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Welcome to my utmost random thoughts on random shit that really doesn't matter much.
Behold the glory of my mind takinga dump.
~ Sticks, Stones and Funnybones ~
Part 37 - The Lift-Off
The Lift-Off
So Sweden got their (please note the “their” – not “our”) first man sent into space Friday night. Unfortunately it wasn’t my father, but instead Christer Fuglesang, who has been waiting for a dog’s lifetime to be stuffed into a suit where he has to piss himself for a week, only to enjoy the wonders of weightlessness and cold hard infinity. Sounds like a fucking nightmare to most, but I am jealous like all hell.
I would never swim with sharks. I would never go within fighting distance of a snake. I wouldn’t skydive, bungy-jump or even canon-ball from a backyard pool trampoline. I would never walk on coals, sleep on nails or dream of putting a contact lens on my eyeball with a gun to my head.
But I would go into space in a heartbeat.
That was my highest dream as a kid, and it has now been fulfilled buy this boring looking Swede, who doesn’t seem to have enough oomph in his heart to fully appreciate his good fortune.
Even worse, and totally unforgivable…. The fucking guy held up a sign before entering the shuttle:
“Go Sweden”
Ok, that is fine, go Sweden indeed, but below that, the sign read:
“Go Norway and Vive l’Europe”
He managed to advertise the two most foul nations on the planet (Norway and France, not Norway and Europe, you poor geographically challenged imbeciles), during the most glorious moment of Swedish achievement since we last sent the Norwegians to meet their unholy maker in the 17th century, and also stomping Napoleon’s balls into the dirt when he dared coming our way (yeah – it was still “our” way back then – I am a neo-defective "conveniant").
All that good shit, undone in one stroke of poor judgment. I think we should revoke this guy’s Swedish citizenship the second he touches down back on earth again. To put it in a perspective you silly little Americans can grasp; this would be like George Clooney taking man’s first steps on Mars, and excitedly uttering: “Insallah and long live Iran!”
Not so great now, is it?
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The Survival
I am working crazy hours, as I have whined about several times before, but I have now found a great way to unwind after I roll home at 1 AM in the morning. I tape this show “Man vs Wild” every time it’s on, and it helps me put things in perspective. In the show, this crazy Brit, an ex-Special Forces guy, gets dropped in some remote wilderness, and then has to make his way back to civilization with no help or equipment. All he has is the clothes on his back and a flint. He slides down avalanches, eat rotting carcasses and catch snakes with his hands – all in the spirit of survival.
Obviously this guy was ass-plundered by Uncle Daddy in his younger years, or perhaps tortured with matches under his toenails by his alcoholic mother, to punish himself like this, but he still has a good thing going: Instead of expensive therapy, he is purging his demons by risking his life for stupid shit and hefty revenues, for all the rest of us to enjoy from the safety of our living room couches. Like a real life Jackass, without the annoying frat party antics.
In the end, the show only serves to teach us a few things, though:
1.Nature sucks
Nature sucks2.Brits are a bunch of crazy diamonds
Brits are a bunch of crazy diamonds3.If you ever get lost in the wilderness, all you really need is a rubber tire. You can sit on it, you can float on it, you can roll down steep hills, and, in the end, you can set it on fire for some serious smoke signals. Fuck the flint. Goodyear is where it’s at.
If you ever get lost in the wilderness, all you really need is a rubber tire. You can sit on it, you can float on it, you can roll down steep hills, and, in the end, you can set it on fire for some serious smoke signals. Fuck the flint. Goodyear is where it’s at.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Fans
Two fans are suing Alros Villa Nightclub over the 2004 shooting of guitarist Dimebag Darrell. They feel they suffered immense and devastating emotional damages from the incident, and that it is all due to the faulty club security.
Give me a fucking break.
Have you ever been to a live show at a metal club? More people get fucked up in the mosh-pit, than get shot on stage on a regular basis. How much do you want to bet that these two dumb ass rednecks are the first to kick somebody in the face to the tunes of “Mouth of War”, but now need money for crystal meth, so they pulled the Damageplan ticket stubbs of their rotting trailer wall, dreamed up a lawsuit and found an ex-car dealer with a mail order law degree to wring some cash out of a dead horse?
If anything, we, the old fans, should all sue the living ex-members of Pantera for fucking up their sound after “Vulgar Display of Power”. I want at least a million bucks for every repetitive riff and lame ass growl they released ever since that album. Vinnie Paul, Dimebag’s beloved and sensitive brother, is busy hawking all Dimebag’s shit on eBay and releasing “lost recordings”, so that motherfucker should be good for at least some dough by now.
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The Pang
So the season is upon us, in all its sickly fervor and unholy glory. With it comes all the glittering shows, boring movies and endless renditions of holiday classics. I watched the Rockefeller Plaza tree-lighting ceremony – it’s a family thing – and was “treated” to awful versions of crappy songs I can live happily for a lifetime without ever hearing again. For some reason somebody chose to cover John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over)", in all its inappropriate and not at all applicable content, and somehow it got to me. Not because of the war shit, but because the song, and the show, made me miss New York so fucking much. Like me, Lennon was a foreign born New Yorker at heart, coming “home” only later in his life, and I relate to that. 100 %. I have never felt as “home” as when I lived in New York – as opposed to all the places I have lived in before and after. Forget London, Florida, Sweden and all the rest… New York is where my heart lies, and I will always make it my life mission to move back up again as soon as finances allow us to do so. From the tears streaming down my wife’s cheek, I could tell she was thinking the same thing.
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The Song
Speaking of Christmas songs… I bought the Twisted Sister Christmas album, just to put a different spin on things in the car. It was all right. Some songs were pretty decent, while most of them were kinda pointless. To me, the ultimate Christmas song will always be “Fairytale of New York”, by the Pogues. If I die in the winter, bury me to that song.
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The Report
Apparently everybody, on all sides of the fence, rejects this Hamilton-Baker Report that just came out, pointing to the situation in Iraq as severely flawed and something we should pull out of, effective immediately, before we do even more damage to the strained relations in the Middle East. Of course nobody agrees with it. When it comes to the powers that be, that is. The president of Iraq knows he will be hung from the tallest lamp post in Baghdad if we pull out, and Bush will be facing a Vietnam Aftermath Galore with dire political consequences. If you ask Joe Schmoe, on the streets of NY, or Ahmed Schmoe, on the streets of Baghdad, I bet you a million bucks that we all agree that we should get the hell out of there and let the Iraqis take care of their own shit. Our babysitting ain’t working, kids, and it has only served to leave the house a mess, while also pissing off the neighbors to the point where they are bonding together, stronger than ever, preparing to march on our big ole American castle, torches ablaze, chanting crazy shit war-songs. “Operation: Iraqi Freedom” started a civil war in the country and fuelled that extreme hatred the Middle East harbored for us to begin with. We fucked up.
The Skeletal-Grace Middle-East Report is a much easier, if somewhat blunt, read, and solves everybody’s problems all at once:
Nuke everything from Turkey, across the Middle East (including Israel), all the way to North Korea. If we happen to “accidentally” drop a few over France and Norway, that would fall under the “oops” category. This would get rid of all the annoying bastards of the world – fanatical Arabs, stubborn Jews, and bat shit crazy Asians – and still leave us Africa to pity with telethon fund raisers and celebrity adoptions.
By the time everybody disagrees with that fucking report, they will all be in a better place, both the living and the dead. Good riddance and Godspeed, all you crazy motherfuckers.
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The Dead Rebel of the Year
We are currently having heated discussions, behind the scenes, on who to make the Dead Rebel of the Year 2006. It seems that nobody even remotely interesting died this year. That is a bad thing. Not the fact that nobody died, but the fact that the percentage of cool people in the world is dwindling to that degree. I am still praying for the death of Fidel Castro, Lance Armstrong, Clint Eastwood, Mark Messier, Bill Parcells, Neil Armstrong, Prince, Stephen Hawking, and maybe the fictitious deaths of Patrick Bateman or Rocky Balboa, so we can liven that hall of fame up with some recent legends.
Any suggestions? Send them to:
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