If only kids were returnable with a receipt....

  I see these crime stories on the news all the time.  You know the ones.  They usually feature the parent who is trying to explain how the life that they led into the world turned out to be a sociopathic killer with bad wiring.   Maybe that's the reason I can't see myself ever being a father; the idea that I'll take a long look at my potential offspring one day and realize that I gave life to something broken.  And it's not like I can take my potential offspring back to Sears if they're defective.  If only there was a system where you can run your offspring back to the store and have the option of getting a store credit or a gift card upon their return.  Here mister or misses sales clerk, I'm here to return junior because he's a hopelessly fucked up idiot.  Store credit is fine since I don't have my receipt.

  I know for certain that if I ever did have a kid, I'd raise them with the same values that my mom did.  One of those values was honesty.  My mother's parenting style was based on improv but the fact that she spoke from the hip grounded me going forward.  My mother's favorite saying was "if I have it, you'll have it.  If I don't have it...."  She didn't even have to finish the sentence after awhile, I knew exactly where she was coming from.  Her most famous act of parenting was on bill day.  There'd always be two piles, one for the bills and one for the income she had just received. She'd point at the bill pile and tell us in a matter of fact manner that it was either going to be a good month or a tight month.
 
  The point is, I know I don't have the patience to raise a kid.  That fact I don't dispute in the slightest.  Although, strangely enough, I've managed to have a dog and a few cats and they've lived semi long lives.  My latest cat just got a clean bill of health from the vet and seems to be doing OK under my watch.  No no, raising animals and kids aren't the same.  I'm trying to toot my own non parental parental horn.   In all honest, if my ex,AKA my one true love, were still in the picture, I'd at least kick the tires on being a father.  Maybe that's the answer.  Maybe I'll be more reticent to have a kid when I meet up with some nurturing woman who balances out my need to grab a bottle of aspirin and ear plugs every time a kid comes in my general direction.  My ex had a gift with children, she seemed to speak their language.  She was the proverbial kid whisperer I guess.  Nah, I can't have a kid.  I'd blame myself if the kid was fucked up and I spend hours and hours analyzing what the hell went wrong.  Nah, my greatest fear is becoming everything, parent wise, that my father was.  I still remember the day I graduated college.  I thought, this is the moment; the moment when even this emotionally unavailable sack of crap can't possibly shoot daggers at me on one of my more prouder days.  Dad looked at me and said "good, now take that paper they gave you and try to get a job earning more than minimum wage."  Thank you dad.  I'm afraid to fail and I surround myself in walls and I over analyze things to the point of distraction but thankfully, I'm nothing like you.

Left is right and right is left

  Have you noticed something, mister and misses cable news watcher?  Though their political ideology differs, CNN has suddenly adapted the look and feel of its main competitor the Fox News Channel.   The Fox News Channel and its morning show have a three person hosting team with that talk showesque couch and now Jeff Zucker revamps CNN and suddenly the CNN morning show has a three person crew and the couch and the requisite blond anchor from central casting. Even the CNN afternoon show and the FNC afternoon show are almost indistinguishable.  Same interview on the plaza with the same rabble rousing news maker sounding the political trumpet for their respective political party.

   So let me get this straight?  CNN wants to be taken seriously again as a legitimate news outlet for the liberals and yet, it hires Jeff Zucker.  Jeff Zucker, the man who turned a once proud beacon of journalism known as the Today show into a banal exercise of fluff and irrelevancy.  I mean, Zucker was the man who thought it would be a prudent move to inflict Kathy Lee Gifford on the public again when Today was expanded to four hours.  But GMA actually started beating Today when they took Zuckers formula for dumb down and used it to take over the top spot in morning news.


  So I guess you could say that CNN is simply being proactive by attempting to beat Fox News Channel, their rival, by mimicking their format at every turn.  Or maybe this was the CNN game plan when Piers Morgan was hired to replace Larry King since Piers Morgan is the UK'S version of Geraldo Rivera with the sound and bombast turned down a few decibels.  Like good old Geraldo, Piers Morgan seems adept at making the story all about him. So with this being said, I wonder what's the next step for CNN under Jeff Zucker?  Well, Jeff Zucker can't counter the Kathy Lee Gifford move by hiring Regis because Regis is working for Fox Sports One at the moment.  So I guess Jeff Zucker will have to find another quasi celebrity who makes you yearn for the virtue of silence and or euthanasia.  If Jeff Zucker is going to go all single white female and morph into a clone of FNC, he'll have to start finding doppleganger's for FNC sacred cows like Shephard Smith. Surely, he can find the liberal version of old Shep, as they call em.  I'm sure it'll be easy for Jeff Zucker to find an elitist talking head with a twang and a liberal slant.  Or maybe CNN already has their Shephard Smith in their very own Anderson Cooper;  or, AC, as they say in the business. Maybe this is a trend.  Maybe the liberals will start pumping out their own politically slanted Limbaugh clones to take the airwaves back from the Conservatives. The left will try to look and sound like the right and the right will try and look and sound like the left.


  So what have we learned here, ladies and gentlemen?  Well, we learned that people like to bitch and moan about fluff, yet gobble it up every morning when they watch the Today show and GMA cross promote their respective mother nipples into oblivion.  And we've learned that CNN wants to be the Fox News Channel but they want to lean forward like MSNBC does while they do it.  And we've learned that CBS WANTS to be credible but can't seem to get out of its own way.  Only CBS could pledge its dedication to heard news in the morning and then hire a friend of Oprah's to hijack the last hour of their respective morning program with the same fluff that people are watching on NBC and ABC in record numbers.  Well, at least CNN doesn't have anchors on the payroll that want to be country singers.  There's hope yet.

Rebuild the shore!!!!

  If you've watched the news, you know that the boardwalk in Jersey is nothing but a pile of rubble right now.  I feel for the business owners who have been impacted by this tragedy but maybe the fire in Jersey was biblical in nature.  Maybe the fates or whatever wanted to purge the land that served as the back drop for that IQ sucking exercise known as Jersey Shore.  My question is this. You saw Sean Penn and Brad Pitt flying down during the Katrina disaster and what not.  So where are the kids from the Jersey shore when their Guido homeland needs them the most?  Heck, isn't Springsteen from Jersey?  Where is he at?  I say, he and Snooki and every tanned Guido should be shifting through the rubble and assisting in the rebuilding effort.  America needs its home of bare chested Guido's starting fights on the boardwalk.  Where will the next Jersey Shore hopefuls learn the values of GTF if the boardwalk in Jersey remains a Terninatoresque pile of smoldering rubble?
  Forgot Syria Mister Obama, the Jersey shore needs your support.  Forgot the masses who were bombarded with nerve gas, Jersey needs your guiding hand.  We need that Obama charm and we need Springsteen to sing about the night that the Boardwalk turned to rubble.  Keep it non Parisian Bruce, Dubya had nothing to do with this calamity.

  Wouldn't it be great entertainment to see little Snooki and J Wow or whatever the hell her name is doing half ass work trying to rebuild the boardwalk.  I can see Ron and Sammi throwing charred pieces of plywood at one another as they fight over some guy Sammi texted before the tragic fire in their homeland.  I can see the Situation standing guard for enemy grenades while someone goes to confessional and bitches about what little work he's doing to help rebuild the Mothership.   I know you're feeling me on this MTV.

  We can have Springsteen and other Jersey based celebs manning the phone lines in the fight to rebuild the boardwalk.  There will be shots of some poor disenfranchised T shirt shop owner and the sound of a sad movie soundtrack as he talks about all the shirts he never got to sell.  And then Kayne will but in and tell the world that Jersey doesn't care about black people.  Call Fema, call the National Guard, call a Carpenter.  We rebuilt the towers, now we must rebuild the boardwalk. Guido tested, Guido strong, the boardwalk must be rebuilt!!!!

Sundays with Joel.....

  A pal of mine has seen great things in Joel Osteen so here I am, a known atheist, trying to observe the Joel Osteen experience on a rainy Sunday Morning.   Now I have to admit; I look at Joel and I see a nattily attired salesman.  This is probably due to the fact that every five minutes, there's an ad asking the flock or whoever the demo is to buy Joel's newest book.  Yes, there are the ad's for Mister Osteen's book and then the constant flashing of a PO Box in which to send dough to the Osteen crusade.  So this is the man that is telling me to put my life into God's hands; a man with an 800 number full of tele marketers and a PO Box where the checks go.  So if I put my life into God's hands by giving Joel my rent money and nothing happens, is the plan for God to have me live in a box until something miraculously happens.  I find it funny that Joel Osteen preaches about relieving your mind of all things monetary when he preaches out of a church the size of three football fields.  So let me get this straight.  I'm supposed to put my fate into something I can't see.

  So let me get this straight.  I'm supposed to eschew all thoughts of what I don't have from a guy whose has no worries when it comes to all things monetary.  Maybe I'd trust Mister Osteen a bit more if he ended his sermon and simply went to black.  But no, the sermon ends and then there's an infomercial for Joel's book and the shot of Joel with two schumcks who are promoting their own religious empire.   Maybe I'm just to cynical and un-trusting to actually believe in anything religious.  I laughed when Joel mentioned God breathing on you and Moses with a mighty stick of fury ala Steven Seagal.   I'm sorry, I just can't open up my mind to a preacher with an 800 number.  For me, there has to be separation between religion and commercialism somehow.  But hey, Joel does put on a good show.  The flock was engaged and one woman was spotted taking notes.  I guess God breathed on her and she found out that she was going to be tested on all the dogma being thrown about.  Or maybe Moses threatened her with his mighty stick of justice if she didn't come back with a score of at least ninety percent.  Actually I was considering give Joel's empire twenty bucks out of curiosity.  But then I thought to myself; you get what you pay for.  You can't get a total life transformation for a mere twenty bucks.  I wonder if Joel supplies a Flo chart for the donations.  For twenty bucks and a little belief, God or whatever gives you this.  I'm thinking, the higher the donation the higher the results.  I wonder if God takes money orders?

the de evolution of the Peacock network

  NBC.... we have to talk.  I know you guys have been struggling to recapture the glory days since Seinfeld left the throne and his steady ratings behind on Thursday nights.  I had high hopes when I heard that Robert Greenblatt was hired to be the chairman for NBC entertainment.  After all, this was the man who gave us gems like Dexter and Nurse Jackie and Californication when he was the head of programming at Showtime.  So what's the deal with bringing Michael J Fox back into the fold as a mere punch line?  He has Parkinson's I get it.  The main thrust of the marketing campaign for Fox's new NBC show seems intent on using his physical ailments to get cheap laughs.  First it was Fox standing there shaking like a leaf while trying to conduct a breakfast gathering with his latest TV family.  Yuck yuck.  This morning, another long promo surfaced.  This one involves Fox  trying to conduct a welcoming party for his NBC line up mate Sean Hayes.  Hayes is seen standing there waiting for Fox to try put some sort of entree into his mouth.  The promo ends with Hayes opining that he has more food on his face than in his mouth.  Is this what NBC has come to?  Is NBC so devoid of ideas that they have to green light a lazily written series that just wants to exploit someone's obvious disability?  Is the new regime at NBC intent on pumping out comedies that are nothing but exploitive?
 
  Maybe someone at NBC creative can develop another howler about a former Hollywood star trying to come back from a traumatic brain injury?  Maybe the promos can center around this former star trying desperately to remember where they live?  I know, maybe one of the promo's can play up the fact that this star with the brain injury can't find the NBC studio where the pitch is.  Now that's just plain hilarious.   ABC.  CBS.  FOX.  You're.  On.  Notice.

  It's not even the promos for Mister Fox's new show that bother me.  It's the fact that NBC creative seems be to taking glee in using someone's disability as a punch line.  Do we really need to shine a flashing light on the fact that Michael J Fox is being ravaged by Parkinson's disease?  The first promo should've been enough.  You got your laugh, move on.  But hey, maybe NBC creative is onto something.  Amanda Bynes is fair game, why doesn't NBC creative develop a show that makes light of the fact that she's quickly losing her mind?  I see a promo ala Twelve Monkeys; Bynes walking around LA screaming at inanimate objects while flashing each passerby.  Cue the NBC jingle and flash that peacock proudly, we have a winner.   NBC equals genius.

Growing up all over again......

  So it's just another typical day in my head.  I'm getting that "look" from one of the managers at my new job and I'm hearing the echoes of my dad as he opines that I have the worth of a wilted prune.   Then I think about the words of a good friend; the ones who tells me to smile and think positive.   I think of my friend, who is younger than me by a few years, and I wonder what the hell he's doing hanging around such a cynical sort like me.  Actually, I wonder why the other people in my life are subjecting themselves to the agony of hanging around someone like me.  I don't mean this it in a suicide hot line kind of way.  I mean it in a funny ha ha, I'm trying to be an ironical son of a bitch kind of way.   My younger friend, the one I mentioned before,  is a ball of possibility and positivity, he makes me smile with his sense of youthful romanticism.  The other one of my friends is a success in every sense of the word and she's beautiful and rolling in dough with a job most people would kill for three thousand miles away on the opposite coast.  I do the math in my head and it doesn't compute I guess.  I'd like to say that those Joel Osteen tapes have allowed me to embrace the idea of God and a plan and.... fuck I still can't even say it without calling bullshit on myself.  Maybe it's just me, maybe it's that voice in my head; the one that guffaws when people say I'm intelligent.  Maybe it's that little voice in my head that makes me wonder why a beautiful woman with so much to offer would actually sleep with me in the first place.  Hell, she not only slept with me, she stuck around.  Maybe it's that little voice that makes me wonder what a guy with the world at his feet would be doing hanging around me.  Who would've ever thought I'd be riding in  a car listening to Joel Osteen tapes?  Who ever thought I'd ever consider possibly making a truce with God or whatever else is up there?  Maybe I'm evolving somehow and I don't know it.  Maybe I'm learning about the wonders of change.  Maybe I'm growing up all over again at age 36.  Maybe I'm finally surrounded by people who won't make me regret going all in.  Maybe the secret is in the details of clearing out the crap in my head.  Maybe the secret is to smile and think positive.  Maybe it's all about flipping my father the bird every time I hear him saying that I can't do anything.

  Maybe it's a new chapter of a new me; positive dogma and plenty of teeth and the inspiring fire and brimstone of a preacher who makes more than I make it in a lifetime.  Maybe it's like riding a roller coaster.  I should just sit down and enjoy the ride and embrace the drop.  I guess if the last few years have taught me anything, it's that you're never to old to learn and you're never to old to grow.

Boxes....

  Let's face it, we're a live in the now kind of nation.  We mourn and we grieve as a collective and then we all take a pause and everyone moves on to the next incident designed to inspire a detached sort of melancholic solidarity in that fast food way that our world functions in.  It's happening with 9-11 I fear.  The bad guys have receded to the shadows in our minds.  The site where the towers once were are trying to flourish under the guise of something oh so corporate and oh so New York.

  I guess it's the cycle of life taking precedence.  In death their is grief but the social contract seems to limit the shelf life on mourning.  We, as humans of the planet, we live by a contract in which the healing process requires the survivors to pack up the life of the person that they loved into a box in the storage of their hearts and or their sub conscious.  I didn't lose a brother or a lover on 9-11.  I didn't experience the pain of losing someone and having to deal with the realization that a proper good bye will never be possible.  But, having lost someone very close and very special to me, I know about the contract and that clause about moving on.  I'm betting that someone woke up today and asked why the loved ones of the 9-11 victims haven't moved on.  I bet someone read up the paper or watched the news and commented that it's been twelve years.  Twelve years, why ring bells and call out names?   I know that someone thought it if they didn't say it out loud.  In grief, there is no statute of limitations.  After all of the pomp and circumstance fades and after all of the partisan posturing stops and after Hollywood gets through using one of America's darkest days as a marketing prop for some A listers political idealism, it's just the survivors left standing.  Contrary to the old saying, time doesn't all heal wounds.  It''s not like the movies, where everyone reaches the key point of the plot and the emotional epiphany leads to the clarity that leads to the happy ending. For most of the 9-11 survivors who lost loved ones on that fateful day, they've packed up the boxes and they've taken that trip to the addict or wherever we put our grief so can we move on or move forward or whatever the fucking cliche is these days.   I guess what I'm saying is, don't be so hard on the ones that need to remember.  Don't be so hard on the ones that haven't done their required packing job yet.  Some people need to relive the shittiest days of their lives just to prove that they can feel.  I know because I'm one of em.  I guess it goes for all creatures that are grieving a loss of some kind.  Give them their space.  Let them ring bells, let them remember.  Don't bury them in cliches or self help scripture.  Most importantly, don't talk to someone whose grieving in generalities like time.  Time doesn't apply to the families who lost loved ones on 9-11 or anyone else for that matter.  Hopefully no whose reading this will have to experience the shitty deal that comes with losing someone.  You give your heart to someone, you come to know them as a part of your orbit and then you're simply supposed to paint over that portion of your life for the sake of normalcy, whatever the fuck that is.

Get ready for another bar fight.... Obama style....

   So I'm getting ready to clean up the old hacienda and as I'm wiping the sleep from my eyes I hear the dear old pres pleading his case for attacking Syria.  According to Obama, the intervention in Syria is not going to necessitate the deployment of American troops.  Obama also acknowledged the fact that America is weary after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If you listened carefully, you could hear the little voice in Obama's head whispering "I'm not Dubya."  Well.... yeah..... Mister Obama.... you may not be Dubya but you're certainly letting your bravado get you into a potential pickle the way Dubya did with Iraq.  Didn't Dubya tell the American people that we were simply going into Iraq to be a force for change; to be an agent of democracy for an oppressed people.  And then somehow the quest for Democracy turned into a modern day John Wayne flick.  I take that back, Dubya became a modern day John Rambo.  Now here comes Obama with his latest quest for peace without any grunt work and or bloodshed.

  See, I'm a cynical sort and I don't trust my government as far as I can throw it.  When the president's mouth is moving, it's a good bet that he is usually lying.  I'm not talking about Obama in general, I'm referring to most every cut of politician that has taken the mantle of president at some point in time.  It's part of the gig, being a salesman without the American people seeing through the con.  No one was better at the con that Bill Clinton, god bless his amorous southern friend heart.   If Obama doesn't need the threat of force and or the guiding hand of the American military to stop what's going on in Syria then I'm Abe Lincoln.  Or does Obama simply expect to dialogue with the despot responsible for inflicting nerve gas on his own people.  Odds are, ASKING a despot to stop doing something requires more than diplomacy or the power of Obama speak.  Unless Obama is going to slip the latest baddie an envelope like they do in good old Chicago. we're going to war with Syria.  I say, it'll go like this.  Obama will talk and Syria will listen and Obama will board air force one thinking everything is OK.  And then, when dad is half way to Washington, that pesky despot in Syria will continue to commit atrocities.  And like some frustrated parental unit who was disobeyed, Obama will go back to Syria and shake his fist in frustration while the Syrian government hides whatever chemical agent it uses against its people.  And after all of the posturing and all of grand standing and after months go by and Obama's hair grows whiter we'll get that press conference.  You know the one.  It's where Obama sighs like the maytag repair man before he gives us those hound dog eyes.  And then..... drumroll..... Obama will announce to the world that he has to spank Syria because they threw spit balls at him.  And then we'll enter another war.

Late night with da Mayor.....

  So this is the alternative to Mayor Daley?  To me, Rahm Emanuel looks like Daley with a much smaller waistline and a much tighter grasp of the English language as a whole.  Like Daley, Rahm Emanuel has taken to disappearing when the city of Chicago seems to be reeling and or in need if some semblance of leadership.  Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy  is out gunned and out numbered by thugs and deviants of all kinds with a never ending cache of weapons and his boss is on Letterman.  Chicago is becoming a wasteland of senseless violence ala one of those Death Wish films and the leader of the city is out playing quasi celebrity.  To paraphrase a line from Joseph Gordon Leavitt in The Dark Knight Rises; "pay attention to the details Mister Emanuel because some of those details need your attention."  I understand if being the mayor of Chicago is a stop gap position for Rahm Emanuel until the political winds of Washington lead him to bigger and better political endeavors down the road.  But right now, Mister Emanuel, your job is to be the mayor of Chicago.  And as the Mayor of Chicago, your city needs you.  We need you to help figure out how to stop innocent kids from being gunned down left and right for no apparent reason.  Your city needs you, Mister Emmanuel, to stop with the shell games that have left the CPD unable to adequately tackle crime in this city.  I don't know about you Mister Emmanuel, but it alarms me when criminals feel brazen enough to carjack a police Sargent near his home.  It alarms me when someone shows little respect for law and order in our great city by trying to sexually assault an off duty police officer.  It's time to stop being a celebrity Rahm.  It's time to come home to the job you agreed to take, however taxing and or politically stagnant a position it may be for a former Washington power player with dreams as big as his ego.  It's time, Mister Emmanuel, to live up to the promise you made to NOT to be your predecessor.  Right now Mister Emmanuel, from where I'm sitting, it's hard to gage where Rich Daley ends and you actually begin.  The city of Chicago is crumbling and it needs leadership.  And where is the mayor?  He's on Letterman.

I used to work for Treadstone.....

  Naturally, I was mad when I heard through the grapevine that my old company had banished me from the property I used to work at.  I kind of wanted to come back and chew the fat with the fellas I used to work with.  I liked the crew I used to work with.  I learned alot from the crew I used to work with.  I learned about things like patience and professionalism.   I kind of wanted to see the old crew again and let em know that I was OK after my divorce from the company who used to write my paychecks.  The very company that saw me as the Simple Jack of their employment family.  All and all, I wish I hadn't loaded the pistol that was eventually used to whack me but sometimes I just do dumb things that defy any and all sense of belief.
 
  At first I thought I was absolutely going to go on a flame fest on my former employer on Facebook.  Then I remembered that it was my writing that had gotten me thrown out of the employment fraternity I was once a member of.  So rather than pissing in someone else's pool yet again I'm going to have a chuckle about the absurdity of what my former bosses are doing to not only me but to other people who left, without drama, to seek greener employment pastures.  I'm not sure, but I think one of former Co workers was labeled a security risk in regards to company files.   This makes me wonder if my former bosses have been reading one to many John LeCarre novels.  I guess my former bosses envision me coming back to my old place of work and in sighting the employees who are still there to bust the union ala Jimmy Hoffa.  I don't have Hoffa like prowess and I'm not a leader of the working man.  I was told my interpersonal skills weren't good enough to keep me in my last position but how in the world did Co mingling art and work on the company server get me labeled  a rabble rouser?  Oh well, I guess the best thing is to tip my cap and accept the fact my former company is something akin to the Treadstone project.  I wonder if they have an action shot of me blown to full life size length in the entrances of both buildings.   I just hope, in a purely vain way, that they have a photo of me that captures my good side.  I hope that my mug shot doesn't cast me, photogenically, as an awkward looking dufus.  So rewrite history, oh former company.  Throw mud if you must.  Plaster wanted posters of me all over River North; drop them from the sky like some sort of blitzkrieg.  I have moved on and I hope you will too.  This is the new me.  No more pissing in the pool, no more needless fires.  I'm taking the high road ladies and germs.