of Age
September 24, 2011
"Say Pops, can I ask you where you got that hat...mind if I sit down?"
So.
recently, a dear Friend of mine asked after my feelings on hate. I replied that while I can’t really ever recall hating any particular individuals, there were many “things” that I hate. Situations, feelings, results, failures, disappointments etc etc. I went on to express that I thought hate a very important and motivating force, that if channeled ( I HATE that word) correctly, could be a force for good. Little else can get me as committed to change as some good old fashioned hatin.
She responded with a few of her own hates and one, in particular, caught my eye and, consequently, my attention.
She said she hated to see old people, in public, eating alone.
I do as well. Probably most of us do, if we even bother to slow down long enough to notice.
Her comment had me think that I could at least change that.
After some reflection, it seemed to me that hate should spur me to action, that even if I recognize the potential of the emotion, it is not one I covet and if it were in my power to change it….why wouldn’t I?
You have a headache?, you hate it? take some fucking aspirin and quit giving me one for all your moaning about it.
Ok, I’m gonna. You just watch.
I’ve decided that when I’m eating out, alone or in company (be warned), if I spy someone elderly, at their meal alone, I am going to make some kind of contact and ask if I might join them or if they might care to join us.
I’ve not decided on a tact for this event. I know that not all situations will lend itself to it happening but you and I know, have seen, the ones that do.
My inclination is not out of sympathy (completely, anyway) and I have no want of invading someone’s space but damn it!!, they have shit to tell me!!
There are countless stories there, there is untold accounts of bravado and accomplishment. Of dreams met and lost. There is wisdom. So much wisdom.
Listen, Old folks drive me nuts. They are generally slow and preoccupied, cantankerous, forgetful, myopic, and often bigoted. They can be resentful, spiteful and self absorbed. They are almost ALWAYS inconvenient.
They are also…incredibly generous, patient, sturdy, brave and an untapped wealth of experience and knowledge.
It disturbs me that we, in the west, are so dismissive of the elderly and the treasures they bear. So many Eastern cultures revere their age-ed. They elevate and cherish them. They care for them, knowing that they did for us.
As guilty as anyone, I am ashamed of how we consider them. As if they are just to be tolerated, while we watch their waning hours tick by, in anticipation, of sorts, for when we can file them into assisted care and then onto the grave, to make room for someone more productive, genial, attractive.
So, consider yourself warned Gramps, if you don’t want me hunched over you and your pea soup, asking intrusive questions about the war and your beautiful, now gone, wife of fifty some odd years, your lovely house and what it took to keep it, your hundreds of Grand and great-grand children…you best stay home cuz you have everything I need and I’m coming for it.
Don’t you just hate that?
of Why You Suck
September 24, 2011
^^Katie Couric on distracted driving^^
So.
Simply because I’m a better driver than you, and I am, may not mean I’m a better person than you. Credit reporting agencies would have us believe that their scores determine exactly that.
Perhaps we can come to an understanding.
I AM a better driver than you. Actually, it’s not even close. While I am a master, you…are a lemming.
Besides having ridden countless miles, in every conceivable condition, at the helm of two wheels and at the mercy your absent minded weekly pilgrimage to the grocery store, I also drove for a living and put more miles behind me in a week than you did in a year. Over one million credible miles in a decade.
So what? Big deal, Dr. Salk. What’s your point?
Is this…
With my bone fides plain and vetted, I have a proposal.
Why, instead of prospective employers and landlords referring to credit reports, don’t they ask for driving records?
You see, I believe there is very little that can’t be determined of ones character but by how they conduct themselves on the road. Not only that, but certain employers may detract from certain driving habits an asset where others might see a liability. A brokerage firm, for instance, may appreciate a person willing to take risks with other peoples lives but a school principle may be looking for someone a little more reserved and conscientious.
A driving record has already been adjudicated whereas credit reports are manipulated by a myriad of agencies.
Barring your little Brother or Sister stealing your license to get into a club or using your name when they get pulled over, there are few other instances where an identity thief would steal it and use for anything but…fucking up your credit. A solid ass kicking and a relatively quick trip to the DMV (compared to the headache of clearing an erroneous credit report) will repair what ever short term damage a sibling might have done.
Best of all…relationships.
Fuck Google, the next potential love that crosses my path, I’m getting a DMV printout and if I see any tailgating, DUI’s, Minimum speed, Handicap or carpool violations…adios. On the other hand…show me a couple of exhibitions of speed, reckless, or seatbelt and my heart will be hers.
Do this…
Your next weekly jaunt across town, go the long way. Get on the freeway and look.
You will notice (depending on the day and the stretch) huge gaps of no traffic and then, out of nowhere, a parade of vehicles, right up on each others ass, tooling down the road.
The person in the front is the one you want to date. Those following, you want working for you. Watch for the leader to exit and the resulting confusion of those behind. They slow down, unsure of what speed to maintain, having had someone set the pace for them. They change lanes, looking for another stream to attach to. Speed up and slow down until someone else passes them and they can again follow along. You might even notice (take the lead and test this) that if the leader wanders over the braille lines and back, those behind will likely do the same. In step. Lemmings.
There are a few obvious conclusions we can make from how some drive.
One might assume that the car, usually a Man, that passes everyone else in a construction merge, racing to the front, ahead of the hundreds of other motorists that feel it their civic duty and with an incumbent sense of fairness, to wait their turn…is a dick.
Chances are, he’s unpleasant, impatient, self absorbed and is very good at his work.
We can figure that the car that always signals, allows others to merge, relies on cruise control and is obsessive about obeying school zone limits…is very aware of others, kindly and dogged, but laid back. Also prolly very good at what they do, generally.
Let’s face it, I’m generalizing here. I’m gonna go all in.
Women drivers suck. Period.
It’s a fact, get over it.
You might, if you bothered trying, be able to convince me otherwise when I no longer see a review mirror turned at an angle, in motion, to apply makeup.
Till then…
Women simply don’t take driving seriously. For them driving is a tool, much like any other appliance. It’s supposed to just work. It’s supposed to work regardless how they pilot. Somehow, they were instructed that it’s up to the rest to watch out for them, NOT the other way around.
Chicks have just two speeds.: On the phone at 90 mph or white knuckled at a crawl.
You don’t like that?? Trust me, meee neither.
You might like this less…
Race is a factor. Say it ain’t so. If you do, you lie.
Hands down, the most dangerous public motorist, the biggest roadway hazard, is an Asian Woman, driving a mini-van, in San Francisco, with a KQED sticker on the back.
If renting from me, answering my help needed ad…keep your credit report and just show me your DMV printout. In fact, just for good measure, bring your registration cuz if you’re a middle aged white guy and own a Corvette…look elsewhere cuz I got your number.
of Deterrent
September 19, 2011
Awww...so cute!! Can we keep him??
So,
If you might get their attention, long enough to get him to turn the wood chipper off and put the shotgun down or get her to lower the gallon of petrol and book of matches…ask them if they know that what they are about to do may end them up on a gurney, at some distant date, with needles in their arms and three colour coded plungers on the wall, primed to end their lives.
I have a feeling, in the heat of passion, as it were, they would reply…yes please.
I happen to think there are situations that might, if not excuse murder, explain it. I do not think that the threat of capital punishment would stay their course. If I try to consider their position, it seems to me that whatever manner of lunacy or desperation has them feeling so without options, so filled with rage or…passion…preservation is likely the last thing on their minds and possibly, even, contrary.
Determining premeditation is a factor for a host of reasons. Primarily, for determining consequences. While capital punishment may not appropriate for some crimes, it most certainly is for the larger percentage of heinous ones.
Premeditated or not, I don’t think the threat carries ANY deterrent in it’s wake.
More importantly…I don’t give a fuck.
The deterrent debate is absurd. Both, for those who argue against capital punishment and those in favour of it.
Of those that would commit unspeakable, violent, premeditated, life altering or life ending crimes, the argument should be more about the preservation of society, than that of the butcher. Whether or not the possible outcome may or may not have been considered, is inconsequential.
Put em down.
If they take the innocence of a child, with proven inability to be rehabilitated, the inevitability that they will foul again…put em down.
If they could be so callous as to consider (or even worse, NOT consider) that bottle of wine, that $80, that Snickers or rite of passage, above that of another’s life…put em down. If they kill or are in any way responsible for the death of a police officer or fireman, that have been sworn to protect me from THEM…put em down
I don’t care where they came from, how long they have been addicted to drugs. I don’t want to hear how their Fathers beat them or how their Mothers put cigarettes out on them. I’m not interested in their Faith or lack of it, where they came from and where they might have ended up.
All that…is personal and THIS ain’t. It’s business. The business of preservation. My life, yours and ours.
That ball of fur, was once a puppy, some child’s best friend, perhaps. Sweet, loving, loyal and cuddly…till it began frothing at the mouth.
Your dog is rabid.
Put em down.
ofREH 