Different Animals, Same shit

That was when you realized that 

the future will be safe in his hands

She's always right, just ask her. 

Fired, bItches!

Network 2016

The following is based upon the dialog from the movie Network released in 1976. In honor of this  prophetic satire, I have attempted to update Howard Beale's rant for the contemporary audience.

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression; your depression. Everybody's underemployed and scared of losing one or both of their part-time jobs. The dollar buys a nickel's worth of product you will have to replace ten times in your lifetime, banks are thriving while you're going bust. They charge you to deposit your check, charge you when you use your own money, and charge you when you transfer funds. Let's face it folks, these banks got us coming and going. 

Mom and Pop shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter because punks are running the streets and the only “reasonable” and “sensible” answer we hear is stricter gun laws. Who are they kidding? The punks don't care about private property, civil society, and they care least of all for the law! That's what makes them punks. Why?, you ask, I'll tell you why. As above so below...Those sworn to uphold the Constitution, the highest law in the land, act with utter contempt for the principles that document claims we believe. Everybody everywhere says they know how to fix it, but they all disagree, and no matter what we do, it just gets worse. 

There's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe, our food is unfit for cattle, the water is liquid poison. We know that somewhere inside of us there is a single patient cell mutated by one of these contaminants just biding it's time, waiting to metastasize and end it all, and we sit watching our TV's, and clutching our digital devices which convey the horrors taking place just outside our castle gate. 

Today, we had fifteen unsuspecting people who naively wandered too close to another human being and were murdered by the “suicide” bomb he carried, and shows depicting the intricacies of homicides committed by family or friends remind us "trust no one", and sixty-three other garden variety violent crimes around our neighborhood reinforce nationwide paranoia, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. 

We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're completely fucking psychotic! It's like everything everywhere everyone is in a crazy drag race to see who can out crazy each other. So, we don't go out anymore. We sit in our outrageously overpriced condominiums gobbling antidepressants and mood stabilizers advertised in commercials depicting an idyllic world, but when you go to your primary care physician to get this panacea he's no longer in your network and it's going to cost you a fortune to navigate through a gauntlet of tertiary care deniers only to be prescribed the last bottle before the recall. 

You never get to see the idyllic world instead you watch in terror as they announce the class action lawsuit pertaining to the very drug you were prescribed which has now become the catalyst to set that one dormant mutated cell on an unremitting rampage through your body. The end is near and it's yours as you come crashing down to a flat line ending. Inside, your body is becoming smaller while the abomination within you grows. Outside the world you're living in and your place in it is getting smaller, too. Our friends grow more distant and when you venture out to test the waters of their friendship with your toe, they creep significantly closer to your gold. 

So, all we can do is hide in our imaginary safe place, our redoubt of delusional defense and whimper, "Please, just leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my microwave, my TV, and my digital device, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. What did Occupy yield any of us? A chance to practice sleeping in the streets. I don't want you to riot. You would only be slaughtered. I don't want you to write to your congressman because they don't care about you. I don't know what to do about your depression, the stagnation, the terrorists, and the brazen crimes which go unnoticed and unpunished in the hallowed halls of our capitol. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' 

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your ergonomically designed chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to your architectural window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' 

I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your exorbitantly priced, triple-pane, argon-filled windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' 

Things have got to change. Really change. Not the kind of change where the only difference is the occupants of the White House. Real change and for the better. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then, we'll figure out what to do about your depression and the stagnation and the terrorists. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" 

Keep yelling until half a dozen men in riot gear come and repeatedly tase you into submission or shoot you dead for acting erratically in a world where only the medicated are calm, only the insane are content, and only the deeply disturbed are able to make sense of it all. The only thing that may bring you peace will come a few seconds after you hear the words, “Tase his ass, again!”

...or you could always pray for a meteor.

If the Poets Ran the World

If the poets ran the world...
The sky would bear and bleed a million more colors
With the exception of the depressed who wouldn't bother
Every newborn would be held and loved by all mothers
Except for teenage boys rhyming to get at their daughters
War would be a word without need or definition
But the contrarians who would equate it with the human condition
The sun would shine and moon rise on intuition
But the Psalmist would take offense at messing with God's Creation
Love and fun would be our world currency so everyone would be wealthy
Save those goth kids who would exchange suicide notes as  currency
If the poets ran the world.

The Best of Multiculturalism

Something for US

Something for THEM

Hey, we got diversity going on!

Lost in a Process (Shannon's Song)

Means she's not even close.

Play the video and sing along, as long as you are alone, because you sing like ass. (Sorry, but you do suck.)

To the Melody of More 

than a Flailing Feeling.

I looked out this morning and the sun was gone
Did some gardening to start my day
I lost myself in a process
I closed my eyes the scope slipped away

I'm lost in a process, when I'm trying to get something done this way (lost in a process)
I begin dreaming (lost in a process)

'Till I see my Lee walk away
I see my old man walkin' away

So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the hours go by
Yet I still recall as I process on
As clear as the sun I'm almost done

I'm stuck in a process, where nothing ever gets done. (lost in a process)
I be there in a moment that's never going to come.

'Till I see Lee walk away
I see my old man walkin' away

When I'm tired and thinking cold
I start a monumental project, forget the day
And dream of a finish I used to know
I closed my eyes and I'm further away
The finish slipped away

I'm stuck in a process, where nothing ever gets done. (fucked by a process)
I'll be in, in a moment that's never going to come.

I'm further from finished than when I begun'Till I see Lee walk away
I see my old man walkin' away



Author's Note:

Yes, we all know our little Shannon, but what you may not know is if she was the Project Manager for the Great Pyramid of Giza, it would still be a 40 hour a week job for 20,000 people today!

Best Bum Practices Module 002

How to Steal a Backpack, you Idiot!

Module 001 Post Mortem

First, let's begin with a few minutes to absorb the lessons learned from way too recent events. We ran into a few problems in Module 001 which greatly interfered with our ability to apply proper BBP techniques. Let's review:

1. The fuckin automatic door!
2. Level of inebriation may have been tweaked a little above optimum. At best an ancillary issue, the primary failure was someone else's responsibility, as always.
3. Those fucking ”Creakers”. Where the fuck did they come from?

Okay, now flush these things completely from your memory (if you haven't already) because one thing a Bum never does is learn from their own or anyone else’s mistakes.

Ever!

Now, on with the new lesson plan:

Module 002, “How to steal a backpack, you idiot.”

I had a rough night, so you're all really lucky that I'm even here this morning at 2:40 in the afternoon. Normally, I'd be snuggled up in a filthy sleeping bag under a comfortable Army Corps of Engineers project, so you're all damn lucky to have me here.

STEP 1

It's going to be a long day, so let's begin with a smoke break. My head is still a little foggy from whatever particular chemical combo I imposed on my circulatory system last night, early this morning, and for breakfast about ten, no, make that eleven minutes ago. So, anyone got a smoke? Not a one of you? This must be the Honors class.

[Two hours and forty-five minutes later...]

STEP 2

Okay, that didn't go well. Who of you thought that a five foot four inch man in his eighties could throw a haymaker like that? I'm quite certain my jaw is broken in at least two places, and neither of them are good. How rude, yelling at me to “get a job” then to add insult to injury, he punched me while I was minding my own business rummaging through his pockets! Maybe, being the eleventh one to hit him up for a cigarette had something to do with his short ass fuse. Anyways, let's get back to the lesson… back to the lesson about (long pause) (class stares back equally blank) Definitely, the Honors class.

Fucking backpacks, you idiots!

STEP 3

If you all look behind you at your chairs you will notice something is missing. Clueless? The nine of you who owned them are missing your backpacks, which explained why I was the eleventh one out the door for the smoke break, you idiots!

STEP 4

Eject! Eject! Eject! Yourself from the classroom and run your ass off towards the door. Run! Fucking run! You're almost  there, man, almost there. Look back to make sure those backpacless bastards aren't in pursuit. They sure as hell are. Consider that carrying nine backpacks may be too many too… fucking late.

MIS-STEP 5

Take many, many, many blows, kicks, and a couple dislocations. Possibly one more broken bone, not a good one either. Eat some dirt mixed with vomit. Beef stew vomit. Bleed.

(Wail!)

Regain consciousness.

(Whimper!)

Educator's Syllabus Note: Get a head start next year before STEP 4.

(Purge All Educator's Syllabus Notes from Memory)

STEP 6

Crawl into a filthy sleeping bag under a comfortable Army Corps of Engineers project, you're damn lucky to be alive.

Recover, painfully.

STEP 7

Wake up to wracking withdrawal symptoms. Casually, grab the nearest bum's backpack.

Mission Accomplished!

STEP 8

Eject! Eject! Eject! Yourself from under the Army Corps of Engineers project and run your ass off towards the… towards the… Away. Run! Fucking run! You're almost  there, man, almost where?… Away, you idiot! Look back to make sure that backpacless bum bastard isn't in pursuit. He sure as hell is a fast one. Consider that you may be getting another beating way too… fucking soon.

STEP 9

Return to MIS-STEP 5.

STEP 10

Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

STEP 11

Consider that any idiot can steal a backpack, but it takes a fucking genius to keep one. Immediately flush that though from your memory. What thought? Yes, definitely the honors program.

STEP 12

Go check the Ace Hardware dumpster for broken jars of rubber cement.

Next…

Module 003: How to enjoy a weak end with inhalants (and weird animals).

Whoop, whizzle, oh, whoop, whaa, whoo...
Yeah, man, I could be President, too.You and me, Mr. Wubba, we're going to Washington DC.

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