In Hell the elevators play Phil Collins as Muzak.

Banality the creeping death,found today in music,movies, politics,literature,you name it.I think in the modern age it is to easy to graduate from college and foist your degree onto the New York Times and be called a crusading journalist while cranking out a flowing sewer of psuedo intellectual stink.Now any chump can get a computer and make some weird trash,take it to Robert Redford and bam you're on The Sundance Circuit.Bad mouth the president or the war and hey, you're hip lets see if you can get your own show between Al Franken and Randi Rhodes of the dying Air America Network.Nope that don't work for ya,how about the over loaded list of hacks trying to get famous on American Idol,or the local bar circuit of Atlanta.I think with the modern age not everyone has something interesting to say or contribute.
And maybe I don't either but at least I know when to shut up...........

Who am I to fuck with Monday?

Ever notice how all things rush towards Sunday. Merely blink on a Friday afternoon and it becomes a Sunday afternoon...and everyone knows that Sunday afternoon is just a nice way of saying Monday. Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly defiant, I will stay up late drinking beer, and dare Monday to show it's face. How can Monday come if I am having so much fun that it can't possibly be Monday. But Monday always wins and gloats about it's Victory. "I fucked you up, boi!", it says to me as I sit motionless behind the construction traffic of another Quick Trip going up. "Thought you was gonna be smart, and try to stop me from showing up", Monday would say as it took a sip off of a Starbuck Verona latte. "When you gonna learn not to fuck with me son?". And Monday would be right. Who am I to fuck with Monday? But sometimes you have to fight not because it is the smart or right thing to do, but because it is stupid. Sometimes you have to stand up for something, not to win, but to annoy the shit out of the man. "That's right Monday, I stayed up all night Sunday drinking beer like it was Saturday." "I even contemplated not going to work on Monday." "And one day I swear to God, I am going to do it, and when I do boy, whooooo weeee, I would have made Sunday night, Saturday night, and Monday morning, Sunday morning." "Let your mind chew on that for a while mother fucker." Because in the end the days of the week, month and year are just something the man made up to try and create some order out of this world.

God I am an idiot

If there is one thing that I have learned as of late, it is that things are the way they are for a reason. This is especially important if you tend to romanticize the past like moi. With that in mind, let’s talk about the past. In 7th grade I was picked to be a patrol. Only being familiar with my little backward slice of America, I should perhaps clarify “what a patrol is” to any of my Yankee readership. And yes, you are a Yankee if you do not come from Virginia on down. Some of us don’t even include Missouri and they fought for the boys in gray during that little skirmish some years back. Anyway, being a patrol is similar to being a member of a corrupt police organization. You monitor the dark regions of the town (elementary school) for deviants that run up stairs (speed) and don’t wash their hands after a bit of personal business (show contempt for the establishment), and you deal out raw justice as seen through the eyes of a twelve year old. Justice including: walking up and down stair wells until you drop, and scrubbing your hands until they look like they belong to a 3rd degree burn victim. Anyway, long story made short, at the end of the year the patrols got to spend four days of rest and recreation in our nation’s capital, and you can bet your ass, I was one of them. A long bumpy night spent lying in the grease and gray bubble gum of an Amtrak railway car and I found myself blowing in the wind with the rest of the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. I am embarrassed to admit that I can not remember all of the places that we visited; the entire trip is a bit of a jumble for me. Monuments, majestic buildings, museums, cathedrals all ran together like watercolors in my brain. What I do remember is the hotel, the restaurants, the bus rides and a girl named Susan H. I had gotten word through that grapevine that some girl from North Roswell Elementary liked me. Being the little pessimist that I was and am I figured that the girl would resemble a Sasquatch with Spina Bifida at best. I seem to remember running like hell along some cat walk trying to avoid meeting her, I would regret this decision later on. Early the next morning when our buses were getting warmed up, I was physically forced into this girl’s company by her best friend. I raised my eyes from the ground slowly and braced myself for a vision of horror.

“Oh my God, she is cute. She is more than cute, she is hot. Oh my God, what do I say? Say something funny. Show her how strong you are…make a muscle.. no I have a better idea...”

My plan seemed perfectly reasonable to my twelve year old mind…even genius. I took the Coke that I was drinking and said, “I also like the easy opening cans.” (Mimicking a popular television commercial at the time) Then I tore the aluminum can apart and slung the last sip of brown sticky cola onto her white rabbit skin jacket. She screamed with surprise, gave me a look that said “you are goofy but I like you”, and ran to board her bus. I spent the rest of the trip, trying to find her. I memorized the number of the bus that she was on, and looked for it everywhere: Mt. Vernon, the Lincoln Memorial, even Arlington Cemetery. I finally saw her on the last day at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I remember holding hands and buying her a flower for a penny from a Hari Krishna. Then she had to go, and that was that. Over the next four years we had a few brief telephone conversations and once I saw her at the Roswell library (the worst smelling library in Georgia). She told me that she was in love with some guy from Georgia Tech or the University of Georgia and I acted like I was happy for her and countered with some happy bullshit lie about my life. God I am an idiot.

Sick Mother Fucker

Men are stupid. It is so true. I guess women are stupid too, except in different ways. Recently I have been nurturing a friendship with a friend of my better half. No, I am not having an affair, although I have had a few incriminating dreams. What makes this situation even weirder is the fact that not until long ago this person, well…hated me. She did not hate me enough to spit on me or rub salt in a paper cut, but I could tell that there was something about me that made her nose turn up sour, like she had just smelled some bad milk. Long story short, she is going through a nasty divorce and I have been generous with my ear. Hours I have listened to her lament about her family life, her love life, and her unfortunate marriage to a banker. Heck, I even liked the banker. I even thought that he was lucky at times…and that time not being now. You see, the person that I am talking about is quite beautiful. Fucking…freaking…hypnotizing; a real southern belle, all sugary sweet and engaging. She came over tonight and I actually thought that I had put some friendship currency in the bank and made the mistake of trying to talk to her about some things that are going on in my life. Wrong… big fucking mistake. Little did I know that our conversation was one way. As I talked I watched her eyes dart towards the slightest distraction. I noticed her brain engage with distant matters and interfere with the basic southern propensity for feigned politeness. I let me words trail off noticeably while she took up a conversation with a wandering child. Disgusted, I went upstairs and looked in the mirror at the person with whom she had so recently been talking. I am not a bad guy…I can even be a good friend. What is the thing that I am missing that would have engaged her and why do I give a nasty rat’s ass. There it is…that is the sickness: the desire for approval…the desire to be desired. Why am I drawn to people who could not give a damn about me? I guess the answer is: if I am not worth anything, how can anybody that loves me be worth anything. I am a sick mother fucker.

Submarine Hunt

DO NOT!!! EVER !!! USE !!! CLASSMATES.COM !!! The sad reason is that most people are retarded. Let me guess... You think that it would be cool to talk to some old friends. Hell...you are waxing nostalgic like a mother fucker. In your head you are romanticizing all the relationships you had and how special they were... That girl that was so crazy about you would LOVE to hear from you!! In fact she is in an unhappy marriage and you are her knight in shining armor. "Thank god you found me...” she would say and then "My hero!!!” as she fell weak into your arms. Truth is that most people do not have net manners. Most people do not even think of how discourteous it is to nab random email accounts and drop them at the well...the drop of a hat. Your average Joe or Jill fuckstick does not even check her or his email for 3 to 6 months at a clip. And when he/she does your fucking heart felt email is wedged in between a penis enlargement ad and a Russian money order scam. "Teenage Teacher big small asshole fucks mouth cum hamburger". I have actually gotten email subject lines that have made less sense. Fucking spammers… cockroaches of the 21st century. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes you actually get through to the person that you intended only to realize the one obvious fucking thing...There is a reason that you have not stayed friends all these years...YOU ARE NOT FUCKING FRIENDS!! Your friends are the people you talk to today...now. Fuckers that you can carry on a conversation with after a 20 years absence are called ...FUCK I don't know what they are called, but they are not friends. Recently I talked to a friend of mine from high school. We had not talked for 12 -13 years. We even added each other to our AIM buddy list. But guess what...every day I see her fucking icon online and every day we do not talk. It is a comfort knowing that she is merely a click away, but I never click. Maybe that is all someone can hope for...someone to be near them...just in case. Someone that does not have to talk but whose presence speaks loudly enough. Who the fuck knows? Like Allen Parson says, Time keeps flowing like a river. I guess friends are people that choose to float with you a while, then go off to explore other parts of the river. This process repeats itself over and over with different people until you loose the capacity to take any more people into your heart. If the people are strong enough they leave a little part of themselves with us and it changes us in a positive way. We end up like a finger painting in which many fingers have left their mark. Souls crossing one another like submarines in a silent sea, never knowing how close they came to colliding.

But I’m really not as cool as I’d like to be

Next Tuesday is Valentines Day. Once, when I was in 9th grade, I bought 15 red carnations and sent them to a short-legged brunette with a big juicy peach butt. Along with each carnation, I attached a verse from the Kinks song called “Destroyer”. Here are a few lines to help you remember:

Met a girl called lola and I took her back to my place
Feelin’ guilty, feelin’ scared, hidden cameras everywhere
Stop!
Hold on
Stay in control

At the time, I thought that she would be impressed with my cool taste in music and ingenious presentation. Looking back, I am pretty sure my Kinks wrapped carnations had the opposite effect. Although she did give me a “you are a pitiful” kiss before the school day was over. It was better than nothing, I guess.

A part time friend of mine ended up going out with the afore mentioned hottie for a bit. I ran into them at the movies shortly after the carnation incident. I can’t remember the name of the movie, but I do remember that I was not old enough to attend it legally. I did try though and the ticket taker easily labeled me as a youngster and chided me for even attempting such nonsense. I seem to remember a particularly hostile Roswell cop, eyeballing my awkward teenage frame with contempt and malice. He looked like he would love to crack my skull open with the butt of his revolver or jam his nightstick into my side. My part time friend ( lets call him Bisbee ), however, marched effortlessly into the Roswell Mall theater with his right hand jammed elbow deep into the back jean pocket of my unrequited love. The lucky bastard was palming her butt, or at least part of it. In two days I had been forsaken by my beloved, labeled a child by the establishment and sent into a jealous depression by a sometimes good friend of mine. It sucked to be 15. Little did I know that it sucked to be other ages too.

The police took Shaggy's drugs

Going to a commuter college, is not like going to college at all. It is like having a part time job. You never really feel like you are part of the organization. Georgia State University is a far fetch from the idealistic and forever autumnal campuses of New England. The building in which I attend most of my classes, the general classroom building, looks more like it belongs in the Chicago skyline right next to the high rise apartment that the Evans family lived in "Good Times". There is a courtyard outside of the 9-story brown brick and crème stucco building whose pea gravel speckled patio is covered in cigarette butts and dark gray blobs of ancient bubble gum. On nice days, it is a great place to loiter and people watch. For the most part, people pair themselves off in intimate impenetrable groups of two or three, but there is a group of recently promoted high school stoners that lurk about the building entrance. One of these guys, whom I have christened Shaggy, sports a devilish tuft of hair off the jutting precipice of his Clinton Tarantino-sized chin. He is always dressed for summer, even on the coldest of February days, with an armless black Metallica tee-shirt and oversized skateboarder pants. Many nights he uses the concrete bench that traverses the perimeter of the courtyard as a podium to deal out his obnoxious and unfunny wit. Imagine the following excerpt from his base and juvenile rant done in the hoarse satanic tone of a death metal singer. "There was this girl, and she did not know me from Adam, and I jumped in front of her and said, "The police took my drugs!". Ha ha ha ha and she just looked at me like she was freaking out man." Insert courteously laughs from his disillusioned, disgruntled, lazy-ass, and spoiled cronies. The bad part is that somewhere a cute girl probably likes him.

Many of the students spend their time before and after class on cell phones. Occasionally I will catch a piece of a conversation, "You sound like you are mad at me" and "I am in the courtyard mother fucker". When the weather is good, street venders come down from Peachtree Street and setup shop in little yellow taped rectangles on the ground. The eclectic selection of goods offered by some of these venders always amazes me. Where else can you get a poster of Haile Selassie and a real imitation leather cover for your cell phone? Crystal skulls and phony Aztec jewelry also seem to be popular. I wonder where these guys come up with there business model: "Hmmmmm I got it Simmy !, The formula to make us rich ! Here it is: Crystal Skulls + Incense + bootleg Reggae CD's = financial independence!” The randomness of the products makes you appreciate even the most unimaginative business idea: Coke + potato chips + chewing gum = profit. Not particulary original but might just make a buck. Anyway, I digress. I guess that I will have to face it … I missed out on the whole college experience. So far, the best part is sitting in that courtyard and listening to the roller coaster ride that is the youthful life.

'Yeah, it is kinda hard with my boyfriend in California and all, but we are going to make it work."
"Dude, the police took my drugs!"
''Why are you talking in that tone, you sound like you are made at me?"
"Jason will be out soon and he has cigarettes."

Being young would be so much better if you could do it when you are older.