I've Gotta Get Going. I've Got Nothing To Do

People are in the perpetual rush of their lives these days. A triple-shot Apple Chai Tazo Tea infusion and a bran muffin the size of a bowling ball and the day is off to an eye dilating start. It used to be you could wait for the morning traffic to die down before you had to run the risk of doing a Dale Earnhartd into the wall getting to Safeway. Now all day long the roads are packed full of people with the pedal to the metal like Whitney Huston looking to to score a dime bag.

Yet for the hyper-velocity pace at which people spend their days, there still seems to be a need for more things to fill all that time we don't have. Each decade comes with the promise technology will give us the capability to make our life better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster. And what we usually wind up with is a toaster with a radio in it, and a new version of an operating system that's supposed to fix all the problems of the last one, that was supposed to fix all the problems of the one before it which was supposed to fix...

Here's something you can do to help save the environment: STOP BUYING SHIT YOU DON'T NEED. Is the Mp3-full qwerty keyboard-flat screen-bluetooth enabled-plasma-bread machine on the blink? How much boredom-busting bullshit do we need before we shove the barrel of our Nintendo Wii in our mouth and blow our multiplayer fucking brains out?

The time worn rant from the older generation deriding youth with: “When I was a kid all we had was a rock and a stick to entertain us. And if you were poor, all you had was the rock, and you had to rent that from the rich kids,” is not all that misplaced in our iPodian times. Rock n' Stick. The Guitar Hero of it's day. When you show someone from 50 or 60 years ago any three of the things we jack-off our coleslaw brains to these days, they look at you like you're either crazy, or Keanu Reeves in some really shitty Sci-Fi movie.

I was raised in a house of books, (coincidentally, down the street from that old lady who lived in a shoe,) and still suffer from a severe reading addiction. (It's not uncommon to find me face down in a bowl of Cheerios with a bookmark hanging out of my arm.) Through my childhood years and the current reliving of those childhood years, books have been a way to satiate the hours of waiting between Batman and Lost In Space on TV. They played one of the biggest roles in giving me the knowledge I needed to function and adapt in almost any situation I found myself in.

Admittedly, it's not the virtual World of Warcraft where you pound your imaginary enemies to a puss filled glob. When I was a kid you had to settle for the real thing. Grab your Louisville Slugger, stalk down your nemesis and cave his greasy haired fucking head in, spreading his IQ deficient gray matter over his front lawn where his parents could find his lifeless, rat gnawed body when they came home from their group-think IBM jobs with a bucket of Kentucky Fried under one arm and a copy of 'How To Tell If Your Neighbor Is A Commie' under the other.

I had issues growing up. But I'm better now.

In the latest infomercial, not only will you love the hawker's nuts, but the Slap Chop will release you from the doldrums of your boring life for only $19.95. Well what the fuck did I just blow $5,000 on a Real Doll for? Fuck. Can I get my money back if I only came in her once?

The corporate pendulum has swung into compassion advertising overdrive. The subtle shift to tear jerking background music and the Allstate talking head telling us in an overly sympathetic voice we need to hunker down and remember what's really important, and get back to the simple things that make life good. Oh by the way. Take what little money you don't have after getting laid off and buy their insurance to protect your speed-texting family unit. My dingle dinghy is already in good hands buddy. If I'm gonna pay someone to hold it it's not going to be a large sweet talking black man in a suit. (Unless it's 50% off.)

It shouldn't take a world wide economic meltdown for you to find the family fun of covering the kids with peanut butter and making them run a gauntlet of the neighborhood dogs. I'd ask you what you'd do if all the junk you've filled your life with stopped working all of a sudden. But that question was answered back in 2007 with the discovery in the Silicone Vally Rainforest of an epidemic like strain of Blackberry addiction and it's subsequent withdrawals.

I can't write my usual novel length post tonight. I've got a migraine tearing my head off and I see whiskey and a large handful of prescription drugs in my near future. But I'll leave you with this. We're on hard times currently but that'll change in time, just like it always does.

Maybe if everyone had slowed down and paid a little more attention to what was actually happening around them, we wouldn't be listening to the job market's gas tank sucking air. But the fact that we've had enough recessions in this country to qualify for the bonus elimination round means we don't learn and we're just going to keep doing it.

It's like getting back to the simpler times of 5th grade. Take one and pass it on. Take one and pass it on.

Keep The Faith