Chicken Wars

Chick-Fil-A.jpgChick-fil-A may close it’s first and only shop in the UK because the shopping center it resides in will not renew their lease. This is due to a horribly belated LGBT xyzmhdfslmnop protest over the comments of one man and his pursuit of his beliefs. By the way, his beliefs are no more or less important than anyone else’s.

It remains to be seen if Chick-fil-A will relocate. The article says they’re going to close, but perhaps the franchise can find a less PC shopping center in which to do business. If not, well…

UK don’t want no chicken, UK don’t get no chicken.

It goes deeper than a chicken stand. It sets a precedent and proves that the Empire is completely, irrefutably dead.

I ask you UK, what will you do when rage culture and protest devolves further into tribalism?

What will you do when certain factions protesting on behalf of the planet demand that cars be abolished for the good of the planet? Will you go back to horse and buggy?

What about cows and sheep? Surely their flatulence is an immediate threat to the wellbeing of your nation. Will you force your nation to veganism, walking, and taking sailing ships across the channel so that your citizens are totally green and must therefore go to Paris to fly to other destinations?

Will your butcher shops be closed due to the Vegan movement? Will you allow your people to be subjugated by vocal minorities, espousing the myriad beliefs fueled by two minute internet searches? How about the Church, surely they are guilty of participating in the horrific patriarchy that has so doomed the world.

Demonstrably, Religion is responsible for the destruction of indigenous people, incredibly biased actions against LGBT people, the crusades… I could go on.

Will you outlaw all religion for its past global sins? Will you demand the razing  of St Peters?

The CEO of Chick-fil-A was opposed to Gay Marriage in the United States. HE LOST. Marriage is now legal. He said his piece, supported his beliefs with his money in 2012, and lost.

The company is family operated and continues to donate to fundamentalist Christian organizations, that is their right and regardless of your agreement or disagreement they are acting in good faith to their stated charter.

How about directing your rage at the Middle East where LGBT people are commonly being thrown from buildings. How about boycotting gasoline from OPEC and demonstrating in front of middle eastern embassies? Yes, LGBT folks, using petrol is supporting the torture and subjugation of your LGBT brothers and sisters. 

LGBT people in the US go to Chick-fil-A today. Hey, It’s pretty good chicken at an okay price.

We have a saying in the US, “People vote with their wallets”

Perhaps you should do the same. No-one is forcing you to eat the damn chicken. There are people in your country that might enjoy it or it’s entirely possible that the chicken isn’t going to please the UK palate.

The LGBT community in the UK must have better things to do with their time and energy. Oh that’s right, you’ve allowed your country to be strangled by political correctness. You cannot say anything about the real problems you have, because those problems might offend small groups. And your government has systematically abridged your right of free expression. 

I’m fully aware that here in the US, we too are allowing erosion of those same rights. It’s not lost on me that the finger I’m pointing at you, has three fingers pointing right back at me. 

My point is, you’re wasting your time and energy. You’re only hurting yourselves, and looking pretty silly in the process. Choose something more relevant.

I’d suggest that the LGBT community in the US do the same thing. 

At this point the LGBT community is whining about so much and so often that they risk becoming nothing more than background noise. When viewed against the much larger concerns of the entire planet, is a chicken stand closure anything but a Roman Circus, or Pyrrhic victory?

Ya know… I’m gonna go be an alien hunter

Yep, I’m going to go start hunting Aliens.

Not with the purpose of proving that life exists on other worlds it probably does, and who cares, but with the purpose of Spaceship jacking the little bastards!

Greta1It’s time for me to get the hell off this rock and maybe check back in a hundred years or so. By that time perhaps most of the jackasses will have offed themselves or each other.

I’ve decided on this course of action because in part, of the following:

  • Panicked tearful women talking to presidential candidates saying, “I thought I was gonna die when he was elected…”
  • Hyper emotional Children scolding the impotent fucking UN.
  • Sourpuss sore losers making grandiose and hollow gestures to impeach a President
  • Crazy fuckers blowing each other up over, of all things religion?
  • Endless demands/hearings for answers about how we came to be in a myriad of situations, instead of fixing the situations. Who cares how/why we got here? We learned it was a mistake, now change direction and move on. 

170302 nancy pelosi mn 1820 a91099034828eb04d939d6458129588b nbcnews ux 2880 1000You have got to be fucking kidding me, this is what humanity has come to? Well fuck this!

Better to die in the silence of interstellar space than continue to read about, or be visually / aurally assaulted 24/7 by what has to be the stupidest shit in the galaxy. 

If I’m able to jack a spaceship…. Then I can perhaps find a nice planet where the inhabitants are more evolved. 

BomIf in fact we were “Seeded” here by an advanced alien race (as some ancient alien researchers believe), when they come back you can bet your ass they’re going to sterilize the planet and start over.

“Well Humans, you had your shot… you fucked it up and now we’re gonna end this failed experiment and try again. Yeah dumb asses, Earth is nothing more to us than a petrie dish and we’re going to flush this mess.”

RwUzgWtThen they boil the oceans, flame all the land masses gamma sterilize the planet, and come back in 100,000 years, with better genetic material to try again.

Of course the minute a huge assed starship parked in high orbit above the planet, all Humanity would stop their petty bullshit, look up in fear & wonder, then demand answers from their politicians about why this was allowed to happen.

Based on evidence right here on planet Earth, mass extinction events happen and guess what? The planet spins on! Dinosaurs, assuming any of them became self aware, (Raptors sure look like they were heading that way) must’ve thought they were hot shit, then they were gone. 

This planet could be hit at any minute by a Gamma Burst from a dying star, all life would end in a twinkling.

2 10 14 WVPA Clean Water HearingA billion years later, life would probably start over. That’s the nature of life, it’s happened before and will probably happen again. So what the hell do you do about it? Live in fear or prepare?

We don’t know which direction Climate change will take us, we only know the climate is changing and it’s such a big chaotic system that our predictions over the past 40 years have been laughably incorrect.

So what do you do? 

Blue Debuts at Raptor Encounter in Islands of AdventureOne thing at a time… reduce your personal pollution. Make changes where and when you can. Make preparations to accommodate short term issues like flood, fire, earthquake, and be responsible for yourself. Pass from this life with a clear conscience that you personally did your best to live without leaving a mess, and that you did your best to clean up messes as you encountered them. Whatever the global climate does, when you draw your last breath at least know that you minimized your impact on it.

We know our political system is a mess, we know that our representatives (Globally) do not represent the interests of the average person. We know for a fact that people in power will always do whatever it takes; (including, but not limited to, riots, massacres, war, or economic collapse,) to remain in power. That includes religious leaders, by the way… so get physically involved. (Not Facebook or Twitter involved) Oh yeah, twerking in the middle of the street doesn’t count either. The only people you’re annoying by doing that are the very same people that you want on your side. Uh newsflash, they’re not likely to be on your side if you make them late to work, or piss them off with your stupidity. You want to make a point? Vote! Initiate recalls of shitty politicians. If you must twerk, try it in the capitol rotunda. Then it’s more likely you’ll be inconveniencing the people whose attention you’re after.

What you absolutely don’t do is live in fearful apoplexy. In fact, put aside the fear, put on your big human panties and get your shit together!

There are literally tons of issues to work on. Pick one! But don’t be an asshole about it.

So get to fucking work!  Try something new, come up with a better plan. Make things better instead of whatever the hell we’re doing now.

Full0001My plan is to spacejack the first Alien I encounter and hoist the Jolly Roger!

Arrrrr!

We’re All Looking for something…

Lately I’ve been dealing with isolation.

Due to my work schedule, I’ve been cut off from non-work interactions for about 3 years. In truth it’s probably been longer than that due to commuting long distances to previous workplaces.

This has led to a sense of profound loneliness and disconnection from the world. Most people are troublesome to begin with because they’re wrapped up in their own issues. I know first hand how tough it is to look beyond your own stuff and think of a bigger picture.

Inside my workplace, there seems to be a calculated effort to make sure that no personal connections are made. So at work, I tend to feel alone in a crowded noisy room.

Being as old as I am, I don’t recall that it was always this way. I have memories of knowing my neighbors, even if I wasn’t talking with them every day. I recall clearly knowing that culturally speaking it was ok to go “borrow a cup of sugar” and have a nice conversation with the neighbor next door. I clearly remember just walking up the block to help a neighbor with a project. You knew that you’d be fed for your effort and you’d have company, good conversation and the sense of accomplishment that goes with finishing something.

As time went on, people became more mobile and honestly it was easier to isolate yourself from the community around you because that saved you the heartache of goodbye.

Technological advancements have made it easier to be isolated from the community you actually live in, while at the same time giving you the illusion that you’re part of a community online. The thing is, most of your online “Friends” have no skin in the game. If you’re having a rough time in your life, it’s unlikely that someone you “know” from a thousand miles away is going to show up at your door with a plate of cookies and warm conversation.

So in the midst of my rumination, and trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. The book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger was recommended.

It’s a quick read and is not a self help book.

It is however an interesting exploration of the differences between modern culture and our tribal beginnings. It also brings to light that rejection of “modern” culture is not a new phenomena.

After reading the book, then coupling many if not all of the concepts with my own life experience, I’ve concluded that I’m probably not as alone as I think I am. It’s also likely that I’ve been able to put my finger on what changed in my life and why I feel so disconnected.

I’m not part of any particular group, more specifically I’m not part of any special group.

Politically speaking I’m mostly an independent. I’m liberal and conservative, and refuse to drink the kool-aid of any specific political party. I choose, instead to look at issues and evaluate each one. Based on it’s merit, I may be “Pro” or “Con” regardless of the prevailing political party’s opinion.

I don’t have any particular “Cause“.

Many of the Causes today seem more fleeting than toilet paper in a stomach flu ward.

I’m for smaller government, but at the same time don’t believe that we should leave people in this country in the lurch. If anything I’m becoming anti-foreign aid. That is especially true in light of my belief that we should not provide financial aid to our enemies, That leads us down a rabbit hole of defining who exactly are our enemies.

I’m generally speaking, for a lot less government involvement in the personal lives of citizens. Because of this, my alignment with political parties would be uncomfortable at best. As a result I generally keep my political opinions to myself.

I believe Black lives matter, JUST like all lives matter. But when I look at the way in which that movement makes it’s statements I can’t help but think there’s something else going on.

I’d have a lot more respect for Black Lives Matter if the organization wasn’t bullying people in the streets and was instead teaching folks in the inner cities that violence against each other was a problem. I mean the statistics tend to indicate while there are some bad police engaging in racially fueled brutality, the incidents of Black youth shooting, maiming, and killing each other is far more prevalent than issues with police.

If BLM was addressing those issues and seeking to find peace in troubled communities I’d be far more likely to listen when they start pointing out problems with police brutality.

That doesn’t mean, were I to witness a racially motivated issue with an Officer, that I wouldn’t intervene. There are certainly officers who should not be officers and it is the responsibility of the citizenry to question and police, the police.

Antifa is another group who is completely beyond my understanding. The reason is simple. They traditionally behave in a far more Fascist manner than the people they’re railing against.

There was a time when the Gay community was also united in the same way. Gays were hated because of their “perversion”, then they were united by HIV because as a “Throw-away” subculture no-one was looking for treatment or a cure. ACT-UP coalesced to fight common enemies (HIV and Government sanctioned disposability) and were pretty successful at it.

Marriage equality was another fight that  united the Gay community. But those “Wars” have devolved into occasional skirmishes. Research is ongoing, Marriage is legal, the skirmishes mostly seem to mostly be about wedding cakes now.

If someone won’t bake a cake for you… Find another baker who will. It’s a simple fucking equation.

I mention these groups as examples of groups who have found solidarity within themselves because they are united against something they see as oppressive and overwhelming.

Individuals, by their association with specific groups have the feeling of being the underdog in a righteous fight. In that, they are united by a sense of purpose, commonality, and community.

I think about things… I’ve never been one to just go along with the crowd. Oh sure, to parties, of course. But I’m always among the first to leave if a party starts going south.

My particular problem seems to be that I’m an outlier.

Whether by nature, choice, or life experiences, I’m always on the outside looking in.  When I connect with someone I go all in. I’m curious about them, who they are, and where they’re coming from.  That intensity, (alright intrusiveness) can be unsettling for people, especially when they’ve up to that point, thought of me as reserved and circumspect. I can see their point. They wonder who the real me is.

I think I’ve been trying to answer that particular question all my life.

Am I the good guy? The bad guy? Hero? Martyr? Criminal? Immoral? Amoral? Average? Or below average? Am I all of these, trying to fuse into one individual?

Now, at this point in my life I’ve begun wondering if it’s even a question I should even concern myself with.

Perhaps the best choice is to just let myself run without constraint or worry. Maybe that’s what being comfortable in my own skin is really all about.

 

Autumn

IMG 0378This is one of my favorite times of year. The light changes and while it isn’t Officially Autumn, the plants and my body know it is.

Last night it was in the high 30’s and there’s a crispness in the air.

I know why I was happier in the mountains than I’ve ever been in the city.

It easier for me to be dialed into the natural world. I can feel the dirt under my feet and the smell of the earth and plants around me. Yes, even the smell of the occasional animal poo when I’m out hiking or walking, is somehow comforting.

Down in the cities it’s all about dominating and keeping the world at bay. Even the grass is manicured to within an inch of its life and wildness in trees or (heaven forbid) weeds isn’t tolerated.

That being said if you’re lucky enough to find an open patch of ground, you’ll find trash, broken glass and God only knows what else because that too is domination of the land. Why can’t we just mark our territory or say, “We were here” by taking a leak on a rock or tree? Why do we have to absolutely trash the place?

As the weather cools on the mountain I’m becoming more convinced that it’s well past time for me to dump the job and find something else to do.

It occurred to me that the domination extends not only into the natural world, it’s in full play on a corporate level too. 

I caught between two very different worlds and a minimalist approach is only appreciated in one of those worlds.

Even the noise of traffic is an expression of domination. Sure there’s the noise of cars rolling by on the two major roads near my apartment. But there are, at regular intervals the really obnoxiously loud cars and motorcycles that are purposely modified to be loud. Call it a person screaming I AM HERE BITCHES! at 1am then they accelerate away so no-one can catch them or call the police.

Loud motors on a racetrack make sense, you want every single bit of power an engine can produce. Loud motors in a residential neighborhood is essentially just pissing on everyone you wake up. I honestly doubt the perpetrators give a thought to the fact that for 30 minutes after they’ve passed every dog in the affected area is barking too.

I come to the mountain, and mostly things are entirely different. It’s quiet I know my neighbors, crazy as some of them are, there’s a sense of community.

It’s this realization that’s leading me more to the conclusion that I can’t stay in San Diego.

In fact It’s making me consider abandoning the more densely populated states altogether.

I’ve thought for years that I didn’t like people. I think it’s more likely I like people just fine. I don’t like crowds of people and prefer to be with like-minded individuals. Folks that appreciate nature and the world around them realizing that nature can’t be dominated.

For now, I’m going to enjoy the autumn light and the chill of the day.

Hope you have a nice day as well.

Ya Know…

Ok so there’s been all this hubbub about Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation that Brett Kavanaugh did something sexual to her 30 years ago.

If the woman was raped I’m sorry about that, rape is always inexcusable.

That being said, the fact that she’s so fuzzy about the event gives me pause.

Before you get your undergarments in a twist because after all “HOW COULD A MAN know anything about abuse or harassment?”

I can tell you I do.

I clearly remember being 18 years old. I was working my second job at a typesetting house.

The bosses wife was one of the head honchos. Her name was Carolyn. She smoked like a house on fire and always had the stench of bad booze about her. She was thin, almost skeletal. I remember her hair was never attractively styled and she called me “Dumbshit” from day one until day 58 when I walked out of that office never to return.

I learned some interesting things while working at that company, so it wasn’t a total loss. Some of those skills have served me well throughout my career.

But I have a very clear memory of her walking up to me about an hour before quitting time. She said, “Dumbshit, we’re behind so I need you to work overtime tonight.”

I said, “Sure thing,” and asked if I could use the office phone to call my mom to let her know I wouldn’t be at dinner.

The call made, I went about my work, I said goodnight to the other workers, and Carolyn’s husband, as they left.

I kept the machines I was responsible for churning out their galleys. Each galley I took over to the light table and cut into the appropriate lengths so that they could be mounted to photo boards.

I was also cutting and pasting edited lines into the completed galleys while keeping an eye on my machines.

Yes, we were busy and behind and I was happily using new skills and doing the best job I knew  how to do.

Carolyn called me into her blacked out office. I knocked on her closed door and waited for her to tell me to come in. She often was doing titles on a small film system.

In those days we didn’t have scalable fonts or the ability to print a PDF and send it directly to a typesetting machine. You had to create a title, character by character by exposing a film strip. Then you used black & white photo development to create the title line.  After that, you measured and manually pasted the title line into the galley.

So, if her door was closed, you knocked and waited for her to secure whatever title she might have been working on, otherwise you would incur her wrath because opening the door would destroy whatever she’d been working on.

There was a muffled “Come in”

I opened the door, walked in and asked her how I could help.

She said, “You’ve been catching on quickly Dumbshit. But not quite as quickly as I’d like. To make it up to me I want you to fuck me.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, FUCK ME or your FIRED.”

I very clearly recall my brain rebooting.

I also recall feeling humiliated, and embarrassed, I was deeply hurt because I had been doing everything she asked and was keeping up with her output.

We were behind due to several machine malfunctions on the other side of the house where the typists were doing the input. The IBM technician had ordered parts but they’d been slow to get to the West Coast.

Granted I’d made some mistakes but I’d always stayed late to rectify them so that we’d start fresh in the morning.

I was completely unprepared for this ultimatum.

And I was conflicted. Conflicted because I was an 18 year old male. A stiff breeze could make me hard.

I looked forward to getting home each and every night to stroke my dick. This condition of terminal horniness wasn’t helped at all by the fact that the company had taken on a big contract from a publisher called Penguin Press.

Penguin Press at the time published a lot of pornographic stories. Imagine an 18 year old male scanning the pages of graphic porn while at work and that was his job.

Needless to say I’d taken to wearing looser pants, not because I was ashamed of being hard (I was) but because tight pants were just plain uncomfortable.

So here I was, hornier than hell all the time and there’s this woman telling me she wants me to fuck her. That was the first time in my life a woman had ever said she wanted my dick. It wasn’t until I was in my mid 20s that I heard a woman I was dating tell me she wanted to get naked and have me inside her.

But looking at Carolyn, her cigarette ash hanging from the latest in the chain of cigarettes in her mouth, I thought, “I’d really like to fuck. I’d really like to get off, but with the bosses wife? Is that a good idea? What happens if he finds out about it?”

Then I looked at her again. She’d been pretty once, but that ship had sailed years ago. Now Carolyn looked haggard and her personality was throughly unpleasant.

The part of my brain that so wanted to fuck, whispered, “Do it, close your eyes and pound her, it’s a free pass, no dinner, no begging, no promises to respect her or love her. It’s just a pussy that wants to be plowed.”

The rational part of my brain said, “Whoa there cowboy. Down this path is slavery. If you do this once she’ll use the threat again. She’ll add the threat that she’ll tell her husband you fucked her and she’ll probably suggest that you were the one that initiated it. All in all, a bad outcome for you.  Besides you can’t lie worth a shit. What are you going to say to your mom  when she asks you how work was. What are you going to say? It was great mom, I fucked the bosses wife.”

The fuckhead part of my brain suggested, “Fuck her then quit, you don’t want to jerk off again tonight. you want to blow thrusting and hot and wet.”

The rational part of me asked, “What about pregnancy?”

That was the question that made my decision easier.

In my heart of hearts, I absolutely knew that I didn’t want to even risk having a baby with the nasty piece of work that Carolyn was.

I knew that I wasn’t paying rent, I knew that while I was living at home I had the ability to quit this job, I knew that I didn’t want to risk having a baby with this woman.

So I said, “OK then, Goodbye.”

I grabbed my backpack and walked out the door. I never looked back but was frustrated and angry. Too angry to wait on the fucking bus. So I started walking. a couple of hours later when I got home my mom said, “I thought you were going to call me when you were done.”

“Um yeah mom, I just felt like walking.”

My Mom is a wise woman who knows her children well.

“Okay, honey what happened?”

I related the story and at the end, my Mother was shaking with anger.

“Honey, you did the right thing. I put up with that shit while you were growing up. Here we are in 1979 and people still think they can get away with it. It was wrong when I was a single mom and executives thought they could bully their way into my panties, it’s just as wrong now that some woman thinks they can take advantage of you.”

My mom put a big pile of spaghetti on a plate for me, then handed me a beer. “Here sweetie eat something but don’t drink all the beer in the fridge.”

She left the room and I remember hearing the tires of her car chirp as she hit the pavement leaving the driveway.

I wondered at the time if she’d even catch Carolyn at the office.

I ate, drank my beer, rinsed my plate and put it in the dishwasher.

I went to my room, took off my clothes and jerked off a couple of times then fell asleep.

The next morning, I heard the normal morning sounds of my younger siblings being rushed to school.

After the house quieted, I got up. I was hungry, so I pulled on a pair of shorts and wandered to the kitchen.

There on the table was a cereal bowl, my favorite cereal, the newspaper and a check from the company for the week I’d worked and an additional 2 months pay.

I still recall the details vividly. Time has not diminished the memory of that humiliation and I doubt it ever will.

I was fortunate, I had someone who was in my corner. I had my Mom, she’d been through it. She knew what I was feeling and also knew there was very little she could do to make it better. But she got me my paycheck and bought me some time to get another job.

While my story is not nearly as sever or traumatic as rape. It is illustrative of the clarity that comes with some situations.

I recognize that women are far more likely to be abused than men, when they are abused, they rarely have a support system to fall back on. But the women I’ve known who have been raped, and  or abused are never fuzzy about the details.

They’re very clear and they can tell you grizzly details of their assault 40 or 50 years on.

So you’ll pardon me if I’m somewhat skeptical of Dr. Ford’s allegations thus far. We’ll have to wait and see what her testimony reveals.

And just because Kavanaugh might have been at the same party, doesn’t automatically mean he sexually assaulted her.

Hell if being at a party where an assault happened is the only test, then I might also be guilty using the same broad brush strokes.

Shit happens, it’s bad, of that there is no doubt. But bringing up something that happened 30 years ago just because someone is famous seems a bit contrived doesn’t it?

After the bad shit happens, the best you can do is deal with it and move on. That’s what I’ve learned from rape and harassment victims that I’ve known in my life.

That’s what I’ve done.