Feed Off of the Adrenaline People!

As I prepare myself and make sure I have my insurance card with me for an appointment with a neurologist who has the potential of giving me really shitty news and also has the potential of giving me really great news about mi back! So I decided just to comment on that feeling in your gut before a Doctor's visit. It's just this pit deep down in your stomach.  It's like the feeling of butterflies when you're nervous around a crazily beautiful woman, (notice I said crazily, not crazy) except bad, real bad because you don't get to look at said crazily beautiful woman. You get to look at a sterile room with fluorescent lighting, sitting in a paper robe, waiting for some guy (sometimes woman) you've never met to pick and probe at your body. It sucks. I'm not excited.

I'm sticking with the classic tv theme shows to sum up my blogs for now. I kinda like it. I hope this guy walks into my waiting room today. If only life were how it is in my dreams. Imagine the possibilities.

What's in the News

Guess what everybody!?!? Shocking news just broke on Yahoo, one of the leading sources of mass information transfer (Is that a term?) in the world. My eyes were drawn to it by it's picture, but decided to find out more about it based on the headline. It was right there on the homepage, big and bold. Get ready for this shit. "K-Fed's Weight Shocks Fans". Boom!

This is a mildstone day for me. I can't believe it. I haven't felt like this since I heard Michael Jackson died. Let me take you through my thought process as I read this article.

Turns out Kevin Federline turned heads at a California sporting event Monday. Wait what? Why? But it wasn't for his golfing skills; Then what could it possibly be for? it was over his size. Holy Bejesus, would you listen to that? But what about his size? Did he shrink? Did Kevin Federline become the world's tiniest man since breaking up with Brittany Spears?

At one point at (the) Ryan Sheckler X Games Celebrity Classic; Who the fuck is Ryan Sheckler? an employee on the grounds saw Federline and remarked, "Man, that's a belly on him! That's K-Fed!?!?" Holy shit that must mean really fat. They used two exclamation points AND two question marks.

Federline underwent scrutiny after packing on major pounds last spring. Oh, poor Kevin Federline. It must be so tough to be Kevin Federline. He's so poor and has so much talent yet can't catch a break. Fuck you Kevin Federline.

His ex Shar Jackson laughed off criticism. Wait why? Why is she commenting and laughing about Kevin's weight? This is no joking matter Shar. Wait, don't trip.  She's gettin paid!  "It's daddy weight!" Shar said "When you are a full time parent, sometimes you can't focus on you. If gaining a few pounds is your only problem, life's not too bad" Oh, whooo. Crisis overted. Thank Jesus Christ Almighty. It's not a big deal people, he just got fat because he loves babies. It's cool. He's a parent and loves him some babies. The new baby smell, the cribs and listening to "The Wiggles" and shit. He's a really good dad and loves babies. Vote Federline for Governor of California '12.

The Green Card Lottery

So I step into a cab last night and say hello to the cab driver as I'm getting in. He was of the friendly driver variety, big smile and a "how's it going?" attitude in his speech as I told him where I needed to go. You never know if you're going to get a guy in a shitty mood when you get into a cab in Chicago, you can usually tell right away if they feel like having a conversation or if they feel like staring dead straight in silence. But this guy was different from other cab drivers, he was of middle-eastern descent (that's not so different) however he was wearing a button down shirt and tie.

"I know you," he says. "You were in my cab before. I remember you". Suprised. "Really?" I say. "When?" "Last week, I picked you up after a Cubs game with two girls". Having not gone to a Cubs game, I said, "You must have me mixed up with another guy, haven't been to a Cubs game this season, but at least were the girls good looking who were with the guy that looks like me?" He insisted. He picked me up. "You work in Television, you are a Producer and you moved here from somewhere. You were talking about going to college in Florida". Freaked me out a bit, was this a mystic psychic cab driver? Finally, we figured it out. Some friends who I hadn't seen since college stopped through Chicago last week on a road trip (thank Facebook for that reunion, although I still somewhat despise social networking, but one has to adapt) and we went up to Weiner Circle, a hot dog joint in Lincoln Park kinda close to Wrigley Field. The mystery was solved. But still, what's the chance of having the same cab driver in a city of 3 million people twice in the same week? Especially one with such a good memory. This was a particularly interesting guy as it turned out to be.

He is Iranian and told me how he had first moved to Chicago in 1976, but returned to Iran during the Revolution of '79 to make sure his family was safe, and wasn't allowed to come back here until 2006. Do you know how he was able to come back here? He won the lottery. Yes, in Iran there is a lottery every year to choose who is allowed to get a green card to go and work in America. I had no clue. I wish I can win the lotto here so I can never have to work for someone else again and do what I want to do for the rest of my life. In Iran, they wish they can win so they can move away to a place thousands of miles away (and family to keep in mind, his 27 year old son is still there whom he hasn't seen in three years) to make practically minimum wage driving a cab around the city twelve hours a day. What he likes about America so much? It's open-minded and you can say what you want. Amazing. He is a good driver too, got me there safe and provided great conversation. A worker like him is welcome in my country any day. Immigration is a good thing in this jew's opinion.

Hell, another classic 80's sitcom can sum up my thoughts on Immigration. Here.

It's Friday

and that makes me want to put on a step show with my cane and enjoy a summer weekend. Good morning, I'm at work and gots shit to do so I can say right now is enjoy a song during your day today. So just sit back, relax for a second and enjoy the music of the Tribe if you get a few minutes to spare.

Not much coming out this weekend movie-wise unless you're interested in the act of inducing yourself to vomit by going to see "The Ugly Truth". I kind of want to see "The Orpan" though. Fucked up little kids usually scare the shit out of me.

HSIOW

There was a strange tide shifting in Chicago today, I can't explain it but nobody I know was acting the way they usually do. I can't keep my eyes open right now so all I have is a Carlin quote tonight before this head hits the pillow and I drift off to a blissful valium wonderland.

"Fuck cutesie names for restaurants like TGIF (Thank God It's Friday). They should name a restaurant HSIOW (Holy Shit It's Only Wednesday). People would drink a hell of a lot more if they thought it was Wednesday all of the time."




Rest In Peace GC. I pour out a little gatorade to your memory.
I'll clean that up in the morning.

Ow My Balls.

I was flipping through the boob tube the other day (I love the term boob tube, because whoever came up with it was probably so excited that you got to see boobs on TV that they named it that) and I came across a show called WipeOut. I caught about five minutes of it and realized "Holy Shit, this is "Ow, My Balls" from Idiocracy.

If you've yet to see Idiocracy, see it, it's fucking genius. Here's the basic premise as told by wikipedia.

"The film tells the story of two ordinary people who are taken into a top-secret military hibernation experiment that goes awry, and awaken 500 years in the future. They discover that the world has degenerated into a dystopia where advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid human society devoid of individual responsibility or consequences."

I could have better described it but I have to actually do some kind of work today. In the movie, "Ow My Balls" is the most popular show in America in the future. It consists of a guy constantly getting injured in the balls. WipeOut, which is a real show today, airs Wednesday at 8PM, 7 Central, is basically the same concept. Actual proof that the predictions Idiocracy makes about our declining society will come true. Scares the piss out of me honestly. I don't know where they even find the tards to come on this show.

Ow My Balls
Ow! My balls!


WipeOut


Poor Jacob!

Our society is fucked!

Happiness

So one of the things that pissed me off when I first moved to Chicago was the emergence of a free newspaper called "The Redeye". I lived in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago at the time and my subway commute to work was a little over an hour. The station was outdoors and had a Dunkin Donuts attached. Every morning before I greeted the Indian woman who served me my coffee and bagel, I took off my earphones for a minute or two (usually - weather depending) to say good morning to Earl, a black middle-aged man who sold me my copy of the Chicago Tribune for 50 cents. "Good Morning Young Man!", he always said. We usually commented on the weather and I would finish my stoge as he handed me my paper. I almost always remembered to grab two quarters before I left, but if I forgot, Earl didn't care, he would just say "You got it. You're my customer." and I would give him a dollar the next day. Earl also bought me coffee one morning when I didn't have my wallet or any change. I bought him a coffee and a doughnut the next wee. and that's how Earl and my relationship formed over the year I was there. Earl was more than my newspaper guy, Earl was my friend.

Then, Redeye moved in, or who I referred to at the time as whitey. A middle aged balding fat white man stood right next to Earl and handed out FREE Redeyes to people approaching the station. This pissed me off, because everyone was grabbing the free paper instead of taking the time to stop and buy one from Earl. This was Earl's job and this fucker was fucking it up. The worst part of it all was The Redeye is crap. It's like a watered down version of the New York Post. There are a few news blurbs, a lot of poorly written articles, multiple pages of sports coverage and a pages dedicated to celebrity gossip like what color underwear Jon Gosselin's new girlfriend wears. Anyway, I snubbed whitey, purposely, every day. He would try to hand one to me, I would tell him "No" and then take out fifty cents and buy one from Earl. Earl loved that shit.

Over time, I moved away from Earl and Lincoln Square and Red Eye grew in popularity. Now, in the morning, all you see on the busses and trains of Chicago are Red Eyes, that's part of the reason why the Tribune is near bankruptcy. The Tribune bought out the Redeye by the way but still no one wants to read the insightful editorials of the Trib writers, they just like the short blurbs. It's the Idiocracy of America unfolding before our eyes. This morning, I passed a Red Eye stand and saw the headline. Big and bold.

"Generation Happy. Happy happy, joy joy: Young Americans aren’t feeling the stresses of pretty much anything".

What Bullshit. I had to read the article. Here it is if you're interested. http://redeye.chicagotribune.com/red-072009-happiness-main,0,7292756.story It really doesn't take a stance toward anything. Like I said, Red Eye is a shit "newspaper". I do have to say that the more people I meet out there in the "real world" aren't the young happy joy joy people this headline lead me to believe, they're quite the opposite. There are a lot of depressed young people out there. Shit, there are a lot of depressed people out there, period. But they're just dealing. They're just all in the process of learning how to deal with it. Now that's life. We all deal with it the best way we know how, it's called survival.

This article got me thinking, I still consider myself a young person, although I'm currently walking with a cane and have caught myself talking about the simpler "good ol' days' much more than I used to, I'm still young damnit. Am I happy though? I don't know. I don't think so. I've been a lot less happy in my life... so that's good. Is it really possible to live in an age when we have access to so much information about the shitty world around us and ever be truly happy? I say, look on the bright sides of the shit sides. The things that are shitty in my life ALL have a bright side. I have a broken back BUT I can walk. My job isn't stimulating BUT I have a job and therefore am not unemployed. I am single BUT I'm not in a shitty, unhealthy relationship. There will always be things that suck about our lives. It's all the color of glasses you look at life with that matters. It's a fact of llfe, you take the good with the bad. You must realize the bad to recognize the good. It's pretty simple, it's like the Facts of Life theme song. I just youtubed that song out of curiousity and I'll embed it just in case you feel like taking a gander.




Holy shit, I just wrote a whole blog and somehow managed to sum it all up with meaning behind the Facts of Life theme song. Back pain meds are making me a whackjob. Goodnight.

Typical Jewish Mother

This video always makes me laugh because it somewhat reminds me of my mother while I was growing up. Except my mother was beautiful, not quite as loud (but close) and obviously not a man dressed as a woman.

Thank Heaven

I have "blogged" before I guess, like little editorial quips/observations/musings what-have-yous at random times throughout the years, but this is my first time setting up a blog page.  So I don't know what to write.  So I'll start with something that made me happy this morning and will continue to provide early morning sunshine for days to come.  The brand new 7-Eleven pre-made Ice Coffees mothafuckas!!! 

I discovered this brilliant blend of absolute deliciousness, caffeine, sugar, and what I think might be some sort of variation of crack-cocaine approximately one month ago and let me tell you, if you've yet to endulge, what the FUCK are you waiting for?  It's like an orgasm in your taste buds.  Scratch that, that metaphor comes across too vulgar in this circumstance.  But seriously, try one.  It's hot out, why not? You don't have to do anything extra next time you go to 7-Eleven for coffee, IN FACT you can skip the steps of pouring in cream, or sugar, or a few ounces of that cappacino mix from that machine, which kicks ass in coffee by the way.  Skip all that shit, just grab a cup, put in ice and push the lever which dispenses the already made concoction into your cup. Mocha or French Vanilla, I highly recommend Mocha.  But that's just me, do whatever makes you giddy.  While you're drinking it, Smile. It makes you happy.  

I have been in love with 7-Eleven ever since I was a wee one.  What a wonderful place.  I can remember riding my bike there, summers growing up when a slurpee a day was a given, maybe even two and it was the only place in town that sold Big League Chew.  Throughout the years my love of 7-eleven grew when they introduced the coffee coolatta my freshman year of college, a slurpee version of coffee which turned into my gateway into a severe coffee addiction.  It also kept me up all night writing papers due the next day.  (I think the coolatta got bought by Dunkin Donuts because they have them there now, little history lesson for that ass).  Spare tire formed so I had to cool it on the collattas, but when it's hot as fuck down in the disgusting Florida humidity, that shit tastes gooooood.  

While I was in Florida last month, just weeks after the inception of the 7-Eleven Pre-made Ice Coffee hit the shelves, I had at least 3 a day.  Sometimes one at night if I knew I would be up late.  and guess what? each and every one made me happy.  It was truly a god sent.  He/She/It created that shit.  7-Eleven is a wonderful joyland of slurpees, taquitos and ice coffees.  It isn't a coincidence their slogan is "Thank Heaven for 7-Eleven".  Which leads me to my theory that perhaps like so many other American Corporations, 7-Eleven is a government controlled establishment readily available to us on almost every corner.  However, what makes 7-Eleven magical is that it's sole intention is to make us happy, collectively as a populace.  hmmm   Perhaps in these Ice Coffees are magic happy pills.  I think the introduction of the ice coffee is all a part of Obama's plan to stimulate the economy and our moods.  So go be a good American, a good consumer, and get yourself one.  Walk around while drinking it and listen to your Ipod.

I am in no way affiliated with 7-Eleven.  I'm just pretty hopped up on ice coffee right now.  Amongst a myriad of other things.