I’m not the best at really anything. I can’t organize the best, I can’t build the best relationships, I can’t write the best, I can’t talk the best, I can’t play the best. But something I’m good at is getting people riled up. I know this might seem inconsequential but hear me out…

First of all, this is a selfish act.

This is really something I do because it makes me feel better about the world and this little tirade is just an attempt at justification for me thinking that I’m the smartest guy around and “why the fuck don’t the rest of you assholes get it?”.

But beyond that; there really is more than me thinking that I’m the smartest or coolest or whatever. The real deal is that I really just give a shit. And honestly the great injustice to me is that more people don’t.

I think sometimes that I get mad for other people. I have to compensate in some cosmic, karmic way for all the dumbasses that are sitting around watching “American Idol” (is that still what the kids are into?) And put out enough energy to get noticed through that Iron Curtain of (yeah I’m gonna use the most cliche word in the punker dictionary) apathy.

So you understand that the very little progress that might get made by me can’t really compare with the fact that everyone else wants to sit on their ass and not fix things.

Yeah, yeah, trust me I know; you work two jobs, you got two kids and a wife, or maybe and ex, a mortgage and interest on college loans that’s a burden to your unborn children. But quite frankly I don’t give a shit; because: I don’t know what the threshold is… and neither do you.

Tell me: what would be enough? What life situation absolves you of responsibility? Tell me how many hours do you have to work in your shit ass job with people you fucking hate for what reason you don’t even know to justify not thinking about anything greater?

Why is it that everyone just can’t wait until they’re off the hook?

What I mean is that most people just can’t wait to start talking about American Idol or the football game or whatever other stupid inconsequential bullshit happens to be occurring at the time.

Now you might be thinking “Hey! Football is not inconsequential!” or “You just can’t play football so you’re talkin’ shit” but I’m not talking shit about football, or baseball or sports or American Idol anything really. (Ok, I really am talkin’ shit about American Idol).

I happen to like watching sports.

I’m simply making the point that most people will quickly devolve into a pathetic panicky frenzy whenever anything substantive or rather of social consequence is brought up.

The point isn’t what people can’t wait to talk about, it’s that they can’t wait to talk about something that doesn’t fucking matter.

People just can’t wait to agree on something. Jesus, is that what everyone is really longing for? A world without disagreement?

This is what really bothers me: I just hate social chickenshits.

Now I don’t hate you if you’re shy.

I don’t hate you if you have panic attacks and shit; that’s not what I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about are people that don’t seem to suffer from either of these ailments when we’re talking about sports or fucking chicks/dudes, or car insurance or getting drunk or anything else that couldn’t matter a bit. But the second something of importance that is generally disagreed upon, is brought up they run for the fucking conversational exits and start claiming that “they don’t talk about politics at their house,” or “we’re just tryin’ to have a good time” or blah blah fucking blah.

The point is; don’t casually talk endless amounts of racist, sexist, classist, narrow minded, ill-informed shit until somebody calls you on your bullshit and then cry foul. You know what I’m sayin’?

Tell me how much shit you have to put up with before you can finally not care. Because the truth is you don’t really care anyway…

It is important to understand the pretext to the following observations. I spent the last two years in a place nearly devoid of popular culture to include television, movies and music. Part of my re-integration into ‘normal’ society has to do with coming to terms with the changes in society. When change happens around us gradually we tend to not notice it. But a sudden reintroduction into the general public highlights many of the more dramatic changes. The following is just one of my quick observations.

I recently returned home from a much needed vacation and noticed a rather disturbing trend. I’m not really sure when it happened. But apparently big, gaudy, bug-eyed style sunglasses are back in vogue. My response is WTF! For some reason, women feel the need to resemble The Fly and guys are nostalgic for Top Gun and CHiPs. I understand the trends change and fashion is often very transitional. But come on. What’s next? Bell bottoms and platform shoes? The madness needs to stop. Put down the glasses and get to therapy. The 80s are over. Let’s never, ever, bring them back.

Here’s something to think about.

Every two weeks (or weekly, or monthly, depending on your company’s pay periods) the government takes money out of our checks in order to help fund programs that we may or may not find important. We have little control of this aside from claiming dependants in an effort to get less taken out of our checks. Then, for a three month period at the start of the next year, we are all forced to do paperwork that will do one of two things:

1. Give us back a good chunk of the money that shouldn’t have been taken in the first place because we qualify for exceptions and dependants.

2. Bill us for taxes that we didn’t pay in our paychecks because we didn’t qualify for any exceptions or dependants, or we claimed too many dependants in the first place and they didn’t take enough out.

So let’s get this straight – we do our own hours of paperwork in order to get our own money back, or we do our own hours of paperwork in order to bill ourselves for taxes that the government probably should have taken out but didn’t.

When I run for government office, I’m going to create a department that does this for us. They’re using our money, you’d think the least they could do is do the math for us.

No wonder everyone hates the IRS.