Just about every blog has periodic “I’ve been meaning to write” posts. This is mine.
I was not merely distracted, I was more of less “off grid”. For three weeks I (mostly) ditched wifi and news. It’s not like I was in a mud hut in Bangladesh, I was just busy, mobile, and rural. (Which is a great way to be.)
As I’ve said before, it’s good to drop off line once in a while. It’s even better to avoid the news for an occasional breather. It’s good for the soul; wise for the mind. Too much stupid is bad for you. Also 2016 will be a season of unparalleled jackass… better stock up on the sane while there’s still time.
Mostly taking a break from “news” and media is a needed reminder that “this shit is crazy”. I implore you to try it some time. America (possibly the world) in 2015 (possibly in all times) is batshit insane and seems to be getting dumber by the millisecond. It’s even more obvious when you’ve “unplugged from the matrix” for a few days.
Here’s a sample of my first few minutes back “in the loop” and my immediate reaction:
- I randomly bounced into a new Prince song. Prince is as flaky as dandruff and he’s associated with purple… so that’s two strikes against him. Then again when he’s of a mind he can blaze out rare but inspired guitar solos. The last few seconds of “Lets Go Crazy” make up for a lifetime of flake. Imagine if he did that again! Afire with optimism, I tuned in. Here’s how it went:
- Prince is rambling about Baltimore. Who gives a shit about Baltimore?
- Long ago I spent a hot summer night sleeping on a wooden floor in Baltimore. All I remember is humidity and polluted air.
- I think there were cockroaches too? Was that the cockroach place? Ugh!
- Are Doves Crying in the Purple Rain of Baltimore? C’mon man, pick up the tempo.
- There had better be a guitar solo or I’m gonna’ be pissed!
- Wait a minute?!? Did I hear Mr. “Party Like It’s 1999” say “take all the guns away”? That’s fighting words purple boy! Besides, it’s the East coast… occupied territory if there ever was such a thing… they already took the guns away.
- This song sucks.
- Is Prince a million years old now? Get the guy an AARP form and a stretcher.
- The guy who said “don’t let the elevator break you down, oh no, let’s go crazy” is sounds like a tired accountant. This is sad.
- Well that song is over and apparently Prince is now a robot.
- I’d better investigate what he was talking about. [Open a new tab. Click, click, click…]
- Burning cars? Riots? WTF?
- Is that someone looting toilet paper? Is that all they have to loot?
- Stealing ass wipe that can be had at a buck a roll only makes sense in Venezuela.
- Why do they always burn cars? How, specifically, will injustice be solved by burning a Ford?
- I’ve owned a few Fords that should have been burned.
- A few years ago they could have subcontracted these dipshits for “cash for clunkers”? Would looters stop burning cars if it was a job?
- Police in a single party inner city town may be corrupt. Also the sky is blue.
- I’ll have to ponder this new information. However, my first thought is Price used to have a sense of humor and what happened to his guitar playing?
- Enough of that… what else is going on. Hmm… Islamic nutzos shot up some portion of the 99.998% of planet earth they deem to be heretics?
- Yawn; Charlie Hebdo or some shit… Where is it? A pot shop in the Netherlands, a discotheque in Taiwan? Wait! This was in Garland, Texas? Those bastards!
- [Click, click, click…] Oh, well now. Seems it was handled properly. Bad guys dead in less time than it takes to heat a Pop Tart.
- Good guys mostly OK. Excellent!
- Hordes of swatted up LEOs showed up afterwards and tore a car apart? Way to handle the deadly threat. Party’s over fellas. Tearing apart a sedan doesn’t make you a hero. Try again next time.
- A tip of the hat to Texans.
- Have I mentioned that Texas looks better each day?
- Quite the difference in cultures. Nutzos attacked Paris, ran around like a bull in a China shop, and Europe responded with a huge parade. Nutzos attacked Texas, wound up dead in 15 seconds, and Texans don’t need a stinkin’ parade!
- Pravda of America (NPR) invades my truck cab regularly but it seemed to miss the whole “Texans solve a problem” situation. Was that radio silence when the issue is resolved “old school” or was just I out of the truck that day?
- At the very least John Kerry didn’t show up with James Taylor. Kerry knows better than to mess with Texas!
- Will James Taylor and Prince form the worlds lamest crime fighting duo?
- Yawn; Charlie Hebdo or some shit… Where is it? A pot shop in the Netherlands, a discotheque in Taiwan? Wait! This was in Garland, Texas? Those bastards!
- Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy.
- Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!
- Ha ha ha ha ha!
- Ha ha ha!
- Ha!
‘Bout time you got back.
I must admit I’m still kind of Gob-smacked at the media silence at the effective way of dealing with these two. There have been a few ‘we really need to stop these wicked cartoonists and their hate speech causing unnecessary poor innocent muslim deaths’ – but that’s really about it.
And yeas. Living where the state woodpile is real earth-shattering news for the week has its up-side (and I need to cut wood).
I’ve beenwatching the “Those cartoonists are just baiting the Jihadis” meme, amd my gut reaction is “Yup. Worked a treat, too. There’s no bag limit on these vermin, right?”
Don’t laugh. She’ll probably win.
That too would fit into my “this shit is crazy” theorem.
You stop laughing when you think about her actually winning. No really, there are people that think she is the bee’s knees.
There are also people that ride recumbent bikes from their day job as a street juggler to an evening of poetry slams and tofu enemas before getting their dinner from a dumpster and crashing in their mom’s basement. I laugh at them too. The point is that they’re indications of a world gone weird more than something to get worked up about. There’s a non-zero chance she’ll win and if she does can we all agree, at that point, that politics has left the realm of logic and become “Idiocracy writ large”?
Glad to see you hit us up. Check your site everyday. Enjoy it.
Welcome back.
Thanks for firing up the keyboard again. Good to hear from you.
They did not need a parade in Garland. Just pulled the bottle of whiskey out of the trunk and passed it around.
Hil would make a great gun salesperson, beating all of Obama’s records.
Robert Heinlein had a period of time in his “history” called the “Crazy Years”, but none of his examples of crazy can beat our crazy years. It does make sense to drop out a bit just to regain some perspective, even if that perspective just makes you shake your head.
The other effect of perspective is to note just how much we focus on unimportant things. Imagine dropping in to 2015 cold; one would discover that Americans spent weeks atwitter about the morality of a pizza parlor’s hypothetical reaction to catering a wedding. Pizza don’t mean shit. Are we fretting about heavy issues? An $18,000,000,000,000.00 debt, ISIS beheading peasants like it’s 780 AD, etc… Nah! Math is hard and foreign things are confusing. Given many issues to chose from you can count on us to collectively miss the elephant in the room and spend a month whining deflated balls, hypothetical pizza, and whatever else distracts from moments of importance.
I’m glad you enjoyed your time unplugged….
…..nope. Not goin’ there. I have chickadees.