Go Green

With our civilization's impending death from choking on its own waste looming, we all need to make a special effort to pitch in and reverse course. "But how can I do this?" a nonexistent but rhetorically useful reader asks. While regular readers (who, again, only exist for their rhetorical value) might expect me to offer a simple solution, I'm afraid that guns and whiskey can't solve this one, at least not entirely. On the contrary, there are many things that all of us can do to help out, but we need to act fast if we are going to save our planet. Feel free to mix and match from the following list:

1. Buy appliances. You should already know this from watching TV, but your inefficient washing machine, microwave, blender, curling iron, electric-powered back scratcher, coal-fired nose hair trimmer, etc. are killing the planet. If you care about the environment, you must immediately throw all your possessions in the trash (or local stream, pond, or bird sanctuary), and upgrade to the latest energy star models. But why stop there? You can save the planet even harder by purchasing efficient appliances that you don't own yet. It doesn't matter that you don't need them or don't even understand their functions. We all have to make sacrifices.
2. Wear earth tones. Nothing says "I love the environment" like a huge walk-in closet full of brown, beige, olive, green, charcoal, walnut, forest, slate, chocolate, harvest, sand, and tan colored fur coats.
3. Heat your house by burning old garbage. This may be dangerous, and is almost certainly illegal, but styrofoam burns very hot, and since I consume several metric tons annually, it makes sense to get everything I can out of my investment. You can use the fire to power your water heater, but I recommend venting the smoke directly into your living room to limit heat transfer losses and maximize efficiency.
   
4. Drive a hybrid gas/electric bicycle. It will get much better mileage than your standard 6-cylinder gas-powered bicycle.
5. Kill animals. I know that you've probably been brainwashed by the public school system, PBS, and the "conservationist" lobby, but it's simple math, people. Fewer mouths to feed means more food for the rest of us, and less land devoted to "natural habitats" means more space for shopping malls and firing ranges. Plus, burning the carcasses (see #3) can provide useful energy.

This list is incomplete, but I will be adding to it in a series of installments. Also, keep an eye out for my tips on what you can do to fix the economy. And remember, guns and whiskey may solve political problems, but only a worldwide orgy of vicious consumerism can save our planet.

Our Precious Bodily Fluids

Over the course of the last 200 years, many strange things have happened in America that the federal government has failed to explain adequately. While you may believe that the president, the FBI, congress, the CIA, the EPA, the IRS, etc. have not weighed in on these issues because they are incompetent, the conclusions are obvious, or these things simply fall beyond the scope of their respective duties, the reality is far more complex and sinister. The truth is that your government is concealing information, rewriting history, and secretly operating camps in Nevada where the mentally ill are brainwashed, trained as vicious killing machines, and used to systematically terrorize political dissidents.*

Everything you see on TV, read in the newspaper, hear around the water cooler at work, or think to yourself quietly while camping in rural Canada is part of an elaborate and carefully controlled alternate reality constructed by a secret cabal of powerful figures for their own nefarious purposes. What purposes, you ask? I think you're missing the point here.

Their plan is cleverly obscured by the nebulous mass of misinformation and giant piles of red herring strewn about our media and culture, and so freedom fighters like myself can only piece together clues about their ultimate, morally deviant goals. But I think we can safely speculate that it has something to do with Reform Judaism and/or homosexuality.

Think about it. Some dumb redneck with U.S. Marine Corp rifle training kills JFK for no particularly good reason? I know, its easy to believe the "simple" explanation and give in to the idea that Kennedy was killed by the man who obviously shot him. If you do some research, though, you can begin to uncover the truth, as explained by Kevin Costner's character. Likewise, you might be tempted to think that a group of emotionally disturbed young men from various Middle Eastern countries decided to fly planes into buildings and kill a bunch of innocent people on September 11, 2001. For most people, it is very difficult to understand why someone would do something so horrible (especially in the name of a religion which is suspiciously similar to Christianity), and so, again, we are left with only one possible conclusion: 9/11 was orchestrated by the powers that be, including the Bush administration**, to draw media attention away from their nefarious activities (including the previously mentioned training camps in Nevada). All the tragedy and chaos of those events was planned, to the last detail, in order keep the public in the dark about what is really going on.

And what is it that is really going on, you ask? I'm not sure yet, but the evidence is all around us. Every day there are new alien sightings and secret government coverups, and every day more flouride is added to the water supply. So build a Faraday cage around your house, put on your tin foil hat to keep them from reading your "paranoid" thoughts, and remember to drink only purified water and grain alcohol to protect your precious bodily fluids.

*At least I assume so.
**In conjunction with the Saucer People and under the supervision of the reverse vampires.

It's On

As probably none of you are aware, some pussy has contacted me to suggest creating a blog to contradict my brilliant wisdom, which he deems "cruel insanity." My first thought was to track him down by reverse IP lookup and wait outside his house to bear mace him, but I think that's just what he wanted me to do. Instead, I hired him on so that everyone can better appreciate my genius in contrast with his liberal ass-clownery. Let the culture war commence.

Gettin' Down with the Homies

Do you have something important to say that could benefit children and young adults? Perhaps you would like to encourage them to be more fiscally responsible? Or maybe you are concerned that they might not be aware of the dangers of not wearing their seat belts, premarital sex, cholesterol, or the reefer? Or maybe you just have a product to sell, and you realize that teenagers can persuade their parents to buy stuff more easily than TV commercials?

In any case, if you were born before 1980, then you probably have trouble talking to the kids (that's right, people born in the '70s are old now). But rest assured, there is hope. As one of the oldest representatives of today's troubled youth, I'm going to help you figure out how to relate to the childrens, and I'm going, yet again, to provide my advice free of charge in list format:

1. Always remember that kids have trouble understanding people who don't speak their language. Because rap music is their primary cultural influence, you need to familiarize yourself very thoroughly with the works of Vanilla Ice and Sir Mix-a-Lot in order to communicate with today's youth. Remember that you need to be "down" with the "homies," and take care not to "front." Wearing your baseball cap backwards will make you seem more accessible and increase your "street cred." And, in case you're concerned, this kind of behavior from a middle-aged suburban white person is not racist. Not even a little bit.
2. Teenagers lack the linguistic skills of adults. It's important to make sure that you don't use any big words or complicated sentences. If there's any doubt, try to confine yourself to words with less than two syllables and sentences under 7 or 8 words.
3. It's also important to swear a lot, but keep in mind that you might not be able to keep up with the incredible geysers of profanity spewing from underage mouths. Phrases like "b*ner biting b@$t@rd uncle f@*ker" are probably far beyond your skill level, and you don't want to compromise your moralizing authority anyway, so try to confine yourself to the general ballpark of "darn" and "heck."
   
4. Today's kids lack life experience and historical perspective. This means that they could benefit greatly from your recollection of the good old days, especially combined with your insightful criticism of text messaging and low rider jeans. But remember to always keep that hat on backwards.
5. What may seem like you like violent, cynical nihilism is in fact violent, cynical nihilism. But this is what the current generation has instead of patriotism and a can-do attitude, so you'd better learn to deal with it.

That should get you started. If you run into trouble, just ask yourself, "What would The Fonz do in this situation?" The correct answer is always the same: "Who the hell is The Fonz?"

Dirty Harry vs. Ben Kingsley

It has recently been brought to my attention that my last post was slightly inaccurate. As it turns out, Clint Eastwood has never (officially) killed anyone, and he is simply a Hollywood actor. This was confusing to me at first, but after further research, it seems that actors are people who are paid to pretend to do things while other people film them, usually for TV or movies.

Like many of you, I have never bothered too much about the subtle differences between "real" life and the light and sound waves emanating from the plastic box in my living room. I like to think of my TV as a window into a world full of magical places, where people live and die for my entertainment, and where I can change the channel if I get bored. Similarly, I like to think of my window as a protective piece of glass separating me from the horrors of the unscripted, "real" world; a place full of irritating responsibilities and weird, threatening people who are inexplicably unconcerned with my comfort level. In either case, the glass prevents me from interacting with things on the other side, so who am I to say that my boring neighbors that I don't see very often are more "real" than my witty, entertaining fantasy neighbors from "Friends", whose lives I follow religiously?

Back to the point, though. My last post exemplified Mr. Eastwood as a man of action who would humiliate Mohandas Ghandi in a fist fight, but it was pointed out in the comments that while Clint Eastwood pretends to kill people when cameras are pointed at him, the rest of the time he is a drama nerd who probably enjoys reading more than physical violence. Just like Ben Kingsley, who played Ghandi. And just like Ghandi himself. Except that apparently Clint Eastwood approves of the depicting physical violence for entertainment purposes, while Ben Kingsley only approves of other people depicting violence for historical and dramatic purposes. Or was that Ghandi?

Wait, are we talking about Dirty Harry or Clint Eastwood? And is it Ben Ghandi or Mohandas Kingsley? Either way, I don't really see the difference.