Gospel?

My job has the same annoying bureaucratic crap that anyone's job has.  Just my job does it in a "war zone". That makes it all the more frustrating and absurd.  For instance, because the military is working on winning hearts and minds, my company feels we should too.  We are constantly exhorted by higher headquarters to submit "Good News Stories!™"

The problem is...this job isn't exciting.  I don't mean just mine.  I mean pretty much anyone's job in any department over here. I do contractual compliance work.  That's definitely boring.  But what the hell is a food service worker going to do that's noteworthy? Nothing.  And that's fine.  So long as he slops food on my plate when I ask for it, he's doing his job.  Good.  Great.  Not sexy.

Pretty much every day is the same as the day before and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that and the...etc.

Still, they want the "Good News Stories!™" so that some boss here can show it to some boss there and get promotions and/or sexual favors (probably just promotions, but you never can be sure with the way they beg for these things).

We try to think of things to send them, but, as I said, it's tough when everything here is routine.

How do you make Good News out of the day to day monotonous activities here?

For example:

Cleaning Crews 

While I love the smell of napalm in the morning, this smell is terrible.

Vehicle Maintenance

Afghan children's heads are a bitch to get out of a wheel well...trust me.

Project Management

Nothing funny to say; I've heard conversations like this... and been in those meetings.

After being told for the umpteenth time that our stories weren't "exciting enough" some of our guys got upset.  Finally they came up with the only thing that could surely count as being exciting out here.

 GOOD NEWS STORY: Repelling an Invasion of a Monster Alien from Outer Space (Singlehandedly)

"Kabul, Afghanistan- Joe the Plumber was enjoying one of his OSHA-mandated smoke breaks when, lo and behold, Lotharix the Destroyer alit from his interstellar craft and demanded the blood of babies and a lock of Martha Stewart's hair or else he'd subjugate the entire planet.  Fortunately for all of mankind, Joe happened to be carrying Zolgir, Smiter of Injustice, and so he slew our prospective overlord before he went back to inspecting toilets."

For some reason, management was not thankful for their salvation.  They didn't respond.   

Patience Well/ B.S. Volcano

The thing that makes deployment so difficult, aside from the possible explosive exploding of course, is the complete and utter inability to escape.  Obvious, I know, but I suspect that people don't quite fathom how painful that is.

For normal people, you have a frustration limit.  Through the course of the workday or workweek, various things rankle, but you get to go home for the night and weekend and your frustration level has  chance to come back down to bearable levels.

Here in Afghanistan though, it's 12 hours a day and seven days a week, but even then, when you're done with your 12 hour shift, you're still stuck seeing the guy who, without fail, quotes the same joke from a Will Farrell movie every. time. he. sees. you. ("I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal.  People know me. I'm very important.  I have many leatherbound books...")

If you can't see how that gets old, fast, imagine the coworker who talks too much at meetings (aka "The Good Idea Fairy"; aka "Mr. Silence Terrifies Me") standing in your hallway when you go to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.  Even if he doesn't say a word, you don't want him there.  In your house, you can shoot him; out here, you can only fantasize about it.

People who work out here have pretty high patience levels.  They have to.  But, and this is a point my mother fails to understand, patience is finite.  Also, people's patience wells aren't built nice and evenly.

For example:

It's not really a patience well; it's a B.S. Volcano

So, as long as the rate of B.S. doesn't exceed the rate you can handle it you don't have problems.  But, if the B.S. comes too fast, you start filling up and it fills faster and faster.  Now, this is crucial to understand,  B.S. is not like water.  The more water in a well, the faster the water flows out because of pressure from the mass of water on top.  B.S., however, is B.S. and, being dense, actually drains slower with more pressing down on it and it can even clog up.  So, the more B.S., the slower it goes away.  Think of ketchup if you don't want to think of poop.

Back in the States, going "postal" is rare, fortunately.  Here though, people will fill their patience wells and explode their B.S. volcanoes.  However, since it happens to all of us, we've learned to a) accept when others go off on us and b) explode in relatively reasonable ways (screaming...not punching...most of the time).

So.

 1st Day Back from Vacation

Three weeks in

 

2 Months In

 

Week Before Vacation

Later That Same Day

 

That's the normal time-line.  We all pray we don't get more B.S. sooner than we can handle because hitting the B.S. Volcano Zone is when people quit or get fired.  Coworkers will give you a week.  They can't handle a month.  Neither can you.

I'm 2 weeks out.  My eye is twitching and I've gotten very quiet.

I can assure you, Sartre was right.  

"Hell is other people." 

 

Bosnian Parfum Update

Once, I joked a friend, when she had finished touching up her makeup and asked "How do I look?", by saying "Great...if you were going for Kabuki Clown Whore." I was joking with her, but if Kabuki Clown Whore were a smell, THAT'S what the Bosnian's Parfum smells like.

Oh. My. Dear. Sweet. Jesus.

So...I kinda sorta forgot to do my continuing legal education.  That whole "I really don't want to be a lawyer" thing I have going for me bites me in the butt when I'm too successful at not being a lawyer and forget that I am.  The loud cracks you hear are my spine breaking as I bend over backwards to avoid reality.  It turns out that the Bar Association of the Great State of South Carolina doesn't really care about my mental gymnastics.  They want money. 

Thus, I woke up to an email, subtly titled

"URGENT MATTER: IMPENDING SUSPENSION FROM THE PRACTICE OF LAW"

Suffice to say, somehow I managed to take stock of the notice. I scoured the SC Bar website for whatever online course I could take that would knock out the requirement. Then I cross-referenced it by which courses were the cheapest. I cared not one itty, bitty, teensy, weensy, tiny little bit if it were interesting. 

Thus, I now am listening/watching the "2010 Government Law Update" for $130.
 
It's 5 hours and 45 minutes long. 

It has all the beauty of being at one of the interminable conferences (lame in-jokes between presenters, awkward applause, people in the audience asking questions that are less about getting information and more about hearing the sound of their own voices, etc).

The highlight for me, so far, was when I didn't screw the lid on my water bottle well enough and it leaked all over my pants and everyone in the office has decided that I'm incontinent. 

Actually, I'm joking. 

That did happen but the highlight has been that because I'm watching it on the internet, I can do research to further my continuing legal education to give it proper perpective, which I'm sure I'd be doing were I actually in the audience. 

Thus, they've discussed the impeachment proceedings against the former governor. I couldn't grasp finer points because I simply couldn't identify. They weren't adequately drawing me in with "the human perspective." To rectify this, I googled "Hot Argentinian Models" (on moderate safe search...I'm a professional). 

 

 

 

 

Now, I am proud to say that I am fully compliant with my requirements and certified as ethical, and, as a bonus, I'm well-versed in hot Argentinian models.
 
This "law" thing isn't so bad after all. 

But only so long as I can look at half-naked stunningly attractive women.

(Side note, for people who wish to rat me out...a) just because I write something on here that doesn't mean it's necessarily true and b) the damn online viewer requires me to repeatedly click on it to affirm I'm watching it so it's not as if I'm pressing play and walking away)

Daddy Issues

My father's father, David Hopkins Carpenter, "Big Dave" to most, "Grandpa Dave" to me, passed on when I was eleven.  He had either Alzheimer's or advanced elderly dementia; six of one...half dozen of another.  By the time I could have known much about him, he wasn't there, even though he was. 

I remember mostly that he would take me on walks around his neighborhood when I was a very little boy and would visit.  My cousins, all older, recall that he called all of them "Big Boy" or "Daughter" and never by their names; they weren't sure if he knew their names (even though two were named after him).  I know him mostly through the bits and pieces I got from my father.  Pop described Big Dave as having the soul of a poet.  That must have been difficult, considering that he owned an industrial supply company.

Big Dave's father died when he was very, very young and he and his siblings were farmed out as "poor relations".  He went through the Great Depression and then went to war, serving in the Navy in World War II.  Pop said the soul of a poet; I suspect it was of a philosopher. 

One of my father's enduring memories of my grandfather, who was a distant and enigmatic man to his children (thus making him all the more beloved), was Pop's daily duty as a boy to bring Big Dave a glass of beer after he'd come home from work for the day and sit out in the back yard, listening to the birds sing as the late afternoon lengthened.  Big Dave would take the glass and off-handedly recite Robert Service to his younger, adoring son:

When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,

I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.

And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met --

All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.

That's the opening salvo to "Song of the Wage Slave." I had that calligraphied all pretty-like and framed for Pop. Two of them.  One for his house; one for his mountain place, so that now he's an old man, he can drink a beer and reflect.  Someday, one will no doubt pass to my older brother.  One will pass to me.  That's the family legacy.

My father went on to get two PhDs in English.  I can't help but suspect why.

I did not major in English.  I am not a poet.  I'm not a philosopher.

I may not have known Big Dave, but as I age, I think understand him more.

I Am Jack's Lost Sense of Time and Space

You wake up and it's March 2010 and you're in Bagram, looking out at snow-capped mountains rising up miles away above the banks of dust.  An age passes and it's two days later and you're being buffeted by wind (carrying dirt and dust) and it considers raining.

You wake up and it's April 2010 and you're in Kabul.  The sun shines.  Two months go by and it's only the next day.  You try to figure out ways to pass the time.  You stay glued to the computer, watching friendly lives move on at a startling pace.

You wake up and somehow it's June; you're in Dubai; you're in South Carolina; you're in Chicago; you're drunk; you're eating more deep dish pizza; you're watching more Cubs baseball at Wrigley cathedral; you're in Dubai; you're in Bagram; you're in Kabul; it all took place in 20 seconds.

Time stops again.

You wake up and it's July; your boss has gone insane. You take a deep breath.  You look up and it's three minutes later but it might have been three months.  You look up and it IS three months later.

You're in Kabul; you're in Bagram; you're in Dubai; you're in Beijing; you're in Tokyo; you're in Kyoto; you're in Nara; you're in Osaka; you're drunk on a roller coaster in the rain; you're in Kobe; you're in Himeji; you're railing along at approaching 200mph; you're in the mountains; you're in Kamikochi; you're in Yokohama; you're bellowing Karaoke with four women; you're in Yudanaka; there are snow monkeys in a hot spring; you're in a hot spring with Japanese men; you're in Tokyo; you're in Dubai; you're in Bagram; you're in Kabul; it all took place in 20 seconds.

You wake up and it's whatever day. You look at your watch and it's seconds since the last time you looked but somehow feels like hours or days or months; you switched departments; you look at your watch and it's time for your next vacation.

You wake up and you're in Dubai; Scotch; Cairo; Alexandria; Aswan; Abu Simbel; Kom Ombo; Edfu; Scotch; Luxor; Cairo; Scotch; Dubai; Bagram; Kabul. Wait. What?

You wake up and you can't get used to being back at work.

You wake up and it's been a year.  It's been a blink of an eye and an eternity. 

You wake up and it's the same day it's always been; it's cold; it's hot; it's clear; it's dusty.

Today there's an earthquake.  That's different. 

Tomorrow there's not.  Tomorrow you'll be in Mexico; tomorrow will be July and you'll be in the same chair in the same clothes wearing the same hat but you'll be 32, but then you'll be in Moscow or Sidney;

or it will be October and you'll be in Charleston or Rio de Janiero or maybe one or the other or maybe both; hell, why not Buenos Aires;

or it'll be December and you'll be in the same chair in the same clothes wearing the same hat having the same conversations with the same people; or you'll be 35 and hit your fiftieth country and your seventh continent;

or you'll wonder why you're wasting your life;

or you'll wonder how you got so lucky;

or all your friends will be married and you feel tinges of regret;

or you'll be free;

or you won't have the slightest idea.

You wake up and it is as it is and couldn't be any other way.

You wake up.

Does Not Compute

When it comes to the finer points of portraiture, I surely know little, if not nothing.  I freely admit to not understanding how to pose seriously for a photograph.  I can't fake smile (not without being blatantly fake, at least).  Despite that, I get that some folks have a "good side" and will angle themselves thusly.  Personally, I tend to think like the immortal Yogi Berra, who stopped a photographer from taking a head-on shot of him: "Oh, I can't do that.  That's my bad side."

My portraits are so bad they make me shut my own eyes.

At any rate, in this age of social media, portraits/profile pictures are common place.  And yet, so many have incorporated a tactic that is, frankly bewildering to me, and, I suspect, them as well.

So, I must ask:

What the hell is with women tilting/canting their heads to in between 25-45 degrees?

Are they trying to appear earnest?

I.  Cannot.  Figure.  This.  Out.

The closest I can figure, having seen puppies do the same head cock, 

is that these women who do this are perplexed.

But it can't be that, because they're clearly, purposely posing.  Perhaps they're trying to convey mystery or coyness?  Perhaps they're suggesting they have vertigo?  Perhaps they're inquisitive? 

People say that rouge is supposed to mimic the flush of a woman's cheeks when she's sexually aroused, thus attracting male attention.  Maybe, like that, these women are trying to convey being off-balance/tipsy/drunk and open to sexual suggestion?

Nope. 

Can't figure it out.

Why I Am Not a Lawyer (Even Though I'm a Lawyer)

So, I'm a lawyer.  I don't mention that nearly as much as my having been in the military.  I find that people over here who find out I am mention it way more than I do...like they're impressed for me.  I'm a lawyer in that I went to law school, passed the bar exam, was sworn in to the SC Bar, and pay bar dues.  I've never had a client.  I've never worked or interned at a firm.  I'm a "lawyer", but not really.

People are often quite confused by that.  "Why go through all that trouble and expense if you're not going to practice?"  Well, to be forthright, had I managed to get a clerkship during my summers during school and had I found a legal job when I graduated, I'd be a practicing attorney.  I didn't, so I'm not.  At the same time, I wasn't remotely driven to do so like some of my classmates.  Bully for them.

You see, I didn't get that big driving passion to be a lawyer.  I've pretty much always wanted to be a writer, but that doesn't pay bills. I got out of the Army, needed to find a profession where I could feed myself and afford to have a family if the opportunity presented, and I was smart enough to do just about any graduate degree program.  Going into the corporate world was not even a consideration at the time.  I don't relish the idea of being around sick or aggressively dying people ("aggressively dying" because we're all headed that way no matter how healthy), plus the few requirements I'd need to get ruled out Med School.  I may come from professors, but that just means I understand what a fantastic waste of time getting grad degrees, publishing to publish, and competing with colleagues for tenure is.  No thank you.  That pretty much left law school.

Now, "This'll do..." is not the most inspiring way to make a career decision, but I figured that if it turned out I didn't want to do it, having a law degree wouldn't be useless.  At the very least, if someone messed with me, I could put the screws to him.  Never underestimate my drive to defend myself against theoretical antagonism.

At any rate, I went to law school.  I come from intellectuals.  Legal thinking is the exact opposite of intellectualism.  Instead of thinking for yourself, you're supposed to throw out original thought and find precedent.  Once every couple of generations, a slight majority of the Supreme Court will push forward a new thought ("Hey, it turns out black people do deserve truly equal treatment!") that gives the nation of lawyers something new to depend on.  Law seems mostly to be a battle between opponents who are trying to push forward why the thinking they're following is more derivative.  Brilliant.  (At the same time, I understand why it has to be that way, but that just ain't for me.)

Aside from law school though, I like to look at the big picture.  Running up $100k in debt for school was a mistake, perhaps (hey, I got to find drinking buddies for only $33k a year!), but I saw no reason to compound that mistake by doing something that looked to me to be miserable.  Some of my friends truly enjoy what they do.  They feel challenged and motivated and satisfied by legal work.  Many more, though, have discovered that being a lawyer kind of sucks.  There's a small cache of prestige (dwindling, I feel) to being an attorney, but not so much to outweigh the debt, stress, and long hours.  

I took a look at that while I was in school and said "Um, Dear Jesus! Only if I have to!"

To me, the easiest way to explain it is that law school is like a gaggle of people who are all fighting amongst themselves to get the opportunity to get punched in the genitals repeatedly.  Just because your groin is getting "action" that doesn't mean the action is good.  Thirty five years of that before I wander off to die ("retirement" the spin-doctors call it) and realize that it wasn't worth it?  No thank you.

I'd like to thank The Onion Movie for summing up my USC Law experience

in one classy graphic

So, I now do a job I didn't necessarily need law school for.  Being a lawyer looks like it will provide me with the ability to promote faster and higher, but the plan is to do this for the minimum amount of time necessary to not have to do this anymore either.  The difference between this and being a lawyer is that I'm under no illusions that I'm not taking brass knuckles to the juevos.  My jaded outlook is if it's gotta happen, let it happen quickly (at least I know I'll be ready should I ever go to prison).

At the same time, someone here asked me to be his corporate attorney for his helicopter company so he'd have the ability to say his company has a corporate attorney.  So, I'm an attorney who isn't an attorney even while being an attorney who isn't really one.  Got it?

And You Thought Dorm Rooms Were Bad

I lived in a dorm room my freshman year of college.  It was perhaps 10' x 15' and had two plastic-wrapped mattresses (to protect from various bodily emissions no doubt, be they gastrointestinal or venereal) on opposite walls and separated by perhaps 2 feet.  There were also two tiny desks crammed in there.  Other than that it had very little space.  I am, by admission, a filthy pig.  My roommate Bryan was not.  Bryan was a good guy.  He was quirky, but an acceptable roommate.  He had a penchant for smoking pipes (not in the room...though I do fondly recall the smell of his tobacco), listening to Soul Coughing and Ben Folds Five, and playing Final Fantasy VII.  I was, as I stated, a filthy pig.  He got to put up with my piles of dirty laundry that I'd refuse to wash until they were capable of ending OR spawning life.  He surely got the worse end of the deal.  

Well, he also got to admire my bad-ass Carmen Electra poster, so I'd call it Even Steven.

Living in a dorm room sucks no matter whom the roommate.  Cramped conditions and little-to-no-privacy.  Things that ordinarily would not be a major issue, like someone muttering in their sleep, snoring and/or flatulence, come to be, not even aggravations or frustrations, but justifications for plotting intricately detailed and exceedingly painful murder.  Bryan was fine.  I was worse.  Even so, I only lived in the dorm my freshman year.  After that, I got an apartment, where, even though I had roommates, I could shut my bedroom door and be left the hell alone so that my frustration and aggravation didn't get to homicidal levels.  


Out here, I started out in a tent.  Great.  I was in the army before.  It was like the old-fashioned "open bay" barracks.  It sucked, but I was under no illusions that it would be otherwise.  It was March of last year.  During the day it was in the fifties (at best) but at night it was around freezing.  As I was the New Guy, I got a top bunk.  There were probably 80+ people in there.  The tents have a central air tube that the heater pumps the air down.  It was set to be a balmy 80 degrees for the people on the bottom bunks.  Up on the top bunk, I had the heat hitting me from 18" away.  It approached 90 degrees.  Then also, regardless of whether it was 80 or 90 degrees, there were lots of people in the tent from countries where hygiene is a novel concept.  Heat=nasty body funk.  Gross.  Still, I was under no illusions.  Snoring? No illusions.


When I transferred from there, I went to another open bay, but this time I got my own bunk to myself.  I was able to block off the sides with blankets and flags (I don't leave home without my SC flag and my SC Battle Flag, "Big Red").  It didn't stink as bad.  It was still noisy.  Nonetheless, I was still under no illusions of privacy.


However, in June of last year, I moved into a B-hut.  A B-hut is a 32' x 20' plywood hut.  On the inside there is a central walkway and on either side it is divided into 4 living spaces, each of which are approximately 8'x 8'.  The floor plan looks like this:

The B-hut is a huge improvement, except for one very crucial part: it helps you lie to yourself.  Now, 8'x8' is not much space at all, but compared to living in a tent with 80+ smelly foreigners, it's heaven.  I can shut my plywood door and be surrounded by my plywood walls, and I feel like I'm almost normal.  Almost.


The first few days I was in my B-hut cell, I was working hard on lying to myself, that I finally had privacy.  When that door shut, I wasn't necessarily in Afghanistan anymore.  I could be anywhere...so long as "anywhere" had 7' tall plywood walls and my bed took up virtually half the space.  Unfortunately, reality kept intruding.  

Sound.


The B-Hut ceiling is about 10' tall, but the walls of each cell are only 7'.  In between the top of the wall and the ceiling is open, that way the light that runs along the center band of the ceiling shines on all of us.  Yay.  The problem with sound, though, wasn't that my fellow tenants were noisy; not specifically; it was that it was too quiet.  There was zero ambient noise.  That meant any noise I heard or produced was amplified.  If I rolled over, the springs sounded like banshees wailing.  Bob's snores sounded like a symphony of chainsaws.  Malik's scratching himself sounded like...him scratching himself.  It was too much.  I quickly went and bought a fan and left it on so it would give some cover sound.


Smell.


I can handle noise.  I don't like it, but I can get used to it.  I was an artillery officer.  I got to the point where I was sleeping when cannons were going off.  I'm not as good with smells, but I've been in the Army.  I can handle some funk.  Not preferred, but okay.  The problem in my B-hut is that I have someone in the Balkans directly across the hallway from me.  The problem, surprisingly, is not funk.  It's virtually the opposite of it.


You see, every morning, like clockwork, I'm woken up.  I'm not woken up by sounds.  Those I can ignore.  I'm not woken up by funk.  That, I can ignore.  No, I'm woken up by the blasts of perfume that the ONE GODDAM BOSNIAN WHO ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT HIS PERSONAL HYGIENE AND I JUST HAD TO HAVE LIVE ACROSS FROM ME showers himself with each morning.  

I have sleeping problems.  I have for a decade.  I struggle to get to sleep and often wake up in the middle of the night.  The one time where I actually manage some sleep is just before dawn, right when this Balkan Bastard is taking his Christian Dior bath.

Actually, that's not right at all. It's not Christian Dior.  Whatever he puts on I can only describe as Old Lady Perfume, the garish, super-bright kind that old ladies wear not because it's subtle or sexy or even pleasant, but because their sense of smell is gone and it can jackhammer into their deadened olfactory receptors and therefore they can be sure it overpowers whatever strange smells might be emanating from their hard-to-reach panes (fat-folds). 

Sadly, now that you've seen this picture, you know the smell I'm talking about.

There I am, finally in the arms of Morpheus (God of Dreams, not Laurence Fishburne -Ed), when this horrifying stench hits me.  I'm immediately awake and furious.  Instead of being able to lie to myself that I'm "anywhere", I'm immediately aware of the fact that I'm in a goddam hut in Afghanistan across from a dam Bosnian.  The worst part is, I can't complain.  "Hey, stop being one of the only people from your area of the planet who is at least aware enough to try to mask his b.o."  No way I can do that.   Even if I did, he wouldn't have to listen to me.  There's no way Human Resources backs me up on that one.  Really, all I can do is resort to my old standby of plotting intricate and exceedingly painful murder.


The only good news is that someday, should I ever have a lazy-ass teenager of my own who won't get out of bed, I'll know how to get the little bastard moving.

Story of My Life

One day of my life, literally one day, I could dunk a basketball.

My senior year of HS, during baseball season, me and some of the other baseball players went over to a middle school gym to play basketball.  I used to play a lot of basketball and while not great nor necessarily even "good", I could hold my own.  For a baseball player, I was good.  

Anyway, back then, I had the "ups" to dunk, but I could never get the ball down.  What? I'm a pudgy bum now, but back then I was about 165lbs.  The extra 35lbs I've added in the 15 years since keep me a bit more firmly planted to the ground, if not reality.  Back then though, I could get up.  Unfortunately, I'd always get the ball over the front, but I'd bang it off the back of the rim, and usually I ended up crumpled in a pile underneath the basket. 

For whatever reason, I gave it a try that day and bam!!, I dunked.  I dunked multiple times in the games we played.  I was pumped.  As we were leaving a janitor asked us how we liked the new floor.  

New floor? 

"Yeah, they just put it in."  

I had a sinking feeling.  

"Did they take up the old floor before they put in the new one?"  

"Nah."  

Son of a bitch.  

I immediately drove over and broke into the HS gym (it was a weekend).  Up I went, off the ball went towards the rafters, and down I fell into a pile.  So yeah, I could dunk...on a 9'11" rim.  

Story of my life.

Little did I know then that "the bench" would be a metaphor for my life.

Hatred is Useful

One has to be very careful how one praises hatred, particularly when that "one" is a Southern white male of slaveholding stock. Which I am. So, to be clear from the start, the hatred I espouse isn't racial or sexist in the least little bit. I'm egalitarian in my hatred. I'm not a misogynist or a bigot. I hate pretty much everone. I'm a misanthropist.

Actually, that's not quite right. I'm really more of an Ignorist. If you're willfully stupid, I'm going to mock you and antagonistically dislike you regardless of your genitals or the color or religious affiliation they happen to possess. Fair warning.

Without further ado, here goes.

Southerners have long been said to hate groups and like individuals; northerners are said to like groups and hate individuals. I'm definitely Southern. Southerners are famously eccentric or quirky. We have to be. The weather down South is too damn hot to do much of anything so we, historically, have to sit still, usually on a porch. While we're sittin' we tend to get bored. We learn pretty quickly to amuse ourselves. Alcohol helps (plus, when you sweat booze and it evaporates in the breeze it's like biological A/C). At any rate, sauced up, uncomfortable, and bored, Southerners have long pondered that question that's been the goldmine of comedians since time immemorial: "What annoys me?"

Now, unfortunately, those without a properly attenuated sense of humor, when they've pondered that question, have gone on to cause all sorts of trouble (eg Ku Klux Klan, al Qaeda, the Inquisition, Nazis, etc.). As I'm firmly entrenched that there isn't much of anything worth getting truly worked up about (even as I get faux worked up about nearly everything), I make sure not to take anything so seriously as to upset myself. Thus, I take my drive to be annoyed and direct it to something meaningless that will, hopefully, stir up loads of indignation and give me something truly amusing to witness.

We all have the "us versus them" mentality in us. It's locked in our DNA. We are animals, after all. I'm aware of it though, so I play with it. The key to satire and the satiric mindset is to function on multiple levels. On one level you must see the big picture for the comedy of it, but for the other, you absolutely MUST embrace the idiocy of what you're mocking and take it to obscenely fervent levels. There's no indignation, there's no amusement, if anyone feels "eh."

Hatred is a building pressure. You need a safety valve. Hate builds in us (save for the Enlightened Few), much like lust. Just like lust, redirecting it is more intelligent than ignoring it or repressing it, but it's critical to express it appropriately. Thus, here's my hate masturbation.

Enter sports.

In the big picture, I could absolutely care less about a bunch of people playing games (On an even bigger picture level, who cares about games? On the biggest picture level, who cares about anything?). That's sensible. It's also very boring to feel that way. It's also slightly arrogant because it would seem to say that I am above the "us versus them." I'm not though; none of us really are, so I choose to care. Not only do I choose to care, but ultimately %#$! them.

%#$! them, fervently.

Thus it is that I happen to root for eighteen to twenty-two year old men from the University of South Carolina Football team running into others. Why do I identify with them? Sheer, dumb luck, honestly. Yeah, yeah, I can justify it by saying I went to that school, but then if I happened to go elsewhere, I'd care about that team instead. I'm from South Carolina and I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Why? Because the first magazine I ever got had Randall Cunningham on the cover. Judge all you want. That's as good a reason as any. (I'm a New York Knicks fan because Patrick Ewing was on the cover the next month.)

The point being, it's fun to have a point. To have something to care about.

Caring and Love define us, so

Go Cocks!

But then so too does hate, so

@#$! UGA!

Georgia is a buffer colony of poor people who couldn't pay their bills. Carolina was the richest colony, but it was also disturbingly close to the heretical, marauding Spaniards in Florida. This would not do. The king had a rather brilliant solution. Empty the debtors prisons in England and make them think they were being given a privilege! Let them settle in the buffer (kill) zone between Carolina and Florida. The whole reason Georgia exists is to serve South Carolina. Let them plant peanuts and peaches and stay dirt poor and pathetic and they'd feel proud. Because pride typically is attached to a stigmatized group (Black, gay, Southern, etc).

Therefore, Georgians and the University of Georgia are all dumbasses who can't pay their bills and are preferred candidates for episodes of Cops and Teen Mom.

Go Cocks!

@#$! Clemson!

I don't have any historical explanation for it other than good old fashioned @#$! them.

Go Cocks!

Hate is not just a way to separate yourself from others; it's also a way to identify and bond. Yin. Yang. If I didn't hate, I wouldn't love. If I didn't love, I wouldn't care. If I didn't care, what's the point? If there's no point, there's no point.

Thus, in order to truly love,

Hate.

Hate.

Hate!



(Just remember somewhere deep down that none of it matters so you don't go acting like a true butthead)

I'm better than you

No post.  Just thought I should put it out there.

I've Always Been This Way

When I got to my first unit in the Army, the First Battalion of the Sixth Field Artillery Regiment (1/6 FA), I was, by far, the junior officer.  All the other Second Lieutenants were off at another base, save me.  I was amongst big, scary First Lieutenants who were a whole year older than me...sometimes two!  The majority of them went to West Point.

As I was but a lowly 2LT and a disgusting ROTC graduate at that, many of the 1LTs thought it was my particular place to grovel.  A good many of the higher ranking officers did as well.  I placated the Captains, Majors, and Lieutenant Colonel because, well, it's the Army.  As for the 1LTs, they could shove it sideways.  Yes, they had more experience than me.  One year.  Whoopie.  However, they were still used to the "Fourth Class System" that they'd had at West Point, so they thought it was their duty and right to give me crap and for me to lap it up.

My grandfather was a Brigadier General.  His best friend was a Four Star General.  My father is a Green Beret and Ranger.  Two of my uncles are Rangers.  My first cousin is a Ranger.  I grew up on The Citadel campus.  I was not wowed by the 1LTs.  In fact, I thought they were mostly unrealistically arrogant dumbasses.  I was not good at masking my disdain.

Leaving Germany, the officers of 1/6FA went on a "staff ride", where we toured WWI battlefields where our division, the First Infantry Division ("The Big Red One", named for the patch on our shoulder), fought.  The 1LTs mocked and I mostly ignored.  Two in particular, Mack and Doug, couldn't abide a mere 2LT not fawning over them in wonder nor cringing in fear.  They routinely said stupid things that they thought were very clever.  Alas, they were not.

I knew very, very little about WWI, so, unlike most of the other officers, who mainly were focused on drinking beer in the tour bus, I actively asked questions of the tour guide.  I believe that my behavior was labled "gay" by Doug and Mack.  Also, the fact that I read a book on the tour bus was most likely "gay" to them as well.  I can't recall, fortunately.

At any rate, at the end of the battlefield tour, the tour guide announced that he had a movie for us to watch on the bus on the way back to Germany, Paths of Glory.  Being a raging cineaste at the time and a rabid devotee of Kubrick, I made mention of the fact that the movie was, in fact, "the tits."

As the movie ended, Mack and Doug turned to me.

"I thought you said that movie was good." said Mack.

"I did," I responded.

"I thought that movie @#$!ing sucked!" said Doug.

"That's because you're a moron," I offhandedly replied as I drank a swig of beer and opened my book again.

"Did you just call me a moron?" asked Doug, perplexed.

"Yes," I said, without taking my eyes off the page.

They were stumped.

Judging Intelligence Part 2: NO!

Far be it from me to rant and rave.  No...wait.  That's what I do.  Okay, so here goes.  I was pleasantly poked for having the audacity to be judgmental.  "Life's too short to be that way.  Who are any of us to judge anyone else?" 

No.

No.

No.

Life is long and has entirely too many silly-minded people doing pointless things for no benefit to anyone (though, at the same time I've no problem with Ars gratia artis).  And that's fine.  But if *I* want to get some form of purpose or enjoyment or sense of gimme-a-damn-break, I damn sure am going to make decisions.  Making decisions comes down to judgment.  If you don't make any judgments, it's my view you tend to let life grab you and make you its punk.  Nope. That's not my deal.

At any rate, I tend to find that the people who are most anti-judgmental are usually the ones who have made repeated poor decisions.  Now, when I say "judgment" or "judging" I don't mean in a legal sense insofar as punishments.  When it comes to that, "Let he who is without sin..." and whatnot.  When I make my judgments, other than how I interact with you, there are no direct repercussions.  That's sensible.  You make your choices.  I make mine.  However, at the end of the day, it's about taking responsibility for one's words and actions, and what I tend to find is that the "free spirits" who follow "do what thou wilt" (the corrupted mantra of proto-Satanist Aleister Crowley) usually follow a path of mindless (silliness) and/or mindful (sociopathy) selfishness.
 
The justification of those people seems to me to be something along the lines of "If I feel it, it must be true!"  Cheated on your spouse?  Well, it's not really your fault if you developed those feelings.  No, it's just unfortunate.  Acted like an absolute shit and your kids hate you?  Well you just are who you are. 

Nope.  Bullshit.  We're not animals.  We're rational human beings and the very ability to make DECISIONS, to overrule our "feelings", is what separates us from beasts.  I have lots of "feelings," many of them contradictory (mainly between being social and yet a misanthrope), but the important thing is being who I choose to be, who I wish to be, not what chemicals in my body at any particular moment are pushing me to be.  That way lies utter foolishness and childishness. And the folks that don't understand that have their lives lead them every which way from one disaster to the next and all the while wonder why since they take no responsibility.  People like that tend to think they are who they "feel" they are (uniformly they think they're "good" people), but what they refuse to accept is reality, that they are their choices and actions (which tend to show that they're decidedly not good people).  For those who don't get that, I judge those people to be foolish and less than intelligent. 


Take charge of your life.  Make some damn decisions.  Be judgmental.

Or be a vapid, selfish shell of a person.  Either way. 

Judging Intelligence

People don't like it when they feel like they're being judged.  It seems to upset them when I'm being judgmental.  I find this to be hysterical.  We ALL judge.  At least I'm honest with them (and myself) about it.  Since so many others don't seem to understand this, I will give a very handy set of guidelines to help:

1.  You are being judged.
2.  You are judged on your decisions.
3.  Your worst decision overrules virtually all of your good decisions.

Not fair?  Welcome to planet Earth.  Get over it.

To be clear, when I say I'm judging, that's not to say that I'm going to *do* anything.  I'm not passing along a sentence.  I have no right to do that.  So, my judgment won't impact directly.  But who the hell do people think they are that they can dictate my thoughts?  If someone acts poorly enough, I SHOULD judge them and react accordingly.  We're responsible for our actions; own them.  Don't want to be judged poorly?  Don't be an idiot/jerk.

First and foremost, decision-making determines intelligence.  Learn how to make good decisions, THEN invent something mind-boggling.  Otherwise, I'm going to think you're a dumbass, ultimately, no matter what earth shattering idea you come up with. 

You're judged by your worst.  It's sensible to do so.  If you donate a hundred billion dollars to charities but purposely shake a baby to death, you're a murderer. If you're forthright and honest 90% of the time, you're a liar.  Try to spin it any way you want, but that's how it is. Lawyers love pointing out that they're lawyers as being indicative of their intelligence.  Nope. They make some of the most idiotic personal decisions anyone makes. I can't tell you how many complain of only realizing they shouldn't have focused so much on work instead of on their families AFTER they've had numerous divorces. "Really? Figured that all out by yourself, did you?"


This has come about because I recently read an article in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/science/01angier.html?src=me&ref=general) touting Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman as a serious intellect.  Now, to be fair, Ms. Portman has apparently done well in her education; in fact, decidedly better than I have done.  She's always had all "A"s.  She attended Harvard (not sure if she graduated).  She was shortlisted for a prestigious high school scientific research award.

However...

She also is now pregnant by and engaged to a choreographer named Benjamin Millipied.  I take issue with that.  Specifically, that his name is a take-off of millipede, "thousand feet."  I honestly hope his name and profession are a fortuitous coincidence, like an electrician named "Sparks."  Because, if he intentionally made his name Millipied, that's just insufferable.  Was Centipied too little?  Was "Man with Many Feet" too Native American?  Yes, if that name choice was intentional, I judge him.  Poorly (meaning I have a poor view of him, not that my ability to judge is poor...though I leave that to others to judge).

Additionally, if that name was intentional, I judge her also.  People get lost in the weeds/details and don't see the big picture.  He might have dreamy eyes.  He might have a way with a turn of phrase.  He might have simply been there (don't laugh; from what I've seen in life, sometimes that's all it takes).  However, he is ultimately the kind of guy who is a choreographer and names himself Millipied.

If you can't understand why that reflects on him and thus her in a bad way, stop reading. You're just not going to get what I'm trying to say...

Here.  I'll try to make it clearer.

I come from a family of highly, highly educated people.  My father, two uncles, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, and a first cousin are/were professors.  My other uncle is an aeronautical engineer.  (Side note: the women in the family are highly intelligent as well.  The first cousin is female and a professor of mathematics.  As my family is predominantly Southern, that limited opportunities for the prior generations to stamp their intelligence with degrees).  While I put little stock in such things (as paper does not confer intelligence), I have multiple degrees.  I'm fairly obviously "intelligent" or "intellectual."  If I marry a plumber named "Terdz", it's a recipe for disaster, no matter how beautiful and charming she might be.

My father has been married thrice.  Wife 1, my brother's mother, is beautiful and intelligent.  Wife 2, my mother, is beautiful and intelligent.  Wife 3, while also good-looking and intelligent, is also a college professor.  Hmmm.  Wonder why that one stuck? (Though this simplifies to the point of ignoring some fairly substantial personality "quirks" of all persons involved.  Also, he might have 2 PhDs, but I do judge him for his personal decisions as well.)

All I mean to say is, look at the big picture, people.  People put very little big picture into the most important decision they'll ever make: whom they marry.  You can't get caught up in the details alone.  The details are important, of course, but make sure the big picture fits first.  If you need a vehicle, you don't start getting overjoyed at the fact it has power-steering and automatic locks before you check to see what make and model it is first. If you're a hippie but you buy a Hummer because it has a great stereo, I'm going to think you're an idiot.  How many people do you know that you said "This is going to be a disaster" when they went to get married and, lo and behold, it was a disaster?  It's fairly obvious. That's all I'm saying.

So. Natalie Portman is a stunningly beautiful and accomplished actress who is also, possibly, a scientific dynamo.  And she's going to marry a dancer.  Excuse me, choreographer.  Right, because if she's that intelligent and intellectually curious, that's going to work.  Because when she's no longer stunningly beautiful and he can't dance any more, they'll have...something in common.  Right.  As my friend once brilliantly surmised, "Opposites may attract, but they don't stay together."

At the end of the day, you're judged by your bad personal decisions and those have more weight than the good ones.  As the father from "@#$!mydadsays" put it, "A parent's only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins a Nobel Prize but the other gets robbed by a hooker, you failed."

As for my personal life, what with being the acme of evolution, I have no equal and thus that is why I remain unmarried.

Until Blake Lively and/or Melanie Iglesias see the light.

Dictator's Guide to Holding Power: Part 6 (Finale)

As the events in the Muslim world of late have shown, despite thousands of years of evidence on what works to acquire and maintain a stranglehold on a populace, modern (im)potentates have clearly been out of the loop. Thus, for their benefit and that of their subjugated masses, I present

The Dictator's Guide to Holding Power (Part 6: Finale/America!)

There really isn't a whole lot to add.  I've shown you how to handle the masses AND the elite.  You should have a pretty solid grasp on it.  Lastly, I'm going to show you the best example of a dictatorship the world has ever seen:


The United States of America


1.  Entertainment


Exhibit 1

Gun? Check. Flames? Check. Bond? Check. T-n-A? Check. Check. Check.

Exhibit 2

2.  Food

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

3.  Puppetry

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

4.  Crackin' Skulls

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

5.  Keep Them Running in Circles

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Conclusion:  Someone's pulling the strings, but the bastard is good.  REALLY good.  Like, I-have-no-idea-who-s/he-is good.

Or we're tearing ourselves apart and hurtling towards mass chaos until everything gets so broken that we'll beg a dictator to step up and fix everything.

We are so screwed.