Thought Chasm

Archive for February, 2008

i liked mel gibson better…

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

…in the role of Maverick. labeling John McCain a maverick is like calling Joe Lieberman a liberal or me an intellectual. The soon-to-be Republican nominee fingers crossed Huck is proving his maverickness by politely bending over to lick the figurative asses of the Republican elite and their loyal read: blind followers read: majority of america, or working poor, or white trash. This man, who rides in the ironic “straight talk express,” had the chance yesterday to stick to his long-standing personal beliefs.

This maverick showed his lone dissension, intellect, and willingness to take a stand apart from his co-consituents by ignoring his own oppositions and voting against an interrogation ban. A ban that doesn’t outlaw torture how would we defeat the terrorists without it?, but shortens the leash to torture-like activities.

I’ll ignore, for the moment, that torture has been proven relatively ineffective in bringing to light any useful and reliable information. I’ll ignore, for the moment, that we used to set an example by emphatically proclaiming how we, as a nation, didn’t torture. I’ll ignore, for the moment, the fact that this will be immediately vetoed by the “decider” because he’s so smart in all things. I’ll ignore, for the moment, that we’re apparently led by a bunch of people that could lose in concentration to the guy from Memento.

Still, as a matter of political ridiculousness, how can a presidential nominee, ineptly labeled a “maverick,” tow the party line so easily without anyone tossing a red flag? Clinton would never do such a thing she doesn’t have personal opinions that aren’t first reviewed and approved by her husband, personal interest groups, and financiers and Obama would be too confident in his support to defy his own beliefs whatever those might be; besides hope of course; the guy has a shitton of hope. This maverick has changed his views according to what state he was flying over, not even which one he landed in.

Mel Gibson did a much better job. He rescued Jodi Foster from some not-so-real Indians, entered a massive poker tournament and won by willing himself the only winning card, found the money after it was stolen and still had time for a dip in a whirlpool. Now that’s some in-your-face shenanigans. To give McCain credit though, he has a relatively attractive, blogging daughter and an under-educated base. Plus, Mel Gibson’s batshit crazy. He’ll be fine.

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infantile exploitation

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Note: here’s another long one. I have a lot going on. Obviously.

As everyone knows, unprepared women, when given the option, joyously prance into paranoid facilities to avoid being mothers. That’s why movies are made. To prove to those teen, low-income, and unfit mothers that they should bear unwanted, malnourished offspring. If a server at a diner, married to an asshole, who befriends Matlock, can do it, so can you. If you’re a smart-allicky sixteen-year-old or an upwardly-mobile television producer living in her sister’s guest house, all the better. Unfortunately, not everyone watches movies. They are an extravagance that the poor and uneducated can ill afford.

Thank goodness for Prolife across America notice their logotype, which seems to be written by one of the infants in their photos, and how “prolife” became a word somehow. Without their diligent use of high school graphic designers and donated money, fetuses would be dropping like flies so to speak. The message has to get out there, no matter how pathetically aligned and displayed. There are too many liberal shitpiles to easily alter the constitution of these united states, but giant billboarded adorable will hopefully sway opinion.

Alright, enough of that bullshit. I don’t have much to say about abortion, but strongly believe it is a woman’s right to choose if she is fit and ready to bear a child odd how those that want less government seem so keen on personal freedom destruction. You would assume because we’re in the midwest and thus surrounded by rurals who read the Bible for lessons in biology the pro-life crowd holds a lot of power. However, take a drive out to middleofnowheresville, minnesota, and a different picture is painted. All along the way are photos of babies plastered to billboards giving tagline-lessons in procreation.

Thanks to thosecrazyminnesotans, I was reminded of these grade-school-level art projects that dot the nothingness that is 35N between M.S.P. and Duluth. Her summation of that board in the campaign is pretty spot-on, but there are quite a few more in the archives.

This one simultaneously goes over the head of anti-science folk and caters to the substantially large “I have a dad and a grandma” crowd. Now if only they could have created a less idiotic sentence for the baby to “say.” Maybe “I have my daddy’s eyes!” Or “I got my daddy’s eyes!” Both work, unless you graduated from high school in a ceremony planned by your mom. Then you have to really drive it home by combining both.

Everyone knows you’re not a person until you can be properly identified and not an adult until the government can illegally monitor your phone conversations. At least everyone who spends their Thursday nights staring at the television screen watching C.S.I. with a beer after a long day at the muffler shop. That’s why this one is so perfect and creepy.

I like how the babies in this one have settled for adoption. Those lucky bastards probably a double meaning, but I’ll let it go don’t seem appreciative. The one on the right even looks sort of “ho hum” about the whole thing. “Cool, I’m alive and all, but couldn’t I have real parents?” [rests head on hand and stares off into space]

The same theme that T.C.M. hit on with hers is in this one “what” suddenly being a statement, but has the twist of morbid guilt. A solid combination. It has the added bonus of providing a deadline for you to abort painlessly. Why did they pick such an unattractively posed almost frightening child? And that hair? Try avoiding a head-on collision staring at that young mug. I dare you. I don’t dare you; that’s unsafe; even with miles of cleared field in every direction around these things.

I feel odd saying it, but the excitement on the kid’s face in this one makes me sort of want to flick him in the forehead. What is he looking so forward to? Does he share my fascination with double-wides? Is he that big a fan of middle management if he makes it that high up the economic ladder? Or is it because he has two doting parents off camera that tried for months to have him before his mother’s monthly visitor was finally late? P.L.A.A.’s target market doesn’t seem to share that situation. To be completely honest, the kid scares me a bit; too damien-esque, I think.

Here we have a third-grader learning to use Photoshop in order to prove a point ha. It’s also aggressive as hell. What happened to the soft sell approach, P.L.A.A.? Do you think yelling at soon-to-be-knocked-up preteens is the best route? …Ok, Okay… lay off a second. Easy. Fine, but it didn’t stop them from smoking, is all I mean. You know better than I… Because your evolutionary timeline is easily summed up before the midnight mass, that’s why! Can I finish?… thank you…

This one would be more effective if I didn’t picture a head twice as big as a body floating in embryonic goo with a Joker-like grin on its face. I think they’re also missing a comma somewhere, but it’s already proven that the pro-life crowd is grammatically retarded and completely infatuated with exclamation points.

So the Durex broke? No worries, we’ve got you covered. The kid looks just as confused as his daddy did when you told him you were keeping the baby. Before he ducked out of town to go back to his wife, that is. I guess “Some miracles come with a second job and a tiny apartment in the dank corner of the city!” wouldn’t fit.

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in case you forgot

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

I figure I’ve probably mentioned it I dig redundancy, but I have to reiterate that I work in a department where the male population hovers around one depending on how good the episode of “project runway” was the night before. I point this out because that day of obligation is upon us. Were the ratio less saturated with estrogen, I can’t imagine a meeting would be interrupted to discuss how I was celebrating the forthcoming bullshittiest of bullshit holidays. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened on Monday afternoon.

In order to set the stage, you have to know two things:
1. This was the first weekly status meeting among my subset the three of us labeled “creative services” of the department in about two weeks. I was out with the cough still going strong this morn, thanks for the last one and the one before was reduced to a project listing. It was somewhat important to organize thoughts and determine priorities.

2. I have an aversion to the fourteenth of February like most have to sidewalk vomit. In a lot of ways, I’d rather be single on this annual shitstink than in the throws of romantic bliss. Anything and everything that is stereotypically done on this occasion should be done spontaneously throughout the year. Because we’re too stupid or selfish for such things, everyone has to rush into proving their devotion by doing everything everyone else is doing.

It’s impossible to get dinner reservations, assorted gift-oriented business see: diamonds advertisements flood the television, radio, and, I guess, facebook referenced in the image above, and executives of Hallmark piss paper money. I have my doubts that St. Valentine was the patron saint of guilty obligation and gold necklaces, but the celebration doesn’t seem to point to anything else and we both know I’m not looking that up. Valentine’s is a celebration of love like chronic bronchitis is a celebration of the miraculous respiratory system.

Anyway, here we are on Monday you know, if time-travel were theoretically possible, and I’m trying not to break out in coughing fit while running through my list I say list, but really it was two things of projects currently on my figurative plate. We’re discussing some sponsored graphic when suddenly, with as much warning as a stroke, there’s a conversational cliff dive toward tomorrow’s planned happenings.

I relay my intentions which are none of your business, but picture tickets for a cruise or a receipt for Sprewell’s yacht tucked into a fortune cookie, or something equally romantic and they are immediately laughed at. They in celebration of a manufactured retail holiday are, apparently, sub-par the standards of my two immediate coworkers. This set me on the defensive. My powers of romance are globally renowned as being a model for wooing and these two weren’t much appreciating them.

One suggested, on the cheap, a coupon book. You know the type: one free massage, one free candle lit dinner, one free “you’re right” card (who needs compromise when your lady’s content in her rightness), et al. When I responded discouragingly “I may be from W.I., but even I have my limits on cheese.”, there was a shift toward more monetarily lofty suggestions. These included an appetizer/cocktail tour, an expensive I think the word they used was “special;” same diff dinner, a trivia night at Brits, and others.

While I sat there, I got more and more annoyed with every superficial stab into the delicate face of romanticism and pretty much tuned out. That is, until they brought the lumberjack-styled chainsaw out for romanticism’s gory decapitation. At one point, noticing my disinterested posture and involuntary scowl, one of them said, “I know it sucks, but you just have to do it.” If that’s not a commentary on the state of materialistic emotional displays, I don’t know what is.

The rest of the day was a wash because I couldn’t stop my head from churning over how the hell we’ve reached this point it happens more than I’d like to admit. I couldn’t really stop myself I’m not known for my self-control from commenting on the ridiculous aside to my meeting when I got to girlfriend’s house just after work.

Proving she’s probably the coolest person alive I say “probably” because, if the Right is right (ha), Jesus would have to be an infant about now; it took him forty years to figure out his shit last time and they’re planning on a quick end to things; basically, she’s only trumped by the return of the Son of God, s’all I mean she laughed with me at some of the suggestions and genuinely seemed to find the situation just as retarded as I did.

The decision to be with her was justified, reaffirmed, and made stronger simultaneously. There’s no way I could, even with a $50-per-plate dinner and a few hundred dollars in diamonds or gold, illustrate how “the shiz” she is on one day or night, considering I still have to work despite Thursday’s “importance”. Maybe I’m wrong, but I might as well avoid the crowds and keep her smiling, content, and entertained the other 365 days leap year, yo this year. Well… at least the vast majority of them.

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tabloid commentary

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

I don’t care how full you think your life is. Sure you’ve bungee jumped off a three-hundred foot cliff in New Zealand. Who hasn’t? Of course, clubbing your own baby seal was an impressive task how you got into the zoo and behind the glass still perplexes me. I believe you when you say you can die happy after your brief affair with Jessica Biel lucky for you Timberlake got sucked into that backyard sun-bathing session when he did; I hear he gets a touch jealous…

…but, have you stood awkwardly at the microwave, reheating leftover sweet and sour chicken, while two middle-aged fellow cube drones discuss, at length, current trends and star happenings as seen through the lens of “people” or some such rag? Then, sir or madam, I have you trumped, because that very scenario just happened with myself as the awkward, microwaving participant.

To say the event was humorous would be like describing häagen-dazs’ dulce de leche as cold. I stood there, attempting to concentrate on the reheating, while they inquired into Katie Holmes younger years why she hadn’t been as glamorous as her post-cruise persona, the attractiveness of mcdreamy and mcsteamy, and the general hotness of Fergie.

If I could shut my eyes and erase recent memory or their voices sounded thirty years younger, I’d have likely felt like I was back in high school study hall staring at but not comprehending a math book. Had they been high schoolers, the conversation would have been judgmental, superficial, and ridiculous. Because they’re not, it had just a touch of sadness sprinkled over it. Here’s just a sample of the lame imprecisely quoted:

#1: it’s too bad about britney, because she used to be… she was gorgeous.
—
#1: Did [Katie Holmes] just not hold herself up as well before? Is it just that she has more money now? She looked so much different. Is it just that she’s dating Tom and she can spend as much as she wants?
#2: Have you seen her in any of her earlier movies? She played gothy… and I think she did some of that. She’s in the limelight more now.
—
#2: I think it’s natural to connect with stars of your own era. I don’t care how hot or dreamy these guys are, none of them hold a candle to Tom Selleck. He just gets better as he matures. But, McDreamy and McSteamy maybe… from Grey’s Anatomy.
—
#1: ooh, Fergie. I think she’s gorgeous.
#3: I think she’s interesting. I saw her in that dress she wore to the Grammy’s; I don’t know.
#1: She’s got the greatest eyes.
#2: but she’s got that square jaw.
—
#1: I don’t know about jessica Simpso…
#3: Oh, Jessica Simpson. I’d give my right arm to look like her.
#2: From here down maybe I assume she was gesturing from her neck down. But she’s got beautiful hair.
#3: I think she looks like a Barbie.

If this is what normal people talk about, our country is headed to ruin much faster than even i imagine. Every time a page was turned, another topic came up without a noticeable line of thought among the bunch. They each had thoughts I use the term loosely here; very loosely on everything that came up, but none of it had any meaning. It took me about five minutes at the nuke-box and I feel that, intellectually at least, I would’ve been better off slamming my head repeatedly on the pillar next to me, timing how long it took me to pass out while holding my breath fully realizing this would be physically impossible without assistance, or counting the full flips of a tossed quarter.

Now I’m taking an early afternoon because it’s still frigid in here and my repetitive hacking is annoying my neighbors. Do tell Jess that I’m available. Even after eavesdropping on this stimulating banter, I could probably still fit something in what can i say, carpe omnium. I make a mean grilled cheese.

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haha

Monday, February 11th, 2008

I’m not much of a music guy. Going against me in music trivia would be like slapping a quadriplegic in the face with a three-foot stick, or something. It’s sad, is all I’m saying. That being said, even I don’t much like this tune. I do, however, enjoy the video that accompanies it which explains, partly, why i’ve subjected you to it. Unfortunately, watching this gem on mute would completely ruin any shred of awesome it now has.

Enjoyed it right if you didn’t, please contact your congressman (or woman) and take appropriate action*? Talk about a sweet video on the cheap.

*by appropriate action, I mean, of course, waterboard him (or her). It’s not torture at least according to anyone in power, but he’ll (or she’ll) get your point.**

** he (or she) won’t get your point. This was a joke. Congresspeople are on a different level of stupid where the U.S. is still powerful and just.***

*** this was just a post about a music video and look what happened? Things really got out of hand.

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flawed democracy

Monday, February 11th, 2008

note: what follows has no insight, inside knowledge, or thought. It refers to the Democratic race mccain need not apply. Anything herein that resembles factual content or perspective is purely coincidental. For those of you who don’t believe in coincidence, get over yourselves. Destiny is the Easter Bunny of the post-sixth-grade crowd. Everything you do has consequences that are directly related to the cause. A series of causes and effects make up your dismal existence. Here, take some of these. I just picked them up from the fourteen-year-old across the street. All his friends say they’re the shiz. What the hell am I talking about? Can we move on?

First, this will likely be obvious to 96.74% of you, the readers. As the top-most, flakiest, golden brown-est crusties of the upper crust of this giant bunt cake we call America, you understand happenings on every level. You’re wealthy not in the social sense, but in the sense you can buy a county to hunt on. You despise the poor and consider your trust fund pocket change. I know I’m talking down you in your three-piece suits and shoes with no price tag that were handed to you personally by a seven-year-old Malaysian, but I must cater to the lowest common denominator. Please forgive.

With his “sweep” love the media’s portrayal of politics as sports; undermines any importance it once had; awesome this weekend, Obama is on an impressive push toward the presidency. pause for applause at my hard-hitting, thoughtful analysis. I threw a quick glance toward the C.N.N. election center. Things are looking pretty stellar for the new kid. This is likely because Clinton is a heartless, manipulative bitch. That, or deep in the heart of all of us, there’s a louder voice of misogyny than bigotry.

But, whilst glancing passingly, I noticed the number of super delegates. I took time to watch a video breaking down the super delegates issue. As far as I can tell, it’s any current or former Democrat, except Lieberman. The 3.26% of you would think these super delegates would because it would be logical and fair vote along with the people. That’s why the 3.26% of you are idiots I may have to cater to you, but I don’t have to enjoy it.

Clinton has almost twice as many estimated super delegates in her camp. Were it some other woman, I would jump to the conclusion she’s fellated* her way into their favor; unfortunately, it is the former first lady, so we know this is not the case; zing! I guess this proves that the democratic elite couldn’t give a shit less about the general population psst, 96.74%, this is where you toast with your sixty-year-old wine; I can wait. The down and out members of the business community those salaried at only three million; dumb bastards want her because she’s pro-corporatism. The rest want Obama because he’s running with a better message.

It seems clear that Obama has more momentum. He’s raised about seven trajillion dollars. Quite a few members of the celebrilite are behind him and he’s got a few Kennedy kids on his side. The fact that he won Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, South Carolina, and Utah was enough to push me into full support of this guy. If racists, mormons, and farmers can agree, who am I to argue? I haven’t decided if I’ll vote this time around Tuesdays are always bad for me, but still, he’s a good kid.

Oh, wait, there is that one thing… What the shit is he going to do once he’s president? I haven’t heard anything about his policies thanks established media! and don’t know which direction he’ll go. If I’m honest with myself and I rarely am, there’s no way he can bridge the gap between Right and Left. The only thing we can realistically hope out of him in four years is the withdrawal of the majority of our troops not including contracted death squads, obviously and maybe a few failed attempts at health reform. Is that what I really want to vote for?

It’s a vote against the Democratic establishment that ushered in the Iraq war and has done nothing to slow the conservative agenda. It’s for an inexperienced idealist with all the right sound bites. It’s a gesture toward a united political process like the twitch of a comatose patient’s finger. It’s in favor of ending a bullshit war. It’s in favor of progressive ideals. It’s in favor of a society beyond racial turmoil. It’s something. It’s all a bunch of bullshit as you, the upper-crusties, already know. It’s pathetic, but, if all goes well, at least it’s something in theory.

* unrelated: looking up fellated on dictionary.com yields “chloe sevigny agent” as a related ad. awesome.

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