Ode of Alienation

It's the little things that send you into despair.

Never buy the knock off brand of Oil Of Olay. It will only smell like the cheap 99 cent suntan lotion that your mother used to buy from the 99 cent store.

She'd lather the stuff on you and your brother in globs. But as soon as you jumped in the ocean the cheap paste would rinse off and leave you both with giant blisters on your shoulders that the free clinic doctor would need to pop with needled syringes.

The nursing staff would remember how many times this had happened before and mother would try and play it off. But you always caught the concerned stares of the experienced nurses out of the corner of your eyes, and somehow those stares were worse statements of mother's incompetence than the painful burns that distorted your gait out of the clinic.

Rabbit Stew Anyone?

Today's misanthrope of the week is "The Bunny Undertaker," Elizabeth Carlisle.

Elizabeth Carlisle was arrested after posting a photo of herself with two dead rabbits on her Facebook profile.

According to reports the girl drowned the rabbits after they became injured during a fight at the PetLand store where she worked.

Unlike me most of you are sickened by the thought of such an event.

I find your response curious. And perhaps immoral.

I am made curious by those people who seem to get worked up over the death of a couple of rabbits more than they do over the fact that millions of African children will starve to death this year.

Take this comment from the Weekly Vice as illustrative of my point:

THIS outrages me. I am so pissed over this! I want to drown the girl and her father myself! The poor bunnies could have been taken to a vet. Her gleefully drowning them is unforgivable! People who harm defenseless animals will rot in HELL!

I can't recall ever getting a comment like that when I discussed starving children in Africa.

No one ever gets in my face sticking up for starving children, but I have gotten into bar fights with animal lovers over my opinions.

I once received a death threat from a PETA member after I posted Michael Vick as one of my "heroes" on MySpace.

People (like my ex wife) be like "them Africans must have had it coming. It's they fault. Karma and shit." [ actual conversation not verbatim]

I admit I don't like animal lovers.

I won't hide my opinion. I don't like animal lovers. I have no idea why anyone would ever be an animal lover. I just don't get it. I think having an animal for a "companion" is stupid.

Animal lovers are always doing things that annoy me too. They unleash their animals all the time. Those dogs chase and bite me.

In addition, Animal Lovers waste BILLIONS of dollars on their companions. The dress them up in stupid costumes. They talk to them in baby talk. They tell me pointless stories about the alleged "cuteness" of said animals.

Animal lovers invented this.

I don't mean to be dismissive about animal cruelty. But if you equate animal life with human life then you are misanthropic and possibly suffer from psychopathology.

You will assume I am bringing up the rabbit killer to sound outrageous. I am not. I only bring up the "rabbit undertaker" because it is the only way I know to get you to think about morality.

(Philosophically speaking) you have no interest in morality.*



*It occurred to me that this section was going to get very pedantic so I stopped.

Instead try reading the blog I found where the (female) blogger "kills animals as part of work... also... wild animals that are just in a lot of pain. Sometimes I have to euthanize them. I decided to record each animal I euthanize here."

OK, I will try to write something here.

Some things to think about:

• Maybe you are just "disgusted" by what Beth did. You may not be so moral yourself.
  

• We need to think more about the relationship between "disgust" and "morality."

• You might be a bit of a hypocrite if you like meat and wear leather pumps.

Allow me to anticipate one of your objections:

Animal cruelty is correlated with violence against humans.

I agree. And that is the ONE reason we should watch people who do creepy shit to animals. Sometimes they are just working their way up to killing folks like you and me.

Is she Guilty?

Is she guilty of having a sick sense of humor? You bet. But so am I. So are you. Why else would you read this blog?

If Elizabeth had been on a farm and killed the rabbits and then chopped them in stew she would not be going to jail. Other than taking a photo after the event I can't say that her method for euthanizing injured animals was all that terrible. (Animals often suffocate to death at the vet when they get put down at the vet.)

Without the smile she may have been considered a hero.

But she enjoyed causing pain.

We should worry that she enjoyed inflicting pain on something. But does that mean we should grieve for animals?

Maybe we should grieve for her sanity. And we should worry about a society that claims to be moral, but actually operates more on the level of disgust than an informed ethical rationality.

*By the way fried Rabbit is very delicious. My grandparents (back in Oklahoma) used to go hunting for bunnies all the time. The kids never wanted the fried rabbit that the adults shot and ate. We always wanted fried chicken. I guess because as kids we figured chickens had nothing to do with Easter Eggs. Kids are stupid.

Quit calling me lonely.

I feel no anxiety as the girl is running barefoot in the parking lot (gravel squishing between her toes.)

She stops just long enough to pose for me in her vintage short skirt, and then smooth her wild hair down into an awesome "emo" look. Her bangs cover half her head. I guess it is the dead head side of her head. I fear what that dead half of her looks like, and I thank the gods for you Emos thinking of a style that covers the freak side of your faces for me.

One of her friends is photographing her doing something silly. Or is it ironic?

I wonder how everything she does is cooler than me,

and after I stop wondering I decide I want to be as cool as her.

A few days later….

I see her this time at the counter of the Self-Checkout machine that I man. She wants to return a bunch of stuff that her Mom made her buy. A list of the items her Mom made her buy:

1. A bottle of caviar
   
2. A bottle of fancy vinegar
   
3. Something from Oil of Olay
   
4. Fancy ass pepper
   

I do a quick check of the total money coming back before calling my manger over.

The sum you ask?

$34.00

Bank.

"Ya,"

Oh, I 'm sorry. I think "ya" was a compete sentence for her.

Really.

She put a lot of thought into those two little letters. Meaning was conveyed that I cannot convey back to you on paper. It was all body languagey.

"Mom's made my sister buy caviar, and now she wants me to take it back."

Her voice is quivering. Something is not quite confident here. Her speech sounds over rehearsed.

I know I am supposed to believe this story. But I don't.

"I had no idea we sold "caviar." I pronounced caviar like I was one of the Beverly Hillbillies.

When I ask, Emo girl has no idea which store her stuff was bought at, "But my b/f is out in the (getaway) car. I could go get him…."

My manager interrupts this tangent.

"This is like 50 dollars worth of stuff." My manger barks. "I am going to need a receipt for that."

"Oh."

That was it for Emo. She walked out of the store. She walked out of my life. I guess she went on to some other store where she probably got her fifty dollars using her (improbably good) emo looks.

She went out the next day to some vintage clothing store and bought something that makes you realize you have no taste.

Then she probably posted all the pics she took of her adventures. Snappy pictures accompanied by equally snappy strings of words on her blog.

I decide to hate EMO girl for no good reason (it has nothing to do with her chewing blue bubble gum.) I am aroused by all her attention seeking behavior in the video below, and I enjoy the seriousness of the b/f driver. He drives like he is a stunt man in a Bourne movie.

Part 1 of my post on George Sodini is now ready!

I’m slowly letting all my dreams die…

In retrospect is the kind of thing you expect to hear from a writer who has learned something. It's also the kind of thing you will never hear at this blog. 

After reading this post I hope the knowledge that I never learn anything will at least provide some comfort to you.

I am usually not one for providing comfort.   Normally, I am the kind of guy who would drag little Sarah Palin's mongrel child up to one of President Obama's "death panels" and force abort that chromosome damaged piggy face before you could say, "that's a little fucked up dude."

This is a straight up Eugenics thing.

In case you were inclined to like me before you read that last statement I want you to know that I am not just another liberal atheist "hating on" your favorite conservative super mommy.

You see, if I were in the same situation that Sarah Palin faced, I would force abort my very own child.


Now if you just got the feeling that "forced abortion" does not always mean "talking a girl into getting an abortion for you*," and it was really just code for… I don't know… hiring a brown man to punch a girl in the stomach, throw her down stairs, and then get busy with some wire coat hanger action in the vagina area… then YOU my friend are a racist.


*Bet you were fine with that method though, weren't you killer?
 
You should know better.


If my ex tried to give birth to some retard, or handicapped kid I would "man up" and take care of things myself. I wouldn't pull no punches (no pun intended).

Unlike you I would not hire some midget with a baseball bat to club my wife to death because, "I was too prissy to get my hands dirty." And then faux cry to the press about the "sad death of my sweet wife and my precious child" just because pretty white women fall in love with death sentence prisoners.


I would just kill the soon-to-be-lactating wife myself. Then after I killed her and cut her body into pieces I would take a ride out to sea on the boat my pop left me in his will.


After I dumped her body in the ocean I would light the boat on fire. Then as I watched the fire consume the body of my retarded infant child (along with the meticulously restored wood tile floor) I would shoot myself in the face for giving rise to a seed that could produce a mongoloid.


Because I GOT my self respect.


I decided to get drunk after writing that even though my liver just started feeling better, and even though I know that my roommate's 6 beers won't get me drunk enough to excuse me blowing 20 dollars at the porno "hack" shack, but I need something to get my mind off this post.


Like I said I am just not the kind of person who learns from things.


But I am the kind of person who thinks of himself as "clean" even though he leaves the roll of toilet paper off the holder and casually tossed by the tub. 

I like to tell myself that "at least I noticed the scrunched wad of tissue lying next to the toilet" even when I do not pick it up. On my good days I promise myself I will clean the toilet more than once a month.


It's just I have been so busy with work.



Funny thing about this post is I left out a joke that I thought "insensitive" because it involved me suggesting that 7-up causes "cancer of the leg" which is not really funny unless you know that I was helping a "one legged" customer purchase a bottle of 7-up.

Talking about piss breaks is not what you call good blog material

I did nothing today except go to work. Work was regular except I did not tell myself "that I hate my life" all the time I rang up groceries. Which I guess is good.

Instead I actually heard myself be cheerful to all my customers.

Whenever I sound cheerful my voice goes up an octave to the point where I don't quite sound masculine.

Not that I really need to bother sounding masculine these days, since I have not been laid in years. I guess I should just give up on LOVE. I am so old that all that puppy dog stuff sounds implausible to me anyway.

I drink caffeine late at night. It is TWO in the morning and I am drinking my third coke (I have no woman to tell me to not to.) Because I drink coke so late at night my sleeping habits are out of whack. I stay awake every night until 6 0r 7 am. How is that normal? I don't know, but it has become normal for me.

When I drink caffeine late I wake up early because I have to take a piss.

(About 10 am)

I piss. I check the A/C to see if it is still running. I go back to sleep. I wake up at noon. I take another piss. I check the A/C again.

This piss catalog does not include the piss I took before going to sleep, or this piss I will take an hour in to trying to go to sleep. This piss catalog is just a catalog of my pisses after I lose some form of consciousness.

12:30 pm

I check the time on my phone because I am too sleepy to subtract the 15 minutes from the real time that I set my alarm clock ahead. Because I set my alarm ahead I don't trust whatever time my alarm clock says to me unless I have been up at least 3 hours. I check various e-mail accounts on phone because turning on the computer would cause me to get out of bed. All the e-mail is spam. Spam from the blog. Spam from all my personal ads on Craigslist. Not even the "LA Fitness Killer 'Type' Seeks Much Younger Female" gets a real response.

The lack of response from the Female seeking Male public has deflated my obsession with George.

1:00 pm

I use whatever mental faculties I posses to calculate latest time I could get out of bed and still make the Orbit "it's free- so that's why all the Mexican mother's with giant fat babies ride it" bus.

A further note on the woman/girl/baby momma riding the Orbit with me- She had the most masculine looking feet …EVER!

2:14 pm

I am startled out of a dream that instantly fades from memory. I jump out of bed, smartly jamming my ingrown toenail into the yellow stained folding chair that operates as my "writing" chair. I curse Yahweh.

2:54 post-morning

Orbit Bus. The A/C works. I sit to the back. I like sitting on the "wheel."

3:01

I arrive safely at the TEMPE Bus Station.

3:02

I run to catch Route 66 bus. The bus's signage tells me it is running North, but the driver reassures me, "it will take me south."

3:18

Bus travails 2 mile trip to work in just under 16 minutes.

3:25

Purchase cheese and cracker snacks for 88 cents.

3:30

Consume said cheese and cracker snacks.

Read book. Get interrupted by fellow workers' comments on book.

The book is God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer.

You should read the book.

The Apocalypse of George Sodoni

I can identify a lot with a guy like George Sodini.

We are more alike than I would care to admit.

Like George I am a white male. Only I am a slightly younger version at 38.

We both write blogs.

His blog is here.

On his blog George says things that are very similar to the things I say on my other blog Bathos for the Misanthropic.

I will give a few examples:

George makes plans to kill people:

George:"it is 8:45PM: I chickened out! Shit! I brought the loaded guns, everything. Hell!"

Me:

I guess what I am saying is that if you think you are hot shit try getting off on necrophilia, and then ask yourself if you can spend and hour and a half on Google trying to figure out escape routes from the local mall that you want to blow up. Try going down to the mall carrying a backpack full of knives and count all the security guards you walk past. See if that gets your heart to race. It probably will you fucking retard.

Then order some C4 explosive, a few machine guns and stash a motor bike in the alley a few yards away. Make sure you have a van parked a few miles from the alley by the mall that you can hide your bike and drive off in.

For the more advanced fuckers try to order up a stinger missile and shoot down a few passenger planes with the same idea. You stop by the airport and shoot a few of those puppies off and bike your way to a van that drives you to a safe house where you head off to Mexico.

George is a closet Marxist:

"Early last month, we had our second general layoff. I survived. First one was in November. When I began 10 years ago, that used to be a nice place to work. I understand the need to reduce staff when times sour, but this is out of proportion to the economic problems at this time. The economy is shrinking by about 4-5%. They decided not to pay Christmas bonus - for staff that amounts to about 8% of yearly pay. Well, OK. Plus no yearly "merit" raise, another 3.5%. That totals to about 11% cut. Plus two layoffs of 5% staff in each case.

Do the math. I know this firm is using this downturn as an excuse to take advantage of a bad situation and kill jobs UNNECESSARILY. The second layoff people who actually did work were let go. We all need to pick up the slack so the company can cut beyond what is necessary. Wasn't going to mention it, because of all this shit, it is K&L Gates, the large law firm headquartered here in Pittsburgh. Just call it K&L Gates Corporation. Most people there are OK and I would never have a shoot 'em up there. They paid me for 10 years, so far!"

I run the Karl Marx Blog.

Let's Talk about SEX.

George has not had sex in 20 years.
I have not had sex in 4.
I am just 1/5 the fuck up of George.

George needs a woman.

"A man needs a woman for confidence. He gets a boost on the job, career, with other men, and everywhere else when he knows inside he has someone to spend the night with and who is also a friend. This type of life I see is a closed world with me specifically and totally excluded."

So do I.

"I would hate to think that the vacuum of spirituality that exists in my life is caused not by my profound sensitivity, or at least awareness to the emptiness of existence, but simply by my inability to secure the archetype of feminine beauty that society showcases to me as accessible to all (but some how not for me.)"

Some more of my thoughts on women:

"We want your pussies. We want you to admire us. We crave your attention. We need you to build us up."

George thought things never changed. No matter how hard her tried.

The problem is I feel too good now to do this but too bad to enjoy life. I know I will never enjoy life. This is an over 30 year trend. Some people are happy, some are miserable. It is difficult to live almost continuously feeling an undercurrent of fear, worry, discontentment and helplessness. I can talk and joke around and sound happy but under it all is something different that seems unchangable and a permanent part of my being. I need to realize the details of what I never accomplished in life and to be convinced the future is merely a continuation of the past -

WHICH IT ALWAYS has been. I am making a list of items that will provide motivation to do the exit plan, it won't be published. I always had hope that maybe things will improve especially if I make big attempts to change my life. I made many big changes in the past two years but everything is still the same.

I write along those same lines here.

Come back to this post often. I will update it regularly.
Coming soon:

We both like younger women.

In addition:

I will review Barbara Ellen's:

Women weren't to blame for George Sodini's spree

Victoria is BACK!

Crazy Victoria from the Maury Show has "all grown up."

Well not for nothing, but at least some people's dreams come true. Victoria got her baby! she also got hot!


You can visit her MySpace here. And you can visit her YouTube account here.

Go for the GUSTO!

I've been blogging for five years. But sometimes I go days without posting.

I miss you when I don't post.  And I sure hope you miss me too, because your all I got.


Let me tell you what I mean.  If you were my girl I imagine it would go like this:

I come home to you after a long day from work to find you in the kitchen cooking our meal. I sneak up from behind you and I gather you in my arms.

"You want to dance?" I ask.

"Why?" You wonder.

"Don't you hear the music?"

"No." You answer. "I don't hear a thing."

"Well I do." I tell you.

And then I draw you close and I touch your head to mine.

"I only hear it next to you." I whisper softly to you.

And then we sway to the music only I can hear.

"I think you might be the perfect girl. The kind of person who could rescue me."

I think I need that.

Happy 5th Birthday Self Help Center. Happy 5 years of being "here" to all my long time readers. And a special warm welcome to any new readers.

I know that we won't ever have many readers over here. But what we share is special.

We GET each other.

Most of the time "getting it" can remain unspoken.

We get by on all the silliness of life.

But I am not crazy. I know there is something more between us. And I don't think that is the 6 pack of Schlitz talking. Nor do I think it the schmaltziness of the the episode of Calirfornication I just watched.

No. This feeling is real . It has to be. Because WE connect.

We don't worry about it. We just let it happen.

Right?

I mean I just grabbed another beer out of the refrigerator.

That's when I remembered that our fifth anniversary passed without so much as an acknowledgment from you.

You're too fucking busy I guess.

You've got other shit going on....

Now that I have cracked open this beer I think I know the truth.

I don't want to call you a liar. Maybe you meant some of the things you said. Maybe you really do "love me."

But am I supposed to think that my one ability, the "one " thing you say I am good at....I say the PERFECT thing at just the RIGHT moment...

Let you down?

I don't think so.

The TRUTH.....
is that was I never enough for you.

But you always let me believe that it was.

That's why I got my hopes up.

But you never cared how my hopes got up.

I think you thought if my hopes got raised somehow that would make me a better man. But you were wrong. It never made be better. All your delusions ever did was feed the fantasy machine I live in.

You are just a coward.

You won't tell me the truth. You are too afraid to tell me that I am not man enough for you, because you know I will run away from you.

You just love it when I tell you all the little things I am so good at telling you. You can't get them anywhere else. And you hate thinking about a life without the little moments we share.

But that's all I ever get out of you/just a few moments/and then you are gone/and I have to carry on/like some soldier/that never fights/because all I can ever be/ is your martyr.