Some of My Recent Annoyances

What can be said of opinions that havent' already been said.  We know that like assholes everybody has one, and that assholes especially have them.  We are far to easily offended and insist on stating our own opinions as fact when we rebuttal someone elses view.  Or if someone offers a different point of view to our own we are quick to attack them, and tell them that they are wrong.  But then again who is right.  It is another thing we are easy to do, say that well its just my opinion.  Then where is the offense coming from exactly, why do we feel the need to state our opinions and say that it is just our opnion when it is plain it obviously is our opinion because when you are offering a viewpoint that is your own it is an opinion.  Perhaps you can back it up with various research and facts, but others can then come up with their own research and facts.  And then thats when the debate begins.  That is when the argument starts and mostly over stuff that honestly in the grand big picture doesn't matter.

This brings me to the points I wish to discuss.   A few things that keep cropping up over social media or in general just on everyday interactions.

I'll start with a couple big ones.   It is my opinion if you want to send people off the hook, and get them really pissed off and free to come up with the most hair brained excuses just talk trash about smoking and guns.   There is hardly anything else you'll bring up that people will become excessively pissed off over than when you question their insistence on smoking cancer sticks, or owning firearms.   The minute gun control is brought up the immediate response someone on the opposing side has to bring up is that the government wants to take away our guns.  Wants to walk in and take our property, this is hardly the truth.  Gun control does not equal removal of all weapons, its simply making them harder to get, having more extensive background and mental health checks.  No one wants to hear this.  Whats so wrong with more regulations?  If you are in your right mind what do you have to fear honestly?

Smoking is another one.  It was a few years ago that an old classmate of mine remarked about the ads that played before movies and how he didn't understand how someone could keep smoking after seeing such an ad.   Sure enough a smoker saw this post and had to defend their addiction.   I'm all for someones right to smoke, go on knock yourself out, smoke to your hearts content.  But don't act like its not gross.  You are inhaling smoke, smoke is the offshoot of burning things to nothing.  Scientific studies and the surgeon general have warned us that its bad.  How can you be pissed off that someone would comment that smoking is bad, when it point in fact is bad for you.   I don't care if your fathers father smoked cigarettes all their life, they are still a cancer risk they still contain toxins.  When smoking was banned in restaurants and public places it was a good thing.   Yes your right to enjoy your cigarette wherever you chose was trampled upon but considering that what you smoke is poison, it isn't fair to make other people have to inhale the same smoke.  It was a good decision on the part of the government.

The not so environmentally friendly are my next irritation.  Thesre are the people who act like they are saving the planet one properly thrown away cigarette butt at the time.  Who talk about how good they are because they pick up after themselves.  Let me tell you somehting, you are good for doing that, but you are not the problem.  Why not pick up other peoples trash.  Why not volunteer to plant some trees or clean up pop rings along the beach.   Why not stop getting your pets drunk or high, because they do not like it.   You are not one with nature because your mind is altered and you've reached some higher plain of existence.   and you don't have to be arrogant about it.  You aren't saving the world by cleaning up after yourself you are doing a common courtesy.

This whole misunderstood pitbull craze.  I find it funny that we need causes that we don't feel hopeless with to feel like we are making a difference.  I'm all for animal safety and rights, but no misunderstood pitbulls are not the same as warn torn countries.  Are not more important than the bombings in the Gaza strip or the terrorist group ISIS.  Its not just pitbulls there all sorts of stupid small causes that people take up.  And let me tell you something sitting around on your ass is not going to make a difference, talking about how you support or don't support something is not going to make a difference.  Not bettering yourself for higher paying wages is not making a difference, wasting your money on music festivals, on DVD's, on bongs, or on make-up or concerts is not making a difference.  here's where I fall in.  I sit around on my ass and I see the horrors of the world and it frustrates me, it motivates me to want to write to strive to be good enough to be paid enough to make some sort of differnce I dont sit around and bitch on the internet about these atrocities becasue I haven't done anything, and I feel like I can't make a huge difference yet.  I want to succeed in order to be able to make a difference.  Money is an important part of this life, and it makes the world go round for good or ill.  Not love, not good vibes, or good intentions.  With some action it helps, with some money it helps.

Lets talk a little bit about Israel and let me be fully honest, I dont know all thats been going on.  But if you are a christian and you are being told to support Israel no matter what, and you are a proud supporter of "pro-life" causes well you can't do both.   You can't say you love babies, while you support a country who is killing many many children and innocent people.  You can't be pro-war and pro-life.   There is no excuse, if you are pro-life it doesn't end with abortion, why not go look at some of these kids who are having limbs blown off or who are in indistinguishable pieces and don't tell me you care about life.  You hypocrites.

A Letter, Robin Williams

In one of his stand up specials the late George Carlin cracked that suicide wasn’t an easy way out it was hard.   While he found the humor in the situation of leaving notes, and what not as usual with most of the things Carlin spoke about there was a level of seriousness to it.   Yesterday the world lost one of the greatest entertainers to this tragic end.  What must have gone through his mind to make him determine it would be better to feel nothing ever again is beyond me, but I know a decision like that could not have been made easily.   Robin Williams was 63 years old, if suicide were any easy thing and if it were true he dealt with his demons most of his life then he would not have made it as far as he had.   How many times do we have to push through till we are too tired to push anymore?  Can we absolutely judge someone for this final act when we do not know all the circumstances?  The answer is ultimately a no.   In this life we assume that when someone can make us laugh or who can entertain us every moment of their existence is a happy person, someone who has no need to battle demons, no need to feel pain for absolutely no reason.  That’s what depression is.   Its not about feeling awful over something, that’s grief, or regret, being a depressive is feeling low all the time.    Somehow finding a light in your life, only to feel as though its simply covering up the shadows of your existence.  It sounds sad, and maybe it is, but it’s a part of many people’s lives.  I cannot judge Mr. Williams decision to leave this life, but I can mourn it.

I’ve been trying to think why this particular celebrities death bothered me so much more than others.  Or why the death of a man I didn't actually know should bother me – as with the case with most celebrity deaths.   Maybe in some way he was a part of my life.   As a child growing up in the nineties I was treated to many films that Robin Williams did that were pointed toward families and children.  Hook, was one of my favorite among these at the time.  For the longest time.   I think it ultimately sums up what he meant in my life, he showed that even as an adult, even as someone who at the start of the film could have resembled my own father still had a child's heart deep down inside.  After all the cynicism this world has to offer Mr. Williams showed us, at least through his movies that getting older could still be exciting and full of awe.   We didn't have to age to be the grumpy old cuss’ that were expected to be.  We could age and be zany and sporadic and maybe annoy the hell out of people, but we could be that.    Then there was Mrs. Doubtfire and in its way featured a similar journey, the cynical father, the loving and bewildering nanny, and ultimately discovering it’s the same person.  There’s Flubber, Toys, and so many other works during that time that I can remember.  It was as though he were our crazy uncle who we got to visit on screen.  Of course he had his dramatic roles too, but while those are mesmerizing it’s the silly high energy performances that struck me the most growing up and are the ones that I find myself reflecting on.   Then I cannot leave out the Genie from Aladdin, who was quite possibly unlike any other animated character we had seen in an animated feature.  He was undeniably an icon.

It is scary to anyone including myself who may suffer from any sort of depression.   We are scared, shocked, and I think if Robin Williams can’t handle it, how can I.   It is important to remember that we are all of us individuals with our own journeys.   We all deal with our shortcomings, our fears, our histories differently.   Our yesterdays are not all the same, as will our tomorrows be different.   My outlet has always been to write, so that most of my stuff is bitter and sometimes quite dark but its as though I’m letting someone else experience it.   I’m sure Mr. Williams chose to make us laugh because in some way he wanted us to feel better, and it would make him feel better, but it can be exhausting shouldering the happiness of a crowd, of an audience whether it be one other person or thousands.  Some of us give so much of ourselves to lift up and hold up others that we forget to let people lift us up, or we forget that we need to lift such people up in return.    I’m not saying these are the thoughts that ran  through Williams’ head but they could have been.   None of us truly know what someone else is feeling, and the world is a cold unfeeling place, so that most of us, most of the time feel numb.

My inner child will miss you Robin Williams, and I will not let the part of me go.   I think even if it was a small influence you have had an impact on millions of lives.  Young and old.   I believe that your work will hold the test of time, that many of us can go back and feel like we are laughing for the first time.  Many of us can go back and shake our heads at your off the wall bonkers style and we can smile for a couple minutes, and stretch it out to a couple hours, and hold onto that feeling for a couple days, to a couple months, to a couple years, and if we do that enough maybe we can be okay.   You are not saving us, but you are giving us a few extra moments to reflect and save ourselves.   I’m being sentimental but many people do not realize the impact all this movie going can have.  That there are real people inhabiting those characters on the screen, there are real emotional places they are drawing from.  That the catharsis they bring us, just as reading a book, or listening to music, can give us breathing space in our lives.   Robin Williams wasn't the only one who gave that to us, but he was one of the main ones, at least to me.

I celebrate your work.  And I hope to share it one day with my own children, and while I’m sad that I will not see another film of yours I know that when I look at my film collection I know right where I can find you.   Good-bye old friend, may you have found your calm.

A Link of Random Thoughts

a mustard stain ran down his shirt

in all actuality it ran from his lip

to his chin and then down his shirt

but the details don't matter

but they do for a spell

but spells are for magic

or good grammar they tell

and then there's a time

when first there was not

just a remnant of a rhyme but the same word

shirt, shirt

and then it gets odd

and the mustard is forgotten

as the mind wanders forward

as though it had legs

legs enough to move it

down a road 

hopefully on a clear day

for a brain without a membrane to cover

or a skull to secure

is a brain that wouldn't last a day

let alone even an hour

and hour is sixty minutes

and my life is a show

not unlike reality tv

but less real and more honest

without the showboating of a dozen halfwits

a constant barrage of camera angles

but all point of view shots

as i move through the house

and swipe away at a fly

who simply buzzes because it was made to

but by who and for what purpose

other than to help break down the dead

who most are secure underground

in giant wooden boxes

that were far too overpriced

and then the minimum wage restrictions

come up to my thoughts

not nearly enough made to do all the things i thought

to travel about the globe

that god spins while it sits on his desk

where he's writing the next chapter

a chronicle of the world

he says it a tragicomedy

you'll laugh as much as you'll cry

but most people won't cry at the movie

the adaptation will be all wrong

they would have to cut out more than half of it

and i'm not sure it could be crammed into a two hour run time

but lets leave that to the professionals

which was a good movie

but i'm not sure I can stand to listen to the same cliches

batter away the same mistakes

id like to bake some little cakes

then there's the rhyming

which is good timing

as its time for me to retire

from this rant

not from life

that's a bit to presumptuous of you

wouldn't you think?

A Small Tear of Rain

Oh, what can you do with a rose that is wilted

But, whose thorns are so embedded

That to be loose of it would confound your senses

Do you simply tear it out and let it fall?

Do you trample it under foot or let others pick it up?

Is there a possibility that someone with a green thumb

Can save it and nurture it and keep it in bloom?

Keep it colorful and strong

And not mind the blood.

Oh, what do you do with horse with a fractured limb?

Do you take it out back and put it down with a shot or two?

Can you keep it going since you always need to travel?

Is it cruel to push it as it tramples on?

When all it wants to do is rest and recharge.

Maybe if it could only take a moment to breathe

Maybe the wound wasn't as bad as it seemed

But the rider is brutish

And the rider is stubborn

And the rider just wants to keep going

On and too long

Can the canopy of a dying forest sustain life?

Can the falling leaves properly hide the prey

So that the simple predators don't swallow it whole

Is there not some other place

Where branches like arms can keep the sun at bay

Can conceal in camouflage the hides of a few birds

Is it wrong to think nature wants them to die.

If tomorrow comes will the light still shine

Will the simple candle light be enough to survive

Is it too late to turn back time

To simple whisk the feelings into a stir

To hope it doesn't explode on your shirt

To hand over the tools to a proper chef

To postpone your own demise

But save just one other life

Oh, Its high time the lies met up with the truths

Time the butterflies found a flower that soothes

More than the rose that chips away like dust

Oh, Its high time the pain was met with good grooves

Time the sane found something with stronger hooves

So that the injured thing can hobble on

Oh, Its high time you and I

Kissed the canopy goodbye.