I told you so

It's funny to watch this Occupy Wall Street situation slide right into the crapper and how people are reacting to what could be seen coming a month ago. It amazes and inspires one to see the beauty of human nature to latch onto the first comfy place it sees, only to find out later that the place was not as comfy as it appeared. I forgive them for it. They lack the ability to stretch their mind down the road as far as others can. Although, this situation did not require much effort to see that eventually, and almost certainly, one of the Baldwin boys would make an appearance.

The Exhausted King

I am the king of apathy. Yes, it’s true. I have the unique ability to simply decide not to care about whatever it is that I am supposed to care about because someone or something has told me to. Whatever your cause or concern or need, I do not care. It is a skill that I have honed over the years as a defense against the disgusting society in which I live and all the disgusting people that populate it. Perhaps some may find that sad to read, but I don’t care. See? There was that apathy rearing its ugly head again.

I don’t feel bad about it because it is simply a product of a sick society. That’s not an excuse, but rather a reason. There is a difference. Were I to be born into a world worth admiring maybe I would care. But how do you care about a world populated with apathetic people? I am a hypocrite, too. But can you blame me? Look around at what we as a species have become. More specifically, just look at the United States. At one time it was a beacon of hope to the world. Now it lay on the verge of collapse while its people sit idly by and await the next Ikea store to bring them trinkets from abroad or talk of who was booted off Dancing with the Stars.

While these same people spin up their adrenaline at 5AM on black Friday to be the first to cross the threshold of the local Walmart in an effort to score that five dollar DVD player they have waited their entire empty lives for, I lay awake and worry about what the world will look like when my children are my age. I wonder how they will navigate this sick little planet and what defenses they will be forced to concoct so that they, too, may deal with the reality in which we all suffer.

If you believe that the affairs of this country will get better then you are fool of monumental proportions. If you think that your vote counts, that politicians work for you, that you are actually free, or that the American dream still exists, then by all means stop reading this and continue on with your life, which to me, is more empty than your head. Fill your soulless existence with all the gadgets, food, drink, and pleasures you can get your grubby hands on. Pull them as close to you as you can and hold them tightly. Make sure that everyone knows that you got yours. In fact, Send out a text to remind them.

However, if you see the reality of what we as a nation, and indeed a planet, are facing then it is time for you to stop being like me. Stop being apathetic to it all. Stop being the sucker that swallows the lies, follows the crowd, tows the line, and upholds the status quo. Start opening your eyes and thinking for yourself because I, and those like me, have tired of doing it for you. I am tired of sleepless nights, meaningless conversations, and hollow ideas.

I am simply tired of being king.

It is Only Meant to Destroy

Every time I enter my garage I pause for a moment to admire my tools. I gaze at them through the dusty yellow light and take mental inventory of them all. I couldn't tell you how much they are worth because to me they are priceless. How can I possibly convey in words what they mean to me? They are the mile markers of my life, representing years of learning and practicing the art of wood working. First I learned the drill and then the circular saw. Eventually, after many other tools, I came to learn how to use what I consider to be the most dangerous tool of them all, the wood lathe. It scared me for many years and even now, on the rare occasions that I use one, I give it a great deal of respect. However, the tools I learned on always belonged to somebody else; they were only on loan to me for a short period of time and then I had to say goodbye. Now, as I stand in the garage I admire the bright yellow, dusty gray, and shiny black finishes of the tools and marvel at the fact that these are mine. I know how to use them and I know all their peculiar idiosyncrasies. I know that the trigger on the miter saw sticks sometimes. I know that the chuck on the drill press wobbles ever so slightly. Many of my friends call them my toys. That is fine with me, though, because I know what they really are. They are tools that are useful and because I have mastered their uses I, too, am useful.
When asked which among them is my favorite, I always lie. I tell people that the router is my favorite. While it is a great tool, and I can do many wonderful things with it, it is only a distant second to my favorite. In fact, my favorite tool is rarely noticed by visitors to my workshop. It lives in a dark corner of my garage and stands ready for use at any time. It is five feet tall, made from solid iron, weighs in the neighborhood of fifty pounds, and comes to a dull point at the tip. Unlike the rest of my tools, it is not a tool of fine woodworking. It is not designed to create anything at all. In fact, it is only meant to destroy. It's called a spud bar, though I do not know why. If you were to buy one new at the hardware store they would call it a pry bar, but it would not come close to the quality and power built into the spud bar that haunts my garage. Unlike the rest of my tools, I did not pay a dime for it and I do not even consider myself its owner. To me, it is on permanent loan from the tool collection of my father. Where he got it from I have no idea, and I never bothered to ask. It was just always there.
We used it often, as I remember.
My father stood there in his standard uniform of a plaid button-up shirt and blue jeans, looking down at the soon-to-be-removed concrete slab. Tiny beads of sweat were growing on his bald head and he breathed heavily through his nose. Without looking up, he dropped the sledge hammer he was holding and began to rummage through his shirt pocket. He drew out a lighter and a single Winston. He wedged the smoke between his dry, cracked lips, cupped his hands around the lighter, and raised it to his mouth. Just before he struck flint, almost as an afterthought, and still without raising his head, he muttered, "Get the spud bar." I shot away in a flash, catching only whispers of the flint striking as I ran to the garage. I knew exactly where to find it because it was the only tool that actually had an assigned place. It stood silent in the corner, next to the garage door, out of sight, where it belonged. I wrapped both hands around the cold, smooth metal and took a deep breath. With a child's grunt, I lifted it from behind the shovels, turned around, and let the tip drop on the floor with a loud thud. I dragged it out of the garage and across the driveway leaving a jagged white line of scratched concrete in my wake. Just as I reached my father he was taking the last drag from his cigarette. He flicked his cigarette butt to the ground and took the bar from my exhausted limbs. He squared up his feet on either side of his target, wrapped his hands around the bar, and placed the tip on the concrete where he intended to strike. In a blur of motion he raised the bar perpendicular to the slab and drove it home. Iron met concrete with a loud, crisp snap. He and I looked down to the point of impact only to find a small, white scratch on the slab. He took a quick breath, stretched his fingers away from the bar and spoke his sermon. I had heard the words many times before and many times since. "You gotta be shittin' me," he said. He squared up, gripped the bar again, and said, "OK, you son of a bitch." Snap. Snap. Snap. How many times did he hit it? Five? Ten? It doesn't matter because eventually the slab gave way and cracked. There was never any question about it. I envied his ability to wield that iron monster. It took strength and dexterity that I did not yet have. He moved it and twirled it in one hand like it had no weight. It reminded me of a drum major leading a parade with a baton. He was fluid and graceful with it. With it he could destroy anything, even that concrete slab.
I stood there in my blue jeans and t-shirt looking down at the soon-to-be-removed concrete pond. Sweat was dripping from my balding head and I was breathing heavily through my nose. The sledge hammer had taken out the sides of the pond but whoever built it had poured the concrete nearly a foot thick at the bottom for some unknown reason. "You gotta be shittin' me," I said. My father, standing behind me, chuckled at this. "Want to grab the spud bar?" I asked. As he walked towards the garage I fished my smokes out of my pocket and quickly lit one up. He returned only a moment later and handed the bar to me. He was in the early stages of Rheumatoid Arthritis and just carrying it from the garage was enough to make him rub the stiffness from his hands. This was my job. I flicked my unfinished smoke to the ground and squared up over my target. "OK, you son of a bitch. You don't live here anymore," I said. With that I raised the bar and drove it down with all my power against the remnants of the pond. The impact sent vibrations up the bar, through my hands, and into my shoulders. I was stunned for a moment, but didn't want to let on that I even noticed the pain, or that I had only scratched the concrete. Snap. Snap. My hands and forearms went numb eventually. Snap. Snap. I stabbed iron to concrete for two hours as my father watched with a look of pride on his face. In the end, all that was left to do was to cart the pieces away to the dump. As I tossed the pieces into the bed of my truck I felt an odd sense of pride in the knowledge that I had mastered yet another tool.
My parents are retired now. They moved to a small town and into a smaller house. As they were packing up their home I got a call from my father. "You want to come and get some of these tools?" he asked. Reluctantly I agreed. I had my own tools. I told myself I didn't really need any. As I pulled into the driveway my father stood in the garage sorting through thirty years of his tinkerings. He had separated out all the tools he was keeping and all the tools he was giving to me. We chatted for a bit about the move and reminisced about the past as we loaded shovels and rakes into my truck. The day grew late and I had been there much longer then I had anticipated. Still, I enjoyed the time together because I didn't get to spend as much time with him as I used to. I now lived across town and had a new life of my own. As I was climbing into my truck to leave he called out to me, "You may as well take that spud bar, too." I got out of my truck and watched him grab it gingerly from the wall. He dragged it out of the garage, leaving a white scratch in the concrete as he came. His hands, suffering from the full effect of his disease, could only manage to get it halfway. I walked over to him and took it from his frozen, twisted fingers. Our eyes met for a brief moment and neither of us could think of anything to say. The silence said it all.
I stopped only a short distance from my parents' house and wept in my truck. That young, strong man from my childhood had been slowly replaced with a crippled old man over the years and until that moment I had never noticed it. I hadn't noticed his hair turn gray and his knuckles slowly freeze. I never saw the wrinkles in his face grow deeper. I had never seen his eyes admit defeat. My image of him was shattered forever in that moment and it felt like I had been stabbed in the heart. He could no longer use his tools. He felt useless and we both knew it.
I had to use the spud bar today which is why I need to write about it now. I took out some tree stumps with it and as usual it did the job just fine. When I was finished with my task, I cleaned the dirt from the tip and placed it back in its dark little corner of my garage to await its next assignment. As I walked out of the garage I turned, gave the spud bar another look, and thought of my father. I thought about how strong he was then and how crippled he is now. I thought about his tools and how he can't use them any more and how useless he must feel. I thought about a hero replaced by a shadow. A chill ran through me as I rubbed the stiffness from my hands. I, too, have his disease.

I am just getting warmed up.

I am having difficulty finding my voice again. Writers like to talk about their “voice.“ I knew this would happen given the amount of time I have spent away from the keyboard. I guess I had hoped I would just pick up where I left off and all would be well, but of course I was just blowing smoke up my own ass you could say. I have considered posting some of my old works just so I could get a refresher course on what I am actually capable of. That would mean I have to clean my office though so at this exact moment I will just write.

They call this free writing. You sit down at the computer and just write about whatever comes into your head. It is a great concept that works for some people. For me it does not.  It is good practice for my fingers, though.

My mind functions differently. I prefer to write a piece, edit it, and then type it out. That is correct. For me, the last part of the writing process is the actual transcribing of the piece into a computer. It may seem odd and even backwards but that is the way it goes for me. I can write, remember, and edit entire essays in my head. Most people think that is some sort of exaggeration, but if you know me it should come as no surprise. I took a lot of crap for it from college professors that insisted I edit my work on paper. To appease them I would bring “doctored” copies of my work to class and edit out the stuff I purposefully screwed up. It worked.

I once had an assignment due for on a Monday morning for a creative non-fiction class. So, naturally, I stared typing it out on Sunday evening. Ironically, it was one of the few times I had not written it in my head prior to sitting down a the computer. I had only a vague idea of what I wanted to say and decided to sit down and just let the words stream out onto the page.

Just after I finished typing it all out the computer stroked out and the page went blank.

 I never save my work.

So I just retyped it, word for word, from memory.

I won an award for that piece.

I think I’ll post that piece in my next entry.

I promise, this will get better. I’m just getting warmed up.

The Case for Chinese Food

I finally figured it out. I can't believe it took me so long, but I finally know how the Chinese people have managed to surpass the United States as the the world's economic leader in such a short amount of time. After all, when I was a kid most Chinese people road bicycles everywhere. Now they roll in actual cars and even a few Ferraris have made it to their streets. We had to wage world war to claim our spot, but China just slipped in there and almost nobody noticed. One day, when nobody was looking, China scrapped the bikes and started rockin' sports cars. Who knew?

So how did they do it? Simple. It's their food.

I ordered some China food last night because I was far too lazy to get up and cook a meal plus I had a bad craving for the some egg rolls. It was easy, convenient, and loaded with MSG. My kind of dining. Of course, the China food comes at a high price, both literally and figuratively. You spend a ton of money to get it, and the effects only last an hour or so and then you are right back on the phone ordering a pizza so that you can get to sleep without hunger pangs keeping you awake. Right? Right.

You see, that is the secret. For a nation as poor and primitive as China to rise to the top so quickly took an incredible amount of work. Even for a nation of more than a billion people that is a lot of work. They remodeled cities, built factories, revamped their infrastructure and even managed to build the biggest dam in the world. That kinda work takes a lot of man-power; probably more than two or three China's worth. Yet they got it done and it was all possible because of the China food.

Here's how it works. The workers eat the China food to get energy and then they start working. An hour later the China food has worn off, but they still have to work because the China food is expensive and they need to earn more money to buy more food because the food they just ate is all used up. This creates a perpetual cycle of working to eat so they can eat to work, so they can work to eat. Once in this cycle you can keep a guy working at least 20 hours a day before he has to take a nap or simply goes nutty. Either way you are getting at least three times the amount of work out of one person, plus they stay skinny so you reduce health care costs. It's a total win situation for the communist bastards that run China.

America needs to eat more Chinese food.

Welcome to my mind.

So it has been quite some time since I have sat down at the keyboard to write. I used to do it often and I was very good at it. Let's see if that is still the case, shall we?

I can't promise you magic here. I am a bit rusty. In fact, I find it hard to type at this very moment because my fingers can't seem to keep up with my thoughts. In the past I could type almost as fast as the thoughts came into my head. I could actually stream thoughts out of my fingers and onto the screen. It was amazing even to me. Now, many years since I have written anything more complex than a grocery list, my fingers find it hard to keep up. The silver lining lay in the fact that at least my mind is still sharp in spite of the toll arthritis has taken on my hands. Perhaps I will find that this is some form of physical therapy for my hands. I know it will be therapy for my mind.

This will not be a place with any set focus. It will simply be a dumping ground for the thoughts that run through my head as I watch the downfall of the world around me. Maybe in the end I will find some sort of peace with all the goings-on of the world. I doubt it. Still, I feel that I must come here to finally write all the things that fear had prevented me from writting before. 

Writing only has one t.

I will attempt to make my entries both brief and interesting for I know that attentions spans, and time, are scarce resources these days. I hope you enjoy these small glimpses into my thoughts and I look forward to watching how this blog, and the world, evolves.

I use too many commas.