It’s May. The Spring is here. The flowers are blooming. The birds are chirping and all that other Spring bullshit is happening. You know what else Spring means? Allergies. GubbaJillions of fucking spores and shit flying through the air irritating the shit out of my nostrils and eyes. I look like a fucking coke addict some days when I come to work. Claritin is a myth. I’m averaging a box of tissues every 3 days. I never had allergies when I was younger. Fuck being old. It only gets worse… just wait until there’s arthritis and god knows what growing on my wrinkly old man ass. Well… thankfully I have to report that my ass is doing quite fine and as far as I know, it’s neither wrinkly nor harboring some growth of unknown origins. Spring also means having to mow the lawn. Having lived in a condo for a few years and before that having landscapers, I forgot how much this sucks. No it truly truly sucks. Never mind the fact that the lawn is 75% weed… it is also the kind of weed that release many of the spores mentioned above. So, mowing the lawn is essentially a form of slow and tedious torture wherein I push this brightly colored motorized object in the path of some nairy weeds (and grass) and release the army of spores and filth to assault my nasal passages. And the big payoff at the end? I get to do it all over again a week later. Like I said… getting old sucks. Coming home after dinner on a Friday by 10pm after 2 bottles of wine and finding yourself sprawled out and sleepy by 10:30…. that’s being old. Granted, I usually am in good company when this happens, it still isn’t what you thought you would be doing on a Friday night when you were 23.

Aside from allergies and being old…. I now spend my weekends trolling Home Depots and Lowes for bath fixtures for my bathroom renovation. Now how’s that for an exciting weekend? It was kind of like the time when I found a seller of clawfoot bathtubs and spent about 45 minutes on the phone with him discussing the arrangement of drains and shower heads…... whatever happened to the kid that could talk about punk rock music for 93 mins or the kid that had a vast working knowledge of the porn industry and the key players….. or better yet… the guy that drove a painstakingly-hand-restored bright red VW Beetle (albeit briefly, it was kind of a piece of shit) who then drove the shittiest of them all Chevy Cavalier that was worth roughly $300 only to be replaced by the ultimate in swedish style and speed…...to be ultimately let down and screwed into driving a Toyota Rav4. Seriously, this Rav4 is a major girly SUV. It has the towing capacity of like 1 dead horse. Unfortunately, given my situation, I’m stuck with it…for now. It gets me from A to B and can haul plumbing fixtures like nobody’s business. Soon enough, I’ll buy myself something fun to play with…for now, it’s the RAV.

Strangely enough, I feel young some days… young as in immature…. and then the reality of it all hits you. You have a wife. You have a house. You have responsibilities….you have gray hair (a fuckton of it, actually)... and worst of all… the fear of death. Because that’s what happens… you get old… people around you get old… those people you thought were young and invincible… they get old too.. they get cancer… they die. It’s depressing…. it’s sad… and it’s reality. However, you can always choose to hide from reality under the cloak of not giving a shit.. but deep inside…. you know. They know… we know.

WHERE WERE THE TOUGH QUESTIONS FROM THE PRESS THE LAST 8 YEARS?

Oh that’s right, I forgot, there WERE no tough questions from the press for the previous “President” for eight fucking years. The tough questioner, Helen Thomas, was HIDDEN from view, banished, physically removed and forbidden to even enter the room to ask your retarded ape highness anything.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, not only were tough questions absent, softball questions were asked by male prostitutes posing as reporters, and then the idiot ape would give inarticulate, rambling, crack head non answers, peppered with giggles and smirks and unfunny jokes all while thousands were dying horrible deaths.

Hey all you hard hitting, objective, concerned members of the press who are hitting President Barack Obama with gotcha questions, WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU FOR THE LAST 8 MISERABLE WRETCHED YEARS YOU ASSHOLES?

Oh yeah, that’s right, I remember now, you were right up Dick Cheney’s monstrous ass.

THIS president has a brain, this president isn’t brain-damaged from decades of whiskey and cocaine, this president doesn’t need speech writers or a hidden ear piece and directions from offstage, this president won’t suffer fools, so fuck all of you ‘journalists’, we know who you work for and who you represent.

After the ice has melted and they begin to unearth the remnants of “our” civilization….I certainly hope we are not remembered for shit like this. I know I’ve become old… because not only have I become more and more jaded and cynical than I was in my twenties, but because I think the “youth” of today that is going to be leading us tomorrow is helpless and hopeless. Growing up in the 80s/90s, I certain had my share of dumb shit but what is happening is absolutely ridiculous. Just recently I overheard a conversation that went something like this:

Twenty-something female – VERY attractive as: HotChic
Twenty-something male – Complete meathead as: GuyPaulaWouldHaveDatedInCollege or “GPWHDIC”
The location: a Pizzeria in a well-to-do town in Northern NJ
The time: 7pm – Wednesday night

HotChic: Hey, don’t I know you? Aren’t you one of Joey’s boys?
GPWHDIC: Yeah, bitch.. That’s me. ‘Sup?
HotChic: I’m chillin’. Eatin’ a slice. Trying to sober up. I’m soooo wasted.
GPWHDIC: It’s Wedz – where did you get wasted?
HotChic: I drank all day. I don’t work. They fired me. They’d rather pay a bunch of “ni**ers” and “sp*cs” to do my job.
GPWHDIC: That’s beat. Yeah. I don’t work either. I got laid off by the gym. No one is hiring trainers no more.
HotChic: How’s Joey?
GPWHDIC: Who? Oh yeah. Joey is good. We went out last night.
HotChic: What? How? Isn’t Joey in the hospital? Bike accident or something?
GPWHDIC: Oh um. Yeah. Maybe that was last week. I’m still fucked up too.
[Note: He looked really frazzled as he said it there was NO way this guy knew the “joey” she was talking about—and I was getting anxious while waiting for my damn pizza to cook.]
HotChic: Yeah… whatever. Joey’s a playa.
GPWHDIC: Don’t be hatin’.
HotChic: What are you doing tonight?
GPWHDIC: My boys and I were gonna smoke. Wanna come?
HotChic: Shit yeah.
GPWHDIC: I gotta go lift but I’ll be back later. Where are you gonna be?
HotChic: I got nowhere to go. I’m locked out.
GPWHDIC: Where do you live?
HotChic: Washington Township but lately I’ve been staying with friends.
GPWHDIC: Don’t worry. If you get too fucked up, you can crash on my couch.
HotChic: Yeah. Thanks. Don’t think that means I’ll suck your dick though.
GPWHDIC: Yeah. We’ll see about that. What’s your #?
HotChic: [GIVES HIM HER FUCKING #]
GPWHDIC: Later bitch.
HotChic: Byeeeeeeee!!

At this point I get up to pay for my pizza and the HotChic standing behind me goes “hey—can I borrow a few dollars. I’m not from around here and I’m locked out.”

I ignored her and gave her a big smile as I walked out. That same girl—- she also works at a 7-11 around here. I got a Slurpee recently and there she was. I almost wanted to ask her if she ended up passed around and used up by GPWHDIC but I didn’t. I ended up driving back to work and thinking about how great it is to NOT be like either of those two.

I don’t know exactly what it is. Who’s at fault here? Is it the schools? Is it the parents? Is it “society”? Is it the media? Is it the manufactured idolization of dolts like Britney and Paris and Chris Brown/Rihana?

It’s all very scary. What if I have kids….. what if they turn out that way? What do you do?

I’m back. By special request. Nearly 2 years later. Much has changed. Comments permanently disabled. We’ll see where this shit takes us….

I miss my Saab…. it has’t even been 24 hours…. the opportunity for heated seats arose last night…. the toyota doesn’t have them… and I still hate driving an SUV… especially this go-kart of an SUV. Sure.. it’s great on gas and all… but it handles like a go-kart and is genuinely tiny. It fits well into my parking space, much better than the saab… but still… it’s just not me… it was part of a concession to save money and make my dad happy…. but the end result is…. yes.. I’m saving money—- but I’m definitely not happy… once you drive a saab… (after upgrading from the world’s shittiest but most fun to drive ever shitbox cavalier), there is just no going back. This thing doesn’t even have a sunroof… so much for zolof and the sunny days… and it’s silver… that just makes it that much worse.

These days, cowards outnumber the heroes, and the begging souls outweigh the calloused hands of the hardest of workers. Both in life and in art, the lack of passion is sickening, and the lust for complacency is poisonous. This time should be the artistic antithesis of that sinking world; a thorn in the side of their beast. It’s for those who move mountains one day at a time. It’s for those who truly understand sacrifice. In this world of enemies, we will walk alone…

you
you’re a beast, she said
your big white belly
and those hairy feet.
you never cut your nails
and you have fat hands
paws like a cat
your bright red nose
and the biggest balls
I’ve ever seen.
you shoot sperm like a
whale shoots water out of the
hole in its back.

beast beast beast,
she kissed me,
what do you want for
breakfast?

You know.. in all my years of going to shows.. some things have never changed. Of course.. I have.. especially now that I’m a jaded old bastard.. but other than that.. I’ve noticed quite a few things between then and now.. including.. “scene kids.” You know who they are.. you can spot them a mile away. Let’s review the types of scene kids that we all know and love.. If I had more time, I’d find a myspace image of each of these and include them below.. unfortunately… I have a job… or rather… a career…

1. Tough Guy – How could you mistake the tough guy for anything else? He looks like he’d rather be playing football than in the crowd until the band actually starts to play and this shithead thinks kickboxing is appropriate pit behavior. This is the same kid who wears a size medium shirt when he should be wearing a large but does so just because it makes his biceps look that much bigger. This kid walks around with a posse of fellow tough guy meatheads, are usually looking for a fight and generally like to disrupt everyone’s good time. An example is throwing plastic empty water bottles into the crowd from the back. I recently observed countless episodes of meathead tough guys launching waterbottles at unsuspecting troubled teens having a grand old time in the front. Save it for the locker room for your fellow meathead butt buddies, asshole.

2. Coat Rack – This is the tough guy’s girl friend. She is usually abnormally pretty and for some reason commonly blonde. She generally looks like she would rather be shopping and has much better things to do than stand around and watch some stupid band play. Nevertheless.. she stands in the back of the crowd, holding her boyfriend’s jacket, sweatshirt, shirt, hat and or whatever else he has handed her while he spends his time in the front, fucking shit up. He’ll return every once in a while to make sure she’s still around and go back to kicking the crap out of some poor kid in a metallica shirt.

3. Youth Crew Kid – Similar to the tough guy except Youth Crew Kid doesn’t drink, smoke or do drugs…if he’s a jew, then add shellfish to the list. Youth Crew Kid listens to Youth of Today, Judge, Minor Threat and generally forgets that it is no longer 1986, nevermind the fact that he wasn’t born yet. Youth Crew Kid takes a cue from the tough guy and kickboxes his way through the pit while doing such exotic dances as the floorpunch, the takedown, the sprinkler, the shopping cart, the rice picker, and my personal favorite.. the windmill. They can be frequently spotted in packs and identified by large thick black “X” markings drawn on their hands.

4. Emo/Indie Rock Kid – not to be confused with the hipster kid. The Emo or indie rock kid always wears a band t-shirt. Usually has feminine-like qualities/features… wears pants or jeans that are way too tight and just plain wrong… I don’t need to see package, guys… Usually knows the words to every song and has been to every show… often can be spotted wearing eye make-up. Don’t even get me started on the fucking hair… guys—no.. good luck getting a real job—there are only a finite number of Pearl Paints, Starbucks and Hot Topics out there.

5. Duh Kid – This kid just doesn’t really fit in anywhere or really belong. He didn’t fit in in high school… (the black trench coat thing kept getting him in trouble)... in college he didn’t quite understand the frat scene… he wasn’t really ever good at anything… instead.. he stands there.. with his greasy, messy, unkempt BIG hair and just hopes that some girl will talk to him. He doesn’t get it…. and he probably never will. Youth Crew Kid and Tough Guy especially love the Duh Kid… he makes for excellent punching bag material.

I’m sure there are others.. although that’s all that comes to mind right now.

Well.. it’s a new year.. it’s been ages since I have touched this thing… there is a number of reasons why… the easiest reason being… that I have been way too busy… the second is that this blog thing has just become so played out… I recently was handed a business card by someone who has a podcast and on their business card—- no joke… it said “Blogger.” As in… that was their occupation. I’m not jealous. I don’t particularly care—- it just shows that this has become so ridiculously mainstream and useless that the real reason why people began to blog in the first place has been thwarted by “corporate blogs” with sponsors touting “reviews” of products and conglomerates like AOL buying up “blog networks.” It’s lost its personality. Now any fool with a free blogger account and a google ads subscription can become a “blogger.” Nein Danke. As for me…. well.. much has happened… first, I got engaged. Second, I started a new job. Third, my fiance’ moved in with me. Fourth, I got a cat. Fifth, I hopelessly want to relive my youth.