God-DAMMIT! ...fuck. ...Sorry. It's just...I'm 26! This is the age people start getting fat and losing hair and growing tumors. And what do I have to show for it? If I die tomorrow my greatest life accomplishments are as follows:

Blew up a Cadillac. Like, really blew that fucker up.

Travelled New Zealand whilst wearing a stupid hat.

Proof.

Arrested for grand theft auto in Wyoming after crashing a BMW off I-80 (no charges pressed, by the way. Long story)

Smoked a Cuban cigar with the cobra-kai sensei from Karate Kid

Got to tell Adam Scott in person that I liked Party Down

That's it. Paltry.

So there it is. In a matter of weeks I'm taking a substantial pay cut to go do a short-term job that utilizes my degree and I'm genuinely excited about. After that, my plan is to move to the most expensive city in the United States in the off-chance that I'll be able to work in an area related to my degree. In doing so, I'm giving up the most lucrative job I've ever had because it's boring.

And that's why I'll never be rich. I'm too busy trying to enjoy life, which ironically, keeps me from accruing the necessary funds to truly enjoy life. So I'm going to wrap up by giving you the best methods I can see for getting rich these days:

Don't be an idiot. Unfortunately this doesn't appear to be something that's curable. The worst part is that I'm an idiot who's still capable of self-analysis. I understand the consequences of my choices, and why I shouldn't make them, but I can't actually stop myself from doing them anyway. It's like my whole life is one big out-of-body experience. Anyway, moving on...

Be the heir to a baron of something. Beer, ketchup, Juicy Juice, anything except newspapers, really.

Get a degree in something useful, like finance. Those Wall Street guys seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.

Get onto the show "Jeopardy." Mug Alex Trebek as he's leaving the studio.

Force yourself into a mindset where making money literally turns you on. Like, you just want to hump wads of cash. Will this make you rich? I'm not sure, but it probably wouldn't hurt. I assume this is how the Wall Street guys do it.

Work hard and make prudent choices with an eye for the long term. Invest in a 401(k) or an IRA and live within your means. Stay at the same employer, work your way up slowly. Don't rock the boat. Don't take more than one vacation a year and if you're going to travel, consider places that aren't popular destinations to save money. Make all your meals at home. With this method, by the time you're 74, you'll be able to retire comfortably and spend the last four years of your life doing all the things you've always wanted to but are no longer actually physically able to do. You'll die knowing that hey, at least you got to take that bus tour of Vancouver.

Camping

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:16:00 +0000

Some of my fondest childhood memories were of the family loading up the old Whatever Shitty Truck We Had at the Time and heading up to the northern woods of Maine for a week of camping. It was awesome! Seriously, I loved camping. In fact, the more rough-and-tumble it was, the better. Put me in a tent, stick me out in the middle of the woods with a sleeping bag, some marshmallows and a stick, and I'm well, a happy camper.

Whoever swats the most doesn't get malaria!

Of course, now that I'm an adult, I should hate camping. Pretty much every other adult I know hates it. It makes sense, because when you think about it, camping is awful. The lake is full of leeches and infested with mosquitoes. The tent is swarming with those terrifying little pincher bugs. The food is always either undercooked or burned to the bottom of a pan that you can't really get clean. You have to poop into a dark hole that you're certain is harboring all the spiders just waiting to crawl into your exposed sphincter. You get all hot and sweaty hiking up a mountain, only to be freezing cold when you get to the top where there's no view because it's overcast that day. You can't shower and neither can anyone else, so sleeping next to them in a musty nylon tent is akin to being forced to breathe through an NFL linebacker's used jockstrap.

And yet I still love it. I really do. In a time when I've forgotten or rejected most of my childhood pleasures (though I get the feeling I would still enjoy drowning ants with the garden hose) camping has been a reassuring constant in my life. If anything, I've come to enjoy it more, what with the addition of alcohol and all. But why? I mean, yeah, the booze is great, but I don't really need to drive two hours into the woods for an excuse to drink Seagram's. I could do that right here in my apartment. So what is it? There's got to be something besides childhood nostalgia that pulls me, Henry David Thoreau-style, into the woods.

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of times he poops in a hole."

I think I know what it is, but in order to fully explain it, I have to delve into some socioeconomic trends for a minute. I know, I know, does the hilarity ever stop?!

Rich people never go camping. If you're a rich person reading this, and you find yourself saying "I disagree, old chap," while adjusting your monocle, just trust me, you don't go camping. You might go "camping," but you don't go camping. You know the old Jeff Foxworthy "You might be redneck" routine? Well, you might be a rich person if your cabin has a jacuzzi and overlooks a bluff. You might be a rich person if at night you gather 'round the granite stone fireplace to play a game of Monopoly with real money. You might be a rich person if your cabin is actually a yacht moored in Cannes and Jessica Biel is currently sunning herself on your deck.

"Roughing it."

The point is, we all go on vacation to get away from our everyday troubles for a while. For rich people, I assume this means spending all that pesky excess cash that's been building up behind the walk-in vegetable crisper in a sun-drenched foreign country. The rest of us, on the other hand, need an activity that involves spending as little money as possible and will make us feel incredibly fortunate upon returning to our one bedroom apartments.

Basically, camping is poor people deciding to be homeless for a long weekend to remind ourselves that our lives can, and probably will, get worse. Camping reminds us to be thankful for what we have, and that we're one transmission failure away from total destitution. Suddenly, your shower with no water pressure and the fact that pens keep rolling off your desk because the whole apartment lists to the south seem so inconsequential. At least you're not shitting in a hole! At least you don't wake up every morning with mysterious red bumps on your legs. At least you don't smell like a potent combination of wood smoke, BO and Ole' Grand-Dad Whiskey.

The taste of success.

Every now and then we poor people get the silly notion that we too can live as the rich do. Sort of like what the middle class tried to do in the 90's. Silly us to think we could have houses and educations and Toyota Avalons. More recently, Girlfriend and I attempted a rich person-style vacation last year when we travelled to France for two weeks. While there were some great moments, I spent most of the time suffering heart palpitations whenever my debit card was swiped, certain that Bank of America would charge me a $47 Not Being in America Fee. Also there was some food poisoning in there. And I had to pee in a bathtub one time because the hotel only had one toilet per floor, and I'm pretty sure the toilet was occupied by a rapist/mime.

So, fellow povertistas (trademark!), I urge you to go camping. It's cheap. All you need is a tent, a sleeping bag, and no self-respect. Also whiskey. Don't forget the whiskey. You won't enjoy it, but it will make you feel great when you get home.

Fake disasters

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:18:00 +0000

In the past year or so, I've become somewhat obsessed with the concepts of collapse and apocalypse. I've gone on a viewing binge of apocalypse-themed films and TV shows like The Road Warrior and The Walking Dead. I've considered stocking up on non-perishable foods, I've even considered buying a rifle, despite having no clue how to load or shoot one.

Which end doesn't go towards my face, again?

This is all because when I look around, things seem bad. Weather-related disasters keep piling up as drought, fire and floods put huge strains on the global food supply. Fresh water is drying up in hugely overpopulated parts of the world. Oil prices fluctuate, but always trend upwards as supplies are increasingly difficult to find, refine and ship. With every bit of bad news, I consider packing up a few bags and high tailing it to my family's hunting camp up north.

But of course, I always stop and remind myself that relatively speaking, I'm living in the safest and most secure time in the history of humanity. I'm more likely to be the victim of a slippery bathtub floor than of violence.

Pure terror right here, man. Pure terror.

I tell myself that there isn't actually more bad news, there's simply more coverage of an equal amount of news. It's not that things are worse, it's just that the internet and TV are full of everyone shouting very loudly about how bad things are.

So I breathe a little sigh, I grab a beer, and I watch a rerun of Futurama, content that things will continue on as they have, that life is actually easy and occasionally even enjoyable.

I'm still pretty convinced that things are going to deteriorate over the course of my lifetime, that the strain on Earth's resources will outmatch any technological advances we are able to make to relieve them. However, it's almost certainly going to be a long, slow slog rather than a short, sharp shock and-

Oh wait, what's this? Our government is manufacturing a disaster that will damage the economy permanently, and could possibly send the entire world into a second recession? Okay, scratch everything I just wrote. Grab your guns and head for the hills, people. Bonfire at my cabin, bring your dried nonperishables. Does anyone actually know how to hunt??

"Okay, you dance a jig to distract it, I'll tackle it from behind."

What's so mind blowing about this debt ceiling nonsense is that it's fully, 100% manufactured. It's like when you say "I can't possibly eat two pints of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey," even though you totally could. You shouldn't, but you could.

Go ahead, you're an adult, dammit. Do it.

The US Government could just ignore the invisible, fake debt ceiling that it implemented on itself and this whole thing would go away. Poof! Gone! It's like at the end of the Merlin miniseries starring Sam Neil, when everyone turns around and pretends the evil witch doesn't exist anymore, and she just kind of goes away. What? Does no one else remember that miniseries? It had Martin Short in it! No? Nothing? Fine, moving on...

See? It was totally a real thing. Had Helena Bonham Carter and everything.

So if it's just an arbitrary cap that doesn't actually mean anything, why will it sink the global economy? Well, mostly because people are overly reactionary morons. Remember Y2K? No? It came out around the same time as Merlin. Nothing? Okay, moving on... We go over our debt limit and the treasury is no longer legally allowed to borrow money, even though it could just keep borrowing if it wanted to, really. What are they going to do, arrest the treasury? Anyway, the government begins a systematic drawdown of who receives what's left in the coffers. Foreign debtors, investors and Vinnie the Atlantic City loan shark will continue being paid while less important people like the poor and children are cut off first. After all, nobody told them to be poor or be born in 2002, they did that on their own. Jerks.

Why yes, Timmy, that is your future fading away.

The biggest problem is actually how we'd be viewed in the eyes of foreign investors. Arbitrary credit scoring agencies like Moody's and Standard and Poor's will downgrade our totally made up credit score, which will make it harder for the US to get approved for a Citi Platinum MasterCard with an introductory 0% APR on all purchases for the first year. In other words, we might only be able to get a Gold Discover card with a 14% interest rate. Ugh!

A sign of absolute failure if ever there was one.

Seriously though. Once we're no longer seen as the most secure global investment, we stop being the world's reserve currency. Once that happens, we pay higher interest on future loans, and other currencies, like the yuan, become the go-to currency for global trade and investment. As a result, we're no longer able to regulate inflation, and the cost of goods, loans and basic transactions skyrockets. In other words, what we're witnessing right now, this very moment, is the actual, physical end of America as the global superpower. Will you remember where you were?

This isn't to say China doesn't have its own problems, but given the crumbling Euro, it's still in the best position to become the dominant world power. China will still have to deal with resource shortages, rising labor costs, a serious drought in its food-producing region, massive pollution issues, and, ironically a strengthening currency that will hurt its exports. But it will deal with these issues better than America is dealing with ours because it doesn't have a pesky democracy to gum up the works.

Seriously. I've never considered myself a socialist, but Christ! What the fuck is so great about democracy right now? We're about to plunge into an actual depression because our two political parties can't stop trying to win elections. When Pelosi became Speaker of the House in 2006, she said her goal was to elect more Democrats. When Mitch McConnell became Senate Minority leader in 2008, he said his goal was to make sure Obama was a one term president. These weren't phrases uttered in private, or behind closed doors. These were at fucking press conferences. And no one at those conferences was like "the fuck you just say??"

"Yeah, it's pretty fucked up, right?"

They didn't say "we're going to do such a great job running the country that people will actually want to vote for us!" Nope. Their goals were just to continue the campaigns. How is what's happening right now in Congress not treason? Running the economy off a cliff in the hopes that it will make the other guy look slightly worse than you? House Republicans have stated publicly that this is their goal, that Obama will end up looking bad if they fail to act and the economy collapses. That's fucking treason. Not that Obama's off the hook. He's counting on people seeing the Republicans as unreasonable assholes. Which they are, but dammit man! Just invoke the 14th amendment and let them try to impeach you for it. "Hey, we're impeaching the president for not allowing the country to default!" Genius.

It's obvious now that we've all been overthinking the apocalypse. Most apocalypse movies involve some man-made creation getting away from us. Nuclear weapons, artificially intelligent machines, synthetic viruses turning us into zombies, um, overly smart apes ... I guess.

"But will it help me more accurately fling my feces?"

But we don't need all that fancy stuff to destroy ourselves. We're perfectly capable of doing that with pure, simple corruption.

I'm going to end by recommending everyone go watch Stanley Kubrick's classic film Dr. Strangelove. Here's a little game: While watching the film, replace the Americans and Russians with Republicans and Democrats, and the impending nuclear war with the impending debt limit. What's scary is how perfectly the plot points of that film fit into our current situation. What's even scarier is how that film ends, and how this crisis is likely to end as well. If you haven't seen it, spoiler alert: Not well.

So I say: To the woods! Does anyone know how to store food without a refrigerator?? No? Well, shit. We might be screwed.

Girlfriend non-sequitur #7: Squirrels

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:37:00 +0000

A little context for this one. I don't recall why, but Girlfriend was trying to come up with a very sad scenario. The bizarrely surreal scenario she concocted was the following:

The best part is not just the imagery of a busload of squirrels inexplicably on their way to a barbecue (squirrel company picnic? Will they be roasting acorns?), but the fact that as she was uttering this absurdity, she actually managed to make herself genuinely upset by the prospect of this mass squirrel tragedy. I, of course, offered her my genuine and heartfelt consolation and most certainly did not laugh at her at all.

Girlfriend's brain is a beautiful mash of nonsense, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Being late

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:43:00 +0000

I have an almost pathological fear of being late. It doesn't matter what event I might be late for, if I'm even a minute behind schedule, I freak the fuck out. Hell, I'm pretty sure I could be on death row, and if on the morning of my final walk the guards were late coming to get me, I'd be super annoyed.

The fear has actually gotten worse over the years, nearly to the point of absurdity. It's not enough for me to be on time, I actually need to be early. Using math, I've deduced that I've spent approximately two years of my life sitting in doctor's offices, parking lots, restaurants, back alleys, windowless vans, etc, because of this fear. It doesn't even make sense, it's not like I simply don't want to be late for ice cream parties or free Cheese Nips giveaways or other awesome things, I can't even be late for work. Work! On average, I arrive to my workplace fifteen minutes early. That's bullshit! But I can't help it. Even if I stall at home by looking at Dogfort pictures on Reddit, I still somehow end up at work, like, seven minutes early at best. What the hell?

Speaking of math, my irritation levels have a Moore's Law-like correlation to the number of minutes late I am for something. Here is me at a stop light when I'm a good half hour early:

"Everything is fine."

Now here I am exactly on time:

"Everything is fucked!"

And this is me 30 seconds behind schedule:

"I must feast on goat entrails!"

That's right. I literally turn into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. True story.

But why is this? Why am I doomed to a life of never being fashionably late for sexy parties? I've considered this, and I think I've discovered the answer.

EDIT: After reading the above, Girlfriend responded with, "well, it's because you're never invited to sexy parties." That's not the point...

I blame my parents. Okay, that's not entirely true. I blame my father. I love the guy, but in terms of showing up on time for things, he wouldn't win the award, because he would've forgotten about the ceremony.

The vast majority of my childhood can be summed up with this image:

That's me waiting in the truck for my dad to take me to drama rehearsal. Where was my dad? Taking a shit. No, really. To further illustrate my childhood, let's look at the typical timeline of an event I needed to attend. First, with my mother driving:

Event begins at 6pm

5pm. Request a ride from my mother to event.

5:40pm. My mother and I get in the Corolla.

5:50pm. We arrive at event. Success!

Now lets take that same scenario, and replace Mom with Dad.

Event begins at 6pm.

4pm: Request a ride from my father to event. Inform him event begins at 5:30pm.

5pm: Track down my father, who has wandered into the woods to cut down a tree. Remind him of event.

5:25pm: Track down my father again, who is now in the attic inexplicably searching for the right piece of scrap wood to level his planer.

5:30pm: Personally walk him to the truck.

5:31pm: Watch as he goes back into the house to find his keys.

5:35pm: Walk back inside, pick up keys from underneath three month old Newsweek, inform him that I have the keys, lead him back to the truck.

5:38pm: We sit in the truck. I wait for the inevitable "pocket pat." Dad begins patting each pocket, asks aloud where he put his goddamn checkbook. Pinching the bridge of my nose and closing my eyes, I suggest maybe it's in his work pants?

5:39pm: Watch with despair as he goes back into the house.

5:50pm: Angrily stomp back into the house, which is eerily silent. Call aloud, "Dad! Did you find your checkbook?" Voice from bathroom, "No, I think I left it at work." Yes, voice from the bathroom. He's taking a goddamn shit. Sound of Atlantic Monthly magazine can be heard rustling.

6:05pm: Toilet flushes.

6:08pm: We both get into the truck.

6:09pm: Dad gets out of the truck to get his wallet.

6:15pm: I find his wallet underneath the seat of the truck, go in to tell him.

6:18pm: On the road!

6:23pm: Stop at Mobil Station for gas.

6:24pm: I suffer mild aneurysm.

6:28pm: Back on the road!

6:45pm: We arrive at event earlier than usual.

Now imagine that scene replicated dozens, if not hundreds of times throughout adolescence. Some people can develop a complex from a single traumatic event. I had that same event occur about twice a week.

Maybe in time I will heal, and I will be okay with showing up on time, or even a few minutes late. I'll be honest though, just the thought of that sort of makes my palms sweat. I mean, there are worse fates than not physically being able to accept a late arrival, but most of those things involve actual violent physical trauma.

Maybe I need to join the Army.

Frog stew

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:04:00 +0000

I was first introduced to the allegory of the frog in the boiler by probably the greatest disaster movie of all time, Dante's Peak.

Now before I go any further, let me just take a second to espouse the virtues of Dante's Peak. I really can't talk this movie up enough. It has literally everything you want from an action movie:

1. James Bond

2. Sarah Conner

3. Kid that looks suspiciously like John Connor from Terminator 2:

"Oh no, lava and stuff. Ay caramba!"

"You'll never be the blatant Bart Simpson ripoff I was, dude."

"And you'll never be the blatant Calvin ripoff I was, loser."

4. A mother-in-law who is first all like "I'm a stubborn bitch," but then jumps into a lake that's so acidic it eats metal, just to save her family! And Bond just lets her do it because what the hell, she's old, right?

5. This guy:

6. A badass Chevy Suburban that can totally swim!

I tried to replicate this scene when I was 18. Results were...mixed.

7. They save a puppy from hot lava!

8. Two people have sex in a hot pool and totally die from it! Awesome!

9. A fat guy falls off a bridge. Hilarious!

10. So many 'splosions! Like, a mountain 'splodes a buncha times.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. If you haven't seen it, stop reading and go rent it.

Okay, so in the movie, Pierce Brosnan arrives in a sleepy little town at the base of a beautifully rendered CGI mountain called Dante's Peak. It's just been voted the Number 2 small town in America by some magazine that is apparently so influential, the town decides to throw a huge fucking festival to celebrate. This makes sense, a few years ago Forbes magazine named my current town of Portland, Maine the best city in America, and we threw a monstrous party. It was the biggest thing to ever happen here. It was so big in fact, that we ended up going bankrupt. No, I don't see the irony.

Anyway, Brosnan and his crack team go about studying the geological rumblings of the dormant volcano, and Brosnan, being the handsome genius he is, immediately suspects a full blown catastrophe is upon them. But the rest of his conspicuously less attractive crew thinks otherwise, of course! Long story short, the handsome guy is right. I mean, come on! Never put money on the gang of uglies against the lone stud. That's a bet you'll lose every time. To try to tone down the fact that Pierce Brosnan is really way too pretty for this crowd, the filmmakers actually go so far as to have him nearly have sex with Linda Hamilton. Fortunately for Pierce, he's saved at the last minute by a deadly volcanic eruption. Phew!

Seriously, filmmakers? I mean, really?

Before all the awesomeness really kicks into high gear, though, Pierce tries to convince the hoard of trolls that is his scientific team of the imminent danger by using the frog in the boiler allegory. It states that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately try to escape. However, if you put the frog in a pot with room temperature water and slowly heat it, the frog will remain in the pot until it boils to death. Dr. Handsome, er, Brosnan, states that if they arrived today, they'd be panicking, trying to climb out of the boiling pot. However, because they'd already been there for a little while, they were just sitting and stewing as the water temperature rose.

Is this allegory actually true? I don't know, my sister was the only one who could catch frogs, but she never seemed interested in going along with my research, because clearly, she hates science!

This is a picture of a frog. I couldn't come up with a humorous caption.

It doesn't matter if it's true though, and this brings me away from Dante's Peak, and to the main point of my post today. (But seriously, see the movie. It will give you a disaster erection. A disasterection.)

While I'm not exactly a hypochondriac (spelled it right on the first try! Yes!) I do have a tendency to latch onto a notion and obsess over it. A list of things I have thoroughly convinced myself of:

Stiff neck: Meningitis.

Poor short term memory: Slow descent into madness.

Those little floaty things in your vision: Impending blindness

Bloody nose: Stroke

Tingling sensation in fingers: Multiple sclerosis

Weird lump: All of the cancer. (Turned out to be a hernia, which is the only instance where it did actually end up being something kinda serious.)

In every instance, I'll become thoroughly convinced of my imminent demise, only to completely forget about it two weeks later, usually when some other malady presents itself.

Lately though, my obsession has been not of my own bodily malfunctions, but of a much larger scale. I'm pretty sure the world as we know it is coming to an end. Now let me be clear, I don't think it's ending in any of the traditional sexy ways like nuclear war, rapture, aliens, Mayans or zombies (or Mayan zombies, which would be an awesome movie! I just got a disasterection thinking about it!)

My ongoing concern is that we're the frog in the pot, and the water is getting very warm, indeed. I try to tell myself that I'm overreacting by reading too many collapse forums and alternative news blogs that have to rely on sensationalist headlines to generate interest. (thank goodness mainstream media doesn't have to resort to such cheap tactics...) The problem I keep encountering though, is that history keeps yanking my head out of the sand.

Every single great civilization has collapsed, and while some have done so quickly and violently, generally they tend to fall slowly and still kinda violently. That's the problem: we as a species are predisposed to preparing ourselves for sudden, violent action. I'm sure this harkens back to our hunter/gatherer days, when our food had an irksome tendency to run away/trample us/attempt to use us as food for themselves. The problem today of course, is that we still have that mentality. We're more worried about choking on a porkchop than on the vast resources consumed bringing that porkchop halfway across the planet.

Or to put it another way: Girlfriend and I recently had a discussion regarding the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Girlfriend is pretty staunchly against nuclear power, and my stance is a little more nuanced. I am not exactly a proponent of traditional nuclear plants (specifically those built on active fault lines) however, I'd rather live next to a nuclear plant than a coal burning plant. Why? Because nuclear power still has one of the greatest safety records of any large industry, anywhere. Nuclear's problem is one of perception, when things go wrong, they go spectacularly wrong in a very visceral way. The frog is thrown into the boiling pot. We are conditioned to respond to such intense, sudden stimulation while ignoring the fact that we're slowly being poisoned to death by the byproducts of oil, coal and natural gas. Since it isn't happening as suddenly, we just sort of let it happen. We sit in the pot.

Nuclear power: About 60 deaths

Fossil fuels: Everyone else.

It's hard to argue that there isn't some kind of decline afoot, not just in America, but worldwide. The revolts in the middle east aren't as much about democracy and freedom as they are about high food prices. America's corn reserves are at an all-time low. Fresh water tables are dropping around the planet, prolonged droughts are devastating the American southwest, northern China and elsewhere. Charlie Sheen continues to make money. Peak oil has probably already passed, and if it hasn't, it's still going to be more expensive to extract. And of course, there is the debt issue, which could legitimately lead to runaway inflation and/or the US Dollar being dumped as the reserve currency. Fortunately, we can solve that issue by letting the republicans defund Planned Parenthood. For every cervical cancer screening we allow a woman to have, we doom ourselves. True story.

I have a solution though. It's going to seem a little unorthodox, but hear me out: Do nothing. That's right, just keep living exactly as you're living. The more us conscientious hippie-types try to make the world a better place, the more prolonged this disaster becomes. Let's face it, we're all fucked. If we try to slow down our descent, then we're less likely to get the huge, visceral disaster we need to get people's attention. We can't have a long slow decline! We need a sudden, massive shift of quality of living for anyone to give a shit. We need some major coastal cities inundated by coastal flooding. No, better yet, let's get a few billion people starving to death. So burn those fossil fuels, use all the plastic, eat only food shipped in from at least 2,000 miles away. Join the tea party. Let's all jump into the boiling pot and swim a few victory laps!

USA! USA! USA!

My own irrationality

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:40:00 +0000

I pride myself on my ability to think in a rational, pragmatic fashion. From an examination of the evidence, it's pretty clear that the vast majority of the world's ills can be traced back to human beings reacting emotionally to their circumstances rather than rationally. Rather than stepping back, assessing the situation and deciding the most logical course of action, people instead tend to step back and position themselves for some punching.

Hell, the entire world was plunged into a war because a guy named Franz got shot. And then another world war happened because Hitler held a grudge about the first war. Or because the Jews didn't like his art or something. I don't know, I'm not a history major.

Think back on your own life decisions. How many of them were a calculated and well-considered plan based on thorough research and common sense, and how many were because "yeah, well fuck Craig! I'm doing it anyway!"? If it's somewhere around a 50/50 split, then you're actually doing great!

I like to think I'm at least batting .500 on the rational decision-making, but the truth is, if I average in all my small daily decisions, I'm probably closer to something like .043. The good news is, I've been steadily improving my averages in the large life decisions.

For example:

2011: My decision to sell my car: "The cost-benefit analysis of an eight year old vehicle on which I still owe X amount of dollars shows that the depreciation against my monthly payments will only worsen, and my final payout, with interest, will be far larger than the vehicle was initially worth. Therefore, it would be advantageous to sell the car now while its resale value remains high."

Good job, 2011 me!

Now let's compare that to my decision to buy the car in 2007:
"I don't have a steady income, credit history, co-signer or money for a down payment, but ooooh, dual chrome exhaust pipes! It will get me all the girls!"

Terrible job, 2007 me!

The problem today is not that I'm making bad big life decisions. In fact, I've been so rational and even-keeled lately that I suspect I may be slowly slipping into a coma. Or it could be adulthood, I'm not sure there's a difference. No, the problem today is that I still can't seem to stop reacting emotionally to life's little random annoyances.

As an atheist, I understand that the world is complex, random and chaotic. I recognize that the only reason we perceive it to be orderly and structured is because we're a weird little byproduct of star gasses that has been aided by a temporary spike in amino acids and H2O on a small rock hurtling through space. What appears to be order is really more of a momentary lapse of chaos. The point is, I am aware that the universe is not out to get me, that whatever happens to me is not fate or karma or the force, but just a random occurrence.

And yet I cannot stop myself from having ridiculously irrational reactions to these little, innocuous things.

First, here is my response to learning that my grandmother has passed away:

Appropriate.

Now, here is my response to getting a stain on a clean shirt:

My understanding that this is not an appropriate reaction has done nothing to change it.

Here are some more:

My cell phone dropping a call:

Opening an avocado and finding it rotten inside:

The Time Warner modem not giving me precious, precious internet:

Now here's my reaction to somebody sneezing:

Bringing my laundry all the way downstairs and discovering someone else is already using the machine:

Not finding what I need on Google:

I suspect that being self-aware of my own irrationality only makes it worse. I mean, just the knowledge that my decision-making process is vastly altered depending on something as trivial as how hungry I am pretty much proves that free will is an illusion, that we are all slaves to the weird concoction of chemicals in our brains.

Speaking of which, I guess I'll go make a sandwich before work, that will make things better. Assuming the motherfucking turkey hasn't gone bad...

I for one welcome our new corporate overlords

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:57:00 +0000

So the other day I sold my car, and I didn't cry or anything. I didn't! Shut up! Anyway, most of you probably read my Craigslist ad. It was quite a hit around the office. If you haven't, you can embiggen the picture below. Go on, it's a chuckle!

Anyway, I sold my car for a variety of reasons. The major one, though, was that I was still making exorbitant monthly payments on it, and those are a total bummer. If you've never had car payments, think of it as buying a stock that is guaranteed to always lose value, but will totally bring you to Panera Bread whenever you want, though it will occasionally need a new alternator. Sorry, I'm terrible at analogies.

I loved the car, but it just didn't make sense anymore. Basically, I bought the thing directly out of college, because I assumed that what with my fancy new degree I'd just paid a lot of money for, I was facing a future full of glamorous high paying jobs, and a little car loan wouldn't be an issue at all. Yes, I was a moron. This was back in 2007, when banks were practically throwing credit at anyone who happened to walk by their office windows. So naturally, who better to get an $11,000 car loan than a 23 year old with no credit history, no real job, and a bachelor's degree in film production from the shittiest film program since Robert Rodriguez starting thinking his movies were good enough that he should be offering his "expert advice" on filmmaking? Really Robert? Ten minute film school? Yeah, ten minutes does seem like the proper amount of time for you to offer every bit of knowledge you have on the subject. Nice hat.

Robert Rodriguez to American public, "You're welcome!"

Moving on. The bank that gave me the loan was Wells Fargo. What I'm going to share with you now is my recent experience in trying to finally pay these fuckers off. I sold the car with relative ease, thanks to it being an awesome car, and me being an awesome person. Unfortunately, in order to release the title from the bank, the buyer had to give me the money, then I had to give the money to Wells Fargo. No problem! I'll just pay using my online account that they've been withdrawing from for four years! Actually no, Wells Fargo said I couldn't do that, and that I had to send a cashier's check. I obliged, sending the check overnight with an overnight return envelope. I expected the full transaction to take four or five days, tops.

Almost two weeks later, I'm still fighting with Wells Fargo to give me my god damn fucking car. Basically, after a week of waiting, I called, and was informed that I had sent them a personal check, and as such, they had to hold the check for 10 days. I politely informed them that they were mistaken, that the check was most certainly a certified bank check. The lovely young woman I spoke to, Carla, said that according to her records, I was lying. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She obliged (at least I assume she did, for all I know, she patched me through to her cubicle neighbor Pam), and this was our conversation (and I'm not exaggerating):

"We need a copy of the cashier's check to verify it. Do you have a fax machine?"

"No, I don't, because it's not 1996. You must have a copy of the check I sent you in your records."

"No sir, that's a different department. They cash the checks, we just release the liens."

"Okay, well, can you just call that department and have them go through their records?"

"Sir, we need you to fax your copy to us."

"So you're telling me no one at Wells Fargo has any record of my check that I sent you?"

"Sir, we need you to fax your copy to us."

"Why do I have to be the middle man between your two departments? You're the ones being paid."

"Sir we need you to fax your copy-"

"Yeah, I heard you. You know, it's pretty shitty that I've never even been late on a payment, and now you're basically holding my car hostage because of your fuck-up. It seems to me you don't give a flying shit about me as a customer."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, sir."

"I don't think you are."

Anywho... I actually felt pretty good about the conversation. Maybe it was the three beers I had for my St. Patrick's Day Irish breakfast, but I was on fire! I spoke articulately and with the proper rage/sarcasm balance that can only be achieved through years of practice.

Here's the thing, I don't like giving inbound customer service reps shit. Chances are, whatever problem I'm having, it wasn't that person's fault, and they're just the whipping boys for their huge corporate overlords. I have sympathy for these people. After all, I work in customer service. I honestly didn't go into this call with the intention of taking a verbal shit on anyone.

But it was the lady's complete lack of "giving a shit" that really just boiled my ass. She could have at least pretended, at least humored me. That's what those people are for. She knew it was a David and Goliath situation, except for the part where David wins, because it's really hard to throw stones through a cell phone, especially when AT&T keeps dropping my fucking calls! (Seriously, twice! Two times my calls dropped just as I had gotten through the automated system and was on hold to talk to someone. Maybe Wells Fargo and AT&T are in cahoots or something) This woman had the full power of a monstrous, multinational corporation at her back, and she had clearly become drunk on the power (as opposed to just drunk on Smithwick's, as I was.) I honestly would have preferred if she'd just come right out and said,

"Sir, please stop talking. Nobody here gives a flying fuck about you or your laughable pittance. We deal in billions of dollars every day. We only ever cared about you in the fact that you were giving us your money, and now that you've stopped doing that, we could actually have you killed, but you matter so little to us that even that effort would be far, far too much for us to bother."

At least it would have been honest.

So I found a fax machine after I traveled back in time to the Clinton era, and sent Wells Fargo this facsimile:

It won't make a difference, but I felt good about it, nonetheless.

Okay, so that wraps up that part of the post...

WARNING: SERIOUSNESS AHEAD. IF YOU DON'T LIKE SERIOUS THINGS, THEN CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO OF A BABY MAKING FUNNY FACES.

That brings me to the second half of this post, and I'm gonna go a little off my normal vibe of mild humor. Though I'm certainly not the first to say any of the following, I firmly believe it. My latest run-in is just a little afterthought to the general corporate malfeasance in America.

I've come to the incredibly depressing conclusion that we simply don't live in a democracy anymore. Anyone who still believes otherwise needs only to look at last year's supreme court decision to allow all corporations unlimited access to donate to political campaigns with zero oversight. According to the supreme court, a corporation is a person, just like you and me, but with a lot more money to give to supreme court members.

The canned response to anyone bitching about the state of politics today is to say "well, then make sure you vote!" I've been told that, I've even said it, and I've voted in every election. But it feels empty, because ultimately it doesn't matter anymore. I may agree with a particular politician, and that politician may even believe in their causes, but that person is just a travelling sideshow, a distraction. Have you noticed how ridiculous Congress is? The histrionics and nuttiness that wafts out of that place? Have you noticed that the same tired fights are recycled, spruced up with a new look? The culture war of the past decade has been revamped as a "budget battle." It's the same fucking fight! Defund NPR, defund Planned Parenthood, legalize marijuana, get rid of unions. It doesn't matter where you stand on any of the issues, because it's just a lot of noise.

"Democracy" might as well be called "Distraction." The Romans continued to go to gladiator events at the colosseum even as the Barbarians laid siege to Rome, we continue to bicker about whether Fox News or MSNBC are more biased. They're both fucking biased! They're both owned by giant conglomerates! You'll never have unbiased journalism in an environment where your paycheck is cut by an entity with interests in multiple revenue streams! So stop fucking talking about it already!

We're fighting two wars because we have military contractors who need to keep building machines and technology to be profitable. It has nothing to do with righteousness, freedom or ideologies.

We'll never have any movement on a climate or energy bill, because the Chamber of Commerce is the biggest lobbyist in Washington, and they don't want it.

We're losing net neutrality because telecom industries can make a lot more money by offering tiered access (like Comcast, who incidentally now owns MSNBC). The wealthiest companies will have dibs on what content is allowed through, and "people" like Time Warner, AT&T and Comcast will have unlimited ability to charge users whatever they please for the content they approve of. Forget losing Netflix, when net neutrality falls, the final frontier of innovation and independence for artists, small businesspeople, filmmakers, musicians and techies will be gone.

We have a budget deficit, not because teachers get paid too much (seriously, how is that a legitimate fucking argument??) but because the richest people (you know, people like Mr. ExxonMobil, Dr. General Electric, Ms. Bank of America) don't want to pay taxes, so they don't. These corporations use their paid politicians to create a theater of infighting amongst "left" and "right" leaning people who are all in exactly the same situations! I'm an atheist living in the Northeast. You're a Baptist living in the Deep South. We have nothing in common except for our crippling poverty! Any idiot can see that trickle down economics don't work, because they never, ever have! We're fucked because the 90's and 00's gave us the illusion of wealth for everyone, that wealth could just be summoned out of the ether, we just called it "credit." The budget deficit would end tomorrow if we wrapped up both wars and taxed the wealthiest 5% even a fraction more than we currently are. We won't, and it won't. Period.

I'm fascinated that people are afraid of Obama being a socialist! Even if he held a press conference tomorrow where he admitted to being a fascist nazi muslim alien from Mars, it wouldn't make a fucking bit of difference! He's just a dude, and the government has already been lost. So vote or don't. It doesn't matter who's in power, because it's just an illusion.

What can we do? Fucked if I know. It's pretty hard to just boycott all of the corporations. I'm writing this on an Apple, using internet access supplied by Time Warner. Later I'll fill up my tank at the Mobil station. This morning I watched 30 Rock, a product of Comcast (at least I watched it on Hulu, so their profit margin was slightly less...yeah, a pretty empty gesture.)

The best I can say is, give as few conglomerates your money as possible. Take it to a local credit union. When you buy stuff, try not to buy it at Walmart (or Target, not any better), when you buy food, try to get it at a Farmer's Market. Try to fix stuff before you throw it away. Try not to be a consumer whore, I guess?

As far as actually enacting change, I recommend we simply give up on the government. It's hopelessly infected, like those ants with the zombie brain fungus (that's real shit, check that shit out! Crazy, right?). It looks the same, feels the same, but it's not the same. It's just a shell, controlled by whoever has the most money. So let the corporate world have their government. Try to enact change at a local level, where the infection might not be so severe. The less money we give to them, the more we can use to support the independent innovators, inventors, developers and game changers in our own neighborhoods. Go around. Circumvent that shit! Use the internet while we still have it. The technology we have to build the future we want is already more or less invented, there's just no infrastructure to support it. I guess in some ways I'm advocating a sort of peaceful, constructive anarchism.

Now if you'll excuse me, Ima go listen to some Rage Against the Machine.

Girlfriend non-sequitur #6: Coasters

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:03:00 +0000

She's right, you know.

Everything bagel

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:00:00 +0000

What your car says about you

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen Parkhurst) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:54:00 +0000

As a Customer Service Team Member Associate Representative, or Guy Who Parks Your Car, everyday I come into contact with a wide variety of people from all different races, religions and regions. It's a vast, rich swath of humanity, endless in its variations, each person a completely unique conglomeration of genes, experiences and upbringing that cannot be duplicated.

Just kidding. Everyone falls into neat little categories, which are defined solely by the vehicles they drive. It's like stereotypes, but slightly less racist. Don't believe me? Take a look:

Toyota Prius
Driver: Middle aged woman, affluent. Loves environment just enough to make empty gestures.
Primary destination: Whole Foods, to buy organic rice curry sludge shipped from India to China to America. Fails to see conflict here.
Stock phrase: "Do you know how to drive this? It's a hybrid."
Average tip: $3

Chrysler Sebring sedan
Driver: Hertz rental customer. Nobody actually owns one of these. There's only been one recorded case of somebody buying one, Thomas Mitchell of Charlotte, North Carolina. Turns out, he had taken an Ambien the night before and sleepwalked to the Chrysler dealership. The salesman took the car back out of pity.
Primary destination: The airport.
Stock phrase: "Can you bring my car around? It's the gray, uh, I dunno, Ford maybe?"
Average tip: $5. Not bad, not great. Totally average.

Mercury Grand Marquee
Driver: Octogenarian couple.
Primary destination: The Cracker Barrel
Stock phrase: "Huh?!" *Fiddles with hearing aid.
Average tip: 40 cents.

Subaru Forrester
Driver: Vermont lesbian
Primary destination: The L.L.Bean Outlet
Stock phrase: "Can you give us directions to the L.L.Bean Outlet? They're having a sale on ugly boots!"
Average tip: $8. Pretty good tippers, really.

Dodge Ram

Driver: Raging asshole.

Primary destination: Strip club to watch UFC On-Demand with bros.

Stock phrase: "You ain't drivin' my fuckin' truck." Or, the complete opposite, equally shitty: "Keys are in it, chief."

Average tip: "I don't tip faggots."

Scion tC

Driver: Girlfriend of the Ram driver.

Primary destination: The club, "to get fuckin' wasted. WOOOO..."

Stock phrase: "Tiffany is such a fuckin' cunt." or "WOOO..."

Average tip: Has never heard of this "tipping" you speak of.

Acura TSX
Driver: 37 year old professional woman.
Primary destination: Business meeting to give a Powerpoint presentation on efficiency
Stock phrase: "We need to prioritize our assets to restructure the trending obfuscations.
Average tip: $10, if you bring the car around in 30 seconds or less.

BMW 5 Series
Driver: 42 year old investment banker who wants to remind you how much money he makes.
Primary destination: Early coronary.
Stock phrase: "Park it somewhere safe."
Average tip: "I didn't get to where I was by giving my money away."

Rolls Royce
Driver: Either the heir to the Proctor & Gamble fortune, or someone who hates money.
Primary destination: Secret Bilderberg Group meeting, conference room C.
Stock phrase. "Indeeeed."
Average tip: Charred remains of $100 bill used to light cigar.

Mini Cooper
Driver: Gay. Please don't assume this is an insult. Minis are lovely little cars. They corner like a champ. But they're the new Mazda Miata. Sorry, I don't make the rules.
Primary destination: Antiquing along Route 1.
Stock phrase: "This vase will look perfect in our foyer!"
Average tip: "Don't wear those socks with those slacks."

1998 Chevy Blazer
Driver: Disgusting. Seriously, I've never been in a Blazer that wasn't completely filthy with McDonald's wrappers, cigarette butts, Pepsi cans, probably some dead animals. No idea why this is the case, but it is.
Primary destination: The mall food court.
Stock phrase: "Beeeelch."
Average tip: A single, sticky, wadded up dollar bill.

Nissan GT-R
Driver: My new BFF.
Primary destination: The track.
Stock phrase: "Why of course you can drive, Steve!"
Average tip: No no, I should be tipping you.