Things from the road…(a work progress)

1. If you forget your personal music and are stuck listening to radio you realize just how bad most peoples’ taste in music is.

2. Either I am getting old or music is getting really bad. I am going to blame it on the latter.

3. When you have nothing else to do but think you plan out the rest of your life.

4. 83% of people are horrible drivers.

5. I now have a 5 year plan and know what I want…it has nothing to do with right now.

6. People that own Hummers are probably assholes.

7. People that own smart cars are probably assholes.

8. People in the Midwest are genuinely nicer than in any other part of the country.

9. Sometimes I miss being a truck driver.

10. Most times I am glad I am no longer a truck driver.

11.

You Are Not That Important, So Deal With It

And you don’t deserve a blue ribbon for your participation in this life…or any other you feel you may have been a part of.

One of the biggest issues with society today, whether it is a guy having a stroke on Wall Street or a kid fresh out of college having a hissy-fit because he doesn’t think he should have to pay his student loans, is that we think the world owes us something.

We all feel a sense of entitlement to something; I’m guilty of it as much as you are.

And you ARE guilty of it, aren’t you?

But what does that sense of entitlement – that feeling that we should have something more just because we are – really doing for us? (And I’m not talking about basic human rights here, like breathing clean air, drinking clean water, eating food that has not been stuffed full of antibiotics and growth hormones (side note: Why is it illegal for professional athletes to take steroids, but okay to give to our children via a chicken breast? Anyway…almost lost my train of thought there.), and health care (yes, that is a basic human right). Everyone has a right, or should have a right to these things.) That sense that we deserve things we don’t really need without having to work for them. What does that sense of entitlement do for anyone?

It stresses you out.

That’s it.

We are making ourselves miserable by craving the things we don’t need. We are making ourselves even  more miserable by feeling like we deserve these things for free, or without putting in the work.

You are not that important. Neither am I.

So deal with it.

Take an inventory of the things you do have (and I am not talking about material possessions, if you are doing that you are doing it wrong) and be thankful for those things.

They are all you need.

If you can do this you will be happier.

And then you won’t bitch so much and the rest of us will be happier too.

Pop Culture Tranquilizers

Love this Image from http://chan4chan.com/archive/190140/Chan4Chan

Run East
towards backward sunsets
and concrete graveyards –
where angel-winged hipsters
wax poetic
about useless revolutions –
while steam rises
off cafe mochas
in run-down speak easys
and beat poets
go to die

Call it…
SoHo

Call it…
(someplace)

Cal it…
your own backyard

Generations
defined by style

throw away your history books

Vogue is all that really mattered
anyway

Children
visit Disneyland
for half a days pay
and get consumed
by pop culture
icons

So when dreams
turn to nightmares
at least they’ll have
their memories

…at least

 

Part of this poem was published in The Nexxus, Volume 16

Shut Up. You Complain Too Much.

People love to complain.

There is no way getting around that fact.

I have only been around this world for a few years so I am not going to act like I have been privy to the way humans as a species have acted and/or reacted to their situations throughout time. Maybe the cavemen, after coming back to their dwelling after a long day of chasing Mammoths, Saber Tooth Tigers and whatnot plopped down on their grass mats and whined throughout the night.

It doesn’t seem like that was the case.

Even our grandfathers didn’t really seem to be whiners.

I remember my grandfather coming home after working all day, sitting down and doing whatever needed to be done. My father is the same way. The man works his ass off and never complains about it.

The odd thing is, people like this are now the minority.

We are definitely not “The Greatest Generation”.

We are a generation made soft by technology. We sit around in cushy homes with our central air and computers and smart phones and streaming video and whine about it.

We get angry about things that don’t deserve our anger. Things like getting the wrong color cell phone for Christmas and the newest video game’s release date getting postponed.

We complain about not getting enough respect at our cushy jobs, whether that job is in an office, driving a truck over the road or on a sweltering construction site. Every one of these positions is far better than any of our ancestors had to deal with and yet we complain about our station in life constantly.

We don’t know what hardship is.

The day you have to wrestle a lion on the African Sahara is the day you have the right to complain about how hard your week was.

Until then, shut up and go back to your cushy life.

The Power of Social Bitching

It seems that protesting has made a comeback in the past year. From the Middle East to our own downtowns people are “mad as hell, and they’re just not gonna’ take it anymore!”

Thing is, whether people are bitching about social change, the economy or just a couple of bucks (as recently seen by Verizon back-peddling on their $2 a month service fee for payments made online and phone payments) bitching has been getting results.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not talking about the incessant whining we have been hearing about people not getting the iPhone or IPad they wanted for Christmas or the plethora of things that come up in popular tags on twitter. I am talking about things that deserved to be bitched about.

Let’s take a look at a few examples:

Neflix -I don’t even remember when this whole thing started, but somewhere along the line DVD rental giant Netflix decided it could do whatever it wanted and made plans to separate it’s streaming from DVD services and up the price by a hefty 60%. After a giant uproar via social media outlets like twitter and facebook, they appear to have backed down and months later I am still using the same service to get both streaming and DVD rentals.

**Side issue: I still can’t get the Hangover 2 when I want to and had to go buy it instead (BRING BACK THE LOCAL DVD RENTAL PLACE!!!)**

Go Daddy – Why any Internet-based business would ever support something as insane as SOPA is way beyond my comprehension…but they did. And by the power of Social, they too dropped the flag they were waving and are now looking for “other ways to protect online privacy” (good luck Go Daddy).   The craziest thing to me seems to be that after their sniveling back-stepping people still kept their domains with the service (this I believe is more due to the laziness that is American culture).

**Guess What?! Go Daddy are still the same company and don’t deserve your or my money! If you still utilize their services you should be ashamed of yourself!**

And of course, there is Verizon. Where companies get the audacity to think it is a good idea to charge people for easier ways to make payments (and thus reducing the lateness of payments to the company’s benefit) is beyond me. But many of them do it. It is time things like this came to an end and it’s good to see people finally bitching enough to make a change.

Just…bitch about the right things (and by right things I don’t mean the fact that you got a white iPhone instead of a black one or you didn’t get a pony (do kids still want ponies?)).

Vive le Resistance!

**Special Thanks to Jenita Lopez (@jenita) for the Inspiration for this post :)**

***And for letting me call DIBS***

Why Wall Street is Not Occupied

I watched yesterday, with dozens of other people, as hundreds of young hipsters and granola kids filtered into Trinity Place, hoping to turn Wall Street into an “American Tahrir Square” and occupy what they believe is the heart of greed and corruption.

The protesters look a lot scarier here in the Occupy Wall Street poster.

I agree with the protesters. The American economic system is really screwed up. But what happened? Why did the protest end up failing? Why was the Occupy Wall Street protest different from what happened in Egypt earlier this year?

• This was VERY poorly planned. I have watched the build up to Occupy Wall Street for a few weeks now and the one thing that came across very clearly was that the plan was to “go to Wall Street and get a plan together”. This is not enough to get the attention of the media or even the people you need to amass the 20,000 strong. Those people were too tired after working 12 straight hours and just wanted to sit down to Roseanne reruns and a beer.
• These were not the 99%. The kids that made their way toward the epicenter of world commerce yesterday were not middle class families and union members who have been deeply affected by the US economic machine. Those people couldn’t make it because they were too busy trying to support a family. The kids that made it to Wall Street yesterday were just that…kids. And mostly college kids…hipsters, frat boys and sorority girls that were looking for a cause. Tomorrow they will go back to their dorms and houses and continue to become the people they despise. That may hurt a little but it is mostly true.
• This was NOT Tahrir Square. And we are not the Egyptian people. I said it earlier and I’ll say it again here – the American economic system is screwed up. Yes, it supports the rich. Yes the 99% pay more in taxes than the 1%. Yes, that is wrong. We are not however, oppressed by a dictator government (no matter what people say). The Egyptian people were seriously oppressed and destitute. We (for the most part) are none of those things. They were fighting for an end to police brutality, the lack of free elections and no freedom of speech. The kids occupying Wall Street were not. If they were they would have been afraid of getting beaten or killed by the NYPD just for showing up. They were not.
• Twitter seemed to be the main concern. I followed the protesters throughout the day (at least until I got tired of it). The reason I got tired of it was that most of the protesters were too worried about whether their hashtag was being suppressed. That is not a protest. That is a social media outcry for attention.
• They did what they were told. When the police barricaded the streets of Manhattan the protesters went and sat down. When they were told they had to leave the park, they did. And then they gave up. ‘Nuff said.
• The media didn’t care. See reasons #1-5.

Hopefully one day the American people will get the peaceful protest thing right. We did it in the 60’s, but those people are all yuppies now and part of the reason the kids wanted to protest yesterday. And one day most of these kids will be just that.

The reason their kids and grand kids decide to act.

Hopefully they will be better at it.