So here’s the deal

You know the new job I got a while back to replace the old one that I got laid of from: well I got laid off from that one too; Tough economic times and all that. My first proper job lasted eight years, my second 5 months. I don’t want to draw too strong a conclusion from such a limited sample size, but a pattern is emerging. The corporate world and I are no longer compatible. We gave it good try, the kids are grown, and the magic vanished long ago: it’s time to move on.

Letter Day 214: Pepito’s folly

I was looking at the pictures section and trying to decide just how metro you are. I see a fair amount of shaved chest and pouty face, but you have these terribly bushy eyebrows and reported tufts of shoulder hair. Just how rigorous is your grooming routine?

Sarah H.

Bit of a mixed bag really, Sarah. I’m starting from an odd place esthetically: I’m both uncommonly handsome, and uncommonly hairy. While the two are not entirely at mutual opposition, if left unchecked the hairiness leaves me looking like a down on his luck chimpanzee Hugo Boss model (with oddly small teeth).

An odd, true, non sequitur

I was in a grocery store yesterday. One of those stunted downtown locations with poor selection and busted prices. I wanted five things and felt put upon by the rival customers impeding me. The meandering of purposeless shoppers grates on my teeth: they were like a flock or retarded seagulls at the dump.

Passive Depressive #176

I barebacked the internet and got burnt

I’ve historically relied more on providence than protection to safeguard my computer; trusting in the innate goodwill of Latvian movie pirates and Russian pornographers …such was the bounty they brought. There was no legitimate reason that I didn’t use some free anti-virus software, save the thrill of raw information pulsing through my computer, the filthy heat of foreign code. Also: someone likely once advised me it was foolish to do otherwise, forcing me to embrace the contrary position as a point of pride.

Passive Depressive #175

25 things about myself I’ve been hounded in revealing

1. I learned three things from the death of Ichabod Crane

–          Headless Revenants will not cross running water

–          It is unkind to throw pumpkins at people

–          An awesome name does not ensure a perfect life

I’ve only ever had opportunity to apply two of those lessons.

2. My chest hair has thickened enough it looks like I am smuggling Burmese Mountain dogs about town. When I sweat excessively the patterns it makes can be read like tea leaves.

3. I hate running gags in jokes, catch phrases, and regurgitated humor used as means of social affirmation. If you can’t be witty, at least don’t be repetitive. The irony of stating this in a facebook meme does not escape me.

Planet of the Apes?

 

Over the last week there has been a great deal of discussion over the above editorial cartoon, which depicts two NYC policemen, having  just shot a chimpanzee, concerned over who will write the next economic stymulis bill in the United States.

The cartoon, which was printed in the Tuesday February 17th  edition of the New York Post (certainly not to be confused with the New York Times), apparently was commenting on two recent events: 1) the signing of the economic stymulis bill by U.S. President Barrack Obama, and 2) the shooting of an escaped chimpanzee in Connecticut.

Somewhat predictably, and I would argue likely to the joy of the New York Post, the editorial cartoon has sparked a heated debate across the U.S. and throughout the various tubes and tunnels of the interweb.  Some, like Rev. Al Sharpton, argue that the comparison of President Barrack Obama to a chimpanzee is racist – pure and simple.   Others argue that political satyre has a long history of crude, mean, and downright nasty depictions of various leaders – and that this comic would have been printed, in the same way, regardless of the ethnicity of the leader it referred to.

Now, despite being the token bleeding-heart-liberal here at Beats Entropy, I do not exactly side with Rev. Sharpton.

Passive Depressive #174

The Bicycle Thief (A true story of summer employment)

One summer I had a job installing pools. For the most part I just dug holes; holes which I would occasionally fill with gravel. The actual pool installation was handled by competent long timers who didn’t ride the wheel barrow down hills. I was about 17 at the time, and had yet to discover the importance of professionalism, or the kind of velocity a wheelbarrow filled with 200lbs of gravel can accrue.  The potential downside of my ignorance was magnified by the darting children who played on a trampoline at the bottom of the hill. I never actually ran one down, but their erratic presence was enough to send several loads of gravel airborne, and launch me trebuchet style across the back lawn.

Passive Depressive #173

Letter Day 103: Esprit de corpse

Did you read this shit: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/02/skydiving.death/index.html

How messed up is that kid going to be?

Baffled in Burlington, On

Plenty, BIBO…plenty. How boring is the rest of this kids life going to be in comparison?  How do you match the excitement of plummeting earthward at 200 miles a hours in a malfunctioning parachute, trying to steer the busted tarp one handed, whilst a freshly corpsed colonel whispers  the secrets of the dead into your ear. You’ve essential cheated death and taken a life your first time out of the box: you would need to perform an abortion while jumping coyote gorge on rocket skis to get the same kind of murder sex thrill. You could strangle two orphans, while hanging from a failed coaster safety harness, mid loop de loop, and still not match the intensity of that initial Thanotic rush.

I give that kid six weeks before he’s shooting heroin and throwing tombstones off busy highways overpasses.  It’s what I would do.

My Christmas Beard

My beard has gotten the better of me; Perhaps the whole. It was born of indolence; defiance; this seedy, steady, gesture of uncaring. This deliberate holiday disrepair. If I had to suffer through Christmas I’d do so in the guise of a old tyme strike breaker; whiskers wet with the blood and gristle of unionist agitators. I also rarely wore pants: there was no deeper reason for this; I’ve just never enjoyed them.

My new home

I have a new home. Or at least a place for the larger part of my time and essential possessions; the personal connection is still lacking. There’s still this thin umbilical tendril to my seedy apartment down the street, and the bachelorbirth within; its squalor and disarray having sustained me in bleak and mysterious ways. I imagine this is a temporary condition, a phantom limb that fades with need; but I’m not sure if my respectable new digs will form the same attachment.

Passive Depressive #172