The Allegheny Hangover

Things That Smell

2010-09-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

It's been said the nose is the portal to your face. Well I don't know about that, but recently I've been noticing most things have a smell. Here's a list of things I've noticed have a smell and what I think it smells like.

1. Hangovers.
(Smells like fish oil and pennies.)
2. Pain.
(Blood with pennies in it.)
3. Getting Sick.
(The discolored tiles in a men's room.)
4. Inadequacy
(Nervous body odor.)
5. Context.
(Ever notice when roast beef smells like roast beef it smells good. But when the dude next to you on the bus smells like roast beef, dude.)
6. Self-satisfaction
(Smells like your own rich, robust bowel movements)
7. Pretension
(Does not smell like Ranch Dressing.)
8. War
(Like the back of my television set.)
9. Spring Breeze
(Exactly like my laundry detergent.)
10. Progress.
(Chemicals and the earthy scent of oppressed peoples.)
11. Failure.
(Like your mom’s house.)
12. Loneliness.
(Like the perfume counter at Macy’s.)

Camping in Iowa

2010-09-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

AH is back with twice the half-assedness

2010-09-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a new list of potential slogans for the Democratic Party and the GOP.

GOP:
1.) Our limited understanding of the world is the correct limited understanding of the world.
2.) The fear-based, manipulative rhetoric that built this country.
3.) Imagining the same threats as the most uneducated, but with millions of dollars at our disposal.
4.) Governing just as badly as Democrats with twice the results.

Democrats:
1.) Believing strongly people should not believe so strongly.
2.) Breaking legs and giving out crutches.
3.) Making fun more expensive since forever.
4.) Bothering you relentlessly because we care.
5.) Anemic, Asthmatic, and Easily Offended.

A few sayings I wish to make popular:

2010-02-28T19:10:00.001-08:00

1. Art is the repetition of disappointment.
2. Things that count only count for a couple years anyway.
3. You will always be afraid of your fears.
4. Drinking has solved every problem I’ve ever had.
5. The meek eat shit on a daily basis.
6. Have you checked your closet for Jesus?
7. Every morning, standing over the toilet, there’s a nice moment before I realize how much I hate everything.
8. I’ve disappointed more people than you’ve even met.
9. Think how nasty people would look without hygiene. Worse than rats.
10. Beauty is always unaware of itself.
11. God and country are the worst reasons to kill a person.
12. Worst case scenario: you are captured and tortured.
13. Even on the worst day, pooping is a good thing.
14. Most days I just wish I could be more like me.
15. If not for other people, I’d be an absolute miracle.

Baker Hall. One of my hometown's most beautiful eye sores.

Angry Telephone!

2010-02-22T16:54:00.001-08:00

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Avatar: Even in Space, White People Will Be Dicks

2010-01-23T14:46:00.000-08:00

When me and three of my friends walked into the Coral Ridge Mall to see Avatar, we were the last 4 people on Earth to do so. After we saw it, that was it, everyone's seen it now.

My one friend who sat through it twice referred to the film, as “the closest thing to a religious experience I’ve ever had.” Others told me aside from the stunning 3-D visuals, it was bad, bad, bad.

The visuals were stunning, maybe not God-inspiringly so, but engaging. And this kept me interested for about a half an hour of one of the most poorly written movies I’ve ever seen. This movie is Fern Gully: The Last Rain Forest, with multi-million dollar special effects and semi-offensive Space Native Americans who speak in broken syntax and ride 12-legged horses to synthesized tribal beats. The white people are money-hungry and ignorant. The avatar people are noble, connected, and exercise regularly. James Cameron had the balls to use the word “savages” in dialogue multiple times in reference to the Native population. Seen Pocahontas one or twice, Mr. Cameron?

Every single piece of dialogue is like a CSI Miami tagline. I don’t understand how trained professionals could create such bullshit, hokey exchanges without laughing aloud together. Some of my favorites are as follows.

1.As the camera fades away from the human avatar and his new real-world avatar wife Avatar-banging in a forest made of glow-sticks and fiber-optic tree branches, she says, “Now we are mated forever.”

I laughed out loud though no one else seemed to think that was funny. Children turned and asked their parents what was happening.

2.During the montage while the marine-turned-avatar-turned-native-God holds rallies gathering up the armies of his new noble Pandora-people to fight the ruthless white-man, the camera zooms in to show him on a ledge speaking to the multitudes, and just under the quasi-tribal soundtrack, the white-man-God, says to the cheering Pandoran crowd, “And your children’s children” and then the scene changes.

And your children’s children? High and stirring rhetoric there Mr. Cameron.

3.There is something called the “Flux Vortex.”
4.The mineral the white man wants is called “Unobtainium.”
5.There is something called the “Tree of Souls.”

6.The bad guy Marine General says, “Nice job ladies, first round’s on me tonight,” after the Army destroys the Pandorian “Home Tree” with their superior weapons and technology.

In the final showdown, the good guy says to the bad guy “It’s over” to which the bad guy responds “It’s not over. Not as long as I’m breathing” to which the good guy responds “I kinda hoped you would stay that.”

Pow! Bam! Whammy! Subtext there, “because I’m going to kill you.” Actually adding that subtext to the text would have taken this film to a whole other level.

Had one of my friends suggested we leave about an hour into Avatar, I would have. I saw what it looked like, which was all cool or whatever, and the movie was entirely and disgustingly worthless beyond that. Just more white people imperialistically looting and pillaging another great society, but this time in space, in 3-D, and on a set built out of the LED tropical paradise picture frames you’ll find on hanging on the walls in most single-wide trailers.

Another Stupid Cartoon: What I hear when some people talk

2010-01-21T11:57:00.000-08:00

A cartoon set in the suburbs

2010-01-19T13:53:00.001-08:00

Another angry Conan Cartoon

2010-01-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

I care too much about Conan O'Brien, so i made a cartoon

2010-01-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

A poorly drawn cartoon where Glenn Beck Catches Fire

2010-01-08T23:21:00.000-08:00

P.S. I don't want Glenn Beck to catch fire. I'm not threatening to burn him. It's like a metaphor or something.

Accurate slogans for popular products:

2010-01-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

1). Coca-Cola
Helping poor people stay fat and self-loathing for a really long time now.

2). Vaseline Intensive Care
Adolescent males, make sure your mom buys Vaseline Intensive Care.

3). Trojan Condoms
In her vagina; out of her life.

4). General Motors
Built by Americans for dumber Americans.

5). iPod
Making bad music easier to listen to.

6). iPod
Portable Douchebaggery

7). Bose Subwoofers
Don’t keep your bullshit music to yourself.

8). Youtube
Asian massage with a simple age verification.

9). Fox News
Despite all indications otherwise.

10). Mountain Dew
Make under 50k? Want to piss rocks? Mountain Dew!

11). American Eagle
We sell you ugly shit by making you feel like ugly shit.

12). Abercrombie and Fitch
You don’t have to be gay to look gay

13). Plastic-frame glasses
Easier than telling everyone you’re a vegan poet

14). The Republican Party
Bad ideas; worse people.

15). The Republican Party
Conserving yesterday’s mistakes.

16). Democrats
We’re all so terribly uncertain.

17). Youtube
Have something stupid to say?

18). Marlboro
We know you know. We’re glad you don’t care.

19). Newspapers
Be nearly irrelevant with us!

20). The Republican Party
Be nearly irrelevant with us!

21). The Masters in Fine Arts
I just feel like this essay isn’t concerned with craft?

22). The Masters in Fine Arts
Have enough money to think deeply?

23). Facebook
Broadcast your insignificance

24). Indie Rock Bands
Have no taste or vision? Neither do we.

25). Blogspot
No talent? Not a problem.

26) Central Pennsylvania
All of the racism without the nice weather.

Blogging in the aiport. I am modern.

2010-01-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

I am a modern man. I have a computer, a cell phone, and I'm not racist. Sometimes I get on airplanes with people of other races. Fine by me! I understand that race has nothing to do with a person's ability to sit down while their airplane flies. It's true that white males tend to sit the best, but other people sit well enough. Some people say that people from the middle east shouldn't go on airplanes, because of a few middle eastern trouble makers. But I say, put ALL the middle easterners on airplanes. What then, huh? Problem solved the modern way.

I am also modern because have connected to the internet using my cellphone. I'm uncertain how my phone found the internet, because I don't know where the internet is. I bet it's in New York, since most modern things are in New York. I hope I don't get charged for phone calls to New York.

I am modern because I recognized the dangers of smoking and tell everyone it's BAD BAD BAD.

I am modern because I eat vegetables that have been grown without modern farming techniques. This may seem backwards. But since I'm modern, I know it isn't.

I can program my VCR to make a tape of my favorite shows even when I'm not home! Some people say "oh well, guess I just miss it." But not me!

I am modern because I accept homosexuals as strange but all together harmless. I mean, not something I would do, but hey, go for it you modern, modern rascals!

I am modern because when I eat animal meat, I'm starting to feel kind of bad. But I get over it because my organic vegetables are so scrawny and bitter.

I am modern because I wear protective gear when I ride my bike, but not when I climb stairs or jog or drive or other dangerous things. I don't, because no one has marketed me a stair-climbing helmet yet.

I am modern because I blog at the airport while other nonmodern people sit with their crying children and their paper books and think "man, that dude is like the guys I see in quirky romantic comedies who sleep around a lot but eventually settle down with a nice blond girl who breaks him of his go go go modern lifestyle."

A post written when I've had too much to drink

2009-12-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

Thinking you're completely right about something is a shitty thing to do. Who are you, thinking you're right? You are no one. Just like some dude herding goats in Africa is no one. I've been drinking, and I feel very strongly now that the world is pretty shitty only because people are shitty. You are shitty. I am shitty.

I want you, whoever you are, to stop so fiercely protecting the shit you think is so important, because tho it may be important, no one is actually coming for it. And those who may think they're trying to come for it will give up after you quit defending it so fiercely. For instance, America rocks, I love it here, but it is not the end-all-be-all of the world. No one is. That's the premise of peace.

And some people fucking hate peace, because they think peace is submission. And it is. We submit to our humanity. That's the call of Christ, that's the New Testament. Christ ate with hookers and thieves. How many right-wing Christian Republicans eat with hookers and thieves? Not a whole lot. They're too busy running a cable news network that panders to people nothing like them. It is remarkable how the wealthy have allied themselves with the poor based on a value set that the wealthy don't even subscribe to. It is perverted brilliant.

I've had too much to drink, but I just want to say, that I'm always going to be a little wrong about everything. And that's the conceit that can actually help people. The day we quit convincing ourselves we're somehow better than other people is the day we quit killing each other over piety bullshit.

I don't hate anyone who hates me, because how could that ever make a single fucking thing any better?

An Open Letter to Technology

2009-12-16T15:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Technology,

Stop it. Stop dispensing my soap automatically and opening all my doors. The other day I waved my hands in front of a faucet for minutes before I realized it had a handle. I can’t find my own home without a robot woman with a British accent telling me which left to take. I call phone numbers and if a person picks up, I just press buttons until they go away. When you stop stimulating me with your lights and your sounds, I can’t stand the thoughts in my own head. Do my actions matter? Am I complacent in the exploitation of people and resources? Do my behaviors violate some sort of divine system of morality? Am I worthy of love? Where is my iPod?

I’m too distracted to notice I’m not that awesome.

And internet, you are the worst of all, showing me naked ladies instantly. Naked ladies just shouldn’t be instant. Naked ladies are a long process that includes spending money and saying things you don’t mean.

And who allows people to publish their thoughts as soon as they happen? We are so saturated in other people’s bullshit we check to see whether our friends had “the best day eva!” or are “watching grey’s <3.” How enriching. But my primitive social nature drives me. I need to know how much Sarah HATES FINALS or how much Susan LOVES TACOS, YUM YUM. I need to know, and I imagine it has something to do with sex, but there’s so much porn on my other tab, I’ve lost touch with the source of these urges.

Anyway, I hate you technology and I’ve decided to convert to an extremist faction of Islam. We have a long-term plan to return humanity to a more simple age. Step one: blow shit up. Step two: develop another plan to blow other shit up. Step three: blow that shit up too.

Things will be better. Trust me.

Dylan

A self-plagiarized post where I preach about deserts and God

2009-12-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

I'm lazy and not up for telling jokes. Here's something I wrote two Christmases ago--I was way more of pretentious little shit than than I am now, if that's even possible. So it's over the top--I sound like a new-age street preacher in it, throwing around the royal "we" like I'm an anointed representative of the human condition. But that said, I still like it.

This year was like a desert. When I think back on it, I can feel heat and the smell of coffee bubbling and there’s a taste in my mouth that’s metallic like blood. It was a full year that felt more like a fight than a progression. I can’t tell exactly what I fought; the same things we all fight, ideas of failure or permanence.

I started off afraid that I wasn’t the person I had convinced myself I could be. The worst thing about pursuing success is that success is a vapor. It’s a fog that passes over us and for a moment it’s nice and you’re alive and happy. Maybe some people are born with the knowledge that it can never be sustained. The rest of us must learn it. I fought that.

The year was a desert in the sense that I let things stay just as far away from me as they always had been. With the joys of my future far in the future and the victories of my past far in the past, I was left in a wide open space. The air was clear and dry. I didn't let myself think about things that weren’t here right now. Right now there was just me and this tremendous stillness in the universe.

I asked questions, to myself, to God. That was like bleeding. There are many things we know are true but we can barely understand how they are truth. We can know that we are one of six billion, or that we all die, but when we challenge ourselves to feel what that means, it crushes. Then, when the ideas we build our lives out of fall apart, we go to that place where we either hear the voices of the angels or that immutable silence.

This dry fall, in my dorm room, I challenged that silence to say something. I was willing to wait.

By October, I stood in front of my window, looked down at the brown grass and watched dark clouds gather.

“Please just rain,” I said to no one.

The drops were slow at first, but they fell faster until sheets of rain drew white lines down the parking lot.

Needing rain is a weakness and weaknesses are a good thing to have. Don’t ever let anyone tell you anything different. Getting knocked on your ass is the best thing that can happen to you when on your ass is where you belong.

The smell of coffee is because I drank a lot of coffee this semester. Things can be simple, too.

I learned about simplicity. It’s a good thing to sit and think about what you like, but then also think of why you like it, and then exactly what that means. I once read an ad that said nothing says more about you than your watch. We shouldn’t wear watches then.

I learned my three favorite things are fire, hot water, and bare wood. I’m happy I figured it out, but I’m even happier that I know it makes me sound like a pompous prick. There’s a danger in taking ourselves too seriously, but there’s a danger in absolutely everything else too. So pick your poison.

Once it started raining, I didn’t want it to stop. I wanted to grab onto it and hold it there. Luckily, we don’t get to do that. We have to let things be moments. Allow yourself the grace to let something be exactly what it is. Ideals can paralyze. Without grace, we couldn’t walk.

Next year, remember that to walk you have to let yourself begin to fall for that split second. By grace, the rain will fall and ruin your desert. A noise will interrupt your silence. A peace will settle into your fight, and by grace you’ll always be realizing how wrong you had once been.

And now a sad picture to go with my profundity.

p.s. my dad shit a solid gold brick when he read this he thought it was so good. Are you calling my father a liar?

Lonesome Winter Thoughts

2009-12-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

The back is the most uninteresting part of the body. Really, God, all that space and not one arm or strange patch of curly hair?

Sometimes I wake up late at night, go to the bathroom, and in the soft glow of the streetlight, I realize I’m draining fluids into a big bowl of water bolted to the floor. This makes me feel strange.

We are constantly letting strangers prepare our food for us. And you know, inevitably, some dude you wouldn’t want touching your food is touching your food.

Ever ask your dad why he stuck around? The answer might surprise you.

If everyone in the world was slowly getting dumber and dumber, who would notice?

How did evolution know I would like boobs so much?

Are girls turned on by horses but too embarrassed to admit it?

If you died today, what’s in your apartment you wouldn’t want your family to see? I have a shoebox that’s pretty weird.

If the average planet temperature is 52 degrees, why do we need to be 98 degrees? This seems like a mistake.

If animals could talk, I bet it’d get really annoying.

An open letter to the environment

2009-12-03T16:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Environment,
Quit being such a pussy. Seems like just about everything I do gives you a fever or the shits or something. For Christ sakes man, cow farts? You’re bothered by a little cow farts and car exhaust? Listen, I’ve had my face right up on a cow’s ass when it farted. Sure, it sucks, but you gristle up and deal with it! Just be happy you’re in a well ventilated area. I have half a notion to leave you in a closed garage with my Ford Contour running if you don’t quit being such a spaz.

Maybe, Environment, if you had an older brother growing up and giving you shit all the time you wouldn’t have turned out being a such a bitch. “It’s too hot,” you moan, “I’m too hot all the time.” Listen, I know there’s a bunch of people out there kissing your ass because all your ice is melting or whatever, but I want you to know there’s a guy out in Iowa who doesn’t give a shit.

And for the record, you evolved us from dust and sunlight, so if we’re a bunch of assholes to you, you only have yourself to blame. And maybe we wouldn’t be so batshit crazy if we hadn’t spent millions of years just trying to keep warm and make sure lions and shit didn’t eat us. So who can blame us if one day we figured out burning some of that black goo you cooked up makes life a whole bunch easier? Only a cry baby bitch would, Environment. The way I look at it. You’ve had this coming a long time.

Look here, you’re a big guy, you know. My best guess is you weight some 13,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds. So why do you let everyone think you’re such a pansy? If I were you, I’d cook up some nasty disease that just makes everyone just shit their brains out. Just to show people who they’re living on. I mean, unless you really are too incompetent and weak. Are you? I’m not sure anymore, Environment. I’m just not sure.

Sincerely,
A disgusted inhabitant

P.S., We have plans to populate the shit out of you if you don't do something about it. What are you going to do? Huh?

I was just back to the Alleghenies

2009-11-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

I was back in the Alleghenies for Thanksgiving and some awesome stuff happened. When we first drove into the state, everything got really dark. I had forgotten how the mountains blot out all the light. In the Midwest, you can often see every light for a ten mile radius. I prefer the dark, because I am a sad, sad man.

We stopped in Pittsburgh and I slept in a stranger’s house. They were friends of a friend. A woman and her husband lived there —nice folks, but being a single male in a stranger’s house makes me uncomfortable. I keep on thinking that they suspected me of being a rapist or a molester. Why else would I be a single guy who needed a place to stay? I think there’s something inherently immoral about maleness. I think of it every time I walk past a playground or unattended children on the street. I think, “Everyone suspects I may rape these children.” But I smile to show that I do not rape.

Back home, I napped for three hours as I was exhausted from a 14 hour drive through the three lamest states in the union, the great vowel row: Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Iowa is not part of their lameness because I live there.

Later at the bar, my brother got mad at me for calling Glen Beck a douchebag. “So what,” Elliot said. “He’s a douchebag because he cried on television? Because he cares about his country?” No, not at all. Tom Hanks also cares about his country and has cried in movies and on television, but he is not a douchebag. Glen Beck is a douchebage because he acts like a douchebag. Apparently those whom you agree with can never be douchebags. I agree with Keith Olbermann, but still acknowledge he’s a total douche.

Tom Hanks is a great American.

I spent Thanksgiving at my friends place in Williamsport. Everything was fucking magical there. My old man came with and just went batshit over the asparagus they served. I mean he really loved it—at one point he kissed the tips of his fingers like some sort of cartoon Italian person.

After he left, we got plenty hammered at this brewery and wrote offensive messages like “Support Homos,” and, “Offensive Message” on all the sugar packets out on the table.

We danced very drunkenly to Lady Gaga at a lesbian bar called The Planet. I danced alongside my friend Erin and was later called her “retarded shadow.”

It was truly a Thanksgiving I will keep in my heart for ages to come as I share in and enhance the youth of my friends around me, Psalms 100:7.

Attention White America

2009-11-23T16:34:00.001-08:00

As a white man, I know about the hardships and struggles this world can present. Last night, I put a dollar into a soda machine, and no soda came out. I pushed on the coin return over and over, but no coins were returned. I had to insert another dollar twenty-five and select a second-preference soda.

Two days ago, I was in line buying fair-trade eggplant and soy milk at the co-op and the machine wouldn’t take my card. I explained to a woman with translucent skin that I had thousands of dollars in that account, but I was forced to pay in cash. “I’m sorry the card won’t work, sir,” she said with a straight face and a sincere tone. This type of ugly white-on-white crime has to stop. It’s time to be real and try to heal each other.

This Saturday I slept till noon and felt tired all day.

Why bring up all this painful history? Because I feel the winds of change in this country, and I fear things will only get worse for me and my people. We have a president who I believe has demonstrated a hatred of white people, of white culture….
I’m not saying he hates white people, just that the president is no longer white, and this worries me. Here’s a list of things to prove white culture is under attack.

1.)When I first moved to Iowa in 2008, I was 21. Now I’m 23, so since the candidacy and election of Barack Obama, I’ve aged two years in only one full calendar year. What type of strange magic is this?

2.)During the Bush Administration, I had a better hair cut.

3.)Before Barack Obama’s election, I knew less gay people. I’ve met at least 3 new gay people since he became president. Isn’t it interesting that since the election of a black president there are more gay people? I’m not suggesting anything—just observing.

4.)Since the election of President Obama, I’ve had less successful bowel movements. I keep a chart of this:

5.)The atmosphere of racial polarization created by Mr. Obama is causing me spend more hard earned money on yoga lessons and hiking equipment. Meanwhile the economy suffers.

6.)I still don’t own a television and I still tell everyone about it all the time.

7.)I see other white people looking and acting worried. (Fox News)

8.)And finally, the moment I knew America was changed forever: Kayne West taking the microphone from a moderately talented but beautiful white woman and no one said one word about race. Where was the LAPD when you need a situation necessarily racialized?

I am always correct

2009-11-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader,

I hate liberalism.

Why do I hate dirty smelly liberal pieces of useless shit?

Reason #1. I refuse to acknowledge the world is complex.

Reason#2. I will not concede my beliefs have any limitations whatsoever.

Reason #3. Since I have never been mistaken about anything, I allow myself to get very angry when I find people to be presently mistaken.

Reason #4. I will never acknowledge war is a bad thing, because that means I hate the troops.

Reason #5. There is never anything wrong with someone that can’t be fixed with capitalism, religion, and hard work.

Reason #6. I acknowledge America is the best country ever, and I understand all of her flaws are fabricated lies by a sophisticated organization of secret America-hating liberals out to warp and pervert America to better serve the listless, the lazy, and the godless.

Reason #7. I use the word liberal as a place holder for “better informed.”

Reason #8. When governments turn tyrannical, it’s the intellectuals who are first seized. And I side blindly with power, always.

Reason #9. I hate taxes. If someone wants the money I earned and they didn’t, they need to get it from me the honest American way, greed and exploitation.

Reason #10. When I have any sort of doubt, I push it way down, and add it to the reservoir of self-righteous venom I spew at those who disagree with me.

Reason #11. It’s easier to live life when you make everything fit neatly into the little stories you tell yourself about the world.

That’s all for me today. It’s time for me to turn on my favorite cable news program and find out what I should be scared of next!

Bye Bye and God Bless.

Poor in America

2009-11-12T09:18:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows I'm not poor. How do they know this?

Reason #1. I'm white.
Reason #2. I can spell and I have a blog.
Reason #3. I can afford a lifestyle that includes a lot of recreational drinking.

But the truth is I wasn't always rich like I am today. That's right. I used to a poor person who used public transportation and made his own coffee at home. But then I wised up, made more money, and quit being poor. And now here's some advice to all of you poor people who haven't figured out the secret to not being poor.

If you are poor in America, you are doing something wrong. Work harder! Have that mole removed. Stop having a mental illness. Just be smarter and better looking and get a good job. There is money in America, now go out there and make it! Quit acting like its hard thing to do! You are giving yourself a mental recession.

The best way to make yourself not poor in America is to admire the rich and hate yourself for being poor. This is why you should vote republican. Maybe if you vote for rich people, they will like you more and want to be your friend, thus making you rich as well. It’s simple math, really.

Don’t ever support something that might hurt rich people, because what happens when you are someday rich, like everyone in America eventually becomes? Don’t sabotage your future rich self by voting in ways that helps you now. That’s just dumb.

Sure, you don’t have health care now, but you don’t deserve it because you’re poor. But once you quit being poor, because you voted Republican enough times, you don’t want to be paying for some poor bum’s health care. He should do what you did, vote Republican and quit being poor!

Other poor people are not your friends. They are around to keep you poor. It’s like when you quit smoking, you have to get the hell away from the other smokers. Hang out with the nonsmokers, the rich people, and give them some of your money even though they don’t need it so they'll like you more. Let them know you are ashamed of being poor. Admit that they must be smarter than you, because they are rich. If you were as smart as them, you’d be rich too.

This is why when a rich person says a tax is a bad thing, you should listen! He knows exactly how money works because he has it. Poor people and democrats don’t know how money works and that’s why they are poor and democrats. Think about it like this: if you give a hungry bum a quarter, he might spend it on something stupid like a meal. Something that’s just going to keep him a poor bum. But if you give that same quarter to a rich guy, he’ll cut that quarter into thousands of pieces, bundle with other chopped up quarters, and sell it to a bank at a high interest rate.

Rich people always believe in God or else God would take their money away. God likes them better because they have everything they need. Just one more reason you should be more like the rich and help them whenever you can, because you’re just a dirty smelly poor person whom God doesn’t care for.

All Republicans used to be poor until they worked hard and got rich by loving rich people and hating themselves. Don’t be poor. Be a Republican!

the woman who shares my office

2009-11-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

the woman who shares my office whispers as she reads.

it's like i'm in a movie and about to discover a dead body.

Things that scare me

2009-11-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

I’m scared of gay people, because if there’s nothing wrong with gay people, and gayness is ok, what stops me for being gay? I don’t know, and it freaks me out.

I’m scared of minorities—not that they’ll hurt me with their dangerous weapons, but that’ll be really smart and pretty and successful. Because if they’re smart and good at stuff, how will I know for sure that I’m the most awesome type of person there is? I won’t be able to.

I’m scared of science, because it explains things that are supposed to be magic.

I’m scared of government, because the government is big and I don’t understand it entirely. It’s made out of people I don’t know. Some of them don’t believe in God. Scary.

I’m scared of atheists, because if you don’t believe in God, why would you ever do the right thing? If I didn’t believe in God, I would for sure kill people. It’s all I think about, killing people and then maybe raping their bodies, but I don’t. Why? Because I believe in God.

I’m scared of China, because China is big and strong and it isn’t America. Can you imagine a world where America isn’t in charge making sure everything is ok? The Chinese don’t believe in God.

I’m scared of the president. This is self-explanatory.

I’m scared of the Internet, because if a dude wants to see girls pooping on each other and he doesn’t have the internet, he has to keep it to himself and be ashamed, because it’s gross. But if he has the Internet he can watch girls poop on each other and find other people who like to see girls pooping on each other. Pretty soon there’s a whole Internet town of people watching girls shit on each others' faces. Who’s going to stop these people? Frightening.

I’m scared of my penis. What am I supposed to do with this thing?

I’m scared of other people, because they aren’t me, and I don’t know what the fuck they’re going to do next.

A partial list of things I find satisfying

2009-11-02T12:40:00.000-08:00

1) Cold beer I didn’t buy
I am cheap

2) Farting loudly when no one else is around
Everyone does this

3) When people I don’t like don’t show places I expect to see them
Thank God the dude with the voice isn’t in class

4) Accidental nudity
Never thought I’d see that nipple

5) A tall glass of water cooling on my window sill when I wake up with dry pipes
I wake up with dry pipes a lot

6) Someone else telling off someone I hate
All of the satisfaction with no effort

7) Bad things happening to bad people
The pregnant cheater

8) Dumbasses getting called out
Won’t get fooled again, Republican Party

9) Being the only one that doesn’t get caught
How long after I left did the cops show up?

10) Watching a sweet girl get just a little bitchy with an asshole guy
Marry me

11) Seeing a buck (the deer variety)
This has nothing to do with being a hick

12) Cigarettes
I’m heartbroken

13) Where a girl’s neck curves to her jaw
I want to go to there

14) Forrest Gump
He’s so stupid, but he gets everything so right

I have a challenging and rewarding drinking life

2009-10-28T15:02:00.000-07:00

I’m always challenging myself to find new ways to make my drinking as fresh and exciting as it was when I first started drinking. Sometimes I drink in places I shouldn’t be drinking, or I pretend that my drinking might have serious consequences. And then there’s the time-tested approach of taking some new drugs before you drink. But a safe and fun way to mix things up is to just go to a new place to drink. So last night, I got drunk and went with some friends to a special bar for gay people. It was fabulous. My friend Tom was in from out of town and we danced to Simon and Garfunkel. There was a cage you could dance in. Men in sailor costumes sang songs from musicals. It was magic.

There is a bowling arcade game in the lobby of the gay bar. It was such a regular thing for a bar to have it changed my mind about a lot of things I used to think about gays. They bowl, for instance.

The bartender was super friendly and loved to smile. I must have drunk at least 6 beers and tipped well. I felt drunk and close to the gay people. I used to be scared of them! You don’t have to be an awesome dancer because no one judges you there. I feel like I finally found where I belong. Everyone is family at the gay bar.

A partial list of things I hate

2009-10-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

1. People who moan when they eat.
Don’t sexualize the meal.

2. People who are supportive.
I don’t need your worthless encouragement.

3. People who fertilize their lawns.
As you lay dying, remember how green your lawn was.

4. People who listen to ipods in the library.
I can hear your Akon, you piece of shit.

5. People who scrapbook.
Quit trying to remember the unmemorable.

6. People who complain about cigarette smoke.
It doesn’t bother you, you just like to bitch.

7. People who are always wanting new shit.
Just deal with your unhappiness.

8. People who ask questions during football games.
The score is at the top of the fucking screen.

9. People who talk about their future plans like we're getting married.
I don’t give a shit.

10. People who talk about the environment.
It’s as bad as talking to someone about Jesus.

11. People who hate winter.
Think of something more interesting to hate.

12. People who are easily offended.
You too just like to bitch.

13. People who say they “love” a bunch of shit.
OMG, do you just love Thai Food?

14. People without a sense of humor.
Humor is the only way I’ll ever give a shit what you think.

I drink

2009-10-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Since I quit smoking, I'm rewarding myself by drinking heavily. I figured it's better this way. Smoking was a temporary fix for my problems, but drinking is a permanent one. I'm adjusting nicely to the hangovers--I actually get more done when I'm a little drained and despairing.

I slept till noon, then my landlord came over to tape garbage bags over my a/c window unit. Most people remove them for the winter. But I live in a building that plants fake flowers in the summer time. My shower is a rubber tube jerry rigged over a bathtub spigot and attached to a massaging shower head. The curtain is held up with pvc pipe and zip strips.

It's kinda like where I grew up, but nicer. I do sometimes miss the cigarette smoke and pet odor of my ole Pennsylvania home.

The father of my landlord lives in an apartment downstairs. He's an impossibly old man who mows the lawn everyday until sometime in November. He's chewing up the leaves that blow into the grass, because lord knows, we can't have leaves on the grass. The throttle is stuck on the mower, so it revs up every couple of seconds. It kinda sounds like a car alarm set to "lawnmower". He spends most of his time on the strip of grass outside my window. Which is awesome when I'm sleeping off a drunk and really could use a cigarette.

The lucky thing is that hardly anyone in Iowa smokes. Quitting back home is doomed to failure because not smoking makes people think something's bothering you. "What's on your mind? Have a cigarette. Why don't you smoke something?" I miss that kind of nurturing. Anytime a girlfriend broke up with me or a grandparent died, my mother would offer me a beer and let me chew snuff in front of her. It's the central Pennsylvania grieving process. Fix your old problems by creating new problems.

Smoking

2009-10-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

So at the beginning of August, after 2 and a half years of not smoking, I thought, "what the hell," and started smoking a whole bunch of them. I was drunk at a bar in central Pennsylvania, making it all okay.

I sobered up, paid all my fines, but kept smoking. I smoked them down--puffed them fast outside my apartment. Smoked them up after class. Took drags that rolled out of my mouth and into my nose. I drank and smoked and swore and felt awesome. I almost got to have the sex once.

But those beautifully symmetrical packs of colorful, childlike pleasure run about six bucks a pop--what do I look like to the government? A guy with a job? Not only that, but Iowa is the world capital of smoker shame. I was once confronted by a guy who told me it was illegal to smoke on campus. How could he possibly give a shit? I was sitting on a bench, by myself, on an empty patio, and this jabroni with his canvas shoes and his adjustable ball cap tells me I'm bothering people. How can a state with no car inspection or restrictive liquor laws all of a sudden decide smoking is the worst thing their drunken galopy-driving population can get themselves into?

The state was awesome enough to let people gay marry, but the state told those same gay people they can't smoke inside the bar. That's right, in Iowa, gay people can't smoke in public buildings. Am I the only one offended by this? So to stand united with them, and to save myself a lot money I could be spending on booze, I've given up my favorite thing in the world for the second time in a little over 2 years.

I haven't had a smoke since 3 p.m. today. It's 9 p.m. right now. I'm angry and bitter. I'm bitter because that canvas-shoed d-bag on campus told me I should, "give it up." And now I am. I want to smoke myself cancerous just in spite of people so invested in health and the rules and order. I'd like to see people not able to afford so many damn preferences. It makes people just straight up fussy. Including myself.

My landlord, who is friendly but not awesome, told me I should quit because I'm like a son to him. Really? Because you're like a landlord to me, Gary. He said he cares about my lungs, and my body, and frankly, I'm sick of people who aren't me caring about my body. It's gross. Keep your laws off my body.

The Truth about God, Death, and Alcohol

2009-10-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

When talking about God, Death, or Alcohol, the first question you have to ask yourself is, "Do you trust your Government?" Governments make laws and kill people. If there were no governments, who would kill you? You'd have to kill yourself. Governments are socialism.

I like men, and that's why I voted for Barack Obama--he's a tall guy with a hot wife. I trust Obama with my guns and my liquor, because his wife is hot. Presidents are good.

The reason there is a God is because he made everything. God made everything so you have to believe him about it. Think about an apple. Did that apple just happen? Fuck no. Just like your car, an Asian person made it.

When you die, no one knows what happens. I want open a muffler store when I die. But this is in God's hands. God made me, and now I do what I think He's saying. But he also He made me so that I'd want to do things he doesn't want me to do, like touch woman's hidden parts. Who puts a big red fun button on someone and expects them not to touch it? God is kinda like a horse.

Alcohol is a true thing. People drink alcohol all the time. This is good for people who have debit cards. One time I shot a deer with a gun. This was before I drank alcohol. Alcohol had nothing to do with it! When the deer died, we ate it cooked in soups. The president was George W. Bush. And whether you love him or hate him, I killed a deer.

Balloon Boy

2009-10-16T12:21:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I invested all my emotions in the flight of a flying saucer shaped balloon I believed to be carrying the probably dead body of a six-year old boy. I thought maybe he had frozen to death in the altitude, or died from asphyxiation, perhaps shear terror had stopped his heart. But what I never expected was for him to be a-ok in the family's garage. I felt hoodwinked and bamboozled.

Besides being a famous internet blogger, I'm also a lover of children. So I'm glad the little tyke is ok. I was happy to see him vomit on the today show, while his father, looking hungover and awkward talked about how "ticked off" he was that people think the whole thing is a hoax. But let us in all fairness gather the facts of the case.

Fact #1. These are crazy people.
Fact #2. He believes we are descended from aliens when everyone knows we are descended from God.
Fact#3. He's been on reality T.V., but claims to not have cable.
Fact#3. They released the balloon on purpose, and spent more time on the phone with the media than they did with the police.
Fact#2. The little kid said the did it for a show. His father's response, a disappointed "man."
Fact#6. I drink a lot.
Fact#7. The kid conveniently came out of the attic after the balloon had landed and ratings were at the highest. That's showmanship.
Fact#8. A six-year-old kid wouldn't have the patience to stay hidden for four hours. I tried it once when I was that age. I pissed myself and started crying.

So there are the facts folks. The conclusion: hoax or not, this family is a shit show and I can't get enough of them or their precious children.

Another Dream

2009-10-15T13:31:00.001-07:00

Had a dream last night I smoked crack with Cutter Wood. It only felt like I had drank a whole bunch of coffee, so I did my laundry. Now I kinda want to smoke crack and do laundry.

A dream I had

2009-10-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night I was making out with a girl in a public restroom. Then a naked man came in and stabbed me the crotch with a pencil.

Analysis?

How I feel Exactly

2009-10-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

The Onion is like a real newspaper, only better.

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/if_god_had_wanted_me_to_be

Bad Teaching

2009-10-14T12:03:00.001-07:00

My teaching philosophy pretty much amounts to me telling my students to just do it right for God's sake. They make mistakes, I address those mistakes, and then they find new and interesting way to get it wrong. I'll tell a student they need to quote the text more, then 90 percent of their next paper is quotes. I tell kids to get in there and analyze the text, make inferences into the character based on how they act. Then they reference things like "Frank is stupid," "The character Tommy is a douchebage." And while those statements might be true, they ignore anything that might complicate this analysis.

So in conferences, I mostly say "This isn't very good. And this here isn't very good either, and over here is bad." And what I'm really saying is, "please, just be smarter." Because I have no idea how to explain their inadequacy. I only know how to recognize it and deduct points.

Unsaid story

2009-10-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

I'm only now just figuring out how to blog. I'm going to be an awesome blogger someday. I have been drinking.

Here's another link to something I did.

http://www.unsaidmagazine.com/display_lit.php?issue=4&file_url=nice.html

I was out at the bar with good people. We talked about the universe, God, and guns. All of which I agree with. I need to prepare lesson plans so I can enlighten the youth of America. Bye Bye.

2009-10-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

I'm going to post stuff that makes me look smart now.

Here's one, an piece of mine from Quick Fiction.

http://www.quickfiction.org/features/story.php?pk=67