Everywhere I go I am assaulted by sensationalist bullshit. I turn on the t.v.; some repressed homosexual in a uniform is asking America to be prepared for terrorist attack. What fucking terrorist attack? There has been no major attack on the U.S. since we all know when, and even then, canned goods and bottled water would not have kept anyone alive. I flip to the news; news really doesn't exist anymore. All I see and hear on any news station is some horrific story of a father who killed his own children or a little girl abducted and found dead. This is not national news. This is community news. This is the time for the friends and family of the victims to pull together and support them through hard times. There is nothing I can do for a distraught mother in Texas from my easy chair in Florida. The only thing I can do is voice my disgust at these pseudo "news broadcasts" and hope that others will agree and speak up too. If everyone who has ever vomited or cried over a broadcast that was not really news stops watching, perhaps we can discourage stations from airing this bullshit, and as a matter of course, help keep the video camera out of a greiving parent's face.
I went to the post office to buy stamps today. The sign on the wall adveritsing postage that benefits breast cancer research said "These days even your stamp choice may be a matter of life or death." Fear tactics are even being used to sell shit that you would buy anyway. Maybe it is just for fun. It appears the old and faithful "guilt marketing" method has fallen by the wayside. People have become hardened to the suffering of others by watching all of those fat cow Sally Struthers feed the children commercials. "What can I really do?" They ask themselves as they wave off a derelict begging for a buck fifty.
I'll tell you what you can do, you can not be too stingy to give some smelly, dirty, drug addicted loser your pocket change. O.k., so he is not really gonna use it for a bus ride home. That lie is on his shoulders, not yours. You can not support ridiculous sensationalist television programs or stations. It is true, you really can get all the news you need from the "Daily Show with Jon Stewart", and even really scary world news is relayed in the form of a knock-knock joke. You can not buy shit because you are being frightened into it, instead, stick with tradition and buy something only when you are guilted in to it by pictures of kids with dirty faces and Air Jordan high tops (Those are so ten years ago. Those poor children are not only starved for food, but fashion starved as well).

Life is all about what you are doing, with whom you are doing it, and where all this doing takes place.

My grandfather, may his ashes rest in a treasure chest on his favorite chair in front of the television, taught me about how vivid life is. He spoke to me of how quickly you become old. He taught me about the importance of love and morality. He was not a sweet old man; he was a mean old bastard, and I say that with limitless love and respect. He didn’t always do right. Some would say he lived a life of decadence, but he enjoyed every slide in the show, and barely knew regret. He died happy; he never felt gypped, and he wasn’t afraid. Grandpa said he didn’t believe in God. Grandpa said that when you die your dead and that is the end of it. I don’t know if I believe that, but if you can shed the restrictions of formal religion, of hellfire and harps, then you may allow yourself to enjoy the reality of this second, this moment, right now. You will realize that there is no need for penance in the afterlife; what you receive is directly proportional to what you give. Even those who don’t appear to feel the results of their misdoings are punished in their inability to perceive life in its true glory.

Everyone stop. Take a deep breath. Look around you. Pay attention! Be aware of others and considerate of them. Find happiness in small details. Brainless, mindless, thoughtless, egocentric existence is not what our existence is about.

If you want to read this, please, continue. If you do not, please take this sheet and throw it in the nearest trash can. Wipe your ass with it. Set it on fire and do something you’d rather do. Take a nap, eat, masturbate, whatever. But, in the case that you have read something on this page that spoke to you, please, keep on.

The doldrums of daily life are not the end all be all. There are messages hidden between the lines of the script of monotonous being. You can’t see them. I can. They say: this is it fucker. Life is a one shot deal. Are you willing to risk the certainty of here and now for the possibility of tomorrow?

Of course you have responsibilities; everyone does. I am not suggesting that you quit doing the things that are necessary to your life and start masturbating all day, every day; I am saying that the world would be heaven in practice if you could take your blinders off, even for a moment, and experience the vividness of everything going on around you.

Stop for a moment and picture the earth as a blue sphere from space. Now picture yourself getting closer. Zoom in slowly on different countries, cities and towns. Right now the entire planet is teeming with activity, as you sit, maybe in solitude, or in a chaotic room, reading this page. Take off the blindfold and realize at once how large and how small this planet is, so much happening, and so little happening at the same time, and in different places. Right now, all over the world: new lives are taking their first breaths, old and young are breathing their last, grown men are going hungry, little children are snacking on caviar, the sun is setting somewhere, on the opposite side of the sphere is the birth of a new day. Understand that you are a part of something greater than yourself. You are a part of the vibration of the universe.

Rainy Sunday

Rainy Sunday, andI feel like a cowboy on horseback
Loping along, urgency is for the birds
Everything comes your way just the same.
Times and places...still
Faces are easier to recall then names
But are often just as useless in identifying souls.

I'll keep trotting, slowly 'cause it's dark.
I could take a wrong turn and end up outside of
Your heart's reach, grow in to something you wouldn't
Recognize, but I take a chance and split solo and
On foot; fuck you and the horse I rode in on.

It should be lonely out here in the desert, but I am in
Good company- the stars shine brightly
Illuminating the big picture, and there are no
Streetlamps to imitate their majesty, only
Solitude. Sunday.

Has the whole world gone fucking crazy? What was Liz Phair thinking when she wrote that ridiculous affront to music that she calls her new album? She couldn't settle for just being good and having a handful of loyal and appreciative fans? She instead has apparently decided to suck and go mainstream. Well, well. I would like to make a prediction regarding Liz Phair's career from this moment forth. She will probably become very pop-ular for all of sixty seconds, and in the process will lose all of the dedicated fans who have been supporting her and her music for the last decade. This is going to happen not becuase she is being recognized, which would have made her loyal fans happy in the past when she wrote music deserving of recognition, but because I have listened to the clips from her new album and it is the biggest piece of pre-fab shit I have ever heard in my life. The fact that she used to be a talented, respectable artist and has regressed to writing these canned spam songs for money makes this steaming pile of feces that much harder to listen to. White Chocolate Space Egg was her best album to date, and we fans had hoped to see her blossom even more in her next album. Instead she is trying to pass off this auditory abortion to fans who have been waiting patiently for a follow up. I would not have believed it could be so bad, except that I heard it with my own ears. I have had a headache ever since. Enjoy your five minutes in the MTV spotlight Liz, 'cause that is all you get. After that, your career is most certainly over. Pop fans are fickle, and they will eventually drop you in the gutter where you belong. Join the sellout ranks; take your assigned seat next to Sheryl Crow, who can't sell an album without 12 guest singers and currently makes a living off Jeep and American Express endorsements. YOU FUCKING SUCK.

My sister said that I needed to get a blog because I want to write, and it will get me in the habit of writing on my computer every day. I think she just wants me to be like her, but I am not funny, or adventurous, or interesting, so it is not likely to happen. Also, she thinks it would be good for my mental state; I can work on relieving pent up frustration. I can voice opinions that no one really cares to hear. I can pretend that I am not alone and that everyone I know isn't avoiding me because they don't find me painfully annoying. I just view the world through different goggles than the rest. Kind of like my mother, who I discovered yesterday puts out cigarettes in her car door handle because she doesn't want to use her ashtray.