HAPPY HOLIDAYS (again)

So I'm sitting on the porch trying to eat all the Halloween candy before the little monsters start their march when it dawns on me; Somehow they suckered me into buying twenty bucks of candy to just give away. How does that happen every year? A kid throws a pillow case over his head and I'm suppose to reward him for that? That's when it hit me. Why not have an exchange policy? You bring me a handful of dead leaves that have fallen from the large tree in my front yard and I'll give you a tiny Snickers bar. You wash the car in the driveway and I'll give you two tiny Snickers bars. Hell paint the front of the house and I'll give you the whole damn bowl. But noooo. Everybody wants something for nothing. Well that isn't the can do attude that made this country great. That's not how we won WWII. No now we have to give it away. Free halloween candy. Come over to the house for a free turkey dinner. Don't forget to comeback in December for more free food and you know just to top it off why don't we throw in free merchandise. In fact I'll wrap them in bright colorful paper just to surprise you with them. I guess I'm just alittle pissed off that it's the HOLIDAY season AGAIN. It seems like just yesterday I went through all of this. Quick tell me what I gave you last year. I didn't think you'd remember. Thank God for football. Turn on a good game and you can become a TV zombie for three hours. You won't even notice when the wife or kids grabs your wallet out of your pocket for more money. Wanna know when I finally get into the holiday spirit? January 2nd. And by the way I gave you socks.

LET'S HAVE A McSMOKE

So what up? Did you think I was dead. Not even close. I live to bitch another day. No I'm not dead but I may be close. It's another attempt to try to lose weight. Yes non-reader of this blog I am overweight. No let me correct that to something a little more PC: I am one big fat ass. This fatness, this gordoness snuck up on me. It creeped for thirty years, day in and day out. Dinner plate by dinner plate it slid onto my frame. I didn't invite it there it just assumed that extra helping was my RSVP. But I'll say this much for my fat brethren; It turns us into some of the most honest people you'll meet. You can stand next to a drug abuser or an alcoholic and never know it. You can chit chat with an embezzler and not have a clue. Buy a drink for a man dressed as a woman and not know his true identity. But a fat person walks into the room and right off you know what his problem is. No hiding it, no covering it up. It's there for all the world to see. Oh we try with the baggy clothes but deep down we know it's not working. So what's the answer? EAT LESS! you say. And truer words were never spoken. But let me ask some questions to the smokers who have kicked the habit. Was it easy? Most likely no. But you did it didn't you. Let me ask you this: How easy would it have been if you had a room in your house filled with cigarettes? And how easy would it have been if you HAD to smoke three cigarettes a day. No more, only three. And how easy if everyone around you smoked. And if everywhere you looked was an ad for wonderful tasty smokes? On the TV in newspapers on the radio. Cigarettes everywhere. And could you have quit if on almost every corner was a store devoted to selling you the best and cheapest cigarettes? Maybe you could have quit but I'm guessing it would be nearly impossible. Now just change the word cigarette with the word food and you can see what fat people are up against. Yes we have to lose weight but we still have to eat. And we still have to drive by the market and the restaurants and the fast food places. And we still have to hang out with other people, some of whom eat. I tell you what kid, it's tuff out there. I did join a gym though. And I am going. It's just that I'm not sure what all those weird machines are for. Are they meant to improve my life or punish me for being fat? I'll have to sit on my porch and think about that one. Meanwhile drop the donuts and get the hell off my lawn.

THE ICEMAN WENTITH

So anyway I'm leaving for work and my personal communicator tells me that the airways are clogged this morning, that perhaps I should consider taking the personal flypak. It's such a nice day in the city dome that I decide buzzing all the artificial trees would be a nice way to get to my job of controlling robo-monkeys. Of course these two hour work days and two day work weeks are very exhausting so I may need my flying car later for a quick trip to the holographic center for a little r & r in 17th century Hawaii.
Then I wake up. I drag my ass to my 1989 Jeep, putt-putt to the gas station so I can pay 3 bucks a gallon for gas, so I can then get on the freeway with a million other morons and sit and stare straight ahead waiting for someone to move so I can get to my low paying 50 hour a week job. The heat, the smog, the lies.
I as well as many others my age were lied to. We grew up in the sixties and seventies with the promise of better things in the future. And I don't mean being able to cook TV dinners in two minutes. I mean longer life and less work. More leisure and less crime. We wouldn't need money and peace would reign over all the world. True now I can play solitaire on my computer instead of with a deck of cards but is that a fair trade off for not having a real flying car? Call me crazy but I don't think so. In fact now that I think about it I kinda miss playing solitaire with cards.
Instead we get in our gas powered cars just like our fathers and their fathers and their fathers did. We may have a few more buttons in those cars but they're basically the same. Oh don't get me wrong some things have changed. Like price. The first time I filled up my mom's Ford Pinto gas was .35 cents a gallon. Five bucks would last you a whole week. Now five dollars barely fills up your lawn mower. And what's the big deal about these hybrid cars. Sure they get 35 miles to the gallon. But you have to pay big bucks to save that money. The big new idea is that they are half gas engine and half battery powered. Wow a car that runs on batteries never heard of that idea before. I remember a car many many years ago called a Dodge Colt. If I remember right it used to get 42 miles per gallon. And it was cheap. Wait for a few years when these battery engines start to go out and see how much it'll cost to put new ones in them. It won't be cheap. A personal jet pack may be cheaper.
Meanwhile oil companies sit in big ivory towers counting their billions in profit that they make each quarter. I'm sure they would be very happy if we went another hundred years with no big changes. I hate to say it but I kinda think the world would be a much safer place if not for oil. If we weren't so depended on it most of the middle east would be as important to us as a pile of sand.
I know there has been new energy technology that has come up that needed money for research. Some of these technologies were bought up by petroleum companies where they lay buried in big R&D departments maybe never to be heard from again. You can see them stacked up next to the red cars of Los Angeles the city that once had the most advance public transit system in the world. The oil companies helped us with that one too. The theory was they wouldn't be necessary with such a cheap energy source as oil being av able.
All I can say is that I'm just one little guy that feels cheated out of my future. It makes sense that the more money you have and get the more powerful you become. The more powerful you become the more you want to make sure nothing threatens to change that. I'm just saying.
Sometimes it's hard for us as a people to move on. To change the status quo and jump into the future. We didn't always feel this way. Can you image if the ice companies of the 1920's were as powerful as the oil companies. Right now I would be sitting on my porch waiting for the ice man to make his delivery before my frozen pizza thawed.

REAL MEN DON'T SLEEP (we pee)

You want to know how to tell exactly what your age is? When your in your comfy chair tonight watching your favorite shows on TV pay attention to the ads. What are they trying to sell you? If it's condoms and beer you're not as old as I am. If it's hair products and fast food you're not only younger than me but your probably a female. If it's stuff to make you pee less, sleep more and be ready to stand at attention when sexy-sexy time comes welcome to my world. I guess men my age lay in bed all night while bright lamps float over our heads. When were out of bed we spend all our time running to find a bathroom. Forget about sex unless you take the right pill. That brings up a question. If you have an erection that last over four hours is that really a problem? I may call my doctor about it but it may be just to brag. In fact I'd have to fight the urge to show it to the world. Check it out world. Three hours and counting. Can't help it world it's just the way I am. How cool would it be not having to use your hands to point. Main St. why that's right over there. Anyway what the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah, ads. How do the people on Madison Ave. know what shows I'm gonna watch. Is it just guys my age that are watching old re-runs like Combat! and Bonanza? Is my generation the only one interested in the history of metal? What's not to like about ore? And if it wasn't for televised baseball games I wouldn't get any sleep at all. That's why I like TCM so much. Turner Classic Movies shows nothing but old movies 24/7. Most of them in black and white. If your under forty you may be thinking why the hell would any one watch something with only two colors. Because I'm older than you and that's the way I like it. Another positive for TCM is no commercials. Nothing to remind me how old I am and how much I need to pick the right MediCare plan. Meanwhile turn that crap down and get the hell off my lawn. In fact don't even walk in front of my house anymore. It may mess up my reception.

YOU GO FIRST!

Man I'm bummed. I just figured out that if my wonderful granddaughter gets married in her thirties I'll be a youngster of only seventy-eight. In other words I'll most likely be dead. I've been fairly lucky most of my life. I've been able to avoid alot of bad stuff. Got out of a bad car accident long ago with no seat belts and no injuries. Except for throwing up I just walked away from that one. When I came of age the draft for the military just ended. Much like today if you where in the armed forces your ass went to war. Vietnam at that time. Most of the guys my age were worried about learning a foreign language if they had to run to Canada to get out of the draft. "What language they speak up there?" We were not the brightest bulbs in the pack. Right now I'm over-weight and over forty, but my cholesterol level is below normal and my sugar count is right were it should be. That didn't happen because I eat a lot of vegetables. Unless you count french fries.
So far so good. But man I can't figure out anyway to get out of this death thing. It is going to happen. This great unknown is eating me up right now. Why me? Why not the screwed up teenagers across the street? Oh yeah it'll get them too. But damn I'll probably be gone when Mr. Dark Cloak and Sickle comes to get them. I don't mean to sound selfish but I think I should be allowed to live at least a couple hundred years. Death just ain't for me. The rest of you do it and I'll stay right here.
So many people have died and none of them have come back to tell us how great it is. Jesus doesn't count because he came back to show us that he can come back and we can't. Kind of a look what I can do thing. Now you see him, now you don't. But what about my neighbor? The one who showed me how to gap my lawnmower spark plug. If he has eternity now can't he spare a minute or two to come back and tell me how nice it is? What if he didn't come back because he can't. And he can't because when you die all that awaits you is nothingness. Then if it's nothingness why should I care. I won't know it, right. Or will I??? And what about this whole casket thing. Man I freak if my little blankie covers my face in the middle of the night. The thought of being in a very cramped box with no light and no air for eternity does not make me a happy camper. But I'm dead, I won't feel it. Or will I???
Man I could go on like this for hours but I'm dead tired. Besides all this depressing stuff is starting to make me feel like killing myself.