Hipsters, whiskey, desert boots, Keira Knightley, Snoop Dogg, yachts, Cristal, Kardashians, Black Friday and lumbersexuals

OK hipsters. I've tolerated your idiotic love of ridiculous beards and "ironic" mustaches, and bands that feature Appalachian musical instruments as a lead melodic device. Fine. Have at it you pathetic numbskulls. I've even forced myself to be OK with your currently having ruined the most amazing piece of footwear ever invented, the Clarks desert boot (I've been wearing them since I was a teenager. I wear them now. In fact, I will probably be buried in a pair. I've been wearing them for over 25 years.  I'm in it for the long haul. I didn't wear them all those years ago because others thought they were cool, I wore them because I THOUGHT they were cool. You didn't see flannel clad d-bags in KFC commercials wearing them. Know how I discovered them? I saw a guy wearing them on an old Yardbirds album cover from the 60's and decided I liked them. It then took forever to find a pair in Fresno because corporate America wasn't forcing them down our throats because they were trying to appeal to that 18-25 demo. Now? Every 22 year old in skinny jeans and a waxed handlebar mustache is wearing a pair. But that's fine. Soon, they will fall out of fashion, and you guys will be on to something else....maybe elf shoes with the little jingle bell on the curled toe? Anyways...I'll have my desert boots back is all that matters). But what I cannot abide is you twats having driven the price of whiskey, specifically bourbon, through the stratosphere. IT'S RIDICULOUS. I'm sure you fixie riding, ironic dive bar attending idiots think it's beyond cool you're enjoying a beverage your granddaddy drank. Thing is, I don't think you even like it. I can see your little pinched faces as you drink it knowing deep down inside you'd rather be drinking a Smirnoff Ice or something. Anyways, your strict adherence to drinking something "retro" and "ironic" has driven the price of your basic, everyday working man whiskies to $25-30 a bottle. A bottle of Makers Mark used to run $19.99. Wild Turkey 101 could be had for less than that. Now? Forget it. And, a higher end item like a Van Winkle, while not cheap, could at least be found on the shelf at your local specialty liquor store. Now? They're sold out pre-release. WTF?????? Stop ruining everything good in life with your slavish devotion to trend. It's sickening, and destroying it for those of us who appreciate things for their intrinsic pleasures, not because all your friends say it's cool. I come from a long line of brown liquor drinkers (some, a little TOO fond of the stuff) with southern/Scots-Irish DNA, which is to say I come by my enjoyment of a bottle of Elmer T. Lee honestly. Could you dweebs do me a favor and latch on to something else? Gin? Ooooh....how about rum??? There's an unexplored beverage that is just now starting to sprout artisanal distillers, plus pirates LOVED IT. And how cool are pirates, am I right??? They even liked beards too! Just like you!!!! Oh...eye patches! You could bring back eye patches too!!! The possibilities are endless! So, let's get on it hipsters! Let's start the rum revolution and leave that bourbon behind!!!!!!! (and Scotch and Irish too...). Do it for the children....ha. Kidding. Do it for me you bastards.
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Headline: "Keira Knightley poses topless to make statement about body image and retouched photos."

Saw the photos, and here's what that unspoken photographic statement of Keira's essentially said (I'm translating for you folks who don't speak the celebrese language long ago created by ancient tribes of Hollywood publicists): "Hey everybody! Look at me! I'm young, rich, white, pretty and skinny! Woo hoo! Suck it, losers!!! Ha ha ha ha ha! Worship me you pathetic fucks!!!!!!!! Gwab morg goff blergh fwomp!!!! (sound of Keira morphing into a demon with camera flash-bulbs for eyes)

That Keira Knightley is one daring woman. To have her professionally made-up, lighted, costumed, and posed visage selectively edited for the best shots out of dozens (if not hundreds) of photos thrown out there into the public domain is an act of heroism, nay, BRAVERY, that really makes Joan of Arc look like a self aggrandizing attention whore by comparison. What we really need to ask ourselves is this...Keira Knightley: great woman? Or greatest woman? I know...I'm torn too...btw, kinda flat chested.  Just sayin'...Zing! See what I did there? Ha ha ha...it's like I don't get it! Right??? (seriously though, smallish boobs is the point I'm trying to get across here)
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Oh, and apparently THIS happened in the UK.  So, a maniac in Wales murders a woman, then eats her face, and then dies after being Tasered by police (for those of you keeping score at home, this is also known as the methamphetamine trifecta). I had no idea the Welsh were such a rowdy lot.
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Just got an email inquiring if I'd like to rent a private jet. Evidently, a marketing firm has identified me as a player (pronounced "play-ah"). I figure it's only a matter of time before subscription opportunities to the Cristal bottle of the month club come rolling in, and, mixed in my mailbox with the Bed, Bath and Beyond flyers, I start getting service coupons offering to get the oil changed on my Bentley for 15% off.

This was followed by another email, that, no joke,  was an offer for me to rent a yacht. I figure the offers to set me up with a Kardashian must be just right around the corner. The yacht email:

Note: offer states yachts are "friendly, accommodating, and well run." Needless to say, these proclamations are a sure sign of quality, as most of us are just plain sick and tired of the unfriendly, un-accomodating, and highly disorganized floating luxury deathtraps we've become accustomed to. Thank god. Then again, the fact my last yacht crew was a bunch of Somali's should have been the first clue I had erred in judgment with my choice in yacht rentals.

#‎baller‬

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Here's an article about "Lumbersexuals".  The article refers to them as "rugged hipsters."
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/11/lumbersexual-trend-thrusts-rugged-hipsters-into-mens-fashion-spotlight.html

Ahem. "Rugged hipsters"? I don't know where to even begin...but fear not, for begin, I shall. Rugged is to hipster as dental hygiene is to meth addict. Sure, it's theoretically possible, but probably something that could only exist for a millionth of a second in a highly controlled environment at Lawrence Livermore Labs...like an isotope of element 115 (aka ununpentium...look it up...nerd humor). Anyways, can we just either a) make it stop with the bearded buffoon brigade (the bbb's) and their many lame ass (lame assed?) iterations (monocle man, handlebar mustache man, fixie man, craft beer man, insanely expensive limited release whiskey man, bacon man, etc) and just round them up and force them to live electrically fenced inside an elitist, green, micro-farming, pet friendly, GMO free, all natural deodorant, flannel lined gulag, and just call it New Portland? They'd be happy to live there, never notice they were imprisoned, and can all bore each other to death with hysterically un-funny, droll tales full of whimsy of their times in grad school when they grew their own hops for their home brew they later shared with their neighbors who didn't get the joke of the hand drawn label of a pirate they put on their bottle and called it PBR (pee bee arrrrrrrrrrrrr!), or, b) have them all shipped to Syria, and let Darwinism work its magic. I know. Option "b" sounds a little risky, because it could end up with wave after wave of jihadists coming back to our shores armed with skinny jean IED's, hemp grenades, IPA launchers, and ironic musical death beams blasting out Journey (even though these jihadists will secretly cringe a little with self doubt because they're not sure everybody GET'S IT, and they almost feel the need to start babbling on about their love of Leonard Cohen to reestablish their hipster, jihadist cred. This is when they will be most vulnerable, and when we rush in and cut up their Visa card that is paid off monthly by their parents who co-signed for them, thus rendering them defenseless and soon kicked out of their apartments in Brooklyn for overdue back-rent, and now at our mercy) from the speakers of the most ironic of hipster cars: the 1969 Citroen DS..............
I'm not going to lie, I seem to have gone off on a foaming at the mouth tangent, and I totally forgot what my point was...but I think it has something to do with my unresolved anger at 23 year olds who just 2 years ago were drinking Bud Light Lime-A-Rita's and are now pre-ordering by the case the 2014 release of 18 year old Sazerac Rye (for example) to the point where I cannot get my hands on a bottle even through special order. I also suspect they don't even like it, and take it home and mix it with Dr. Pepper. Hopefully, someday soon, they'll go back to secretly drinking their girlfriends Cosmo's and doing Jåger bombs, and come out of the closet for their love of all things Bon Jovi, and not Bon Iver.
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By the way, When Snoop Dogg uses words like "shizzle", "nizzle", and "izzle kizzle", everybody thinks he's using slang, or some sort of self created street lingo. Personally, I just think he's quoting from the lesser known books of Dr. Seuss.
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There's been a dangerous lack of celebrity opinions and comments about the recent events that have occurred this week, unbelievably, right before Thanksgiving. This is a time when Americans are supposed to be coming together, giving thanks and celebrating our shared values, and not fighting amongst ourselves.  I feel so lost. How am I supposed to know how to feel, and how to think, and what to think, if a celebrity won't tell me what's appropriate? Come you egomaniacal, narcissistic, vapid and vain visages of the screen big and small...to the Twitterverse and spill it! I cannot wait to hear how this has affected you, nay, haunted you, as you sip a $300 dollar Pinot in your Malibu fortress and contemplate what's right and just for the hoi polloi. Do it! Stop staring at the screen and just hit send! I breathlessly await, trembling with anticipation, all atingle, for you to free me from my mental vapor lock, not knowing how to process all this stimuli with my little, underdeveloped, non-red carpet brain. Your sage words learned from a rich and diverse, deeply salt of the earth life, full of meaningful experience gained through $2000 prostitutes and cocaine fueled parties, will fill my head with wonder and new understanding of my existence as it relates to my fellow man and woman, and I will finally, blissfully know, through your wisdom.......................whether these post-Thanksgiving Black Friday sales are worth the hassle or not.

Thoughts, musings, and the like...

I have just now decided as I sit here on my sofa watching the Giants lose on a Friday night that a better name for funnel cake would be "the stringy donut". Furthermore, in order to be licensed to make stringy donuts, one would have to show to a govt. certified pastry licensing board a complete and utter inability to competently make "an actual donut". Only after "successfully failing" in making "an actual donut" will you be officially licensed to make the dunce of the donut world: the stringy donut. Ideally, children will be spotted at an early age for their incompetence with yeast based pastries, and steered into this vocation at a young age to ensure that carnivals and fairs will have a steady and trained labor force for continual and uninterrupted stringy donut production. A crippling meth addiction is preferred, but not required, for those that assist in operating the deep fryer machinery.

                                         A stringy donut:

                                         An actual donut:

Assistant deep fryer operator:

Also, you know how Prince changed his name to a symbol? I wonder if you could change your name to a sound...like an explosion or something? Then if somebody asked your name, you would make a specific explosion sound (imagine mimicking an obnoxious explosion sound). If they demanded you write down your name for some legal purpose, you just drew the waveform for the sound...so your signature would look like this (see below). It's really too bad I don't have any newborns to try this social experiment out on, as I think I could be on to the next big thing here...

My fictional newborn's name and eventual signature:

As you can see here, my Friday nights are jampacked with social interaction and high intrigue. 

Caffeine Dealers

So I remember reading this a while back:

"Did you know that Starbucks coffee can have twice as much caffeine as other brands of "to go" coffee?"

Now picture the look on a dogs face when they hear a high pitched sound.  Something like this:

THAT was the look on my face when I read that...because I was perplexed as to what the point was to that question/declaration (btw, my autocorrect originally had the words "point was" as "pony waste" and I almost left it like that, because it struck me as funny). To me, that statement is akin to informing somebody that heroin has an intoxicating effect. Um...yeah. Exactly. It's kind of the reason I go there (for the coffee/caffeine, that is...not heroin. Although, based on their continual menu expansion, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that's offered as well.  "I'll have a venti China white, please."
"Of course, sir! That will be $1,500 and your dignity. Would you like that with whipped cream? Or caramel? Or just the usual heated over a dirty spoon?")

Anyways, Starbucks knows what people like me need in the morning, and that is a hot cup of oooomph, preferably a venti, and not some black, benign liquid masquerading as the real deal.  If something is going to give me less than minty breath, and the need to urinate every three minutes, it had better put a bounce in my step, 'ya know?  So snap to it alternative coffee peddlers!  If you want to compete with The 'Bux, you'd better tweak (get it??????  A PUN!!!) that formula to a proper teeth grinder of a brew and then maybe, just maybe, some of those early morning, bleary eyed, disposable income zombies (like me) who have no desire to be up at that ungodly hour except to please The Man and Get Paid, might stumble into your roasted bean joint for a hot cup of giddy-up to get their day started.   

The Golden Years

Person: So, when you eventually retire, what are you going to do?
Me: Nothing.
Person: You don't mean that...who could do nothing for years on end?
Me: You don't know me very well, do you?

My Retirement Plan

Celery Conspiracy

My problem with celery is thus: the way its portioned out at the grocery store. A recipe will call for a 1/4, or 1/2 cup, of diced celery. This is the equivalent of one stalk (or less). Ever try and buy just one stalk of celery? You CAN'T. Me at the grocery store:

John-"I'd like to buy a stalk of celery please."
Grocer-"I'm sorry sir, but we only sell it by the metric ton."


I am now going to furiously look for a recipe that calls for one metric ton of celery (hopefully the one missing stalk I already used doesn't detract from the flavor...otherwise I'll be forced to go buy another metric ton of celery. Anybody need a herd of rabbits fed? I can help you out....). When are we going to stop the evil cabal of international celery growers from dictating our lives? Wake up people! The revolution is nigh!

(The above image has nothing to do with this post other than its loose association with celery.  Having said that...you're welcome)*






*It's almost hypnotic, isn't it?  
 

There's easier ways to torment a child...

So, apparently, making the rounds on the internet is a story about a guy who, after being annoyed by a child behind him at a fast food restaurant, bought all of the pies the establishment had in order to teach the young lad a lesson (bottom of this post is the link to the story if you'd like to read it). You see, apparently the young child was throwing a fit about wanting a pie, and our hero of the story felt it was a rock star move of epic, almost Hellenistic proportions, to buy them all up prior to the child getting his tantrum indulged. Personally, I felt the gentleman who shared this story got it all wrong. A far more economical way to get a lesson across to the young child, i.e. the one I would have employed, would be this:

I would have calmly turned around, and explained to the child in terms he/she could understand, that all living things, including them, must and will die. It is the inevitable end result of our creation and the source of our ever present existential angst. And, lest he/she thinks they are guaranteed a long happy existence, further explained the mere act of crossing the street can result in your immediate and untimely demise, provided some unexpected horrible disease doesn't get you first. Oh, and then I'd throw in the fact that Santa Claus isn't real, and how their birth destroyed their mother's dreams and ambitions.

See? If one wants to be an epic asshole, and, in a twist of irony, be a far more petulant child than the one you're attempting to give the "what for", it doesn't have to cost you the out of pocket expense of a multitude of miniature pies. 

The article:

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/dont-buy-all-the-pies-at-burger-king-to-spite-a-child-1617620956/+AlbertBurneko

Facebook wants to know "what's on your mind?"

I just noticed the little tag line on the (Facebook) status bar states "What's on your mind?" Really? Does Facebook really want to know? Is there enough space for me to share "what's on my mind?" Are you sure? I mean, where do I start?

"I need to get my daughter's car smogged...there's a patch of lawn to the side of my house that's not looking too good...I've been eating a bit too much junk food lately...the stock market has been awfully hot, you just know it's going to implode any day now...I'm not sleeping like I used too, what's that about...I need to make my annual eye exam appointment...I have an air filter for my car I bought two weeks ago, but I have yet to install it (need to take the five minutes and do it)...I'm on vacation right now but all I want to do is basically sleep, which seems a waste...there's a new show on H2 debuting on the 25th about aliens, and I'm inappropriately excited about it...I'd like to write another song, but at the moment I feel creatively bankrupt...I'm not reading like I should, and I love to read (what's up with that?)...etc."


That was about a 3 nanosecond glimpse into "what's on my mind." Somehow, I'm thinking Facebook had something else in mind, and really, who wants to read that claptrap? Perhaps they should rewrite it to say "Share something interesting...a witticism...an entertaining anecdote...a video of a cat playing a piano...but for the love of god, please, whatever you do, stay away from anything even remotely resembling the drudgery and reality of human existence. This is the internet. Keep it light or keep it to yourself. People are here to escape and snoop. Quit bumming them out. Now, where's those damn cat videos???" I think that would be more appropriate.

So, with that in mind, here 'ya go (Facebook approved as appropriate internet content):