Today in about an hour I will be heading down to the airport with my daughter to board a plane destined for New York, land of my birth. The last time I traveled I remember moving through the deathly slow security line with my family taking off nearly every piece of clothing before finally reaching the metal detectors. My little daughter had a Fisher-Price computer, a toy and the TSA lady snatched it off the conveyor belt and began inspecting it. The other agents then began whispering and carrying on. I'm standing in my skivvies asking her what the damn problem is with the toy. "This could be a bomb," she said. I was dumbfounded by this point. Other passengers were moving past us while another TSA agent came over and began inspecting it. "Keep the damn thing," I shouted. "I'll buy another one." The TSA agents then called over a manager to inspect it. I'm fuming, my wife is telling me to shut up, but by now it was a matter of principle that I continue the argument until I come out on top. It was a disaster. Finally they gave me back the computer and I grabbed it and gave it to my child and finally collected my clothing and redressed.
Not long after I found myself in another confrontation with the security personnel at the gate when I was not allowed to get on the plane because I had four bottles of half drank water. I need water I get dehydrated on the plane. They said I couldn't take it on board. I told them it was water and I needed it to stay hydrated when I fly. They then poured out all the contents of my suitcase and began rifling through it looking for "I have no idea what!" They wouldn't let me go and I finally had to drink all the contents of all four bottles and was so full I felt like I was going to puke and then I was the only person in the whole line dragged over to the full body x-ray machine and repeatedly violated by it. Then I had to strip and go through the metal detector and after having been brutalized and molested I finally made it onto the airplane. Hopefully today will be less agonizing. Stay tuned!
Simple Life
Friday, December 20, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
THE MISTRESS ENDEAVOR
Is there anything more ridiculous than someone who is married and finds that they need to have a mistress on the side? What's the point of being in a marriage if it isn't doing anything for you? Are you going to drink three fingers of Vodka if you don't like it, or eat octopus if it'll make you sick? So why would you stick around a marriage if it makes you want to run down to the local Yoga meeting and hand out your phone number? It is a part of the human condition that has always puzzled me and I had an early life lesson in such behavior when an uncle of mine found the neighbor girl to be more to his liking than my aunt. Then I witnessed a case where a friend's father was doing the dirty deed with a local married hussy who it turns out had been seeing each other for quite some time on the side. Is it convenient for people to remain in a boring, sexless marriage for financial reasons, to keep up societal images, or because they are so selfish that they couldn't give a damn about anyone else their behavior may be affecting? I think I would have made a great shrink and I probably should have gone on to study psychology which, as I have mentioned before, was my first major in college. If it wasn't for the fact that I had to memorize so many terms I would probably have tried to be a shrink along with writing. My books most likely would have turned out differently.
If I had to sit across from some weakling who couldn't decide over a spouse or mistress I would have to tell them to tread lightly or you may find glass in your spaghetti one night! Who am I kidding, nobody cooks anymore, everyone eats out 359 days of an accounting year. But more important than your libido is the fact that Mozart died at 1 am today, December 5 back in the year 1791. The greatest composer in history dead at the age of 35 because he worked himself to death. Day after day after day, from morning until night he created and after over 600 high quality compositions he fell ill with fever, swelled up like a balloon, puked his brains out for two weeks and perished.
I'm sure Mozart would have been an interesting person to have known, but at the same time you have to wonder if you would have gotten along with the greatest classical music genius of all-time. Maybe there would be something about him, a personality quirk that irritated you and maybe something about you that irritated him and then you both find that neither wants to be in the other's presence and then what? You hear his music on a T.V. commercial or during a concert and think to yourself, yes the music is quite brilliant but the guy was a schmuck! The same could be said about any historical figure really. Take Van Gogh for example; he painted beautiful works of art, wrote introspective and moving diary entries and was known to be quite friendly, but Jean Calmet the oldest recorded person to have ever lived 122 years old, lived in Arles France at the same time Van Gogh did, knew Van Gogh and said he was dirty and disagreeable. Then imagine you go back into time someday in the future and stumble upon one of history's monsters like Stalin or Hitler and without realizing who they are you find them to be pleasant and much to your liking, that is until they find something about you they don't like and have you whacked...But we look at the past and history and hold the "good people" in very high esteem due to what they created or did. Jesus of Nazareth preached to the world the benefits of being a good, decent person, but nobody really knows who he was as a person or what he thought about when he was no longer in front of an audience, lying on his bed of hay at 1 in the morning. Yes that borders on the level of blasphemy but it is a real and honest thought. All of these people throughout history were great at their individual endeavors, but nonetheless they were still people. But we need to believe in the talents of those in the past to keep the mundane world from burying us.
If I had to sit across from some weakling who couldn't decide over a spouse or mistress I would have to tell them to tread lightly or you may find glass in your spaghetti one night! Who am I kidding, nobody cooks anymore, everyone eats out 359 days of an accounting year. But more important than your libido is the fact that Mozart died at 1 am today, December 5 back in the year 1791. The greatest composer in history dead at the age of 35 because he worked himself to death. Day after day after day, from morning until night he created and after over 600 high quality compositions he fell ill with fever, swelled up like a balloon, puked his brains out for two weeks and perished.
I'm sure Mozart would have been an interesting person to have known, but at the same time you have to wonder if you would have gotten along with the greatest classical music genius of all-time. Maybe there would be something about him, a personality quirk that irritated you and maybe something about you that irritated him and then you both find that neither wants to be in the other's presence and then what? You hear his music on a T.V. commercial or during a concert and think to yourself, yes the music is quite brilliant but the guy was a schmuck! The same could be said about any historical figure really. Take Van Gogh for example; he painted beautiful works of art, wrote introspective and moving diary entries and was known to be quite friendly, but Jean Calmet the oldest recorded person to have ever lived 122 years old, lived in Arles France at the same time Van Gogh did, knew Van Gogh and said he was dirty and disagreeable. Then imagine you go back into time someday in the future and stumble upon one of history's monsters like Stalin or Hitler and without realizing who they are you find them to be pleasant and much to your liking, that is until they find something about you they don't like and have you whacked...But we look at the past and history and hold the "good people" in very high esteem due to what they created or did. Jesus of Nazareth preached to the world the benefits of being a good, decent person, but nobody really knows who he was as a person or what he thought about when he was no longer in front of an audience, lying on his bed of hay at 1 in the morning. Yes that borders on the level of blasphemy but it is a real and honest thought. All of these people throughout history were great at their individual endeavors, but nonetheless they were still people. But we need to believe in the talents of those in the past to keep the mundane world from burying us.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
REALITY BITES INTO THE TOFU GENERATION
I went onto ancestry.com and learned a great deal about my family heritage. It was quite fascinating. I learned that my great-grandmother came to the United States in 1902 from Norway on board the SS Majestic. The SS Majestic was built in Belfast Ireland in 1889 by the Harland and Wolff company. It was the same company that built the Titanic. The Majestic it turns out is a famous ship because the Titanic was built to replace the SS Majestic. The captain of the Majestic from 1895-1904 was Edward Smith, the captain who went down on the Titanic in 1912. My great-grandmother though wouldn't have known Edward Smith because she traveled steerage in third class. When she arrived in the United States she became a maid in the Bronx, NY and eventually took care of the elderly as a nurse so-to-speak. When she was 75-years old she was still working taking care of the elderly walking a mile to work everyday. When people asked her what she did she would respond, "I take care of an old woman." Being that she was 75 they would ask, "How old is she?"
My great-grandmother would respond, "68." She had a sense of humor. Today having a sense of humor would get you fined. People today in generation zero don't know what hard work is. My great-grandmother worked 52 weeks a year and then saved the money she earned instead of splurging it on ridiculous nightclubs and party drugs. Her husband, my great-grandfather worked as a building superintendent and in 1932 worked an average of 72 hours a week, 52 weeks a year for an annual wage of $1,500. These people worked hard. It doesn't seem like much but they didn't buy all the expensive toys that nobody needs and encourage our kids to shoot up schools. They were able to live comfortably and my grandmother was even able to travel back to Norway periodically. It is also a fact that cost of living back then was still more equal to what they were earning so they could have a life. Today with the "minimum wage," and the "labor unions," cost of living is through the roof and the average family needs to earn around $200,000 a year to keep from having to eat Thanksgiving in the local soup kitchen. Not only that people today want $200,000 given to them by the government because they don't know what putting in a full day's work is, and they think they are entitled to a high salary despite having no skills and then they want to watch T.V. all day. If they are at work they want their "breaks" and "long lunches" and "holidays off." These lazy bums today think that they should be able to retire at 39 and receive a six-figure pension. They don't know what it is like to wake up at 4:30 in the morning every day and then work until the sun goes down. Then after the kids are put to bed a couple more hours of work until you do it all over again. My great-grandparents are the kind of people who should be looked up too!
My great-grandmother would respond, "68." She had a sense of humor. Today having a sense of humor would get you fined. People today in generation zero don't know what hard work is. My great-grandmother worked 52 weeks a year and then saved the money she earned instead of splurging it on ridiculous nightclubs and party drugs. Her husband, my great-grandfather worked as a building superintendent and in 1932 worked an average of 72 hours a week, 52 weeks a year for an annual wage of $1,500. These people worked hard. It doesn't seem like much but they didn't buy all the expensive toys that nobody needs and encourage our kids to shoot up schools. They were able to live comfortably and my grandmother was even able to travel back to Norway periodically. It is also a fact that cost of living back then was still more equal to what they were earning so they could have a life. Today with the "minimum wage," and the "labor unions," cost of living is through the roof and the average family needs to earn around $200,000 a year to keep from having to eat Thanksgiving in the local soup kitchen. Not only that people today want $200,000 given to them by the government because they don't know what putting in a full day's work is, and they think they are entitled to a high salary despite having no skills and then they want to watch T.V. all day. If they are at work they want their "breaks" and "long lunches" and "holidays off." These lazy bums today think that they should be able to retire at 39 and receive a six-figure pension. They don't know what it is like to wake up at 4:30 in the morning every day and then work until the sun goes down. Then after the kids are put to bed a couple more hours of work until you do it all over again. My great-grandparents are the kind of people who should be looked up too!
Thursday, November 28, 2013
THE THANKSGIVING INCLINATION
It's Thanksgiving again. Today is my favorite holiday but once again it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving. I don't know what it is, maybe it is the fact that America doesn't feel like America anymore so I can no longer get into the happy-go-lucky mood I once did when I was six and my mother was slaving over the stove for three days. I remember the smells permeating through our house, the relatives showing up, everyone drinking and smoking at the kitchen table, eating ourselves into comatose. Then for the long weekend everyone slept anywhere they could find a soft place to lie down and we'd eat leftovers and tell stories and watch old great movies from the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Those days are long gone now and a lot of the people who used to participate in those wonderful days are either gone or we have moved on, relocated to strange parts of the country or other countries for that matter in search of your own utopia, but as the times have changed in society, so have the traditional holidays. Nobody stays in the same place anymore. I didn't, I traveled out on the open road to see what was out there. But there are times when I want to uproot and return to the place of my birth. But then if I do what if it isn't the way I remember? So you have to weigh the pros and cons of doing impulsive things like changing your entire life. I woke up as usual at 4:30 this morning, put on a pot of coffee and went downstairs to my computer and got to work. Every morning, week days, weekends, holidays, doesn't matter, every day is a work day. But that isn't the reason why Thanksgiving doesn't feel like Thanksgiving. The White House in the District of Columbia no longer carries and magic and tradition for me anymore and society in general doesn't remind me of the society of good hardworking people I knew as a child. It's a wrecked image. I wouldn't be surprised if Turkey is no longer going to be considered the Traditional dish for Thanksgiving and instead it will be Ugali in the new America.
Thanksgiving was supposed to be December 4 when the settlers arrived in 1619 and declared that day a day of Thanksgiving because they survived the wretched crossing of the ocean and landed in a freezing land with no food, so the locales decide to help them because they are nice and they provide them all kinds of great food. Well two years later they grow an abundance of food and hold another Thanksgiving day in 1621. Then in 1622 those same Indians that helped them survive in 1619 are butchered by the settlers. The continental congress declared December 18th a day of Thanksgiving in 1777 but there was probably a recession and people weren't interested in giving thanks for anything and still cursed the lefty King of England for trying to tax them like a mad community activist. Thanksgiving was pretty much forgotten until Abraham Lincoln declared November 26 a national holiday. People viewed Thanksgiving back then in terms of feeling truly grateful to God for being provided a means to survive. Today in America Thanksgiving is receiving government wicks to purchase marijuana and cheese doodles. If you want a feel good image of what Thanksgiving once was for us from the old world Google Home To Thanksgiving a lithograph published by Currier and Ives in the 19th century. Ah...the nostalgia.
But sure when the Turkey and the rest of the dishes are properly cooked, immediate family visiting, I can go back to those wonderful years, even if it is, say late July, it is the atmosphere that we remember most isn't it. For those preparing the food they are pulling their hair out, cursing under their breath, thinking to themselves, "This is the last darn year of this nonsense! Next year it is Shoney's!" But for the little ones and those visiting it is a wonderful celebration. It is a time when we can eat ourselves sick and not feel guilty about it. It is a time when we can look back on past times without feeling regretful, or sad. They are happy, fun times and for those who keep to the great traditions of our religious past and ignore the curse of today's "higher ups, community activists and feminists" who want nothing more than to eliminate all traditions so the people will be stripped of their cultures and identities. So in defiance I will begin in a matter of minutes a Turkey dinner with all the dressings for my little one so she will have those wonderful memories of the smells and the laughs and she will be able to tell her children someday when names are no longer printed on birth certificates and only numbers, of what the world was once like.
Maybe some of you cynics out there will say that you don't celebrate Thanksgiving anymore because you know how much butter and lard was smeared over the Turkey while it was cooking and then the rest of the dishes are more butter and lard than starch and you stand before the table and stare at the dishes steaming before you and you can already feel yourself getting fatter, your arteries becoming more and more clogged by thick sticky plaque and cholesterol. You stand there and have fleeting images of your headstone in the local cemetery with the inscription, One too many Thanksgivings! But if you are one of those who won't eat a great Thanksgiving meal because you are worried about your glutes and flappy underarms than you are the rotten stink bags that are helping to destroy all the wonderful traditions that we once had and the ones we were once allowed to celebrate in our schools growing up. Nowadays kids aren't allowed to celebrate anything except for Hitler's birthday. One part of the problem is that people throughout history had it tough. Forever people have had to work their fingers to the bone for anything that they wanted but nowadays with test tube grown everything, processed everything, government given everything nobody has to work hard anymore so they no longer appreciate anything because everything is so easy to get and it costs them nothing to get it. They sit there in front of their 77 inch flat screen T.V. with an HDVR watching Jerry Springer sucking own T.V. dinners purchased with food stamps delivered to their couch and they curse the holidays because their government aid isn't begin delivered on those days.
Happy Thanksgiving every one, go out and give your children something to remember, something positive and heartwarming. Teach them that the only way to have a truly great Thanksgiving is not to accept the government T.V. dinner and get out and work your rear end off to provide their family with their own Thanksgiving dinner. Then put in that time and prepare a wonderful meal with sweat, curses and frustration. And if the Turkey is as dry as a piece of Arizona flat rock at least you made the effort which is more than I can say about 88% of the population. In God we Trust and give thanks for our station in life and the hope that we can improve that station through patience and hard work and a strong faith.
Thanksgiving was supposed to be December 4 when the settlers arrived in 1619 and declared that day a day of Thanksgiving because they survived the wretched crossing of the ocean and landed in a freezing land with no food, so the locales decide to help them because they are nice and they provide them all kinds of great food. Well two years later they grow an abundance of food and hold another Thanksgiving day in 1621. Then in 1622 those same Indians that helped them survive in 1619 are butchered by the settlers. The continental congress declared December 18th a day of Thanksgiving in 1777 but there was probably a recession and people weren't interested in giving thanks for anything and still cursed the lefty King of England for trying to tax them like a mad community activist. Thanksgiving was pretty much forgotten until Abraham Lincoln declared November 26 a national holiday. People viewed Thanksgiving back then in terms of feeling truly grateful to God for being provided a means to survive. Today in America Thanksgiving is receiving government wicks to purchase marijuana and cheese doodles. If you want a feel good image of what Thanksgiving once was for us from the old world Google Home To Thanksgiving a lithograph published by Currier and Ives in the 19th century. Ah...the nostalgia.
But sure when the Turkey and the rest of the dishes are properly cooked, immediate family visiting, I can go back to those wonderful years, even if it is, say late July, it is the atmosphere that we remember most isn't it. For those preparing the food they are pulling their hair out, cursing under their breath, thinking to themselves, "This is the last darn year of this nonsense! Next year it is Shoney's!" But for the little ones and those visiting it is a wonderful celebration. It is a time when we can eat ourselves sick and not feel guilty about it. It is a time when we can look back on past times without feeling regretful, or sad. They are happy, fun times and for those who keep to the great traditions of our religious past and ignore the curse of today's "higher ups, community activists and feminists" who want nothing more than to eliminate all traditions so the people will be stripped of their cultures and identities. So in defiance I will begin in a matter of minutes a Turkey dinner with all the dressings for my little one so she will have those wonderful memories of the smells and the laughs and she will be able to tell her children someday when names are no longer printed on birth certificates and only numbers, of what the world was once like.
Maybe some of you cynics out there will say that you don't celebrate Thanksgiving anymore because you know how much butter and lard was smeared over the Turkey while it was cooking and then the rest of the dishes are more butter and lard than starch and you stand before the table and stare at the dishes steaming before you and you can already feel yourself getting fatter, your arteries becoming more and more clogged by thick sticky plaque and cholesterol. You stand there and have fleeting images of your headstone in the local cemetery with the inscription, One too many Thanksgivings! But if you are one of those who won't eat a great Thanksgiving meal because you are worried about your glutes and flappy underarms than you are the rotten stink bags that are helping to destroy all the wonderful traditions that we once had and the ones we were once allowed to celebrate in our schools growing up. Nowadays kids aren't allowed to celebrate anything except for Hitler's birthday. One part of the problem is that people throughout history had it tough. Forever people have had to work their fingers to the bone for anything that they wanted but nowadays with test tube grown everything, processed everything, government given everything nobody has to work hard anymore so they no longer appreciate anything because everything is so easy to get and it costs them nothing to get it. They sit there in front of their 77 inch flat screen T.V. with an HDVR watching Jerry Springer sucking own T.V. dinners purchased with food stamps delivered to their couch and they curse the holidays because their government aid isn't begin delivered on those days.
Happy Thanksgiving every one, go out and give your children something to remember, something positive and heartwarming. Teach them that the only way to have a truly great Thanksgiving is not to accept the government T.V. dinner and get out and work your rear end off to provide their family with their own Thanksgiving dinner. Then put in that time and prepare a wonderful meal with sweat, curses and frustration. And if the Turkey is as dry as a piece of Arizona flat rock at least you made the effort which is more than I can say about 88% of the population. In God we Trust and give thanks for our station in life and the hope that we can improve that station through patience and hard work and a strong faith.
Monday, November 25, 2013
SAND IN THE HOUR GLASS DELUSION
In a few weeks, if you look up into the big wide sky above, you may very well see moving at the pace of a drunk snail, a white fuzzy bright object in the sky. What that object is is a comet that astronomers claim has existed since the beginning of time. To many people out there it is just a stupid rock plummeting through space going nowhere important, much too fast but the reality of the situation is that it really drums home, at least for me, just how miniscule we are in proportion to the universe and how short a time each one of us is here and the human race for that matter. Everyone running around taking themselves so seriously and we've dealt with this topic before. People should take themselves seriously up to a point because if you don't, what does this world really mean. What is the point of getting up everyday and going off to that lousy job you hate and grinding away for 10 hours for peanuts. Its enough to drive anyone to drink. The expanse of time over the course of the existence of everything is far too grand a scale for the average mind to wrap its head around. That is why we have brainy physicists and astronomers, most of whom are drunks and sex maniacs, because only those types of people have the capacity to nit-pick through the gibberish and not go stone-cold crazy. What is the difference between the Vice President of a company, the rock star, to the cashier or the garbage collector in the small rural town? Is it work ethic, chance, luck, circumstance, vision, or is everything irrelevant and we are here for no purpose whatsoever? I like to believe we are here for the purpose of becoming the best possible person we can and learning to find some sort of enjoyment in this world even though most of us suffer from regular bouts of depression. I know I do but I also find enjoyment in my daughter and salvation in my work, my writing and painting. Creating things give this life meaning, at least it does to me. How often do you lay awake at night in the dark and ponder life and wonder what we are doing here? Probably very few of you. Most of you are too high on bath salts and the Chronic to think about anything let alone give a damn about anything. And if you aren't cooked on angel dust than you are running around knocking out the elderly and women and running home to play Grand Theft Auto and watch pornography. Another generation caught up in a delusion and those that lived in saner times stare at the hour glass and wonder when it will finally run out. Or has every time been insane for those who lived in them? There may have been more violent times in the past but today, now, takes the cake for weirdest. We, from the old world, sit in our recliners with our vodkas and stare out the window at the empty streets that were once filled with children playing We stare at the once safe streets plagued with violent youths beating people into bloody pulps with no consequences for their actions. Instead of people sitting around home cooked dinners they are gorging on chemically enhanced test tube grown fast food. And then you wake up and find yourself on the floor of the outhouse, still drunk off the roofie your local Congressman stuck in your drink before violating you in every horrible manner possible. Sleep on that one.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
WEAKLINGS IN SPANDEX CULTURE
It takes a gang of weaklings in spandex to sucker punch someone in the back of the head. It represents, in the tangible form, the low that this country has fallen to and every facet of a once flourishing and promising republic continues its rapid and fetid decline. Every day we hear about news incidents involving bands of black kids running around sucker punching people in the head trying to knock them out. What next, they start running around with machetes and hacking people to see if they bleed red like Rwanda all over again? And then the victims will be forced to pay their attackers punitive damage fees after sensitivity training and community service for provoking the uneducated, mannerless bands of vultures. Is that where this country is headed. Sure it is! It has happened in the past and now it is going to happen again, but this time it is not some news story in between commercials. It will be taking place in your own back yard and when that happens then the children will have to witness everything first hand. And by the time you find it too unsafe to even to go the corner market, you will find that the press is completely run by the government and any reporter that leaves the reservation is imprisoned. It will be illegal to own any firearm and anyone who disobeys will be promptly imprisoned. Speaking against the regime will be grounds for imprisonment or execution and suddenly it will seem like 1939 or Iran after Jimmy Carter had the Shah deposed where parents had to be careful what they talked about in the home because if the children spilled the beans at school that their parents were belittling the ruling elites, then it was a one-way ticket to the concentration or death camps or a lengthy sentence in one of the overcrowded prisons or a painful death by stoning right there on the spot.
What kind of society turns the other cheek when coteries of youth wander around punching people for the fun of it? What happened to holding down a job or participating in athletics or hitting the books to improve their lives? The rap music culture has infiltrated every aspect of these kids lives and they think it is some badge of honor to be a schmuck running around stoned, dressed like a retard, ganging up on people as if that makes them tough. A group of ten teenage girls could beat up an elderly man…What it is is that these kids don't have any identity. They come out of homes where they aren't encouraged to study and become better. They are taught to hate and take handouts and many grow up in single parent homes where financial struggle is a way of life and often there is drug or alcohol abuse, and anger builds up and it becomes the fault of white people or the fault of society and it is the fault of their parents and the culture they are being mislead by and to find happiness and satisfaction would only come through personal improvement in the creation of a positive environment. Good luck with that. The whole rap culture that infects the black youth of these times is like a plague looking to destroy not only that culture but any other one that has to come in contact with it on a regular basis. Where did this all start and who is to blame for it? I have a pretty good guess but we'll just leave it at that for now. And I don't buy or fall for the whole race card nonsense. Too many years have passed and the current rap culture has had many opportunities to turn their lives and neighborhoods around and they don't do it and then run around attacking people as if it is everyone else's fault. TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR STATION IN LIFE. IT IS YOUR FAULT! YOU, SCHMUCK! YOU ROTTEN STINKING BUM TOO LAZY TO STUDY, TOO LAZY TO WORK! I'm sick of this, sick of it all! As I often do I will receive the hate emails but rest assure, you as well as I know the truth and therefore they are empty emails filled with nothing but gibberish. Why can't we raise our children in a world like the 1950's or even the 1980's. Every T.V. channel filled with filth, every song on the radio singing about drugs, promiscuity, transsexuality and everything else dysfunctional. Like an overflowing septic tank this country has become. No healthcare, no jobs, gas prices threw the roof, food prices through the roof, dangerous streets, dangerous cities and suburbs, too dangerous to travel abroad, too much financial unpredictability to ever retire, too much of everything that is bad and now it seems we are in too deep to be able to do anything about it. Political pundits talk about how the communist left has finally dug themselves in so deep they won't be able to climb out and ruin the country any worse than they already have…sure hope so, because if it falls we as a republic, if not already, are doomed to hell in a hooker outfit.
What kind of society turns the other cheek when coteries of youth wander around punching people for the fun of it? What happened to holding down a job or participating in athletics or hitting the books to improve their lives? The rap music culture has infiltrated every aspect of these kids lives and they think it is some badge of honor to be a schmuck running around stoned, dressed like a retard, ganging up on people as if that makes them tough. A group of ten teenage girls could beat up an elderly man…What it is is that these kids don't have any identity. They come out of homes where they aren't encouraged to study and become better. They are taught to hate and take handouts and many grow up in single parent homes where financial struggle is a way of life and often there is drug or alcohol abuse, and anger builds up and it becomes the fault of white people or the fault of society and it is the fault of their parents and the culture they are being mislead by and to find happiness and satisfaction would only come through personal improvement in the creation of a positive environment. Good luck with that. The whole rap culture that infects the black youth of these times is like a plague looking to destroy not only that culture but any other one that has to come in contact with it on a regular basis. Where did this all start and who is to blame for it? I have a pretty good guess but we'll just leave it at that for now. And I don't buy or fall for the whole race card nonsense. Too many years have passed and the current rap culture has had many opportunities to turn their lives and neighborhoods around and they don't do it and then run around attacking people as if it is everyone else's fault. TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR STATION IN LIFE. IT IS YOUR FAULT! YOU, SCHMUCK! YOU ROTTEN STINKING BUM TOO LAZY TO STUDY, TOO LAZY TO WORK! I'm sick of this, sick of it all! As I often do I will receive the hate emails but rest assure, you as well as I know the truth and therefore they are empty emails filled with nothing but gibberish. Why can't we raise our children in a world like the 1950's or even the 1980's. Every T.V. channel filled with filth, every song on the radio singing about drugs, promiscuity, transsexuality and everything else dysfunctional. Like an overflowing septic tank this country has become. No healthcare, no jobs, gas prices threw the roof, food prices through the roof, dangerous streets, dangerous cities and suburbs, too dangerous to travel abroad, too much financial unpredictability to ever retire, too much of everything that is bad and now it seems we are in too deep to be able to do anything about it. Political pundits talk about how the communist left has finally dug themselves in so deep they won't be able to climb out and ruin the country any worse than they already have…sure hope so, because if it falls we as a republic, if not already, are doomed to hell in a hooker outfit.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
THE "I AM TOO GOOD FOR THIS JOB" COMPLEX
At the age of thirty-three Mark Twain defined his life as "a foolish life made up of apprenticeships." In a day and age like today where nobody holds a job for longer than a few years, is that something that defines the era of 2000 - 2013? And before "Little Sam" was born, his father, John Clemens, spent the majority of his life searching for steady good paying work. He moved from place to place, working as a shop keeper, a lawyer, land owner, slave owner, handyman, judge, and other occupations that offered the possibility of earning a living a gentleman would be proud of but his lack of business skills and lack of charisma in his wake a list of failures. Can you relate? Are you one of those people who just keeps bouncing from job to job to job to job and you always view the position you currently hold just a job but nothing you will stay in long term because you are better than that. You are too good to be a cashier or a barista or a street sweeper or a fry cook. It is just TEMPORARY so therefore it isn't a career. You don't want to work until you move up to the next position and gradually work your way up through the levels of the company into management because you don't like that industry. Other industries are more appealing and you are too smart for your present industry and job. You are only living in the future because that is where the BMW or the Mercedes Benz and the Palm Tree Vacations are and currently you can barely scrape by on Thai Pad noodles or fish sticks from a bag after your awful shift as a cashier getting cursed out by some overweight schmuck with a mole. You went to college and this is the crap your stuck doing? All that money, all that time and this is where you are? This isn't the way life was supposed to turn out, you were supposed to be one of the lucky ones who landed the killer job or had the sweet family connection. But for the majority of you out there that is not the way it really is, THIS, here and now is the way it really is and you better get with the program before life passes you by. Things aren't going to magically happen and one day you will wake up lying on a bed of goose feathers with some half naked 21-year old with flowing blond hair feeding you grapes and roasted pheasant with plum sauce. If you are going to make anything of yourself you are going to have to dig it out of the rock hard ground with bloody fingertips and all the while you will have rotten scum bags standing around poking you and throwing pebbles and insults at you, all the while trying to steal every little bit that you work so hard to get. That is the reality for most of us out there. There is no pretty golden brick road leading us to some rose colored Oz. Find something that you think is half way interesting, get a low-level position because that is all you are worth at that point, get over yourself, not to mention it is the only position that will be offered to you and work your little bum off like a starving farmer. Make daily goals with the sole purpose of moving up within that company. Learn everything about the business you are presently working in regardless of how novice you may think it is, but rest assure it is important to someone. It must be important because the CEO is rolling in the bill folds because of the shit work and lousy hours you are suffering through. The wretched people you have to put up with on a daily basis, threatening you, complaining, arguing, cursing you and telling you you aren't even qualified to clean chamber pots let alone do the crap work you are doing. But many of those CEOs were once like you, scraping out a living by the skin of their teeth, wondering what tomorrow was going to bring. But the difference between them and you is that they had a vision, determination, and guts and they stuck with it, moved up the ladder knowing it was going to take 20-25 years and landed on the top. That can be you too if you can get off your illusion and dive into the frizzle.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
THE SUN THAT DECIDED NOT TO RISE
In Barrow Alaska the sun has set for the last time until January 22, 2014. Nearly two months of darkness for those people and you don't hear anyone up there complaining. They just do what they have to do, raising kids, shoveling snow, cooking up breakfast and going to work all in pitch darkness. Could I do it, even for just one year? Probably not. I would probably be found curled up in the living room with three inch fingernails, completely naked with milk jars filled with urine lining the walls. How do those people do it? If I had to guess I with a whole lot of good whiskey or maybe some vodka brought over the Bering Sea by dog sled. By January 21 I would be absolutely terrified that the sun would for some reason forget to rise on the 22nd. I imagine it takes a certain kind of person to be able to keep their heads. A similar kind of tedium one would have to face when, for example, trying to sign up for basic healthcare...
How many of you out there are sensitive to the weather and allow it to determine your mood either in the morning or throughout the day. I must admit that I am very much one of those people who simply can't ignore the weather no matter how hard I try, no matter how many curtains I draw, or how loud I turn up Jimmy Buffett on a chilly rainy day, I simply cannot seem to find myself under a shining, yellow, jelly, blob sun the size of Jupiter. If the weather is cold and rainy and damp and lousy I have to battle with myself not to feel just as lousy. Because I am this way is why I can relate to the people living in Barrow. But can I really relate to them, living in -40 degree weather, snow 10 months a year and no sun for nearly two months. Who am I kidding? I wouldn't survive six months up there.
How many of you out there are sensitive to the weather and allow it to determine your mood either in the morning or throughout the day. I must admit that I am very much one of those people who simply can't ignore the weather no matter how hard I try, no matter how many curtains I draw, or how loud I turn up Jimmy Buffett on a chilly rainy day, I simply cannot seem to find myself under a shining, yellow, jelly, blob sun the size of Jupiter. If the weather is cold and rainy and damp and lousy I have to battle with myself not to feel just as lousy. Because I am this way is why I can relate to the people living in Barrow. But can I really relate to them, living in -40 degree weather, snow 10 months a year and no sun for nearly two months. Who am I kidding? I wouldn't survive six months up there.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
ENTREVISTA A DOÑA HERMINIA, DE LA NORIA
http://www.youtube.com/v/F-nwRyw597U?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=ZbZ4nkNYIxFnFF7TNagFOw&feature=share&autoplay=1&autohide=1&showinfo=1
This youtube video is an interview given by the Museum of La Noria in Sinaloa Mexico to a woman named Marisol Lizarraga who was familiar with the story of Roberto Conde. Roberto Conde is my great-great-grandfather and once ran a successful mescal/pulque/tequila business on the grounds of Hacienda Las Moras which is now a beautiful luxury hotel located at the base of Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains about 40 miles northeast of Mazatlan. Anyone who is familiar with Roberto Conde's story feel free to email me (Greg) at thegedaily@gmail.com. The story is located in the archives belong under OFF THE BEATEN PATH.
This youtube video is an interview given by the Museum of La Noria in Sinaloa Mexico to a woman named Marisol Lizarraga who was familiar with the story of Roberto Conde. Roberto Conde is my great-great-grandfather and once ran a successful mescal/pulque/tequila business on the grounds of Hacienda Las Moras which is now a beautiful luxury hotel located at the base of Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains about 40 miles northeast of Mazatlan. Anyone who is familiar with Roberto Conde's story feel free to email me (Greg) at thegedaily@gmail.com. The story is located in the archives belong under OFF THE BEATEN PATH.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
THE BIG FAT ORNERY BULLY
The puzzling issue we have been hearing lately ad nauesa is the new bullying corollary. The abominate misfit Type A personality getting in the face of Type B, C, or D and calling them names or slugging them or singling them out and pegging them with peanuts or spit balls and what was once settled in the hallway, parking lot or ball field with a quick jab to the cheek or knee to the gut ends up on the nightly news and people are taking their own lives or quitting jobs because they feel hurt? What the hell is going on? I am repulsed by the idea of bullying and the people who think they are somehow so tough and perfect they can go around putting other people down or hurting their feelings. Back in the good old days they wouldn't have lasted a week before some skinny little glasses wearing schmendreck clocks them right in the nose a couple of times and puts them down on their ass. That was the way it used to be but now the idea of standing up for yourself in school, work or on the ball field is so frowned upon that kids are taught to "ignore" it and turn the other shoulder. These kids are terrified of being beaten up or being embarrassed and are going through a difficult period of adolescence and they should understand that it is OK to stand up for yourself. They should be allowed to defend their honor and self worth and if it comes down to a school yard drumming of some oversized pecker than so be it. You can bet the bully wouldn't be picking on them any longer after that and if they think they are smart and start at it again give them another drumming. The problem is that kids today have no discipline and have no sense of respect. What happened to kids getting a good hard old fashioned paddling in the principles office or even better, by the teacher in the front of the classroom in front of all the other students. Enough is enough! It is time to get off this new world of tolerance and weakness and sensitivity. Everyone is sick of it, especially me, dammit! If I was twelve again and some oaf came along and tried to give me a wedgy you can bet he would be eating some teeth and I'd probably be handcuffed and led off to the local jail for a week and then sent to Arizona to some barbaric reform school to be molested by creepy guards in the middle of the desert. I'm not trying to come off as some big tough guy, I'm far from it, but I came up in a time when you had to stand up for yourself and we were encouraged never to back down from bullies. Not like kids today and look at what is happening: Rampant suicide, school shootings, group assaults, rampant drug abuse, and everything else that goes along with mislead youth in a society that has been turned upside down. There is no longer religion, no longer holidays, no longer individual cultures, no longer anything that has any meaning. Half the country doesn't work, half the country aren't citizens, half the country is on drugs and it is all considered acceptable by the freak establishment.
So the challenge is put to all of you out there who still care and who want to go back to the way it once was before. There was once a world we held in high esteem and for the youth, at least, there was the illusion of something worth living for and striving to become the best and finding that which they are great at and having a fulfilling life. It can still exist despite the societal pollution suffocating us. Why can't kids go to school to learn and move forward. That is what it is about, that is what life is about. To use your God given gifts to enrich the world around you and if there is a bully getting in the way put the bully on his ass and move on past him or her. The bullying involves girls as well and in my opinion girls can be even more brutal to each other than guys. And if all this internet nonsense doesn't stop then take the teenagers laptop and throw it out the window and get in their face and tell them to shape up. SHAPE UP! Get your shit together and stop acting like a whiny, promiscuous, pot head and start building up those around you instead of tearing them down. Start giving back to society instead of adding to the decay of this miserable landfill it is becoming. I'm just plain sick of it and I know millions out there are also. Now I'm worked up.
So the challenge is put to all of you out there who still care and who want to go back to the way it once was before. There was once a world we held in high esteem and for the youth, at least, there was the illusion of something worth living for and striving to become the best and finding that which they are great at and having a fulfilling life. It can still exist despite the societal pollution suffocating us. Why can't kids go to school to learn and move forward. That is what it is about, that is what life is about. To use your God given gifts to enrich the world around you and if there is a bully getting in the way put the bully on his ass and move on past him or her. The bullying involves girls as well and in my opinion girls can be even more brutal to each other than guys. And if all this internet nonsense doesn't stop then take the teenagers laptop and throw it out the window and get in their face and tell them to shape up. SHAPE UP! Get your shit together and stop acting like a whiny, promiscuous, pot head and start building up those around you instead of tearing them down. Start giving back to society instead of adding to the decay of this miserable landfill it is becoming. I'm just plain sick of it and I know millions out there are also. Now I'm worked up.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
THE BATHROOM ETIQUETTE REFERENDUM
How many of you have been in a public bathroom, at work, at the gym, at the coffee shop, at the ball game, at school and noticed somebody using the toilet or urinal and completing their business and then zipping or pulling up and heading out without washing fitfully their hands? It is something that I have seen happening more and more these days and I am the type to notice such indescretions because when it comes to hygiene I am fanatical and I expect others to be so as well. Our culture involves disgusting practices for example, "the handshake," which in my opinion is one of the most wretched things I have to participate in to be accepted in this society. I am repulsed by having to shake hands with the fetid public.
Not long ago I was in a bathroom using the urinal, relieving myself of around two pots of coffee when I heard a guy using the stall letting it all go. By the tremendous passage of gas I assumed he was doing the #2. He had already been in the stall by the time I entered the bathroom and was finishing up as I was heading to the sink to ferociously wash my hands. This character finished his the #2 used only about one or two slices of toilet paper, flushed, exited the stall and exited the bathroom without washing his hands. I still feel nauseous thinking about it and you should also because maybe you were one of the people whose hand he shook at some point afterward on that day. How many hands do you shake in a week and how many of those people religiously wash their hands after using the bathroom? From my observations I can tell you that more people than you wish to believe do not practice sufficient hygiene.
It seems to me that the poor hygiene goes hand in hand with the rapid decline of society that we are all witnessing on a regular basis. The video game culture, over eating to the point of obesity, the high crime (as a child we used to leave our doors unlocked and go into the market leaving the keys in the car. Can't do that anymore), over use of medication, rapidly growing government, over regulation, you name it, everything has changed from thirty to fifty years ago and it's changed for the worse and that includes people refusing to maintain proper bathroom hygiene and therefore etiquette. It is all correlated and along with this decline it has become a habit of those responsible for this decline to never take account for their actions. There was a time when people admitted their wrongs and took responsibility but not any more.
And do you realize that many of these people have significant others at home. Do their spouses know that they conduct themselves like slovens? Of course they know! They are as beastly and disgusting as their counterparts and their kids then think it is OK to be a non-hand washing wiper and you have feces stains on door handles, chair arms, table surfaces, computer keyboards, the coffee pot handle, pens and rulers, books and files. Everything you touch during the day has at some point been touched by someone else. Now that you are thinking in the right direction maybe the next time you are in the bathroom, if you are one of those whom I speak of, you will think twice before leaving the bathroom without a proper foaming and rinsing.
There is a pizza place where one of the employees was one day making the pizzas that were ordered, including those called in over the phone, and he wore rubber gloves to keep his hands off the pizza. Very professional. He then rang up customers still wearing the rubber gloves and went back to making pizzas. Then at some point he went into the bathroom, took a substantial amount of time so you can imagine what he was doing, exited the bathroom wearing the rubber gloves and returned to the kitchen area and continued making pizzas, still wearing the same rubber gloves. This I'm afraid is a true story, and if you think something similar hasn't happened to you, you are as naive as I was until I worked in a food establishment in college and witnessed an employee spitting into a cup of someones cafe late and then covering the spit with foam. This was done because the customer had complained about something or other, I don't remember. I rambled on a bit and got off the subject but the point is that something has to be done about the pandemic of poor bathroom etiquette.
Not long ago I was in a bathroom using the urinal, relieving myself of around two pots of coffee when I heard a guy using the stall letting it all go. By the tremendous passage of gas I assumed he was doing the #2. He had already been in the stall by the time I entered the bathroom and was finishing up as I was heading to the sink to ferociously wash my hands. This character finished his the #2 used only about one or two slices of toilet paper, flushed, exited the stall and exited the bathroom without washing his hands. I still feel nauseous thinking about it and you should also because maybe you were one of the people whose hand he shook at some point afterward on that day. How many hands do you shake in a week and how many of those people religiously wash their hands after using the bathroom? From my observations I can tell you that more people than you wish to believe do not practice sufficient hygiene.
It seems to me that the poor hygiene goes hand in hand with the rapid decline of society that we are all witnessing on a regular basis. The video game culture, over eating to the point of obesity, the high crime (as a child we used to leave our doors unlocked and go into the market leaving the keys in the car. Can't do that anymore), over use of medication, rapidly growing government, over regulation, you name it, everything has changed from thirty to fifty years ago and it's changed for the worse and that includes people refusing to maintain proper bathroom hygiene and therefore etiquette. It is all correlated and along with this decline it has become a habit of those responsible for this decline to never take account for their actions. There was a time when people admitted their wrongs and took responsibility but not any more.
And do you realize that many of these people have significant others at home. Do their spouses know that they conduct themselves like slovens? Of course they know! They are as beastly and disgusting as their counterparts and their kids then think it is OK to be a non-hand washing wiper and you have feces stains on door handles, chair arms, table surfaces, computer keyboards, the coffee pot handle, pens and rulers, books and files. Everything you touch during the day has at some point been touched by someone else. Now that you are thinking in the right direction maybe the next time you are in the bathroom, if you are one of those whom I speak of, you will think twice before leaving the bathroom without a proper foaming and rinsing.
There is a pizza place where one of the employees was one day making the pizzas that were ordered, including those called in over the phone, and he wore rubber gloves to keep his hands off the pizza. Very professional. He then rang up customers still wearing the rubber gloves and went back to making pizzas. Then at some point he went into the bathroom, took a substantial amount of time so you can imagine what he was doing, exited the bathroom wearing the rubber gloves and returned to the kitchen area and continued making pizzas, still wearing the same rubber gloves. This I'm afraid is a true story, and if you think something similar hasn't happened to you, you are as naive as I was until I worked in a food establishment in college and witnessed an employee spitting into a cup of someones cafe late and then covering the spit with foam. This was done because the customer had complained about something or other, I don't remember. I rambled on a bit and got off the subject but the point is that something has to be done about the pandemic of poor bathroom etiquette.
Monday, November 4, 2013
DEPRAVED AND DESPONDENT IN THE WORK FORCE
Where do the weekends go? Those two days where you can pretend that the world doesn't exist and you can barricade yourself into your compound with only a television, your guns, your kid, some toys and plenty of Mexican takeout to last until Monday morning. What happened to a society that works solely for the weekend. Monday morning you walk into the office, the construction site, the courtroom, arena, wherever it is you earn your living and ask your fellow co-workers, "How was your weekend?" The most common response will be, "Too damn short!" Or you may ask, "How are you?" And you will get, "I was great until I had to come back to this place." And many of you are just like Grumpy Bob, miserable and moaning about the crappy job where you'd rather stick your finger in the nearest socket than have to put in another year of underpaid hell. How do we as hard working people across the globe find that which we love to do? How many out there truly do work that they actually love to do, when they are alone in their homes or apartments, away from the eyes of co-workers, friends and bosses who are always judging, what do they really think?
I know how people really are, they are three shades of crazy and two minutes from walking down to the nearest rooftop nightclub and doing a belly flop onto Park Avenue South. The drugs and promiscuous sex with everyone they meet is no longer making the nut. That vigor and mystery and feel good all the time has grown boring and despair and loneliness has replaced it. Every day they trudge into work and listen to some parrot boss with a stiff neck and pot full of piss tell them they are worthless schmucks who should go find work as a Barista or street sweeper. A fry cook at McDonalds for $6.25 an hour is too honorable. These people who show up at the bar on Friday night dressed to the nines, laughing at all the right punch lines and sipping the neon blue drink with the strobe light ice cubes, trying to hide the cut marks on their arms after laying on the bed crying in their tiny little Hoboken apartment because their life sucks but they want you to think they are killing it out there in the game of life. The game of life where 1 and 99,000,000 make it worth a fleeting glance and the rest get slaughtered right there in the street. I've seen a thousand fall and a thousand get reamed big time and become so vulnerable and flaky that some loaf is critical of their socks and they crumble. The depraved and despondent in the work force are sitting behind nearly every cubicle ready to rip off the tie, out of the blue, leap over the cubicle wall and make a full on sprint out of the office. If you are one of those people who are standing on the ledge of life, peering off into the abyss you call your future and wonder where in the hell you went wrong and everyone else did it right, you have to realize that most people are actually like you. Most people have something eating away at them but they are too scared or embarrassed or proud to put it out there. You have to find that magic that is inside of you and break out of the mold that everyone seems to fall into. A soul that gives up lofty dreams for modest pursuits enters into the masses.
I know how people really are, they are three shades of crazy and two minutes from walking down to the nearest rooftop nightclub and doing a belly flop onto Park Avenue South. The drugs and promiscuous sex with everyone they meet is no longer making the nut. That vigor and mystery and feel good all the time has grown boring and despair and loneliness has replaced it. Every day they trudge into work and listen to some parrot boss with a stiff neck and pot full of piss tell them they are worthless schmucks who should go find work as a Barista or street sweeper. A fry cook at McDonalds for $6.25 an hour is too honorable. These people who show up at the bar on Friday night dressed to the nines, laughing at all the right punch lines and sipping the neon blue drink with the strobe light ice cubes, trying to hide the cut marks on their arms after laying on the bed crying in their tiny little Hoboken apartment because their life sucks but they want you to think they are killing it out there in the game of life. The game of life where 1 and 99,000,000 make it worth a fleeting glance and the rest get slaughtered right there in the street. I've seen a thousand fall and a thousand get reamed big time and become so vulnerable and flaky that some loaf is critical of their socks and they crumble. The depraved and despondent in the work force are sitting behind nearly every cubicle ready to rip off the tie, out of the blue, leap over the cubicle wall and make a full on sprint out of the office. If you are one of those people who are standing on the ledge of life, peering off into the abyss you call your future and wonder where in the hell you went wrong and everyone else did it right, you have to realize that most people are actually like you. Most people have something eating away at them but they are too scared or embarrassed or proud to put it out there. You have to find that magic that is inside of you and break out of the mold that everyone seems to fall into. A soul that gives up lofty dreams for modest pursuits enters into the masses.
WHERE THE EAGLES FLY - A submarine crew is ambushed off the coast of Norway.
A submarine crew is ambushed off the coast of Norway. The second in command is killed and the captain survives while the fate of the remainder of the crew is unknown. He goes into hiding under an assumed name but after a few years his past seemingly catches up to him. Now he is in a race against the clock to figure out who is after him and why they want him dead. It is a fast-paced, jaw-clenching page turner that takes the reader across multiple countries, twists and turns in this pulse-pounding thriller.
WHERE THE EAGLES FLY (Sample Chapter)
This novel is available for Kindle on Amazon.com for the affordable price of $2.99. It's a great buy for any lover of high octane, suspense thrillers.
By Greg Evans
amazon.com/author/gevans
gregevansauthor (twitter name)
CHAPTER 1
3 Years Earlier
Compressed air began flowing from the air flasks into the
main ballast tanks and the seawater was forced out as the submarine’s overall
density became lower than the volume of the surrounding ocean, the hydroplanes
angled up at fifteen degrees allowing the giant teardrop hull shaped mechanical
beast to come to the surface at positive buoyancy. A careful search for nearby
aircraft that may identify the vessel’s thermal scar by FLIR technology came up
negative. Captain Will Craig, as he always did, would exit the vessel for a
smoke and a breath of fresh air while awaiting the tugs to guide them into
dock. The ballistic missile submarine, a SSBN/SSGN was in the U.S. Navy’s Ohio
Fleet at 170 meters long with a beam of 13 meters, able to hold a crew of 155,
(140 enlisted and 15 officers). Its maximum speed reached 20+ knots and had a
water displacement of 18,450 long tons submerged. It was the perfect vessel for
transporting the world’s two most deadly bombs.
One mile off
the Finnmark coastline of Sørøya, Norway at approximately 70, 35’N; 22, 44’E,
the sub was a terrific sight. Captain Will Craig turned the wheel unlocking the
2nd hatch and waited as the automated mechanism clicked and clanked
releasing the bolt on the first hatch. Will pulled the latch and released the
door pushing it out. The thirty-six degree salty air rushed in and Will
breathed in deep. At 42, standing at 6’1”, lean with close-cropped brown hair,
dark brown eyes, a relatively large nose and round head, Will commanded
attention. Stepping out from the sail onto the hull, the cool, yellow arctic
sun illuminated his face and his eyes momentarily needed to adjust to the
brightness. He removed a cigar from his shirt pocket along with a butane
wind-proof lighter and lit the Havana he been looking forward to enjoying once
outside the claustrophobic confines of the vessel. Executive Officer Mark Jones
exited through the sail next lighting one of his repugnant smelling Gauloises
cigarettes he had shipped to him by the carton from Greece every couple of
weeks back in the states. Mark had sandy yellow hair, also close-cropped, and a
strange a tightness of skin as if it was stretched over his elongated skull
though had difficulty properly fitting. His peculiar looks attributed to the
exotic appearance which the women found rather alluring.
“This is
paradise!” Will said, “Cold, forsaken, lonely, a place where nature is still
pure and feral.”
“I’m partial to deserts myself,” Mark
said which was paradoxical considering, at 42, he had spent half his life darting underneath the oceans in some of the world’s
most spectacular submarines. Will only grunted; he hated deserts, too dry, too
brown.
THIS NOVEL IS AVAILABLE FOR KINDLE ON AMAZON for $2.99
Treachery, murder, mystery and page turning excitement to get you through that long plane or train ride, or a treat for which to hunker down in a hammock on a white sandy beach at the ends of the universe and lose yourself for a while. A masterly novel of suspense and intrigue for any lover of fiction.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
INTO THE KITCHEN - BLUE COLLAR SPAGHETTI SAUCE
By Greg Evans
What happens when you are simply too exhausted from working that 40 hour week, taking care of the kids, mowing, vacuuming, fixing dressers and closet doors, this and that and every other aspect of life that is expected of your energy and time and your feet are killing you and yet, you are in the mood for spaghetti but don't feel like properly preparing a sauce from scratch. More than not these days I see people, even families with children not putting forth the effort to prepare a home cooked meal and instead going out to a restaurant or calling in a take out order, or purchasing processed foods from the grocery store like frozen pizzas, TV dinners, etc. Now that is all good and well three or four times a month but to do it three or four times a week is: 1) Eating dishes high in salt, saturated fats and sugar which eventually will cause you health problems and 2) It is teaching the kids poor eating habits so they grow up to be fat and on pills like you. We have talked before at length about the decline of society in the fact that mediocrity is not only accepted but expected, divorce rates through the roof, the party lifestyle being embraced by young adults who should be raising families, giving out degrees to anyone with a pulse wrecking the job prospects for people with truly great work ethics. It goes on and on and the poor eating habits of people ties into the whole degeneration of a planet.
Tonight I want to talk about a great way to improve a sauce for spaghetti that is easy enough to prepare, doesn't take too long and once it is ready the kids will devour it. First you purchase a jar of Classico Tomato and Basil sauce (because it is the only sauce on the shelf that doesn't have added sugar). What is it with everyone adding sugar to the sauce. Forget the acidity nonsense, it never hurt anyone in Italy for 500 years and now suddenly it bothers everyone. Purchase a bag of fresh carrots, celery, onions, then some fresh garlic, peppercorns, fresh basil, thyme and oregano (though dried is fine also). I already assume everyone has olive oil to sauté the garlic and onion because in this day and age nobody uses butter or crisco fat anymore.
Intro:
Get a large pot of water on the stove with the burner on high.
Part I: (While bringing the water to a boil)
Mince two carrot sticks
Chop half a large white onion
Crush and mince five garlic cloves
Chop celery
Chop herbs
Part II: (Add spaghetti to boiling water and make sure to cook aldente. Soft spaghetti like they serve in restaurants is not spaghetti!)
Saute ingredients listed above in a skillet with olive oil until onions are translucent. Be careful not to burn the garlic! Pour in the jar of Classico sauce and then add about a half a cup to a cup of cold water or chicken broth and if you have it, add a 1/4 cup of red wine. Also add a few peppercorns. Now you turn the burner on low and let simmer for 30-45 minutes stirring often and adding water or broth to keep from getting too thick.
One day I will write down my grandmother's home made spaghetti sauce from scratch and once you have that no jar spaghetti sauce will ever make the nut. The taste buds will be spoiled. And if you can help it, avoid using any butter, sugar or salt in the preparation of this dish because it will ruin it. This dish doesn't need the additives. The flavors blend together perfectly and once you pour the sauce over the noodles add parmesan cheese on top, fresh if you can get a hold of it. Outstanding. You'll never eat anything better in a restaurant anywhere. At least I haven't. Even my home cooked salmon dish is better than anything I have ever had in a restaurant and I don't use any salt, sugar or butter. Get off your lazy behinds and get into the kitchen and start working ingredients together. You might impress yourself. And at least your arteries will be thanking you profusely after all those years of abuse and neglect.
What happens when you are simply too exhausted from working that 40 hour week, taking care of the kids, mowing, vacuuming, fixing dressers and closet doors, this and that and every other aspect of life that is expected of your energy and time and your feet are killing you and yet, you are in the mood for spaghetti but don't feel like properly preparing a sauce from scratch. More than not these days I see people, even families with children not putting forth the effort to prepare a home cooked meal and instead going out to a restaurant or calling in a take out order, or purchasing processed foods from the grocery store like frozen pizzas, TV dinners, etc. Now that is all good and well three or four times a month but to do it three or four times a week is: 1) Eating dishes high in salt, saturated fats and sugar which eventually will cause you health problems and 2) It is teaching the kids poor eating habits so they grow up to be fat and on pills like you. We have talked before at length about the decline of society in the fact that mediocrity is not only accepted but expected, divorce rates through the roof, the party lifestyle being embraced by young adults who should be raising families, giving out degrees to anyone with a pulse wrecking the job prospects for people with truly great work ethics. It goes on and on and the poor eating habits of people ties into the whole degeneration of a planet.
Tonight I want to talk about a great way to improve a sauce for spaghetti that is easy enough to prepare, doesn't take too long and once it is ready the kids will devour it. First you purchase a jar of Classico Tomato and Basil sauce (because it is the only sauce on the shelf that doesn't have added sugar). What is it with everyone adding sugar to the sauce. Forget the acidity nonsense, it never hurt anyone in Italy for 500 years and now suddenly it bothers everyone. Purchase a bag of fresh carrots, celery, onions, then some fresh garlic, peppercorns, fresh basil, thyme and oregano (though dried is fine also). I already assume everyone has olive oil to sauté the garlic and onion because in this day and age nobody uses butter or crisco fat anymore.
Intro:
Get a large pot of water on the stove with the burner on high.
Part I: (While bringing the water to a boil)
Mince two carrot sticks
Chop half a large white onion
Crush and mince five garlic cloves
Chop celery
Chop herbs
Part II: (Add spaghetti to boiling water and make sure to cook aldente. Soft spaghetti like they serve in restaurants is not spaghetti!)
Saute ingredients listed above in a skillet with olive oil until onions are translucent. Be careful not to burn the garlic! Pour in the jar of Classico sauce and then add about a half a cup to a cup of cold water or chicken broth and if you have it, add a 1/4 cup of red wine. Also add a few peppercorns. Now you turn the burner on low and let simmer for 30-45 minutes stirring often and adding water or broth to keep from getting too thick.
One day I will write down my grandmother's home made spaghetti sauce from scratch and once you have that no jar spaghetti sauce will ever make the nut. The taste buds will be spoiled. And if you can help it, avoid using any butter, sugar or salt in the preparation of this dish because it will ruin it. This dish doesn't need the additives. The flavors blend together perfectly and once you pour the sauce over the noodles add parmesan cheese on top, fresh if you can get a hold of it. Outstanding. You'll never eat anything better in a restaurant anywhere. At least I haven't. Even my home cooked salmon dish is better than anything I have ever had in a restaurant and I don't use any salt, sugar or butter. Get off your lazy behinds and get into the kitchen and start working ingredients together. You might impress yourself. And at least your arteries will be thanking you profusely after all those years of abuse and neglect.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
THE INDIGESTION REPOSITORY
By Greg Evans
I was planning on writing a political rant but I can't figure out what to write anymore that is more bizarre then the political upheavals strangling governments around the globe today. It has become like a fungus farm. The whole world is on the verge of implosion and all people can think about is what kind of fried chicken they are going to wait in ungodly long lines to purchase. Traffic and food lines are the norm and anyone with any shred of nostalgia remembers a time before all of this. Before the global warming and the bans on super size sodas and extra salted french fries on top of banana splits. Before Greece became a state of hippies and occupiers instead of lucrative wineries and olive orchards. Everything is moving backwards and it is reverberating across the farthest reaches of the most endless oceans. Every country except for maybe Iceland and Andorra are having some form of political turmoil whether it be violent protests, financial market crashes, communistic ideologies, internet porn issues, foreign born people being put into highest office of a nation and then shredding it to pieces, civil war, diversity problems, amnesty issues and heaven only knows what else.
It has become a sodomites paradise and anyone charged with a crime only has to plead dumb and on food stamps and are granted an acquittal. Once a world of fascinating cultures and great food, interesting music, vibrant clothing and colorful languages has turned into the sludge underneath the outhouse, the septic fluids stinking up the neighborhood and all anyone can do is wrap a cloth over their nose and pray that taxes aren't jacked up another 30%. Why should the able bodied poor have to work when they can collect $33,000 a year for sitting on their sofas and eating fritos. These rotten drunks with their unwashed mane and overgrown lawns have become the new Jones's. Forget working like a dog for a living and trying to raise a wholesome family. It's all about getting an easy lay, buying cigarettes and 40 ounce malt liquors with your government debit card and sitting out in the yard on a pissed drenched couch taking in Riki Lake and the House wives of New Jersey. I read about those two bums about to face the music for a possible 30 year jail sentence. I'd give them the noose. Everything is turned upside down and I have a small inkling of who to blame. It has been a cumulative effect and somehow, due to the fact that the average person is a good-for-nothing itch, the rest of society has to make up for their degeneration. I've had it with everything. I know you tuned in tonight to read something uplifting or humorous but I'm simply not in the mood.
It has become a sodomites paradise and anyone charged with a crime only has to plead dumb and on food stamps and are granted an acquittal. Once a world of fascinating cultures and great food, interesting music, vibrant clothing and colorful languages has turned into the sludge underneath the outhouse, the septic fluids stinking up the neighborhood and all anyone can do is wrap a cloth over their nose and pray that taxes aren't jacked up another 30%. Why should the able bodied poor have to work when they can collect $33,000 a year for sitting on their sofas and eating fritos. These rotten drunks with their unwashed mane and overgrown lawns have become the new Jones's. Forget working like a dog for a living and trying to raise a wholesome family. It's all about getting an easy lay, buying cigarettes and 40 ounce malt liquors with your government debit card and sitting out in the yard on a pissed drenched couch taking in Riki Lake and the House wives of New Jersey. I read about those two bums about to face the music for a possible 30 year jail sentence. I'd give them the noose. Everything is turned upside down and I have a small inkling of who to blame. It has been a cumulative effect and somehow, due to the fact that the average person is a good-for-nothing itch, the rest of society has to make up for their degeneration. I've had it with everything. I know you tuned in tonight to read something uplifting or humorous but I'm simply not in the mood.
Monday, July 29, 2013
THE SALT JUNKIE CULTURE
By Greg Evans
There is no easier and more inerrant measure for determining the constitution of a person then by observing them at the dinner table.
I was sitting in a pizza place the other day waiting for my large cheese pizza to be served to the table which I eat every Friday night because Friday is pizza night. Occasionally I will have it on a Wednesday or Sunday but it doesn't taste the same as it does on Friday. I was sitting there observing the people around me eating their meals and certain practices struck me as not only disturbing but wholly manic behavior that made me feel unusually uncomfortable. With each order that arrived at a table the first thing the person did, before even trying their dish was reach for the salt shaker and start covering their food with the small white hypertension crystals. One seemingly normal person after the other in robotic fashion would pick up the salt shaker and begin shaking it wildly, contorting their faces and disjointing their wrists for the perfect shake and the sound, the chica, chica, chica, chica, chica, chica, was beginning to drive me mad. I ordered three Guinnesses from the waitress who suspiciously asked me for my ID and said I can't order beer for people who aren't here yet. "They are all for me dammit!" I howled and whipped out my taser with the full intention of zapping the liberal cow but she shrieked and scurried off to the kitchen. I was sure my time at the restaurant was now on borrowed time and I wouldn't have lost it if it wasn't for the hideous salt craze sweeping through the mountains like a reemergence of the crack epidemic of the 80's. Along with the excessive and unnecessary use of the sodium was the unmistakable and bi-polar affliction with the constant checking of the cell phone. Every three minutes these neurotics staring wildly at their cell phones. It was none of my business but I simply couldn't ignore the deviants. It was a miserable distraction. How can one expect to go out and have a nice dinner in a pizzeria or any restaurant for that matter anymore with everyone checking their damn cell phones throughout the entire meal . If I am at dinner with some schmuck who can't keep the damn phone in their pocket it will take a $400 trip out the window into the parking lot.
How far life has progressed with all the stupid cell phones and salt shakers turning us into schizophrenics. Not to mention the fact that the pizza is excessively salty and people wonder why they can't sleep at night and turn to sleeping pills and wonder why they end up on a dirty mattress in some flophouse in Queens ravaged by scabies. I don't trust people who cover their food in salt before trying it first. Most likely they are promiscuous sexual perverts with no convictions on anything but grotty photos uploaded to pin-interest and Facebook stalking. Salt used to have the value of gold, but now is worth about the value of the liberal vote. I probably lost about 600 readers with that line. The road ways and highways are peppered with salt junkies, haphazardly driving with a volcano taco in one hand and a salt shaker in the other. I heard a rumor not long ago that Prius was planning on building their cars with salt dispensers right there beneath the steering wheel. It's marketing genius in my opinion.
For whatever reason the snotty little waitress didn't squeal to management about my antics and instead brought me my beer. I chugged the first two in record time as a family of four scowled at me from the adjacent table. In what seemed like an eternity my pizza finally arrived and I wondered if each member of the staff took turns hacking spit bombs over the entire thing, but I figured I caused enough trouble in the place to send it back. Doing that in this day and age is a recipe for contracting Tuberculosis or Swine Flu. In my younger years working in the food industry if the food we served was poor or took too long and the customer was unhappy then we took it upon ourselves to produce for them a new higher quality dish. We took pride in our work back then and only one time did I ever encounter a dirty fellow who would spit on somebody's food if they had a complaint. He didn't last long and one day was dragged out into the alley by the security brutes and never seen again.
It doesn't matter what kind of eatery you go to, a fancy restaurant or a fast food chain you will be surrounded by the salt junkie culture and they are a ferocious. During one of my stints of low-level employment some years ago I remember how sought after a commodity the salt was and no matter how often it was refilled, it just as quickly depleted and people would be scurrying around the room, pulling out items from the cabinets in a furious rage, flipping over tables looking for any loose granules of salt that may have fallen off somebodies double cheeseburger. Even back then I remember contemplating opening up a salt stand right there in the break room and charging $25 an ounce for the white gold. The health habits of the majority of people you pass by on the street are absolutely horrible. People love to talk about their fad diets and their elimination of starches like potatoes and spaghetti, no bread and no corn, while shoveling a bunless triple cheeseburger with extra salt and a 54 ounce coca cola down their throats. The sugar phenomena is another story that will have to be covered on another day. The one sure thing about human beings is that they have always been the same and they will be the same until the world ends in the year 3797. Archeologists who have studied the ancient Egyptians found that many of them were suffering from excessive plaque build up in their bodies from eating "garbage", fatty foods probably laden with sodium. They were no different then Joe the Plummer gorging on a plate a french fried potatoes. Who are you kidding? I wouldn't ban salt. Even if I was the Mayor of New York City I wouldn't ban salt just because I disagree with the overuse of the substance it is the choice of the fat population to do as they wish. If people are offended by the usage of the term "fat" then by God stop eating McDonalds and start eating Quinoa. It's not rocket science but everyone is so darn sensitive. I don't make fun of fat people to their faces because I am a courteous person and I am not out to hurt people's feelings but I in my head I am dissecting the human race. Who doesn't do that? Everyone is judging each other from the wreckage of their outfits worn that day to the stupid hair do to the new gait to the ridiculous boyfriend or girlfriend. I know people judge me, they do it all the time. They send me crazy emails about how wrong I am about everything and how stupid my views are and how I should find the nearest bridge and take a plunge but the fact of the matter is that I couldn't give two hoots about any judgements of me. The wonderful thing about being an imperfect cynic is that nothing anyone says is any surprise!
So where does that leave us now? Maybe this will give you something to think about tonight while you lay in bed suffering from insomnia trying to subtly flip on the dirty showtime late night movies hoping that your spouse doesn't wake up and catch you. Or maybe you are a loser and your spouse packed up and ran off with your brother and you are alone with an empty bottle of wine staring up at the ceiling dreading having to go into the office in the mourning to listen to the boss complain about what a schmuck you are. But life doesn't have to get you down. The trick is to face it with a little sense of humor and the realization that that terrible day you are having is going to end and who knows, maybe the next day some Victoria's Secret model or a J-Crew model will sit next to you at Balthazar's for breakfast and beg you for a date. Talk about optimism. Maybe if you used 1/1,000 the amount of salt your used to, you might become as cynical and optimistic as me. The first major I ever considered during my freshman year at Manhattan College in the Bronx, NY was psychology. I have always been fascinated by people, human nature, human sexuality, human diets, human everything and I imagine you can tell this is the case from my rantings. We are not strangers in this world, we are individuals, granted some downright lunatics, but still individual souls and each one with a story to tell. But if you keep ingesting the records amounts of sodium you won't be around long enough to tell your own story. Einstein once said, "I'm not sure if I'm the one that's crazy, or if everyone else is!" You won't find that kind of wisdom in the salt shaker.
There is no easier and more inerrant measure for determining the constitution of a person then by observing them at the dinner table.
I was sitting in a pizza place the other day waiting for my large cheese pizza to be served to the table which I eat every Friday night because Friday is pizza night. Occasionally I will have it on a Wednesday or Sunday but it doesn't taste the same as it does on Friday. I was sitting there observing the people around me eating their meals and certain practices struck me as not only disturbing but wholly manic behavior that made me feel unusually uncomfortable. With each order that arrived at a table the first thing the person did, before even trying their dish was reach for the salt shaker and start covering their food with the small white hypertension crystals. One seemingly normal person after the other in robotic fashion would pick up the salt shaker and begin shaking it wildly, contorting their faces and disjointing their wrists for the perfect shake and the sound, the chica, chica, chica, chica, chica, chica, was beginning to drive me mad. I ordered three Guinnesses from the waitress who suspiciously asked me for my ID and said I can't order beer for people who aren't here yet. "They are all for me dammit!" I howled and whipped out my taser with the full intention of zapping the liberal cow but she shrieked and scurried off to the kitchen. I was sure my time at the restaurant was now on borrowed time and I wouldn't have lost it if it wasn't for the hideous salt craze sweeping through the mountains like a reemergence of the crack epidemic of the 80's. Along with the excessive and unnecessary use of the sodium was the unmistakable and bi-polar affliction with the constant checking of the cell phone. Every three minutes these neurotics staring wildly at their cell phones. It was none of my business but I simply couldn't ignore the deviants. It was a miserable distraction. How can one expect to go out and have a nice dinner in a pizzeria or any restaurant for that matter anymore with everyone checking their damn cell phones throughout the entire meal . If I am at dinner with some schmuck who can't keep the damn phone in their pocket it will take a $400 trip out the window into the parking lot.
How far life has progressed with all the stupid cell phones and salt shakers turning us into schizophrenics. Not to mention the fact that the pizza is excessively salty and people wonder why they can't sleep at night and turn to sleeping pills and wonder why they end up on a dirty mattress in some flophouse in Queens ravaged by scabies. I don't trust people who cover their food in salt before trying it first. Most likely they are promiscuous sexual perverts with no convictions on anything but grotty photos uploaded to pin-interest and Facebook stalking. Salt used to have the value of gold, but now is worth about the value of the liberal vote. I probably lost about 600 readers with that line. The road ways and highways are peppered with salt junkies, haphazardly driving with a volcano taco in one hand and a salt shaker in the other. I heard a rumor not long ago that Prius was planning on building their cars with salt dispensers right there beneath the steering wheel. It's marketing genius in my opinion.
For whatever reason the snotty little waitress didn't squeal to management about my antics and instead brought me my beer. I chugged the first two in record time as a family of four scowled at me from the adjacent table. In what seemed like an eternity my pizza finally arrived and I wondered if each member of the staff took turns hacking spit bombs over the entire thing, but I figured I caused enough trouble in the place to send it back. Doing that in this day and age is a recipe for contracting Tuberculosis or Swine Flu. In my younger years working in the food industry if the food we served was poor or took too long and the customer was unhappy then we took it upon ourselves to produce for them a new higher quality dish. We took pride in our work back then and only one time did I ever encounter a dirty fellow who would spit on somebody's food if they had a complaint. He didn't last long and one day was dragged out into the alley by the security brutes and never seen again.
It doesn't matter what kind of eatery you go to, a fancy restaurant or a fast food chain you will be surrounded by the salt junkie culture and they are a ferocious. During one of my stints of low-level employment some years ago I remember how sought after a commodity the salt was and no matter how often it was refilled, it just as quickly depleted and people would be scurrying around the room, pulling out items from the cabinets in a furious rage, flipping over tables looking for any loose granules of salt that may have fallen off somebodies double cheeseburger. Even back then I remember contemplating opening up a salt stand right there in the break room and charging $25 an ounce for the white gold. The health habits of the majority of people you pass by on the street are absolutely horrible. People love to talk about their fad diets and their elimination of starches like potatoes and spaghetti, no bread and no corn, while shoveling a bunless triple cheeseburger with extra salt and a 54 ounce coca cola down their throats. The sugar phenomena is another story that will have to be covered on another day. The one sure thing about human beings is that they have always been the same and they will be the same until the world ends in the year 3797. Archeologists who have studied the ancient Egyptians found that many of them were suffering from excessive plaque build up in their bodies from eating "garbage", fatty foods probably laden with sodium. They were no different then Joe the Plummer gorging on a plate a french fried potatoes. Who are you kidding? I wouldn't ban salt. Even if I was the Mayor of New York City I wouldn't ban salt just because I disagree with the overuse of the substance it is the choice of the fat population to do as they wish. If people are offended by the usage of the term "fat" then by God stop eating McDonalds and start eating Quinoa. It's not rocket science but everyone is so darn sensitive. I don't make fun of fat people to their faces because I am a courteous person and I am not out to hurt people's feelings but I in my head I am dissecting the human race. Who doesn't do that? Everyone is judging each other from the wreckage of their outfits worn that day to the stupid hair do to the new gait to the ridiculous boyfriend or girlfriend. I know people judge me, they do it all the time. They send me crazy emails about how wrong I am about everything and how stupid my views are and how I should find the nearest bridge and take a plunge but the fact of the matter is that I couldn't give two hoots about any judgements of me. The wonderful thing about being an imperfect cynic is that nothing anyone says is any surprise!
So where does that leave us now? Maybe this will give you something to think about tonight while you lay in bed suffering from insomnia trying to subtly flip on the dirty showtime late night movies hoping that your spouse doesn't wake up and catch you. Or maybe you are a loser and your spouse packed up and ran off with your brother and you are alone with an empty bottle of wine staring up at the ceiling dreading having to go into the office in the mourning to listen to the boss complain about what a schmuck you are. But life doesn't have to get you down. The trick is to face it with a little sense of humor and the realization that that terrible day you are having is going to end and who knows, maybe the next day some Victoria's Secret model or a J-Crew model will sit next to you at Balthazar's for breakfast and beg you for a date. Talk about optimism. Maybe if you used 1/1,000 the amount of salt your used to, you might become as cynical and optimistic as me. The first major I ever considered during my freshman year at Manhattan College in the Bronx, NY was psychology. I have always been fascinated by people, human nature, human sexuality, human diets, human everything and I imagine you can tell this is the case from my rantings. We are not strangers in this world, we are individuals, granted some downright lunatics, but still individual souls and each one with a story to tell. But if you keep ingesting the records amounts of sodium you won't be around long enough to tell your own story. Einstein once said, "I'm not sure if I'm the one that's crazy, or if everyone else is!" You won't find that kind of wisdom in the salt shaker.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
A GENERATION OF TWEEDS
By Greg Evans
The first time I learned we were in trouble as a people, was when I was judged on the merit of the education for which I long ago forgot.
I am sick and tired of elitism and the beast it stands for, like the throbbing itch of a fat mosquito bite under the thigh and every time you put original strength Benadryl itch stopping cream on it to sooth the agony the shorts wipe it away before it has a chance to work. At every turn, in every facet of life it seems I have come in contact with the toffee-nosed personality that makes me want to reach for the hard object for which to bludgeon the louse. Early on in my post collegiate years of struggling in the throngs of minimum wage misery in a coffee shop with a fixed customer friendly smile and quivering eyes, I would regularly receive customers in my mid-town manhattan location who acted as if they just got out of the premier of the latest Hollywood blockbuster film. Dressed to the nines with the sunglasses on even though it was getting dark out, ten pounds of makeup on both the guys and girls, reeking of cologne and perfume they would put on their elitist attitude as if the world owed them recognition without having to earn it. They were stars in their own heads, walking around as if everyone in the place was staring at them, wondering which celebrity they were when they were nothing but two-bit schmucks probably living in some studio flat in Astoria. Everyday after their job in some deadbeat salon or street marketing $9.00/hr job they'd get all dolled up and head into the glitz of Manhattan and wait to be discovered. It was a sad show and we all could see right through the act.'
Then you have to deal with the human resource associates who take themselves ultra serious, getting off on the rejection of candidates who could run circles around them in the real world. The GPA phenomena of the 21st century is the pit in the owl's stomach. The facade that some people out there are somehow exclusive because they were able to memorize more journal entries than another person and therefore are the only ones worthy of the hallowed halls of Ernst & Young or Deloitte. It is a manic practice that has left many companies having to deal with lazy halfwits with the work ethic of a clam and regular instances of fraud and scandalous behavior because they cared solely about the GPA and didn't bother to check up on the person's actual working habits and behaviors. Is it any wonder the world is run by B and C students. Do you think I just made that up, then you are sorely mistaken. The way the world works people, is that A students teach the B student who work for the C students. That is an actual quote by I believe a psychologist from somewhere in the past. The problems we have today in the world stem from the fact that too much weight is given to academics and not enough weight is judged on who the person actually is. In the late 1960's PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York City realized that the ivy league students were performing as well as they had hoped. They were regularly disappointed by the ivy leaguers and the upper 5% of the class who they were hiring. In an experiment they began hiring non-ivy league students who were average students and they were amazed to learn that they did the better work, stayed with the company and worked their way up and were more productive. The other A students and Ivy league kids had poor work habits and elitist attitudes and didn't feel like some of the work assigned to them was worthy of their high-level degree. That my friends is not fiction but cold hard facts. Whether or not PwC still follows that practice I don't know, but for a while it worked and while it did there is no record of unethical behavior going on. Arthur Andersen, known to hire only the top of the class from the top schools ran into terrible ethical problems primarily, I believe, out of the Atlanta office and that company was forced to close its doors after the Enron scandal. Though you may accuse me of speaking shallowly toward academia don't forget that I have two degrees from great institutions one ranked in the top five in the world and I work 40 hours a week with a great company, but it is the principle that bothers me and I think it is wrecking the country which each year these unfaithful practices continue. The whole thing in my opinion stems from laziness in the corporate structure and an elitist aura that needs to be eliminated from society because it has no place. I have used the accounting field to talk about because I spoke recently to a friend who traveled up to Chicago in the hopes of landing an accounting job with a CPA firm. He holds a bachlor's degree with a 3.9 GPA and a Master's in Accounting with a 3.4 GPA. During the interview he was asked, "of course" what his graduate school GPA was and he said 3.4. The hiring manager said, "Sorry we only hire candidates with 3.5 or higher." And there my fellow cynics you have the answer to much of the problems with contemporary America and the reasons why the future of corporate America is doomed. They didn't care about his past work ethic and the fact that he went through school while raising two children while his wife was working. That hiring manager should be taken to a local park and put into stocks for 8 hours. It all has become a butchering like I've never seen before. Chicago needs George S. Patton to whip it into shape. Had Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton, two notoriously poor academic students ever applied to entry-level accounting work at that sham of a CPA firm they too would have been rejected. The list of great minds who had fretted and fought their way to the top of their fields despite waves of mediocrity desperatly trying to stymie their production and progress throughout the entire journey. It is an inevitability that anyone must face when recognizing that for which they are intensely passionate and working toward a career in that endeavor.
The answer to the problem is to stay focused and disciplined and never, never give in to the hacks and deny the world the gifts you have to offer. It is documented by one of his ex-wives that Ernest Hemingway, early on in his desire to become an established novelist used to sit before his typewriter sobbing with a stack of rejection letters in his lap wondering if he was ever going to make it as a writer. The hacks just didn't think he was good enough and today his work is Canonized. The mediocre minds, the elitists will never stop attempting to belittle the great minds. It is a peculiar conundrum. Walt Disney was told once by an editor of a newspaper where he worked that he was "not creative enough to ever make it in the newspaper industry." Want more...? I can go all night.
The first time I learned we were in trouble as a people, was when I was judged on the merit of the education for which I long ago forgot.
I am sick and tired of elitism and the beast it stands for, like the throbbing itch of a fat mosquito bite under the thigh and every time you put original strength Benadryl itch stopping cream on it to sooth the agony the shorts wipe it away before it has a chance to work. At every turn, in every facet of life it seems I have come in contact with the toffee-nosed personality that makes me want to reach for the hard object for which to bludgeon the louse. Early on in my post collegiate years of struggling in the throngs of minimum wage misery in a coffee shop with a fixed customer friendly smile and quivering eyes, I would regularly receive customers in my mid-town manhattan location who acted as if they just got out of the premier of the latest Hollywood blockbuster film. Dressed to the nines with the sunglasses on even though it was getting dark out, ten pounds of makeup on both the guys and girls, reeking of cologne and perfume they would put on their elitist attitude as if the world owed them recognition without having to earn it. They were stars in their own heads, walking around as if everyone in the place was staring at them, wondering which celebrity they were when they were nothing but two-bit schmucks probably living in some studio flat in Astoria. Everyday after their job in some deadbeat salon or street marketing $9.00/hr job they'd get all dolled up and head into the glitz of Manhattan and wait to be discovered. It was a sad show and we all could see right through the act.'
Then you have to deal with the human resource associates who take themselves ultra serious, getting off on the rejection of candidates who could run circles around them in the real world. The GPA phenomena of the 21st century is the pit in the owl's stomach. The facade that some people out there are somehow exclusive because they were able to memorize more journal entries than another person and therefore are the only ones worthy of the hallowed halls of Ernst & Young or Deloitte. It is a manic practice that has left many companies having to deal with lazy halfwits with the work ethic of a clam and regular instances of fraud and scandalous behavior because they cared solely about the GPA and didn't bother to check up on the person's actual working habits and behaviors. Is it any wonder the world is run by B and C students. Do you think I just made that up, then you are sorely mistaken. The way the world works people, is that A students teach the B student who work for the C students. That is an actual quote by I believe a psychologist from somewhere in the past. The problems we have today in the world stem from the fact that too much weight is given to academics and not enough weight is judged on who the person actually is. In the late 1960's PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York City realized that the ivy league students were performing as well as they had hoped. They were regularly disappointed by the ivy leaguers and the upper 5% of the class who they were hiring. In an experiment they began hiring non-ivy league students who were average students and they were amazed to learn that they did the better work, stayed with the company and worked their way up and were more productive. The other A students and Ivy league kids had poor work habits and elitist attitudes and didn't feel like some of the work assigned to them was worthy of their high-level degree. That my friends is not fiction but cold hard facts. Whether or not PwC still follows that practice I don't know, but for a while it worked and while it did there is no record of unethical behavior going on. Arthur Andersen, known to hire only the top of the class from the top schools ran into terrible ethical problems primarily, I believe, out of the Atlanta office and that company was forced to close its doors after the Enron scandal. Though you may accuse me of speaking shallowly toward academia don't forget that I have two degrees from great institutions one ranked in the top five in the world and I work 40 hours a week with a great company, but it is the principle that bothers me and I think it is wrecking the country which each year these unfaithful practices continue. The whole thing in my opinion stems from laziness in the corporate structure and an elitist aura that needs to be eliminated from society because it has no place. I have used the accounting field to talk about because I spoke recently to a friend who traveled up to Chicago in the hopes of landing an accounting job with a CPA firm. He holds a bachlor's degree with a 3.9 GPA and a Master's in Accounting with a 3.4 GPA. During the interview he was asked, "of course" what his graduate school GPA was and he said 3.4. The hiring manager said, "Sorry we only hire candidates with 3.5 or higher." And there my fellow cynics you have the answer to much of the problems with contemporary America and the reasons why the future of corporate America is doomed. They didn't care about his past work ethic and the fact that he went through school while raising two children while his wife was working. That hiring manager should be taken to a local park and put into stocks for 8 hours. It all has become a butchering like I've never seen before. Chicago needs George S. Patton to whip it into shape. Had Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton, two notoriously poor academic students ever applied to entry-level accounting work at that sham of a CPA firm they too would have been rejected. The list of great minds who had fretted and fought their way to the top of their fields despite waves of mediocrity desperatly trying to stymie their production and progress throughout the entire journey. It is an inevitability that anyone must face when recognizing that for which they are intensely passionate and working toward a career in that endeavor.
The answer to the problem is to stay focused and disciplined and never, never give in to the hacks and deny the world the gifts you have to offer. It is documented by one of his ex-wives that Ernest Hemingway, early on in his desire to become an established novelist used to sit before his typewriter sobbing with a stack of rejection letters in his lap wondering if he was ever going to make it as a writer. The hacks just didn't think he was good enough and today his work is Canonized. The mediocre minds, the elitists will never stop attempting to belittle the great minds. It is a peculiar conundrum. Walt Disney was told once by an editor of a newspaper where he worked that he was "not creative enough to ever make it in the newspaper industry." Want more...? I can go all night.
Friday, July 26, 2013
THE NINE-TO-FIVER SYNDROME
By Greg Evans
That boring, restrained life you left behind for the few seconds when your heart is pounding in your ears and the wind is blowing your cheeks into malleable claymation, eyes squinted and rectum puckered you dive head on into the most pure moment you have ever experienced since the moment you were born and as fast as you reached that euphoric utopia, you are thrust back in to the reality of your life.
The practice of overeating, overspending, poor theater etiquette, living without a sense of humor, throwing tomatoes at the neighborhood children, internet chatrooms, and driving ten miles over the speed limit as if your going through a sexless mid-life crisis boils down to only a few things. The most likely crack in your armor is that you aren't getting laid nearly enough or maybe you hate your job, hate your wife, your kids hate you and you'd rather be in Sarasota, Florida instead of Grundy, but that's life. You get what you put into it as far as I'm concerned and the luck factor. Well some are and some simply ain't. As you well know driving ten miles over the speed limit faster, you really aren't going to get where you are going that much sooner Johnson. You only raise the likely hood of wrapping yourself around a telephone pole, running over an innocent child on a bicycle, flattening some poor animal's brains out and there is a good chance that you are either talking or texting while driving only increasing the risk factor. Now texting and driving is a whole new can of worms that we will delve into one day and I am filled with opinions and solutions to derail the teeny-bop fad. And then the speeders will drive behind me in the slow lane and tail gate me while steering with their thighs and staring into the palm of their hands typing a thousand letters a second. It's asinine. There should be a device put into the car that won't allow the car to move until the phone is plugged to it whereby rendering the phone useless until the car is again turned off. And that is not a violation of privacy by any stretch of the imagination. Instead it is ensuring thousands of people the right to breath because those who would have been struck down by the careless would be able to live. But in our society that would be too costly and an inconvenience for the schmucks screaming about their rights to drive with a cell phone in their possession. The governments of the states would rather spend the money on Jacuzzi meetings in Vegas casino resorts or on 50" flat screen televisions for the penitentiaries so the poor downtrodden convicts can watch their reality TV. Another day I will get into all my peeves regarding all the damn convicts and criminals out there. Be glad I'm not President because that problem would be solved.
If I was a cop I'd give out an estimated 500 speeding tickets a day! I wouldn't feel bad for all you lead-footed ninnies. Did you ever stop to think that maybe those speed limits on the roads were derived from some complex algorithm that took into account the weather conditions of the area, the curvature of the road, the slope etc. No of course not, you figured it was the last traffic cop who wrote you that $150 ticket with a smile who came up with the speed limits so to hell with them! Petal to the medal. Now don't misinterpret me when I talk about cracking down on speed limit regulation. I am actually opposed to many, many, many regulations that this country and numerous other countries around the world unnecessarily impose upon the people for example, gun restrictions. I don't believe in gun laws, just like I don't believe in minimum wage outside the market value and I don't believe in welfare, and numerous other things. We need to be a society that is able to live and function based on common sense and understanding the common courtesies. You may say to yourself that that is preposterous and that no society can function without heavy regulation and police presence. That is not true. I know well of at least two societies that have very little regulation, almost zero crime, high employment and almost no visible police presence. I am not going to share those places with anybody because I don't want it to get out there that they exist and then the idiots who wrecked this society to go there and ruin those.
Did you know that the fastest speeding ticket ever given out was in 2000 in Texas for going 242 mph in a 75 mph zone. In Finland the fine amount is correlated to your income. There are multiple instances of six figure fines. Chew on that for a while. We'd all like to think we have the tar to take that adrenaline rush to the limit, and 242 mph hour can surly get you there for that split second where you are face-to-face with your soul and however you want to look at it, I imagine you do some serious self-reflecting in such a moment. That boring, restrained life you left behind for the few seconds when your heart is pounding in your ears and the wind is blowing your cheeks into malleable claymation, eyes squinted and rectum puckered you dive head on into the most pure moment you have ever experienced since the moment you were born and as fast as you reached that euphoric utopia you are thrust back in to the reality of your life. And then you are desperate to return to that feeling, that place and you try the affair because it seems exciting but it really is nothing more than more baggage and an annoying set of personality quirks so you become buddy, buddy with a new brand of hootch which is great for the first week but then you find yourself regularly tired and impatient, prone to common colds and a cramping stomach. The movies you used to watch and interject yourself into in your head pretending that you were some kind of hero become stagnant and hard to get through. Sleep becomes a challenge, getting through work focused without messing up and getting chewed out by the boss is like trying to swim across the Atlantic. Nothing makes any sense anymore and what's worse, the whole world is going through some bizarre economic woe that the cost of living is through the roof so all the money you want to put aside for retirement which looks to be around age 92, is now non-existent and all you have to look forward to is pizza and porn on Friday night. Yippy. Do you know people like that? The kind you reason will end up in their office one morning armed to the teeth on an empty stomach battling an everclear hangover? You better believe they are out there and you may be one of them. That is why you want to stay on everyone's good side because you never know who is suffering from the Nine-to-five syndrome. There comes a time when it is time to pull it together and start figuring things out. What people fail to understand is that everyone has a talent, an ability to reach into themselves and fine tune some energy that is waiting to be set free. Most people either don't want to make the effort because it will take nearly everything out of you to get to that point where you are self-sufficient and able enough for others to believe in you, but it is there, it is alive in all of us only a few ever find it.
The more hectic it may seem to be becoming, the more progress you are making. The more people tell you that you are worthless, the more ground you are covering. The more hacks out there who tell you your query isn't for them, or the HR rep you says your GPA isn't good enough, or the coach says your too frail and short, or the girl says your not fun enough is all the more reason to get up earlier, work harder, run the gauntlet, take that risk and fail. Fail a thousand times to all the bobbling, laughing heads. Claw your way out of the slums, out of the trailer parks, out the mundane suburbs of expectation, out of the wood and mortar cabins and give the world something worth a damn. It doesn't matter where you came from, what you've gone through but what matters is what are made of and where you end up. Some don't even make it until after they are dead and gone but dammit they made it in the end. But understand the world needs the nine-to-fivers and there are many out there who are great at it and move up the ladder and find success and that should be paradise for them. And along the way they too will face the brutes and trolls of the the working world looking to denigrate anyone with promise, it is just the way of the world.
The real world is a cut throat land of scorn and ridicule, gritty knife fights produce winners and winners are promoted and then have to face off against the next batch of stinkers looking to bring them down but they find it within themselves to persevere through the storms and regular assaults on their work ethics and character. They aren't about just going into work, doing what has to be done and then going home. They are constantly learning as much as they can and moving forward. They aren't just sitting in the studio painting the same old paintings but they are experimenting and creating new mind blowing original works. They aren't just building the same old log cabins, but new glass homes with rivers running through them. Find inspiration in those that have forged a path through the mediocrity because they too faced off against the mediocre who are a ruthless bunch of vultures looking to feast on the weak. And the weak never make it. They cower and meekly give in to the brutal assaults that confront them daily. Embrace the competition, the struggle, the suffering, the early mornings and late nights. Find something and go at it as if the world is going to come to an end the following day. Get home at night so exhausted you can barely keep your head up and keep working until you fall asleep at your desk, easel, tool bench, or whatever pursuit you embrace. God gave us this life to make something of it, not just to live within it.
And above all, whether or not you are affluent or making a measly $10.00 an hour, you have to learn to save your money because the golden years are golden only for those you foresee such a conclusion to their lives. You don't have to be rich to be comfortable later on in life. I wasn't going to get into this tonight and I will hit on it again sometime in the future, but there are methods of living that can provide you with a comfortable life after the treacherous years of nine-to-five work is over. If you have the stomach for it, think about this for a moment. You get married young in your twenties, say 25 years old and both you and your spouse are working. Say you earn $10.00 an hour and your spouse earns more. If you can convince your spouse that all the money from all your checks from all your working life will go into a savings account and you will live only off the spouses salary, figure this. You work for thirty years which means by 55 you will be ready for retirement and say you never make more than $10.00 an hour which is unrealistic because you will be promoted and just by seniority alone your salary will increase but just for the state of the argument you remain at 10 bucks an hour for your whole working life which is 30 years. If you saved every penny, when 55 rolled around you'd have over $2 million dollars saved up and that is enough for both you and your spouse to retire and live out the remainder of your lives doing nothing but playing golf, bridge, sunning on the beach, etc. But people don't think like that, they don't save. They live in the moment and spend all their money on fun and then when 75 rolls around and they are still working or struggling to survive on social security they wonder what happened. Years ago I worked in a bank as a loan processor and my job was to dig through clients' financials and determine whether or not they were credit worthiness for a loan or a refinance and what I noticed was that people had many assets, houses, and boats and cars and time shares and this and that but when it came to their savings they had very little and some of the people were already in their 50s and 60s. I came across people who only had $10,000 saved up and it baffled me how they could go through their whole lives earning salaries in excess of $100,000 with nothing to show for it but a bunch of assets that didn't necessarily appreciate in value. What they suffered from was called the nine-to-five syndrome, living as if it was pay check to pay check, spending everything in sight trying to rationalize their miserable existences instead of being disciplined and focused and working towards something better. The difference between those who are happy and those who aren't is that some people exist and some people live. Those who live are the savers, the disciplined, who know what they want and are determined to get it. Those who exist are the majority of the population. The world really isn't that much of a mystery. The poor neighborhoods aren't so by accident. The struggling people out there are struggling because of some inequality though it may initially play a part. Don't buy all that rubbish, it's nothing but recycled gibberish that people in similar situations in ancient Rome, middle ages Finland, 3rd century Mongolia complained about. It's always been there, but there has always been a light at the end of the tunnel for those willing to search it out. Go out and become someone in your own little world because your own little world is all that matters. Be respectful of the grind, the struggle and before the dust of the gladiatorial match concludes you will see a positive response from the spectators. That is the real world people. I hope that analogy there made sense.
That boring, restrained life you left behind for the few seconds when your heart is pounding in your ears and the wind is blowing your cheeks into malleable claymation, eyes squinted and rectum puckered you dive head on into the most pure moment you have ever experienced since the moment you were born and as fast as you reached that euphoric utopia, you are thrust back in to the reality of your life.
The practice of overeating, overspending, poor theater etiquette, living without a sense of humor, throwing tomatoes at the neighborhood children, internet chatrooms, and driving ten miles over the speed limit as if your going through a sexless mid-life crisis boils down to only a few things. The most likely crack in your armor is that you aren't getting laid nearly enough or maybe you hate your job, hate your wife, your kids hate you and you'd rather be in Sarasota, Florida instead of Grundy, but that's life. You get what you put into it as far as I'm concerned and the luck factor. Well some are and some simply ain't. As you well know driving ten miles over the speed limit faster, you really aren't going to get where you are going that much sooner Johnson. You only raise the likely hood of wrapping yourself around a telephone pole, running over an innocent child on a bicycle, flattening some poor animal's brains out and there is a good chance that you are either talking or texting while driving only increasing the risk factor. Now texting and driving is a whole new can of worms that we will delve into one day and I am filled with opinions and solutions to derail the teeny-bop fad. And then the speeders will drive behind me in the slow lane and tail gate me while steering with their thighs and staring into the palm of their hands typing a thousand letters a second. It's asinine. There should be a device put into the car that won't allow the car to move until the phone is plugged to it whereby rendering the phone useless until the car is again turned off. And that is not a violation of privacy by any stretch of the imagination. Instead it is ensuring thousands of people the right to breath because those who would have been struck down by the careless would be able to live. But in our society that would be too costly and an inconvenience for the schmucks screaming about their rights to drive with a cell phone in their possession. The governments of the states would rather spend the money on Jacuzzi meetings in Vegas casino resorts or on 50" flat screen televisions for the penitentiaries so the poor downtrodden convicts can watch their reality TV. Another day I will get into all my peeves regarding all the damn convicts and criminals out there. Be glad I'm not President because that problem would be solved.
If I was a cop I'd give out an estimated 500 speeding tickets a day! I wouldn't feel bad for all you lead-footed ninnies. Did you ever stop to think that maybe those speed limits on the roads were derived from some complex algorithm that took into account the weather conditions of the area, the curvature of the road, the slope etc. No of course not, you figured it was the last traffic cop who wrote you that $150 ticket with a smile who came up with the speed limits so to hell with them! Petal to the medal. Now don't misinterpret me when I talk about cracking down on speed limit regulation. I am actually opposed to many, many, many regulations that this country and numerous other countries around the world unnecessarily impose upon the people for example, gun restrictions. I don't believe in gun laws, just like I don't believe in minimum wage outside the market value and I don't believe in welfare, and numerous other things. We need to be a society that is able to live and function based on common sense and understanding the common courtesies. You may say to yourself that that is preposterous and that no society can function without heavy regulation and police presence. That is not true. I know well of at least two societies that have very little regulation, almost zero crime, high employment and almost no visible police presence. I am not going to share those places with anybody because I don't want it to get out there that they exist and then the idiots who wrecked this society to go there and ruin those.
Did you know that the fastest speeding ticket ever given out was in 2000 in Texas for going 242 mph in a 75 mph zone. In Finland the fine amount is correlated to your income. There are multiple instances of six figure fines. Chew on that for a while. We'd all like to think we have the tar to take that adrenaline rush to the limit, and 242 mph hour can surly get you there for that split second where you are face-to-face with your soul and however you want to look at it, I imagine you do some serious self-reflecting in such a moment. That boring, restrained life you left behind for the few seconds when your heart is pounding in your ears and the wind is blowing your cheeks into malleable claymation, eyes squinted and rectum puckered you dive head on into the most pure moment you have ever experienced since the moment you were born and as fast as you reached that euphoric utopia you are thrust back in to the reality of your life. And then you are desperate to return to that feeling, that place and you try the affair because it seems exciting but it really is nothing more than more baggage and an annoying set of personality quirks so you become buddy, buddy with a new brand of hootch which is great for the first week but then you find yourself regularly tired and impatient, prone to common colds and a cramping stomach. The movies you used to watch and interject yourself into in your head pretending that you were some kind of hero become stagnant and hard to get through. Sleep becomes a challenge, getting through work focused without messing up and getting chewed out by the boss is like trying to swim across the Atlantic. Nothing makes any sense anymore and what's worse, the whole world is going through some bizarre economic woe that the cost of living is through the roof so all the money you want to put aside for retirement which looks to be around age 92, is now non-existent and all you have to look forward to is pizza and porn on Friday night. Yippy. Do you know people like that? The kind you reason will end up in their office one morning armed to the teeth on an empty stomach battling an everclear hangover? You better believe they are out there and you may be one of them. That is why you want to stay on everyone's good side because you never know who is suffering from the Nine-to-five syndrome. There comes a time when it is time to pull it together and start figuring things out. What people fail to understand is that everyone has a talent, an ability to reach into themselves and fine tune some energy that is waiting to be set free. Most people either don't want to make the effort because it will take nearly everything out of you to get to that point where you are self-sufficient and able enough for others to believe in you, but it is there, it is alive in all of us only a few ever find it.
The more hectic it may seem to be becoming, the more progress you are making. The more people tell you that you are worthless, the more ground you are covering. The more hacks out there who tell you your query isn't for them, or the HR rep you says your GPA isn't good enough, or the coach says your too frail and short, or the girl says your not fun enough is all the more reason to get up earlier, work harder, run the gauntlet, take that risk and fail. Fail a thousand times to all the bobbling, laughing heads. Claw your way out of the slums, out of the trailer parks, out the mundane suburbs of expectation, out of the wood and mortar cabins and give the world something worth a damn. It doesn't matter where you came from, what you've gone through but what matters is what are made of and where you end up. Some don't even make it until after they are dead and gone but dammit they made it in the end. But understand the world needs the nine-to-fivers and there are many out there who are great at it and move up the ladder and find success and that should be paradise for them. And along the way they too will face the brutes and trolls of the the working world looking to denigrate anyone with promise, it is just the way of the world.
The real world is a cut throat land of scorn and ridicule, gritty knife fights produce winners and winners are promoted and then have to face off against the next batch of stinkers looking to bring them down but they find it within themselves to persevere through the storms and regular assaults on their work ethics and character. They aren't about just going into work, doing what has to be done and then going home. They are constantly learning as much as they can and moving forward. They aren't just sitting in the studio painting the same old paintings but they are experimenting and creating new mind blowing original works. They aren't just building the same old log cabins, but new glass homes with rivers running through them. Find inspiration in those that have forged a path through the mediocrity because they too faced off against the mediocre who are a ruthless bunch of vultures looking to feast on the weak. And the weak never make it. They cower and meekly give in to the brutal assaults that confront them daily. Embrace the competition, the struggle, the suffering, the early mornings and late nights. Find something and go at it as if the world is going to come to an end the following day. Get home at night so exhausted you can barely keep your head up and keep working until you fall asleep at your desk, easel, tool bench, or whatever pursuit you embrace. God gave us this life to make something of it, not just to live within it.
And above all, whether or not you are affluent or making a measly $10.00 an hour, you have to learn to save your money because the golden years are golden only for those you foresee such a conclusion to their lives. You don't have to be rich to be comfortable later on in life. I wasn't going to get into this tonight and I will hit on it again sometime in the future, but there are methods of living that can provide you with a comfortable life after the treacherous years of nine-to-five work is over. If you have the stomach for it, think about this for a moment. You get married young in your twenties, say 25 years old and both you and your spouse are working. Say you earn $10.00 an hour and your spouse earns more. If you can convince your spouse that all the money from all your checks from all your working life will go into a savings account and you will live only off the spouses salary, figure this. You work for thirty years which means by 55 you will be ready for retirement and say you never make more than $10.00 an hour which is unrealistic because you will be promoted and just by seniority alone your salary will increase but just for the state of the argument you remain at 10 bucks an hour for your whole working life which is 30 years. If you saved every penny, when 55 rolled around you'd have over $2 million dollars saved up and that is enough for both you and your spouse to retire and live out the remainder of your lives doing nothing but playing golf, bridge, sunning on the beach, etc. But people don't think like that, they don't save. They live in the moment and spend all their money on fun and then when 75 rolls around and they are still working or struggling to survive on social security they wonder what happened. Years ago I worked in a bank as a loan processor and my job was to dig through clients' financials and determine whether or not they were credit worthiness for a loan or a refinance and what I noticed was that people had many assets, houses, and boats and cars and time shares and this and that but when it came to their savings they had very little and some of the people were already in their 50s and 60s. I came across people who only had $10,000 saved up and it baffled me how they could go through their whole lives earning salaries in excess of $100,000 with nothing to show for it but a bunch of assets that didn't necessarily appreciate in value. What they suffered from was called the nine-to-five syndrome, living as if it was pay check to pay check, spending everything in sight trying to rationalize their miserable existences instead of being disciplined and focused and working towards something better. The difference between those who are happy and those who aren't is that some people exist and some people live. Those who live are the savers, the disciplined, who know what they want and are determined to get it. Those who exist are the majority of the population. The world really isn't that much of a mystery. The poor neighborhoods aren't so by accident. The struggling people out there are struggling because of some inequality though it may initially play a part. Don't buy all that rubbish, it's nothing but recycled gibberish that people in similar situations in ancient Rome, middle ages Finland, 3rd century Mongolia complained about. It's always been there, but there has always been a light at the end of the tunnel for those willing to search it out. Go out and become someone in your own little world because your own little world is all that matters. Be respectful of the grind, the struggle and before the dust of the gladiatorial match concludes you will see a positive response from the spectators. That is the real world people. I hope that analogy there made sense.
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