I Hate Your Charades of Fame

High Society and me don't have much in common. I don't enjoy classical music unless it's playing in the background during a movie murder scene or the rumble scene in "Clockwork Orange," and I don't like an sort of art that looks like it was painted by Muhammad Ali. Opera is too fucking loud and Pâté tastes like ASS. I openly admit this because I don't want anyone to ever confuse me with someone who gives a fuck about country clubs and ballet. The self-cut hair and shrunken polo probably gave me away, but I'd like to think I'm not so obviously mundane.

(uses Sharpie to disguise scratch in $40 shoe)

What I do care about are people who impersonate being hoighty-toighty, fancy-pants, high-class schmoozers, because these people are fifty-times worse than the people who actually enjoy playing squash and eating squid-ink soup.

All of you know someone who claims to flirt with high society. They claim to have friends who are royalty, they claim to have fucked the daughter of a New York debutante, they claim to have eaten Polar Bear meat while on holiday in Oslo. They are the fucking WORST. Listening to these dip-shits makes me want to set my desk on fire and scream, ATTICA! ATTICA! until the NYPD blows my head off with a shotgun. Seriously, it's much better than the alternative, which is sitting quietly as someone recounts their bullshit romps in the South of France.

Why people feel the need to lie, I'll never understand. Mainly because, you know, you're not fooling anybody. You are a flake. Any imbecile who can count to ten without taking off their shoes knows you are full of shit. You have never eaten dinner with Idi Amin. He would have chopped off your head and staked it on a spear in front of his palace. You never ran into Marlon Brando at Elaine's. Marlon Brando would have fucking slapped you in the face. You never shared a joint with Andy Warhol back in the 70's. You may have seen Warhol in a magazine sharing a joint with Liza Minelli, but you are not Liza Minelli. You’re a fucking sham. I even like Liza Minelli more than you, and she makes me want to drink a pitcher full of mercury.

You know what I think? I think these people are so delusional that they truly believe that they are connected to people with more money than God. I think these people think, "Oh boy, last night was INSANE, driving down Sunset Blvd in a stretch Bentley while blowing coke of Lindsay Lohan's ass and Indian Wrestling Prince Harry." But everyone knows they really spent last night eating alone at some stupid trendy bistro where the waiters blow snot rockets in the lobster risotto. Do I think this is sad? No. Sad is a three-legged dog. Sad is a sick kid. Sad is the demise of Al Pacino's career. Sad is not some fucking asshole who wants people to believe he or she is something that he or she is most certainly not.

So here are a few words of advice. Stop. Just stop already. I can't listen to anymore of your bullshit. You're making me feel nostalgic over the days when I had to share a cube wall with a lady who claimed she once cooked Chris Webber a pot of spaghetti*.


*100% true story

I Hate Times Square

I’m not big on site-seeing. It's not really my "thing." Does me not traveling anywhere ever besides Mexico where I blacked-out for seven days straight and drank a lot of warm Coronas play a factor in this opinion? Yes, I’m sure it does. But I’ve never been big on the idea of walking around strange cities, asking bitchy people where the nearest entrance to the fucking tube is, and carrying a fanny pack with cameras and phones and gum and nine packs of cigarettes or whatever other shit Europeans carry in those things. Fuck that. As I’ve said before, give me the beach and some beers and the dishwater green Atlantic to look at and this guy is GOLD. Need a translation book upon arrival? Eh, maybe next year...

But for some reason, people LOVE to come to New York and fuck around in Times Square. And I have one simple question for these people: WHY? Why would you EVER willingly make a trip to Times Square? Hanging out in the canned goods aisle of a supermarket right before a hurricane hits is more fun. Times Square is the waiting room for Hell. It is more congested than Jon Daly’s plaque lacquered arteries. There is nothing to do...wait, let me clarify: there is nothing worth doing. Literally, there isn’t a fucking single fun thing to do in Times Square except stand around and look like a dick or go eat in a chain restaurant that you already have down the street from your house in Skokie, IL. It's a bunch of assholes yelling for you to visit some shitty comedy club, panhandlers who think that they are charming when they are actually vomit-inducing, and a bunch of stupid chairs thrown into the middle of blazing hot pavement that is emitting toxic fumes.

I will never understand the allure of this place, and more importantly, I will NEVER understand the allure of it on Times Square on New Years Eve. It's a meeting of the morons if you ask me.

"Hey everyone, want to buy an overpriced plane ticket to New York City, fly into to JFK after a 75 hour layover in Atlanta, sit in traffic on the Van Wyck for 4 hours in a cab that smells like the bathroom floor of New Orleans brothel, trudge into Times Square in -5 degree weather, and then STAND around for 17 hours, pissing in a Gatorade bottle while waiting for a fucking Light Bright ball to drop and for a bunch of frozen assholes to sing Auld Lang Syne and then call it a night?"

Ummm...FUCK NO I DON’T.

If I was ever forced to do this as a kid, I would have become a Crystal-Meth addict out of spite. Just writing that past paragraph literally made me even more anti-Times Square on New Years Eve, if that's possible. Holy shit, if I’m ever handed a Styrofoam container full of broken glass and an invitation to Times Square on New Years Eve, and I’m forced to choice one, looks like it’s the warm and sweet embrace of Death for me.

I don’t get the Economics of the place, either. How are there 6,985 carts selling I Heart NY t-shirts with cuffs so tight they cut the circulation off from your hands? The math does not work out. Same goes for the 600,000 hot dog and falafel carts. No way those guys are selling enough cans of fucking Pepsi to make a living off of it. I know in Mexico every street vendor was offering me cocaine when I walked by. That was a little disconcerting, to be honest. But seriously, they were yelling "hey, coke? Coke?" like they were offering me Skittles. Not weed. Not pills. COCAINE. You’d see an old man selling empanadas or some shit and say, man that poor old guy is stuck out here peddling, and then all of a sudden he would be like, "Heeeeeey Gringo, want some coke? Coke? You want some (long sniffing sound)? You know, some Cocaeena?"

It made sense in Mexico. And look, I’m not saying that’s the racket the Times Square guys have going on, but would I be shocked? Not a fucking chance, my friend.

I think seeing tourists frequenting the food establishments makes me the most angry. Really, Applebee’s? Really? You are waiting on line with one of those fucking seizure machines for a table at Applebee’s? There are 20,000 places to eat in NYC and you want to get the sizzling shrimp dipped in lard with a side order of bacon fries and a chocolate shake even though your picture is up on the stupid wall of the stupid one in your town back home because you go there every Tuesday night with your bowling team? BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS, ASSHOLE. I am the most vanilla motherfucker on this planet and even I refuse to eat at dumps like Applebee's. Middle-Americans think all true New York City cuisine is poisoned with gayness or something, and they're afraid it's contagious. Well guess what, Hank? It's not.

/ties shirt through collar
//watches "Dear John" of Blu Ray

A few months ago I went to the movies in Times Square. Obviously that was mistake #1. Needless to say, it was like watching movie in a mall food court filled with ADHD riddled 4 year olds, minus the 4 year olds. I wanted to hang myself with my belt in the bathroom within the first 30 seconds, and I would have had I not spent $13 on a motherfucking ticket already. The theater may have been half full, but every fucking person in there was chatting it up. It was like a fucking therapy group or something. I’ve been to movies where there are a few random assholes blabbing away or letting their phone ring away for ten minutes, but the majority of people talking like they're sitting in park? Never seen it before.

Obviously that day was the straw that broke the camel's back. I decided that I never have a reason to go back there, and never will. I will skip Times Square forever. No exceptions...Wait, what's that you say? There's a free open bar in Times Square with Shake Shack providing free food? Steven Seagal is there and he's reenacting scenes and dialogue from “Out for Justice”? Brooklyn Decker and Bar Rafaeli are playing beach volleyball in a portable sand pit? Someone is giving out free heroin? Someone reanimated Jim Morrison's rotting corpse and he's performing a one-time only concert right there underneath the Times building? Well, maybe you didn't hear me well enough before, but I'll reiterate: NO THANKS, PAL. You can take your invitation and give it to that guy over there with the map of greater New York hanging out of his jorts. He’ll enjoy standing chest-to-back with a 380 lb man who emits the smell of German coleslaw just for a peak at a blinking sign and the inside of Dave & Buster's.

I Hate Your Health Benefits

How out of place is the construction worker here? What is he doing with the doctors?? I love this picture, I'm going to frame it and put it on my desk.

I work for a company that has recently been usurped by an even larger company. I believe my job is safe, but you never know, considering I cut my own hair and get spontaneous bloody noses and bleed all over my desk, rug, and garbage can. I'm sure the cleaning lady just ADORES this. Regardless, there is one thing that I am going to have to deal with in the near future that to me is the equivalent of rinsing my eyeballs with bleach and fire: signing up for a new health benefits. It is the fucking WORST. I would rather spend an hour picking the fleas off homeless people with my teeth. You have to be a fucking astrophysicist to even understand the introductory paragraph. Flex spend? What the fuck is that? It sounds like a football audible.

I will never understand my benefits. I get packets in the mail thicker than the phonebook that immediately go into the garbage. Too intimidating for me. I had to read War and Peace in college, and I will never read anything that mirrors the size of that boring piece of shit. Fuck your health benefits manual. And fuck your change to my health benefits. Trying to squeeze another penny out of us again, are you? Trying to raise our co-pay so you can give some executive another $10,000,000 bonus? Die in a fucking forest fire.

Talking about health benefits is all white noise to me. You could sit me in a bare room with a one-on-one coach who's threatening me with a cattle prod, and I would still lose focus within seven seconds and start thinking about what I will eat for dinner, who should set up for Mariano Rivera, and how the internet works. The teacher might as well be speaking Mandarin Chinese because I will NEVER understand any of it. I could ingest a vile of ritalin and not absorb one ounce of relevant information.

I obviously blame much of this on my three-second attention span, but I also blame the complexity of the system. Online sign-up takes seventeen hours. You can be approved for a mortgage quicker than it takes to create a secure password. Use thirteen vowels, seventeen numbers, three smiley faces and thirty four symbols. Welp, already forget that password, fuckface system, looks like I'll be calling the helpline 38 times and politely asking the Indian man to repeat EVERY WORD HE FUCKING SAYS.

When I finally log in, the homepage opens 500,000 extra windows on my computer. Why this happens, I don't know. But I can't stand it. Being borderline OCD, I start sweating and panicking the minute this happens. Then I sign off immediately and abandon my progress and then go outside and get hit by a delivery truck and die because there is a lapse in my benefits coverage. Fuck you, Karma.

And much like the rest of white collar hell, since my company includes health benefits as part of my salary - which is fucking horse shit to begin with, seeing that I never go to the doctor so I basically donate money twice a month to the fucking motherfucking company I already work for - I think they should be responsible with signing me up for the appropriate health benefits. Why should I have to comprehend medical verbiage that ends up depressing me, thus forcing me to abandon hope on mankind and watch depressing-as-fuck movies like "The Deer Hunter"?

How much money could it cost for my HR rep to sit me down, run through a list of ailments, and pick the plan that best suits me? Probably less than my bi-monthly investment into the company, so fuck you guys, help me already! Stop sending me to some fucking seminar run by some asshole who talks to me like I'm fucking seven years old when I ask a basic question. You think I'm dumb, well who fucking hit the tying run in the 9th inning of Game 4 of the 2001 World Series? Who directed "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"?? ARE YOU SARAH CONNER??? Oh you don't know the answers to these questions, wow, what a fucking MORON you are! Hey everyone, this fucking doctor over here doesn't know dick about anything other than deductibles! WHAT AN IDIOT!

/incites riot
//arrested

It's all a bunch of bullshit, anyway, because your company will fire you waaaaaaay before you're old enough to be sick all the time and need tons of benefits. Then you're up Shit's Creek without a paddle, and while the company is busy celebrating the promotion of a healthy 28 year old VP who went to Yale, you're fucking dying in an alley somewhere with whooping cough.

I Hate You, Public iPod Singer

About 1/10,000 of the population in America has a tolerable voice. I'm not talking talented, I'm talking TOLERABLE - ie: "Okay, this guy can sing 'Sweet Child O' Mine' and not make me want to launch my face through a plate glass window, but I still wouldn't pay to listen to him."

The really talented people? They do not sing in a public place not designed to house them and show off their talents. They are too busy writing songs about taking peyote at the Joshua Tree and doing heroin in a studio apartment on the Lower East Side. They don't have time to underwhelmingly sing "Wonderwall" in Union Square and play it acoustically at full blast using seventeen amps and an electric guitar.

My voice, unfortunately, is not tolerable. I sound fucking terrible. I sound like a drunk Joe Cocker who's had his larynx removed and replaced with a hand-held fan. But I accept this, and keep my singing inside the car/shower/brain, or the confines of my house and hope that the wife doesn't get fed up and leave me for someone who isn't retarded.

Never the less, there are many, many people out there who are just as bad at singing as I am, but insist on doing it in public on a regular basis, much to the chagrin of society. Case in point: iPod singers. These people deserve a broken glass milkshake, especially when they decide to sing around me...in the morning...when it's 14 degrees out and raining. Who the fuck told you to that you had a pleasant voice? WHO??? GIVE ME HIS NAME RIGHT NOW SO I CAN BURN HIS HOUSE DOWN.

Seriously, if you're so self-absorbed and you decide that you have the ability (or the apathy for other people's ears) to sing on a subway train, then you deserve it when people call you asshole and tell you to shut the fuck up or throw battery acid into your eyes. I once sat next to a giant fat man singing "Brown Sugar" as loud as he could on a PACKED uptown 2 train. No joke. And he had a lisp. And his body odor smelled like the East River. If he had been sitting there minding his own business, reading a Manga comic or something, I probably would have pitied him and spent the rest of the day wondering why some people get dealt such shitty hands in life. But noooo, the fat man had to open his giant fucking mouth. So instead of feeling sorry for the guy I spent the rest of the ride wondering who would be willing to help hold him down so I could strangle him with my shoe laces.

For some people, singing is just not enough. They need MORE attention. So these people add to their singing nonsense by doing little restrained dances. They nod their head, snap their fingers, wiggle their hips, and strongly agree with whatever that gay-guy-lead-singer of Coldplay is saying to them through their head phones. The weird thing is, these people don't LOOK crazy. It's not like they're wearing a leotard and a Ushanka. They look normal enough. And yet, they are singing. LOUD. And they are sort of dancing. Who the fuck does this? You HAVE to be somewhat crazy to act like this in public. I bet in 1935 no on did this shit. Back in 1935 no one had a goddamn biscuit to eat, let alone a place to sing and dance. People back then ate dirt and garbage and thanked God for the garbage and dirt. Fuck 2010, I want to go back to the 1930's when everyone was poor AND NO ONE HAD AN iPOD!

Let's shift this to another facet of the whole singing in public experience: those people who take karaoke seriously need a reality check, by way of an open hand slap. You are one step removed from this guy. I love karaoke. Karaoke is great. It's designed for people like me to belt out stupid shit and drink too much and then sing even more annoying shit. That's the beauty of karaoke. But you people who think it's an audition "American Idol" need to fucking buck up. Nobody wants to hear you try and hit Falsetto notes. They want to listen to you sing a shitty Mötley Crüe song, spill beer on your slacks, and then unsuccessfully hit on that girl in the corner who would rather chew on hot coals than waste four seconds of her life speaking to you. There are ZERO talent agents lurking in the crowd. Talent agents are too busy doing cocaine and having sex with expensive call girls. They don't want to sign an overweight banker who reeks like stromboli.

But here's some free advice for all you people who do sing in public - JUST STOP ALREADY. Those eyes you feel staring at you, they are not from people that want to hang out with you and bake cookies and sleep over your house and learn different songs and eventually start a band and get a record deal and go on tour and become stars together. They want to punch your fucking face in and go home and eat dinner and ignore that AMEX bill for another night. They are hoping you fall down the subway stairs later and shatter your head like a Lenox vase. And your dance moves, they are interfering with my personal space. I don't want to see that fat ass under your hemp skirt wiggle anymore. I'm going to PUKE. And if I do, it's going to be on you. The subway, the street, the bus, the train, these places are not your personal forum. They are for miserable people like me to zone out and numb myself with tall boys and pretend I love where my career is headed and not wish Manhattan would be hit with a tidal wave simply so I wouldn't have to go to work anymore. I don't want to hear you sing Train. Just shut the fuck up and fall in line, asshole.

I Hate Your Customer Service

I am incapable of rationally dealing with customer service. This inability is ingrained into my DNA. It is tattooed on my soul. When God was molding me from his big bin of Play-Doh, he tossed in a little too much 'impatience for the disembodied voice on the other end of the phone who's really trying to help me but I think is out to get me because I am fucking insane.' So I blame him, and not my impatience issues. I suggest you do the same with any shortcomings. Makes people really respect you at gatherings.

My impatience with customer service really makes life difficult, because I love to order shit from online. I am lazy, and clicking buttons solves the whole getting up off my ass and going to the store problem. I also hate dealing with sales people in stores. I have about 56 people come up to me at Barnes & Nobles, asking me if I need help. Then I feel like they keep bothering me because they think I'm stealing. Then I start to feel guilty even though I haven't done anything wrong. STOP STARING AT ME AND WHISPERING INTO YOUR HEADSET! I look like an asshole who isn't smooth enough to steal free matched, so why don't you worry about the guy lingering in the mystery section, carrying the jumbo-sized North Face backpack, stuffing it full of James Patterson books or some other horseshit.

Ultimately, when I shop online, there will be a problem with my order. And I will have to find the goddamn customer service phone number BURIED somewhere on the website. This pisses me off too. These websites boast supreme customer service, but then they try to make you solve your problem by scrolling through a series of troubleshooting "help" tabs. Well, fuck your tabs. My case is unique, don't you see? I need someone to delicately hold my hand and walk me through each step and explain everything to me, or just do it for me because I can't get past the goddamn log-in page GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!

Calling customer service is equally as bad. Hey automated voice, you think you're so smart, well how do you like it when I hit 0 fifty fucking times in a row? You're sorry, you don't understand, I'M FUCKING SORRY TOO, HOW ABOUT I KEEP HITTING 0, YOU PIECE OF SHIT???

This actually works on occasion, which is nice. I hit 0 until my finger cracks and bleeds or I scream "OPERATOR" into the receiver until the cyborg on the other end gives up and lets me through to a precious customer service agent. I should have a camera crew on me at all times when I call in to customer service. If a psychiatrist watched me, I'd be committed on the spot. I either scream "OPERATOR, OPERATOR, OPERATOR" or "MANAGER, MANAGER, MANAGER" until I'm redirected. Touch-tone options are for fucking peasants. I want the real thing.

And once I get a customer service rep on the phone with real arteries and lungs and eyeballs, I always try to be pleasant. Honestly, I do. Because I know that they want to be doing what they're doing about as much as I want to be speaking with them and trying to find out when I can expect my signed photograph of Johnny Hector to arrive. But occasionally they will get sassy with me. And then I have to return that sass, for fear of losing of street credit with the zero people that give a shit whether or not some dude from Mumbai served me. I never bring that shit to them first, but I do look forward to returning it when one of the agents gets a little coarse when responding to one of my simple questions. You want to fucking dance, Azim? You want to fucking dance with me? Well, you just say when. I'll fucking dance all night, sucka, it's not like I have anything better to do!

I had an agent hang up on me once. No joke, the dude got so angry and frustrated he just clicked the phone down. He was probably trotted into the streets of Delhi and caned because I was being a whiny bitch about something. But did I feel bad? Fuck no. Mess with the bull, you get the horns, my man.

And this is why everyone hates America. But still, you present me with no other options, large company. You force me to speak with either an automated voice or some guy nineteen hours in the future who doesn't think it's funny when I ask him to tell me the outcome of the baseball game I'm watching so I can win a little cash. You're ahead of me in time, get it? Get it? What, you don't find my hysterical jokes funny? THEN PUT ME ON THE PHONE WITH YOUR SUPERVISOR.

I Hate Your Galas

For the most part, formal events are terrible. I think I can say that's a conservative description, an understatement perhaps. Because unless you're the center of attention and you have people catering to you and feeding you grapes right from the vine like you're Julius-fucking-Caesar, being stuck in a monkey suit and forced to surrender money and gifts and watch as some asshole gives a presentation is just awful.

The exception is weddings. Weddings - most weddings - get a pass because of the open bar and the advocacy of binge-drinking. An open bar could make an Iranian stoning fun to attend. Add in a band that has a kickass repertoire and a lead singer that looks like Rod Stewart on heroin, and you have yourself a fucking awesome night. The only downfall to a wedding is if there's a DJ, and the DJ thinks he's the MC of a 8th grade dance. And of course, the real killer: a cash bar. Couples who commission a cash bar at their wedding should be forced on a Spanish Donkey. I once went to a wedding that had a cash bar. It was so depressing. I left to go to the liquor store and bought a liter of Jameson and a bottle of ginger ale. I vomited on a car hood at 11pm.

Stupid, insignificant events, as formal events, are THE WORST. They make me want to dive into the back of a cement mixer. It's Billy's birthday today? And you're not having it at Burger King? Well, then you suck. Oh, you're disappointed with my attitude, are you? Well guess what? I'M FUCKING DISAPPOINTED WITH YOUR ATTITUDE. I'm disappointed that I missed CC Sabathia strikeout 10 and then swallow a lost child, whole, right on the pitcher's mound. And I'm disappointed that I missed Darrelle Revis return an interception 101 yards for the go-ahead touchdown because I was too busy attending Billy's 6th birthday at the Four-fucking-Seasons. He's six years old, for Christ's sake, he still believes in Santa Claus and he still occasionally shits his pants - do you really think a BBQ with a clown and some presents in your backyard would have been a letdown? Well, I don't. In fact, I bet he won't look back on his childhood and wonder why the fuck he never got to eat too many hamburgers and too much Carvel cake and spend the night puking in the toilet. I also bet your friends would be less likely to turn down an invitation to his next birthday if they knew they wouldn't be forced to wear a suit in 115° heat.

It only gets worse as you get older. A 5th wedding anniversary gala? Fuck you. 5 years of marriage isn't SHIT. My parents have been married for 40 years. Yes, FORTY YEARS. Now that's an accomplishment. When you get to 40 years of marriage call me and I'll put on a tuxedo and clap my hands and fake-laugh when one of your dope friends makes unfunny jokes at your expense. But 5 years? Send each other some eCards and shut the fuck up.

And what makes most of the events worse is the mixture of people that attend them. It's never intimate. Oh no, you have to invite EVERYONE you know. I spend half the time trying to avoid your fucking Uncle who thinks making off-color remarks about black people and young girls is as hysterical as his gingivitis death-breath. And I hate the too-drunk-person at an event that is not the forum for people to get drunk at. For some reason I am always near the guy at the Holy Communion when he falls over a cement macadam and splits his forehead open on the concrete and his wife begins screaming at him and then kids start crying and all other types of fun shit follows. The randomness factor of the attendees always adds a little too much anxiety. What if I get stuck at a table with the cousin who is 700 lbs? What then? Am I really expected to not stare in awe as she inhales her prime rib? You can't ask that of me, dammit! Look at her head, it's HUGE!

And formal work events are the apex of awful. There is a bottomless well of booze despite the strictest etiquette expectations. "Oh hi there, did you see our selection of 98 different kinds of beer and vodka and whiskey? Did I mention it's all FREE? Is that an erection I see?" Who doesn't look at the open work event bar and imagine drinking 79 drinks and then doing a shirtless tap-dance to the awe and wonder of all onlookers? But noooooooo, you have to behave yourself, after all, your boss is here. It's okay for him to get drunk and shit all over everyone, but you have to stand there and sip your Amstel Lite and wish yourself off to a land where Boris Yeltsin is your CEO and you get promoted based on the amount of times you pass out on a park bench and have to call in sick due to skull-crushing hangovers.

I think there needs to be less objection to people declining to attend formal events. If I say no, I will not be coming to Steve's retirement party at the Ritz, but here is a token of appreciation on my behalf, NO ONE should get upset. Why do you care if I'm there? Do you really feel like staring at my puss all night? In fact, I bet you won't even notice. I bet you'll be too busy cheering Steve up about not having a purpose in life anymore and also planning your stupid kid's next birthday party at Cipriani's, you jerk.

I Hate Your Vacation Updates on Facebook

A good vacation trumps everything in life. Food, sex, beer, whiskey, heroin, you name it. And I'm talking real vacation, a relaxing vacation, not the kind of vacation that includes hiking up right-angle cliffs just to the peak down the throat of an active volcano, or rafting down level 5 rapids waiting to be spilled overboard so you can crack your head open like a coconut on one of the several thousand jutting rocks, or getting inoculated against malaria and Ebola while safariing through a war-torn African country that's been overthrown by cannibalistic militants with a penchant for beheading fat, white Americans. Fuck that shit. I'm talking my ass sitting in a beach chair, feet buried in the sand, beer in hand, shades resting firmly on the nose like motherfucking Magnum P.I. scoping out a never-ending parade of 1985 Miami tail. That's my kind of vacation. Can't get enough of that shit. That other shit can be left for my alternative life where I do all kinds of cool shit and travel to exotic locales. Alternate me is fucking busy, by the way. He juggles a very high-profile life with the adoration of his family, friends, and colleagues. He knows how to sail. He owns many, many pairs of expensive Paul & Shark shirts and sips Macallan after running the high stakes baccarat tables in Monte Carlo...

(awkward silence)

Anyway...

Do you know what isn't on my mind while I'm sitting at the beach, basking in the hot sun, preparing for my next nonathletic sprint into the crashing waves? Facebook. Couldn't be less interested in who changed their profile pic. Don't give a shit who's relationship just disintegrated into a million pieces of tears and public humiliation. I am only mildly interested in that shit while I'm at work, trying to forget how much I hate working. But not on vacation. I am at the beach. I am staring at one of Mother Nature's fucking masterpieces. I am eating seafood and plowing through a whole box of Flavor-Ice every night and showering outdoors*. I am drinking multiple beers at 12pm and not feeling like an alcoholic. Unless it's to check a box score or the MLB trade block, I don't want to see a fucking keyboard. And I especially do not want to log into to Facebook. I'd rather eat a hamburger covered in mercury.

But there are some people who insist on telling the world just how awesome their vacation is while they're still on it. They actually take time away from their temporary Utopia to make a status update. "Weather is amazing here, 78 and sunny. Just drank a Pina Colada while riding a Dolphin. On my way to eat a 5 lb lobster and then off to an all you can drink luau on a 973 foot yacht with LeBron James and Prince William." Well fuck you, sir, you can go fucking trip and fall into a bonfire. The weather is not beautiful here. It's 100 degrees. I am walking dehydration. You could melt a glacier against my face. I smell like a homeless person. Pulling my sweaty socks off at the end of the day is the equivalent of winning the lottery. And the closest thing to refreshment is holding a luke-warm bottle of water to my head, curling into a ball, and lying under my desk where no one can find me while I weep and fan myself with a manila folder.

But you, oh you NEED to remind me how amazing your vacation is. Oh, you even added a picture to show me how awesome the view is from your $1,500 a night room. Well, I hope you step on a fucking sea urchin and your foot swells up and you look like the fucking Elephant Man. I hope you catch a ride with a local cab driver and he skids off the road while trying to change his Bob Marley "Legend" tape and drives off a cliff. Who the fuck thinks of doing shit like this? "Wow, this place is beautiful, baby! Oh, you want to go to the beach? That sounds great, but first let me take a picture of this sunrise and post it on my Facebook wall. Everyone will fucking adore me after I do this, and not think I'm a self-absorbed cocksucker who can't help but rub good fortune in other people's fucking faces."

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good vacation album after the fact. If you return from vacation and want to show off where you went, I'm all for it. Ohh wow, look at Billy, he wore a fucking beret! What a fag...

But uploading shit as you tour the south of France? Fuck off.

When you add photos from your still-happening vacation, you remind me just how awful day-to-day life can be. I have meetings to go to. I have to wear this soul-sucking fabric invented to suffocate pores. I have to wade through a crowd of slow-walking, blackberry addicted dickbags. Stop. Do you want to to come over and throw a grenade through your fire escape window? No, of course you don't. SO STOP POSTING PICTURES OF YOUR PRIVATE FUCKING LAP POOL, FUCKFACE!




*Showering outdoors is the best thing ever invented. I could spend 37 hours straight showering in an outdoor shower. I want to install one in my driveway. That cool breeze kissing your feet? The hot water mixing with the salt air? The smell of cedar and soap? I call that Heaven, my friend.

I Hate Pickup Trucks

There is nothing cool about owning a pickup truck without purpose. Farmer - fine. Professional dirt bike racer - fine. Mexican - fine. Own a barn - fine. But if you're a suburban dad who works at a law firm and you own a F-150 with 30 inch tires, I hope you burn your house down while grilling hamburgers for your fat, stupid kids. You are a shithead. Just because your hair is thinning and because you can't get it up anymore does not give you permission to buy a truck that your wife needs a stepladder to get in to.

I fucking hate pickup trucks. If there was an official emblem for fucking douchebags, there would be a hick pickup owner and a hipster mini-cooper owner fucking each other on it. Unless you are one of the aforementioned people from the beginning of this post, there is no purpose to owning a pickup, besides tailgating at NASCAR events and filling the truck-bed with Milwaukee's Best and yelling at women with cankles and getting a terrible sunburn and then going home and hitting your wife and getting arrested with no shirt on. Pickups were created for a reason - to move shit that normal cars could not, from point A to point B, not for you to drive in circles in a mud patch and listen to mashups of Kid Rock and Garth Brooks.

Whenever I'm on the highway and a pickup truck goes speeding past me at the fucking speed of light, I silently pray it fishtails and then skids into a deep ravine, shattering into a million pieces, then explodes into a fiery hell to burn away any DNA remnants of the asshole who was driving the truck. Maybe I just need to understand why, why you insist on driving 90 mph on a back road and kick rocks at my fucking windshield? Where are you going? Do you have to shit real bad? If that's the case, then fine, drive like a madman, but if you are just so inbred that you NEED to drive like Ray-fucking-Charles, than you deserve nothing less than a telephone pole sandwich.

And nothing gets me more than pickup truck decor. Oh, you have Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes pissing on Osama Bin Laden's face on your mudflaps? Wow, what a patriot you are! Go fuck yourself in a sauna, have a heart attack, and die. And what about that confederate flag painted on your back window? I bet you feel real cool dropping racial slurs with your friends Bubba and Jim Lee and Hank and Stinky, but why don't you go carouse a neighborhood that isn't more interested in Bobby Labonte's favorite snack food than the social progression of the 21st century, you fucking hillbilly. Oh look at that, you have a sticker that says OBX on the back window? Now that's telling, considering all the fucking rough and tumble tough guys who go brawl outside their 12 bedroom beach houses in Nags Head.

This weekend was like the gumball rally of asshole pickup truck drivers. Every motherfucker with a flat bed took to the roads, tail gating and menacing 89-year-old retirees on their way to see their grandchildren, weaving through traffic nearly clipping every car out of sight range, determined to not miss another minute of fucking fun in Myrtle Beach, Ocean City, or Wildwood. And why not? This is America, goddammit. Go ahead and drink that six pack of Bud Heavy you have in the console and go ahead and put camping lights on your truck even though you couldn't start a fucking fire with a canister of gasoline and a flamethrower. Go ahead and whistle at girls who would rather ingest cyanide tablets than spend three seconds smelling your Skoal breath. Go ahead and beat up those Guatemalan immigrants and throw your empty Mountain Dew bottles out the window and go ahead and trim your Fu-Man-Chu 'stache. You fucking earned it, you paid your taxes, right? You're a goddamn pickup truck owner!

Real men don't need pickups to feel like a bad-ass. Like Lee Marvin. Lee Marvin probably drove a Chevy Impala. And he probably pulled more ass driving a stock Impala than you ever will in your souped-up Dodge. I bet he fucking slapped guys like you and then drank a bottle of Jack Daniels and smoked two packs of unfiltered Lucky Strikes. You know why? Because he was a fucking man, not some half-wit in jean shorts rocking Hanes high socks and all black Adidas from 1998.

I Hate Corporate Fashion Codes

At least once a day someone on my floor will complain that it's too cold and call maintenance so they will turn down the AC. And at least once a day I will realize that my back is covered in a slick layer of sweat and I'm seeing stars because I'm dying of heat stroke. I hate when people do this. It's terrible. I'd rather be sucker-punched by someone holding a fistful of quarters than be subjected to the ninja thermostat move. And, I hate to generalize here, but it's mostly the gals who do this.

Now, I get the logistics behind you ladies getting a little bit chilly in the office. Most of you wear skirts and shirts without sleeves. Some wear even less. Maybe a sundress. But I refuse to believe that when you're getting dressed in the morning that you don't realize it might get cold in the office when YOU'RE NOT WEARING ANY FUCKING CLOTHES!!! Seriously, bring a sweater, or a space heater, light a fire in your garbage can and sing Doo-wop, anything to stop me from agonizing in a puddle of my own sweat. I AM DYING OVER HERE. You may be cold, but it's no comparison to how hot I am. When I hear people say, "Brrrrrr" and rub their shoulders, I want to lob grenades into their cube like it's the cab of a Panther Tank.

Maybe you don't understand what men have to wear to work to look "presentable." My pants feel like they're made out of fucking Kevlar and my shirt absorbs and retains heat like a fucking sleeping bag designed to keep hikers warm on the south face of Mt. Everest. If I walk ten feet outside in hot weather, I look like I just spent the day shadow boxing in a sauna. Thank God I don't have to wear a tie. If I got a memo saying that I had to wear a tie, I'd blow my brains out.

I wish for once we could just all take a deep breath and relax. What's wrong with linen khakis and a polo? Is that so fucking insulting? How about nice loafers with no socks? Would you lose sleep at night if I wore shoes like that? If you answer yes then you deserve to beaten with a fishing rod in front of your son, because you're not a man; you're a fucking douche. I will never understand why people care when someone wears something unconventional. It's not like I want to wear a fucking cock-ring through my pants and a leather vest that has the word LESBIAN embroidered in the back of it. It's a polo. It has a collar. What the fuck is the big deal?

You know who still really cares about traditions? Old people. Cranky old people who are casually racist and clip coupons even though they haven't spent a penny of their own money since 1957. Most traditions are fucking stupid. Fashion traditions: even stupider.

A few weeks back I took it upon myself to alter the casual Friday code and toss on a polo instead of a button-down. When I got to work, someone, I shit you not, said, "Whoa, a little early for a polo, no?"

Oh, I'm sorry, did I miss the polo memo? It's too early to wear a polo? Can I please borrow your fucking polo-wearing calendar, because I must have lost mine last night when I was punching your mom in the face. TOO EARLY??? WHY??? Because it wasn't technically summer? It was hot outside. I decided to wear a polo. Does that mean I'm not "in it to win it"? Does that mean I don't care about my job? How fucking twisted and shallow does someone have to be in order to judge someone's dedication to their job based on what style of fucking shirt they're wearing? Gandhi wore fucking tighty-whiteys and didn't eat for like 6 months, but he really didn't care about India's liberation, because if he did, he would have gone to Brooks Brothers and gotten himself a nice double-breasted monkey suit and some cool Kenneth Cole shoes, right, right?

(swan-dives off GW Bridge)

Every day on my way to work, I see people dressed to the nines and wonder whether they feel the same way as me. But I'm sure they don't. I'm sure their suit makes them feel great, and they can't wait to get a new one. And you know what, fine, I have no problem with people wanting to look nice. If buying suits is your thing, cool, go buy a fucking rack of them. Go dry-hump a closet full of gabardine. But why do I have to conform? Why do I have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothes that make me want to fucking vomit? I'm not asking to come to work looking like a fucking homeless person, but why not make things more comfortable for the men? Maybe productivity will go up? Maybe people will be *GASP* happier and more pleasant? Maybe I won't have to throw a shit-fit when the thermostat is switched from 70 to 98? The possibilities are endless!

I Hate Your Rubbernecking

Traffic is my least favorite thing on this planet. In hell, I am stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike with no air conditioning, riding in a car with Curt Schilling, Paris Hilton, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, talking politics, and my radio station is stuck on a Ecuadorian news station at full volume. I'd rather play Russian Roulette in a Vietnamese death camp than sit in five minutes of traffic. I'd rather eat Raspberry Sorbet out of a prison toilet than spend another hour crawling down I-95. There aren't many things I wouldn't do to avoid sitting in traffic. Traffic fucking sucks. It sucks ten dicks filled with stricnine and gasoline. If I had one wish granted to me, it would be for there to be no more traffic, ever. Or it would be for $1,000,000,000,000,000 so I could buy all of the major thoroughfares in the United States and then blow them up. Back to horse and buggies, motherfuckers, and maybe some enforced walking for you fatties who park in the handicapped spots because your disgusting gut squishes up over the steering wheel and you hyperventilate from the effort it takes for you to inhale a bag of Frito's.

Every time I hit traffic, I take a deep breath and tell myself, "It's okay, friend, it's okay, just relax, it will all be over soon. There is nothing you can do about it now, let's just ride it out calmly..."

OH IS THAT RIGHT, BRAIN? THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO, YOU SAY? WHAT IF I SMASH THROUGH ALL OF THESE CARS AND GET TO THE PEOPLE CAUSING THE ACCIDENT AND DRIVE A PITCHFORK THROUGH THEIR ESOPHAGUSES? WHAT ABOUT THAT, FUCKING BRAIN??? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT??? AND FUCK YOU 880 AM, YOU DIDN'T WARN ME ABOUT THIS TRAFFIC. IF YOU WARNED ME THEN I WOULDN'T BE HERE. I WOULD BE HOME DRINKING BEER ON MY COUCH IN THE AIR CONDITIONING, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, NOT STUCK NEXT TO THIS PERSIAN ASSHOLE BLASTING OSAMA BIN LADEN'S GREATEST HITS FROM THE STEREO IN HIS DROP-TOP MERCEDES. DIE!

The rapid progression my brain takes from serenity to insanity never fails. I laugh a little bit at first...then grip the steering wheel a little tighter and wish I'd taken a different route...then I start to sweat and curse under my breath...then I hope that someone looks at me cross so I can get out the car and punch them in the throat...then I shake and scream and punch the dashboard and pray to the lord that a asteroid will come down from heaven and land right on my fucking face because I can't take sitting here any longer.

I have issues, I know...

But what makes traffic worse is when it's caused by a bunch of dumb shitheads trying to sneak a peak at what's going on. Oooooooooooh look, smoke! Let's all slam on our breaks and hopefully cause more accidents because no one has anything better to do, right? And people rarely stop for anything worthwhile. It's always some jackass who forgot to properly tie down his suitcase and now his stupid clothes are all over the road and his wife is yelling at him instead of helping him, making the situation that much worse. Now the man will go home so fucking pissed off at his wife that he will inevitably end up plowing Carl's slutty secretary simply out of spite. Great job, nagging wife on the side of the road, YOU RUINED THE MARRIAGE!

There is no reason for you to slow down and satisfy your curiosity. None. You are making everyone late. Just drive past the accident at 70 mph like I do and give the poor bastard with a busted tire the look of death. But no, that's asking too much. You'd rather act like you're on a fucking African Safari. When other people are riding in the car with me, I have to tone the ranting and fury, which aggravates me even more, because venting is the only thing that keeps me from squirting blood out of my eyeballs. Oh look at my smile, everyone in the car, I'm not pissed, you see? I'm laughing at the situation. I'm not ready to thrust my head through the windshield, oh no, that would be barbaric.

I always pretend that the people who insist on slowing to a crawl so they can check out a fender-bender can hear me. And oh let me tell you that I give them the verbal thrashing of a lifetime. You are a failure. You have a below average IQ and your mom dropped you when you were two, THAT'S why you can't hold a steady relationship. Your haircut sucks. You car sucks, too. Yeah, that fucking Honda you're so proud of? Well it makes you look GAY. And you're kids are all stupid. And your daughter is sleeping with a black guy. Oh, I'm so sorry you had to hear it from me, but it's true. So maybe you should be hurrying home to deal with these issues instead of WATCHING SOME DICKHEAD CHANGE HIS TIRE.

I Hate You, Freudian Dreams

"I hate dreaming. Because when you sleep, you wanna’ sleep. Dreaming is work, you know - there I am in a comfortable bed, the next thing you know I have to build a go-kart with my ex-landlord. I want a dream of me watching myself sleep."

- Mitch Hedberg

Sigmund Freud, quite frankly, was an asshole. Actually, allow me to clarify: anyone who dedicates the majority of his/her life to dream study is an asshole. Why? Well, let me explain. Now, this may not be completely true, but I'm pretty sure dreams are just a composition of shit your brain mushes together and plays out for you when you fall asleep. Sort of like one of those B movies starring Roddy Roddy Piper, no rhyme no reason, just fucking MUSH, some beatings, and a few soft-core sex scenes. And since your mind is asleep, it is in a state of 'fucked', hence the weirdness. Oh sure, you can get all scientific on me and tell me that my dreams are repressed fears and unfulfilled desires and needs and blah blah blah blah, but then you'll just have to answer me this: The other night I had a dream that I was a geriatric homeless man who got mad at a young woman for hiding crumbcake and proceeded to push her down a grassy hill and steal the whole thing…

Now, Smarty McNerdfuck, what I would like to know is, WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN???

Bottom line, dreams suck. They are either a titanic letdown, shit-your-pants scary, or a mind-fuck. There are no other versions. And I can't decide which version is the worst. But what I do know is waking up in a state of disorientation because you were only seconds earlier playing lawn darts with Martin Scorsese fucking blows.

In my dreams, I win the lottery way too often. It's honestly unhealthy. Do you know the ill effects this has on a person's mind? You wake up and for one second you actually believe that you are a newly minted billionaire. "Holy shit, I can't wait to got to work today with no pants on and piss into the copy machine ink!" But then the fog washes away and you quickly realize that the whole thing was a farce. WHY DID YOU JUST DO THAT TO ME, BRAIN? It's literally the worst feeling in the world. Oh look, back to mediocrity, ho-hum. Say, are there any errant knives laying around here that I can plunge into my jugular?

And it’s not just the lotto dreams - all fun/enjoyable dreams are like this. One minute you're watching reruns of "The Office" and dozing off in your bed, the next you're cruising the ocean on a yacht with all your friends. BALLING. It's sunny, breezy, and utterly divine. Then some beeping sound rips you from your slumber. You look, and it's you cell phone ringing. You quickly realize that you're back in your bedroom. It's Will calling. Will wants to know what round Bo Jackson was picked in the 1987 NFL Draft? YOU TOOK ME AWAY FROM MY YACHT FOR THIS STUPID QUESTION? He was taken in the 7th round, asshole. Happy? Now please go slip on the ice outside whatever shithole bar you're in and crack your head open on the cement.

For some reason, I have an overwhelming amount of terrible dreams. Nightmares, if you will. I find myself knife fighting my mom on a busy highway. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT ABOUT? I hate falling asleep and realizing that I am wanted for murder. Who did I murder? Why did I murder this person? And dream-me does dumb shit, like hide in a shed. Why the fuck am I in this shed? I should be shaving my head and applying a fake mustache and putting in fake contact lenses. I should be following James Dickey's "To the White Sea" word-for-word and escaping to freedom in the Japanese wilderness. But no, here I am, hiding in a ratty old shed, holding a fucking broom. Bravo, dummy.

Some people say they enjoy the feeling of relief when they realize their bad dreams were just bad dreams. But you know what? FUCK THAT. Why do we even have to go through the pain and stress of being involved in a murder case? Why can't I just not dream about being the patsy in a global mercenary operation altogether? I'd rather dream about eating a Watermelon Italian Ice. If I dream about the Watermelon Italian Ice, at least I can actually satisfy that craving in real life. But no, back to the corporate scandal dreams, and the stressing over lawyer fees and that talking fucking spider that speaks Japanese, and my uncontrollable urge to piss even though all the toilets are actually Venus Fly Traps...

I'm so fucking envious of people with insomnia.

I also can't stand waking up from a fun dream and then trying to jump back to sleep so I can try to recapture it. Maybe if I close my eyes nice and tight then I will return to the mansion I just bought on the French Riviera with a skeetball alley. But nooooooooooo, there's no going back once old mister bladder comes bitching for relief. No, instead I end up falling asleep to a blank screen or returning to some bizzaro version of the mansion dream, where everything is all shitty and weird, like the alternate version of 1985 in "Back to the Future 2."

Hopefully, sometime in the near future, scientists will discover a way for the gen-pop to manipulate their dreams so you can use them as platforms to act out their twisted little fantasies without actually going out into public dressed as Shamu to fuck a fire hydrant. These machines will act like the precogs in "Minority Report," only less pale and creepy, and you know, not a living, breathing human being. Unfortunately, by the time this technology is invented, I'll probably be either dead or all fucking old and senile and shitting myself to appreciate this awesome tool. But I can be unselfish, believe it or not, so I do hope that future generations get to decide what they dream about. Because real life is rough, and there's no reason we should be going to bed to face a jury of bananas over a murder rap or walk the streets of Manhattan stark naked or think you've been given the GM job of the Yankees only to wake up and realize you're late for work and it's sleeting outside and your a white collar slob.

I Hate You, Bandwagon Fans

Coincidentally, I also hate Dane Cook

I'm not really a fan of the World Cup. While I do understand why people enjoy it, I know that it's just not for me. I don't know any of the players, I don't know all the rules, AKA I don't give a fuck who wins or loses or ties (note: ties are gay) or which country's dictator murders the goalie for failing to block 7,831 consecutive shots by a vastly superior team. In the end, it's just soccer, and I don't like the sport. Would I ever care about a New York Red Bulls game? Fuck no. I'd rather watch an old man get twisted up in a lawn hose and fall down a hill than watch a bunch of guys run around AstroTurf in front of a crowd of 12. But again, this is preference, so I don't judge. I don't like the sport, so I don't watch any form of it.

Personally, I save my rooting stamina and invest myself in the sports I truly enjoy to watch. I live and die with every insignificant headline. Wait, Darrelle Revis is unhappy? Unhappy with what? HOW UNHAPPY IS HE???

(chugs vile of cyanide)

I can't sleep some nights when the Yankees bullpen blows a game. FUCK YOU CHAN HO PARK, YOU SON OF A BITCH. Me, crazy? Try bat-shit crazy. But you can bet your ass that I know what it's like to be a real fan of a team. A fan that doesn't go to games just so he can tell his boss he went to a game. I go to games to get drunk and lose my voice and heckle opposing bullpens and offer my opinion about double-switches to a father and son sitting three rows ahead of me even though the dad didn't ask for it and is whispering to his son that he would rather have him grow up and become a gay pornstar named "Boner Stallone" than ever become an obsessed asshole like the guy sitting three rows back spilling his beer everywhere and cracking peanuts all over himself like a homeless man.

The best part is, as obsessed as I am, there are people 100x more obsessed than me. For instance, I own a Joe Klecko throwback jersey that I handlle like I would the Holy Grail, or a lock of Derek Jeter's hair, or newborn Jesus. But...There is someone out there who owns 17 Joe Klecko jerseys and spends his nights lying them all out on the floor so he can roll around naked in them. It's a fact. I know the guy. His name is Alonzo.

Of course, there is the ying to the die-hard's yang. On the other end of the spectrum are bandwagon fans. Aren't familiar with the term? Bandwagon fans are people who will overnight become the biggest fan of whatever sport is choice at the moment. Remember back in January 2008 when the Giants went to the Super Bowl and suddenly EVERYONE in New York was a life-long Giants fan? Even the maintenance guy in my building who had moved to America from Ecuador three months prior was suddenly able to recite Amani Toomer's career stats. I was fucking amazed by the shameful jump of thousands of apathetic people onto the Giants' swelling bandwagon. I was also fucking pissed. Because even though I live and die with Roger Vick, Lance Mehl and Browning Nagle, and I absolutely HATE the Giants, I still felt for the die-hard Giants fans who invested time in watching bad Giants teams and then had to deal with amatuer hour on the biggest night of their fucking life.

And I felt some of it last year, too, when the Jets surprised everyone, myself included, and made their way to the AFC Championship. But I was ready for it. I became a fucking hawk overnight, searching for people who I knew didn't give a shit about the Jets just a few days earlier, but would suddenly claim to be life-long fans. I was ready to end friendships over it. I was ready to do 25-to-life. I WAS READY FOR BLOOD. I wanted to stumble across Dan the sales planner who I knew liked the 49ers telling someone he was always a Jets fan and his dad is a Jets fan and his Uncle Carl has season tickets and the only reason he likes the 49ers is because he knows Alex Smith from sleepaway camp...blah blah blah, you know what you get for statements like that, Dan? Insecticide to yo face!

The World Cup is a prime example of bandwagon-ism at it's worst. If people just rooted for their favorite country without feeling the need to continually prove their dedication, I wouldn't care. But when peers act disappointed with me for not caring about the competition, I want to staple their assholes to their faces. Since when did you start caring about sports, Lily? Last I heard you were too busy caring about the affair you're having with Frank to give a shit about a soccer game. GASP - did I just go there? FUCKING-A RIGHT I DID.

Do you really want to see dedication to soccer/football? Go to any pub in England and throw on a team USA jersey. Hooligans will beat you to death with a chair in seven seconds. And then the cops will come and they will use your dead face as a toilet. And then the cops and the hooligans will throw your lifeless body into a sewer. Because soccer hooligans are fucking psychotically dedicated to their respective teams. But they are awesomely psychotic, because they fucking beat each other to a pulp over who's a bigger fan of which firm or which club. I wish baseball fandom was like this. I would love to arm myself with a fucking tire iron and go bash down the door to some Red Sox bar in SoHo and battle like I'm motherfucking William Wallace. And then when the cops come they don't arrest you, no, they decide who won the battle and then everyone gets shitfaced together and tries to replace their teeth with broken pool chalk. Doesn't happen this way? Well in my mind it does, buddy.

If you want to act out this charade where you're such a fucking patriot to the USA soccer team or some huge fan of a sport, fine, but please do it with someone who is playing the same game that you are. You can bullshit each other until you puke. Go paint your fucking chests and head to some trendy bar and cheer and yell and act like you give-a-shit even though you really don't. And do you know how I know that you don't give a shit? Because in a day or two you will be over the whole thing. In a day or two, you won't be defeated. You will be back to form, being the fat dickhead you are who smells like sauerkraut that's been sitting in the sun for too long. But like most idiots obsessed with a team, I have a hard time getting over big losses. I spent two weeks trying to get over the Jets loss to the Colts, even though I KNEW they had no real shot. Back in 2004, my brain literally erased any memories from the whole month of October, because I cannot relive the horseshit that happened over those 9 days, or I will scoop out my eyeballs with a melonballer. Does this make me cool? Abso-fucking-lutely not. But at least I'm not pretending, Mr. and Mrs. matching Landon Donovan jersey with the Modell's price tags hanging off them.

So, when the US eventually loses to fucking Italy or Finland or wherever, don't come crying to me. Because I will feign sorrow at first to lure you into a cosset of trust, but then burn your house down. The lesson? Dedicate your life to a sport that has no significance on your actual life, asshole, jeez, what's so fucking complicated about that?Look at me, look how well it's turned out for me?

/scrolls MLB Trade Rumors for 7 hours

I Hate Your Guilt Trip, Tip Line

I, for lack of a better term, am a sucker. I can't help myself from over-tipping people. "Oh thanks for doing your job, mister, here's 40% because I'm a bleeding-heart bitch when it comes to blue collar workers!"

You see, at one point in my life, I was a waiter. It might have lasted all of two months, because I was awful, but no matter, I still served food to people who were seated at a table and weren't related to me, so in essence, I was a waiter for a short period of time. One time I spilled a plate of salad on a guy. He was thrilled. Another time I chased a patron down and returned the $1.25 they tipped me on a $70 check. My boss thought that was just charming.

But I remember just how unforgiving the job was. You get paid nothing, get to see what happens in restaurants behind closed doors which in turn makes you NEVER want to step foot into a restaurant again unless you're drunk or starving, and if the people you are serving decide to be assholes, well, then you can forget about making any money. WHY DID MY BAKED ZITI TAKE A WHOLE 20 MINUTES TO MAKE??? ARE YOU RETARDED??? I MAKE MINE IN 7 MINUTES AT HOME WITH MY MICROWAVE, EVER HEARD OF ONE??? I DON'T CARE THAT YOU'RE NOT THE CHEF, IT'S STILL YOUR FAULT!!!

But I digress...

I tend to over-tip because whenever I'm in a restaurant, bad memories begin to resurface like I'm a veteran of the Tet Offensive watching a fireworks display at the town park. Did you see how heavy that plate looked? Maybe we should throw him another few bucks, no?

(wife takes wallet away from me and burns all the credit cards)

I also over-tip cab drivers. But with less reason because I've never been a cab driver. But in my thick, twisted brain, I believe that my extra $1 tip is going to help them bob above the poverty line. It won't, but still, I'm having none of it. Here you go sir, thank you for almost killing me when you ran that other cab off the road and then accelerating to 87 mph but slamming on the brakes every 30 seconds so my wife and I can go home and fight to see who will vomit first.

Again, the whole digressing thing...

Since there is no smooth segue into what I want to talk about, I'll just jump right in. I hate being handed receipts that have tip lines printed on them from people and stores that do not deserve tips. I buy coffee in the morning, they receipt has a tip line on it. I buy a roll of toilet paper, the grocer gives me a receipt with a tip line on it. What the fuck? Why are you giving me a guilt trip? Yes, yes, I know, I should just ignore it...BUT I CAN'T. Even when I go to get takeout food, I have to draw a slash through the tip line while the polite Asian lady watches me with absolute DISGUST. Spoiled American, doesn't want to give me extra money to make his food. But you know what? FUCK THAT. The point of takeout is so I don't have to sit around and have you serve me. You see, I'm a friend! A friend! Please, please, please don't spit in my Hunan Chicken next time I come here!

I'm also convinced that if you don't scribble over the tip line, the cashier will add a $50 tip to my receipt. I read about stories of Midwestern couples being swindled out of thousands of dollars by their local pizza place, and I scoff. BAHAHAHA, I bet they were too busy watching Fighting Illini games and eating fried cheese to notice their money being siphoned away! But then, the mind begins to go, and I start to panic. What if Juanita the coffee lady is slowly bleeding me dry of my hard earned money? What if she is taking a few bucks a day, and then a few more, and then a few more? So the next day I go in and give Juanita the evil eye and then she says something to me in Spanish that I don't understand and now our amicable relationship is RUINED.

It should be against the law to use receipt paper that includes a tip line if you're not a sit down and eat business. Fuck you, bakery, you do not get a tip for baking bread for the general public. It's not like I came in here and asked you to bake me a loaf of seeded Italian bread. If I didn't buy this loaf of delicious bread, someone else would have. You decided to become a baker - I didn't make you go to baking school. I don't ask for tips when I build presentations for clients, and they're kajillionaire cocksuckers. I should be getting tipped. I should be getting envelopes of tips from clients for doing their dirty work. They don't pay me. I don't see a dime of their money. And so what if I'm technically salaried to do a job that includes building presentations for them, the fucking movers job is to move your shit, and they get tipped on top of it, right? This whole fucking tipping business is backwards. I work my ass off and receive nothing extra, but Bobby the fucking pizza man hands you a slice of margherita and gets a bonus dollar for rotating his fat greasy hand from the oven to the counter. He handed you a slice of fucking pizza! I fucking photoshopped a picture of your CEO eating sushi inside a fucking spaceship with John Lennon! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE???

I Hate Your Poorly Produced Commercial

Everyone has had that moment where they were halfheartedly watching TV and halfheartedly dicking around on the internet, but not really putting effort into either activity because you are too tired from listening to someone tell you how mediocre your work performance has been recently, and that you could be doing better work if you weren't so tired all the time, but to also remember that tomorrow there is a client breakfast and you need to be on the 5am train along with all the heroin addicts so you can have time to greet the non-English-speaking Japanese executives who have no fucking clue what you're saying, but still demand you entertain them for a minimum of four hours with stories about video game conquests and Hideki Matsui. And just as you slowly enter that deep, funky haze and your brain lets its guard down, lulling you into the land of zero-cognitive-thought, a commercial begins airing on the TV that is the decibel equivalent of someone holding an airhorn to your ear and blasting it for 75 minutes. These are local commercials, and they fucking SUCK.

Every network provides air-time for local commercials. This is the first place where we should direct our angry mob. I can't say that I understand the metrics and financial intuition behind local advertising as opposed to national advertising - one would assume that there is always more money in national commercial breaks - but what the fuck do I know? I'm just the asshole with the oil stains on his button-down and beaded sweat on his brow because someone called maintenance and fucking complained about it being too chilly in the office, so they shut off the air conditioner again and now I'm going to die of heat stroke.

ANYWAY...All local commercials are un-fucking-bearable to watch. Never has one been created that would be mistaken for anything other than a video filmed by a homeless man on crystal-meth. I'd rather watch a tiger cub get beaten to death with a monkey wrench. And all the commercials have video quality of a Vietnamese snuff film, and star awful-looking people that look like Jeffrey Dahmer during different stages of his murder/cannibalism career. Mustache/comb-over/mustache/horse-shoe-hairdo/goatee/mustache/mask made of someone's skin...

One of the worst parts about these train-wrecks is when a guy who looks about as funny as a child falling down a well pops up onscreen and tries to be funny, but fucking fails MISERABLY. They have the comedic timing of a corpse. And they all deserve a steel baton to the cock for making me uncomfortable in my own living room. Wucka-Wucka, look, you threw fake money in the air! Well, I hope it spontaneously combusts and sets your head on fire. THANKS FOR MAKING ME SQUIRM BECAUSE YOUR STARE IS UNWAVERING LIKE A MASS-MURDERER AND YOUR TOUPEE FUCKING SUCKS.

And when the camera inevitably scans the dumpsters that these guys use to hock their products, I get even more angry. Look at those dirty Hondas and Mazdas - holy shit do your cars suck. I bet you fucked a hooker in one of them, didn't you? Oh yeah, Mr. PleatedKhakis, do you really have the best and cheapest appliances in New Jersey? I'm sure you do, and I'm sure it's because you rummaged through foreclosed houses and salvaged the stoves of people who have been thrown out into the street and shot. Glad you're using blood money to buy your brat kids an undeserved new car for their sweet sixteen even though they are going to wrap it around a telephone pole in two weeks, asshole.

Nothing about your commercial is clever. My nephew can edit better, and he's two fucking months old. By the way, hire some actors, you cheap fuck, because your wife looks orange and your kids look like they're as smart as a toilet seat. I bet they get spit on at school because you forced them to be in your shitty commercial. When your son finally admits to you that he's dating a transvestite named Gustavo and your daughter swears to you for the 15th time that she's shut down the glory hole for good, maybe then you will realize the error of your ways.

The best part about local commercials is that I will never buy anything from any of these assholes, EVER. And my decision is based solely on a stupid commercial that their stupid fucking friend told them would help business. Guess what, buddy? Your commercial isn't helping business. Quite the opposite, actually. It just HURT your business. See these crisp Lincolns I'm holding? WELL YOU CAN FORGET EVER FEELING THEIR BEAUTIFUL TEXTURE IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND!

If these guys had any self respect, they would pull their commercials off the air so they would stop showing up on my TV at a volume level meant for Helen Keller, buy some clothes that fit, get a new family that doesn't suck, and then torch their store while still inside of it.

I Hate Your Pitiful Remakes, Hollywood

When I saw the trailer for the remake of Billy Zabka's immortal classic, "The Karate Kid," my initial reaction was to laugh it off. But I saw it again, and my scoffing turned into heavy breathing, which in turn gave me a sour stomach, which then began to produce thoughts of branding my eyeballs with iron rods stenciled with Pat Morita's face, hopefully sending me into a permanent state of insanity so I wouldn't be allowed near theaters showing this heaping pile-of-shit. Fuck you Will Smith's kid, you suck. And you too, Jackie Chan, you should be ashamed of yourself. RALPH MACCHIO WILL KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS!!!

(rocking back and forth in the corner)

So where does it end? Where does Hollywood draw the line and stop destroying classics so they can milk fat, brain-dead idiots who don't know any better than to just toss away their cash to see movies they can already see for less money by buying the original DVD from Target for $5.99, minus the absurd amount of added special effects and John Travolta's neatly-cropped mustache?

I fully understand that Hollywood is a business. Oh, you thought it was all about red carpets and magic and marquee lights, and the story behind a sweet innocent Kansas City teenager getting her big-break and then turning into a superstar overnight and then winning an Oscar, and then making a bomb costarring Kevin Costner and then falling from grace and subsequently acquiring a taste for some choice Bolivian Marching Powder and then making a sex tape with a 7'4'' MMA fighter from Algeria that eventually turns out to be her "rock bottom" which in turn sends her into rehab which then creates the perfect stage for an epic comeback? Well guess what - YOU'RE WRONG. It doesn't work that way. Only your stupid brain works that way, probably because of all those whip-its you did in the parking lot of a Dave Matthews concert back in 1997. Producers will do ANYTHING to make a dollar. A remake of "Gone with the Wind"...SET ON THE SUN? I love it, how quickly can it be green-lit? "The Wizard of Oz" re-imagined as a slapstick comedy starring those two gay kids from "Twilight"? How much should I make the check out for? There is no limit to the madness.

Where are the original ideas? If we could clone Charlie Kaufman and the Coen brothers, we may be able to salvage the movie business, but my prototype cloning machine isn't working properly, because instead of making another me it keeps spitting out soggy toast. So, until I get this shit worked out, we are all FUCKED.

(plants screwdriver into light socket)

It's gotten to the point where movies are being remade before the originals are even dated. How about "The Hulk"? That shit was remade like 16 months after Ang Lee made his horse-shit version. And both of them sucked. And there are rumors swirling right now about "Spiderman" being re-imagined already. WHAT THE FUCK? At least when the Batman franchise started up again in 2005, it had been ten years since that hack Joel Schumacher turned the last two Batman movies of the 1990's into a fucking off-Broadway musicals about two sexually frustrated men wearing costumes with plastic nipples fighting off villains covered in neon paint. *Shudders* Couldn't have been gayer. And at least the two newest versions featured an awesome director in Christopher Nolan*. But soon he will tire of the franchise, and so will Christian Bale, and then Kevin Smith will take over as director and hire Orlando Bloom to star and I'll be too busy to notice because I will be dangling from a highway overpass.

I used to love IMDB. I cruised that site more often than Ricky Martin does a Santa Ana truck stop. I'm always checking out what's coming up in the next few years, getting overexcited about shit that will probably die before it even reaches pre-production. But recently, I've found myself staying away from the site because I've been coming across remake after remake after remake of movies that have NO BUSINESS being remade. "The Warriors"? Really? Fuck you, Tony Scott. You're moving the setting to Los Angeles, and it's going to be set in the modern day? So why even call it "The Warriors"? Oh that's right, because you want to use the name of the original movie and rape any happy memories fans have of the original, you fucking cock.

At one point I came across a listing for "The Wild Bunch," and next to the title was a future date, like 2011 or something. I immediately began loading a pistol and searching for the producer's home address. But as I investigated further, I realized it was actually a cartoon about wild animals that was using the title and poster image of the original. Get it, The Wild Bunch? WUCKA-WUCKA! What a great idea for producers to model a cartoon after a movie in which 90,000 Mexicans are Swiss-cheesed with a Gatling Gun by the baddest motherfucking cowboys ever, and a bunch of innocent people are slaughtered on the streets by crossfire, and throats are slit and people are shot in the face? PERFECT for the kids. But seriously, why would ANYONE pick this movie's title as a moniker for a kid's cartoon? What fucking idiot thinks a 5 year old is going to make the connection to a movie made 41 years ago? And what fucking idiot thinks a parent will make the connection and then say, "Oh honey, I think it's time little Bobby is introduced to the world of MURDER. After all, he just turned five."

Someone also had the bright idea to remake "Red Dawn." Never heard of it? That's because you're a COMMUNIST. In short, it's a movie about eight American kids from Colorado who band together to fight off a Russian/Cuban invasion. It was made at the height of the Cold War in 1984. It starred Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, and C.Thomas Howell. And it was AWESOME. I totally wanted to be a wolverine. I would fucking destroy those Commie bastards and free all my friends from the concentration camps in my town and become a legend. But the movie was also terrifying. Kids were killed, people were executed; it was really intense. The premise was obviously ridiculous, but still, the movie made you think about what would happen if the U.S. was invaded. Anyhoo, the remake is set to be released this November. I suggest boycotting it. Did I mention Tom Cruise's son is in this? He totally looks like a little bitch. This is going to seriously suck...

None of these straight remakes are worth pissing on, even if the only cut of the film is burning in a garbage can. They're not worth my spit, which is why I have stopped spitting on the move posters. They are all stupid. Most re-imaginings are too. But for some reason, they rake in cash at the movie theaters. I blame MTV. But my biggest question is, are any films are off-limits? Are there plans to remake "The Godfather"? If so, someone please shoot me in the face with a elephant gun, because I do not want to part of the human race when that happens. Thanks.



*my only beef with "The Dark Knight"? Maggie Gyllenhaal. No way am I buying that a billionaire playboy wants to fuck her. To be perfectly honest, there's no way am I buying anyone wanting to fuck her. She looks like the mushy pumpkin. There are 4,000 leading ladies out there and every-single-one of them would have been a better choice. Even her brother would have been a better choice. I have a hard time getting past this, because every time I watch it, I'm like C'MON, NOLAN, GYLLENHAALL, REALLY? WHAT THE FUCK???

I Hate Your Fake Diligence

Most people do things because they are attention whores. They are not motivated enough to actually do the task they are imitating, so instead, they just pretend to do it. It's called a ruse, and I fucking hate it. Like that girl you're friends with who, every night you go out, inevitably ends up crying and carrying on, cursing out bouncer and making a HUGE scene for no reason other than she's a drama-starved-bitch, mascara running down her face, shoes off, ten-inch ash dangling from her cigarette like the old lady who snoozes on her porch with a lit butt and eventually lights her nightgown on fire. Or the guy who goes to the gym, owns more gym clothes than Jack-fucking-Lalanne, has 17 iPod shuffles, but spends most of his time walking around talking with girls who think he's cool because he wears his $400 sunglasses inside, and flexing his coke-sculpted arms in the mirror.

It's all about the ego. People servicing their ego because they are really full of shit and feel the need to be something they are most definitely not. And you know what? I don't care. I really don't. If it doesn't affect my day, feel free to wear a fucking astronaut suit on the subway. Dress up like a fucking Navy SEAL and call in air strikes in Central Park. I don't give a fuck about your need for attention. But if what you do does interfere with me, what I'm doing, than you can go drive your car into a volcano.

For instance, I was at a bar last Friday. It was relatively crowded; Friday, happy hour - it's a given that most bars at this time will be more crowded than they are on a Tuesday at 10am, when all the most awesome people in the world do their drinking. So I was fine with the stuffiness. But I was a little annoyed because, for whatever reason, the bar owner thought that, since it was hotter outside than Mumbai in the summer, it was perfect weather to turn off the air conditioner and let in some nice, balmy, lung-choking air. Terrible idea. But I was dealing with it because I was drinking and there was still daylight outside, and drinking during the daytime is fucking awesome. So, at some point I went to get another round and upon my return to our table, I accidentally brushed up against a bunch of papers hanging off a neighboring table. My initial reaction was to apologize, because sometimes lonely old bastards take their newspapers to the bar and pretend to read while they're really wishing they weren't 80 and being beckoned by death. And I do feel bad for these guys, so I wanted to say, "Hey sorry, pops, didn't see you breathing over there, I thought you were DEAD! Know what I mean, eh, eh, eh?"

But when I looked down, it was just some young doof wearing a salmon colored shirt, one hand holding a pen, the other holding down the pages of a text book. He was alone. All over the table were papers and books. He couldn't have been older than 26-27. And he was giving me a dirty look, like I was the fucking problem. I wanted to break my beer bottle against the table and grind it into his face, because that is the exact punishment he deserved for acting insulted because I, a patron of the bar who is there to spend fucking money to get drunk, accidentally brushed his fucking lab papers off the side. But I didn't maim him. Instead I went back to my table and did what you're supposed to fucking do in a bar. Still, I couldn't help but wonder why the fuck this guy packed up his law/business/grad school work and decided, "You know what? I think I'll go do my 40 page paper outline at O'Connell's. There's just something about being surrounded by a hundred drunk people while baking in 90 degree heat that gets me motivated to do some hard, honest work."

What a fucking LOSER. He was at the bar pretending to do work because he was desperately hoping some girl would notice him and she would think he was Will Hunting or some sort of fucking cool intellectual. OH, HE IS SO SMART, HE EVEN DOES WORK AT THE BAR - I SHOULD BLOW HIM! I bet his girlfriend just dumped him for a Persian coke dealer and he had been out of the game for so long that he had no other gameplan. Well guess what, buddy? Your fucking gameplan SUCKS. Everyone is making fun of you. Even that fat guy who looks like Peter Jackson with Ragù stains on his shirt thinks you're a dork. You've had that same pint of Wheat-Holland-Bullshit for an hour and a half, it must be like fucking hot chocolate now. I've drank 37 bottles of Miller Lite during the same time frame - who fucking rocks more, huh? If the bartender smartens up and stops trying to bang that married woman who is clearly waiting for her husband while flirting and working him for free drinks, he will hopefully heave you into the gutter for taking up a whole table to not spending money so you can pretend to do work.

This is not Europe. We do not go to bars to do anything besides drink heavily and/or try to convince someone to have sex with us. Want to pretend to read a A Light in August? Well...HOW DOES MOTHERFUCKING "MAN IN THE BOX" SOUND AT FULL VOLUME WHILE YOU'RE TRYING TO CONCENTRATE??? You're lucky the alcoholics who normally sit at the table where you've placed your fag-bag and cashmere scarf don't tear your pockets out of your pants and then beat you with a guardrail out back.

Being fake sucks. But I understand the practice will never go away. It should be curbed, though, held to arenas created for the assholiest of assholes - lounges and clubs with one syllable like Dusk and Night and Heat and Cream, places reserved for douchebagery. You see, young man with papers everywhere, this is a bar. A real fucking bar. People get punched in the fucking face here. And no one sues. No one here owns a summer house. No one here talks about stocks. No one here went to summer camp. If you feel like drinking too much and vomiting on yourself and the table and the floor, go right ahead. Remember, if the name of the place begins with an "O" and ends with an "S" do not come in and pretend that you are studying for your MBA.

I Hate Your Litter

When I was a kid, I littered all the time. When you're a kid, you don't understand shit like the ozone layer and greenhouse gasses. Oh, there's an invisible shield hovering over us, protecting the human race from incineration via the sun? That's interesting. But do you know what's even more interesting? Discussing whether or not the new Optimus Prime is really the same as the old Optimus Prime, because I think it's a SHAM!

Kids are fucking dumb. I was fucking dumb. So, I threw shit out the car window whenever my mom wasn't paying attention. The bigger the better. I knew there wouldn't be severe repercussions, so I would crack the window and drop shit out the window and watch it flutter into the wind, most likely landing in a lake and hopefully strangling some Canadian Geese, because they are the spawn of Satan. But still, look how quickly it fucking flew away - the window is like my own vacuum cleaner!

And this is the reason why I give kids a break in this area of concern. But once you turn say, 17, you should definitely be finished littering. Because before you turn 17 and can drive everywhere, you still have the need to dump empty beer and Popov Vodka bottles in the woods and into reservoirs (fuck you, Manhattan tap water). It's just the way it is. But there are so many fat, lazy fucking assholes on this planet, it's inevitable that many of them will continue littering well into adulthood.

Recently, while waiting for a subway in balmy 95 degree underground steam-heat, fighting off the urge to walk back above ground and jump into the East River and hope for the poison in the water melt me, I noticed a 50+ year old woman eating a big bag Cheetos nearby. Eating is a polite way of saying: she was stuffing her stubby Carney-hands into the bag and transferring handfuls of orange shit into her fucking face faster than the speed of light. Obviously, I had a problem with this immediately, because the last thing Mrs. Augustus Gloop and her knock-knees needed was more saturated fat pulsing through her clogged arteries. Also, she was wiping the cheese dust on her pants, which made me want to simultaneously vomit and cry, because that shit is made out of equal parts processed-cow-asshole, grease, and horror. When she finished, she wiped her hands clean and then chucked the empty bag onto the tracks, and then went back to wiping sweat from her head and developing heart disease. And she tossed the garbage so nonchalantly - no sly peaking to see if anyone was watching her actions, no behind-the-back toss, no worries at all. Just, HUM-DEE-DUM, HERE YOU GO PUBLIC, HERE'S SOME MORE GARBAGE FOR YOU. CARE? OH I DON'T CARE, AS LONG AS I'M MILKED AND SHELTERED AND FED FRESH HAY WHY WOULD I GIVE A FUCK IF I AM A SHITTY PERSON?

Now, I hate the MTA. I fucking wish the MTA would go bankrupt so everyone was forced to ride bicycles around like we were in 19th century London. The MTA fucking sucks. Everything about the MTA sucks - the perpetually skyrocketing fares, suffocation by overcrowding, changing a local to an express mid-ride, no motherfucking air conditioner when it's 150 degrees outside - but I still have the decency to not throw my garbage all over the place. Would I like to upturn garbage cans and start small fires and maybe incite a riot and overturn a subway car and maybe corral a bunch of the Mole People and train them to be my own personal army? Of course I would. But I don't.

The worst part about the incident with the lady was, there was a trash can about thirteen feet away from where she was standing. And I know that this woman saw it. But she decided that exerting minimal amounts of energy TO WADDLE over to it would be too much of a hassle, so she said, fuck it. Well guess what lady, WE ALL WANT TO SAY FUCK IT. Who doesn't want to just toss their garbage everywhere? Hey, let me see if I can loft this empty soda bottle onto that brownstone's roof! I think about doing shit like that all day long. Finished with my coffee? I want to launch it onto the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza and hopefully hit one of those middle-aged losers pretending he's Kim Yu-Na. Oh look, I'm done with my sandwich - that Cartier storefront window looks like it needs some motherfucking pastrami and spicy mustard on it! It's a constant impulse that my brain has. Just do it, man, just fucking do it. Everyone else is doing it. Throw your Dunkin Donuts cup on the street. It will feel soooo good.

But I don't do it. I can't. I don't want to be like that fat blob in the subway. I have zero discipline with most things in life, the least I can do is wait four seconds to rid my hands of garbage and toss it in one of the 8,000 garbage cans lining the street.

The next instance happened at a drive-thru window in my hometown, which is filled with entitled douchebags who all deserve to be beaten with a bamboo cane. I was stuck behind this chic, maroon minivan that was bursting at the seams with insane little kids fighting and yelling and rocking the car back and forth on its axles. I never got a look at the mom in the driver's seat - all I saw was her turkey-neck arm sticking out. But I could tell she was annoying just by the way her profile jerked around and shook as she screamed at everyone inside the car, and then gestured at the person serving her to hand her 900,000 extra napkins. After she finished passing along the food from the drive-thru, she pulled over to a parking spot near the exit and began heaving trash from inside her car onto the pavement. Bottles, used tissues, food, empty bottles of Windex. My jaw dropped - it was fucking INSANE. I was in shock. Literally, my body was humming. She then lobbed about half the napkins she bitched for RIGHT BACK OUT THE WINDOW. Before I had a chance to fully process what happened, she was pulling out into the street and then she was gone. I hoped that later on in the night, she would be mauled by a Kodiac Bear, but I couldn't find anything in the papers about it the next day. Fucking Karma, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU FOR THIS ONE???

We are fucked. As a society, we are fucked. It's beyond repair. And I've come to terms with the logistics of this. But I will never be able to comprehend how someone just unloads their trash so I can sit next it while I'm trying to find a good song to tune-out the Jamaican lady who's holding up a tattered Bible and preaching about something but no one can understand her because she's screaming and angry and totally contradicting herself. But at least we have Earth Week!