Ten Reasons Not To Commit Suicide

Suicide. Theres nothing tragically noble or emphatically symbolic with the idea of taking your own life.

It’s just a bad idea.  Period.

Whether it’s Hara-kiri – the Japanese ritual where a person disembowel ’s themselves with a very sharp sword to keep their ‘honor’ – or the gunshot-to-the-head, drug fueled suicide of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain who couldn’t deal with the fact that he had the world by the balls, or the disturbed street-vendor in Tunisia who decided that self-immolation in a crowded marketplace was the only way for him to protest his treatment by authorities, any which way you look at it, suicide is a crap idea all around.

Caveat: If you feel like whacking yourself then you should talk to someone. There’s a bunch of places like http://suicidehotlines.com/ that can help. Be mindful that everything I’ve written here is just my opinion and opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one.

That being said here’s Ten reasons you need to live instead of Kobaining yourself.

1. The Cubs might win the world Series in your lifetime. It’s a once in a lifetime (possibly two lifetimes) event that’s rarer than Haley’s comet.
2. You could win the mega lottery and spend the rest of your life fu*king with the people who made you’re life miserable while nailing supermodels on the French Riviera
3. You might one day have a kid who needs your guidance on how not to fu*k up like you did
4. You have a kid or kids who need your guidance on how not to fu*k up like you did
5. Your Mom’s going to be pissed
6. The Chinese (or possibly aliens) are eventually going to take over the world and you’ll be needed for a suicide mission for the rebellion
7. God is probably going to be pissed (you just shat on the life he gave you) and might send you back to live an even more fu*ked up life just to teach you a lesson
8. Once you actually pull your head out of your ass and get over yourself you might discover that you are pretty good at something that people will pay, idolize or sleep with you for
9. Theres ALWAYS someone else who has it way worse than you do, and he or she is fighting tooth and nail to make it through…they’re not being a pussy
10. Sooner or later in our lifetime they will invent flying cars. You have GOT to be around for that…

So, what if you’re feeling suicidal? Get help. Remember, whatever the catalyst was, whatever the reason for your emotional, spiritual, psychological or physical state, whatever the circumstance that has rendered you outraged, despondent, frustrated or lost, whatever the reason why suicide may be considered an option, solution or statement, it’s not.  Ever.

Now admittedly there’s an argument for those poor bastards who have their bodies ravaged by cancer and have nothing but pain 24 hours a day.  A humane argument that they should be allowed to end their suffering certainly holds water (IMHO) but for those otherwise perfectly healthy souls who have their pain in their hearts and minds, not their body’s, there is no argument whatsoever.

Suicide is not a solution. It’s never an answer. Got the point now? Ultimately you are just juxtaposing your pain on people who love you. WTF? Sack up and work it out. They’re just problems. We’ve all got them/had them and done our best to deal with them. Don’t blame your parents, a chemical imbalance or your genes, don’t blame anyone including yourself for how you feel. Just get over yourself, take a deep breath and get a game plan. If you have a game plan, then you have a life. If it’s a bit of a challenge you think you can’t handle then you’re being a pussy.  If you think you’re being a pussy then stop being a pussy and go back to the game plan.

You’ll be surprised at how insular you are – or have become – because you have spent so much time and energy felling sorry for yourself. You’ll eventually realize that life is full of speed-bumps and you just have to deal with them. If you don’t, then you know you’re being a pussy and you need to go back to the game plan and work it through.

Remember. Game plan. No being a pussy. Speed-bumps…and Mega Lottery tickets.

WTF Are You Looking At? Magnum Or Blue Steel. You Decide

Whats in a look?

You may have heard someone mutter, grumble, scream or hiss “WTF are you looking at?” when you glanced at them, looked at them or *gasp* locked eyes with them.  People actually get offended if you look at them. Huh? It’s true. Direct eye contact can get you a beat-down, I’m not kidding.

It’s all in the way you look. As in the way you look at someone. A look, you see, is not necessarily just a look. Zoolander was right. Theres so much more going on with ‘blue steel’ and ‘magnum’ than you think.

As a residual effect of this “a look is not just a look” belief, there have been plenty of black eyes, cat-fights and occasional shootings. So what do you do when someone “look’s at you sideways’?” Give them a steely look back? Perhaps the raised index finger? A deliberate look of feigned indifference? Do you get in their face and wag a finger at them? Punch them? Shoot them?

The classic retort by the young and clueless (and typically male)  is  the obligatory “he disrespected me” or “he was eyeballing me” that accompanies the chest-puffing, snarling, indignant response to such a calculating insult that giving such a look engenders. While the typical response for the female gender is usually some kind of studiously-ignoring-while brisk-walking-away thing immediately followed by a hasty call to a girlfriend to vent her indignation, fear or outrage.

For the purposes of looking a little further into whats in a look, lets consider the typical male response.

Invariably there is ego involved. A kind of made you look, playing-chicken, kind of stare-down. Whoever turns away first is the loser of the contest and obviously the weaker male. Kind of like male Gorilla’s giving the stare to the pack and if you’re not the alpha male or a wannabe alpha male trying for a shot at the title and you give an impudent look back, be warned. You might get the living banana’s beat out of you.

The average gorilla and – young male human – sees direct eye contact from a member of the same-sex as 1) a ‘come on’ look which often results in violence as the gorilla/young man is obliged to display a show of manly force to prove his heterosexuality or 2) a challenge to the gorillas/young mans right to walk down the street unsighted by male eyes with the exception of a) the appropriate look of awe b) the appropriate look of envy or c) the appropriate look of fear.

Any variation from this ‘look but don’t look’ rule could very well trigger some inappropriate umbrage on the part of the aggrieved gorilla/young man, which may then necessitate some form of physical reckoning.

The question for any fledgling alpha male/young man when confronted by a ‘look but don’t look’ type situation must therefore be “How do I not look gay but look hard but not too hard but not seem like a pussy but still seem like I could be a hard-ass if you looked at me with anything other than  a) the appropriate look of awe b) the appropriate look of envy or c) the appropriate look of fear?”

There are only three possible responses.

1. Look hard all the time. Carry a gun (because there’s a ton of other monkeys trying to look hard and carrying guns too) and you should probably join a gang that encourages mirrored sunglasses so you can look hard even with your eyes closed
2. Avoid eye contact with everyone with a penis. This is the simplest and most passive way to avoid aggressive gorillas/young men hell-bent on proving their heterosexuality
3. Only look at women. This is the simplest way to avoid the avowedly heterosexual gorilla men with guns and reflective sunglasses. Sure you might end up accidentally ogling one of the girlfriends or “bitches” of  an  avowedly heterosexual gorilla man with guns and reflective sunglasses but you can always offer a respectably tough sounding Mia Culpa along the lines of “My bad Dog, didn’t know she was with you. No Disrespect,”

As you can see, option three is by far the superior option. It eliminates the need for gun-play and still allows a regular guy the task of ogling as many women as possible, all in the interests of avoiding the potential violence that can accompany an errant ‘blue steel’ look.

This option is a truly noble path to manhood without the need for reflective sunglasses, questionable heterosexuality or guns so *ahem* “look” no further…

Charlie Sheen: Why He Is Right On

I’m not normally someone to follow the Hollywood rags and slags but what Charlie Sheen is doing is just simply brilliant.

Naturally the outraged housewives and their bosses the TV networks will say that he should be sent to rehab or have his kids removed from him and perhaps a little frontal lobotomy too.

WTF are they to dictate what a man does in his own home? In his private life? Who are they to judge his actions by the value of what is written about him by the same wags who want us to examine in microscopic detail the cellulite content of an actresses buttocks or marvel with envy at the opulent lifestyle and lavish homes of the leading man-of-the-month.

The first thing they do is justify their morbid train wreck fascination is to cry pity the poor children. Huh? What do they know about this mans kids? WTF are they to judge him worthy of being a  father let alone the quality of his parenting? What business is of anyone other than this man, his family and – if he puts his kids in danger – the appropriate state authority. Whose business is it?

Well, it’s none of their damned business and if you are buying the scandal-mongering rags and bags that serve up their brand of outraged slop then you are a sucker of the worst kind. The kind that turns the volume up on the TV instead of changing the channel when the plastic wags grin their smarmy grins and raise their perfectly trimmed eyebrows as they deliver the earth shattering news that a hollywood star may have taken a Xanax.

Why do we – as a supposedly civilized culture interested in noble thoughts and altruistic notions – not posses the ability to separate ourselves from this fascination with Hollywood train-wrecks, real or fabricated?  Is it because we delight in others discomfort? Is it because we wish dramatic, spectacular failure upon the successful? Is that especially true when it’s someone who has something that we don’t like fame, money or influence.   Is that it? Are we that petty? Are we that small?

I’m sure there are some who ignore the rag-slop and have interest in other more rewarding pursuits but, what about the rest of you?

There’s real human tragedy out there. Real human drama. Real human heartache. Real news.  Revolution in Libya. Earthquakes in Christchurch. The best day on the Dow Jones in three years. How about pay attention to something, anything, other than lasciviously clicking, tapping and watching with morbid joy the news about a mans private life that has absolutely nothing to do with yours.

And here’s a final thought, what Charlie Sheen is doing is “taking the piss” as the English say.  He knows what people think, he knows that the networks think and he knows that most of you are getting your jollies from what he says and does, so he does what he is supposed to do. He entertains you. Theres nothing wrong with that. He should entertain you. More power to him to play all of you who should know better. Be warned. He is mocking you. He’s laughing his ass off as you tut-tut at the water cooler and scramble to buy the same magazines that swore three-headed lizards rule the Earth and Elvis lives in Topeka.

I really like that he is taking the piss. And I really hope he comes out of this nonsense even richer, even more famous,  riding the express to even greater success with his index finger raised high at all the idiots who tried to go from baggage to first class when they should not have even been on the train.

Why Ken And Barbie Must Die

The main reason? Adolf Hitler probably masturbated to these two blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan playmates as he played “lets copulate and populate” with them when he was a pre-teen tyrant.

Well, that’s probably just speculation but you get the point.

Aside from being narcissistic masturbutory eye candy for future despots, it offers an obscenely skewed starting point for kids to idealize. Unless of course you are Scandinavian and then it all makes sense because, well, everyone kind of looks like Ken or Barbie in Iceland…well that’s what I’m told.

But here in the good ol’ US of A, blond-haired blue-eyed Nord’s with chiseled good looks or 36-22-36 figures are in the one-half of one-half of one-half percent of the population. And lets face it. We have a fat-ass population and our kids ain’t getting any skinnier, so there’s no way – other than liposuction, cocaine abuse and tapeworms – that they are going to look anything like their Aryan idols.

Now I know that there were some goofy spinoff Latino and Asian Ken and Barbie doll’s created in a pathetic attempt to not be too KKK but that’s about as real as having a Black Sambo doll…wait, didn’t the same people who created this Aryan spank fodder create such a doll in the pre Martin Luther King days?

Any which way you look at it, creating unrealistic but conversely – and perversely – real looking mannequins and figurines and then prostituting them to kids as an idyllic fantasy at a young age is just plain wrong.

Lets do our country and our kids a favor and kill them both by ignoring them in the stores, the books, the TV’s and the web so that they end up as garish antique relics of an unfortunate age like Nazi helmets and Golliwogg dolls.

Unless of course you move to Iceland.

Middle East 2011: Revolution By Smartphone

Revolution: It’s a big word with a powerful meaning.

Throughout history there have been plenty of revolutions, many that have changed the face of the world. October, French, American, Industrial. The list goes on. Well, there’s another one happening right now and it ranks up there as one of the big ones. And it seems for the bulk of the US population, the revolution and the realization of what it portends seems to be sneaking up like a bad guy with a bazooka creeping in the house while we’re gorging on Big Mac’s and watching reruns of Desperate Housewives.

It seems that our (US/Western) interest is – once again - sponsored only by the price of oil at the pump. If Libya was not the fifth largest provider of Oil in the world methinks that many would think Libya is a just a part of the female anatomy. Thankfully, some in the US can pull themselves away from American Idol and realize that there is a change a-coming.

Regardless of our limited attention spans and blasé indifference here in the United States of Anyhoo, the Middle East is undergoing a huge change. A dramatic political and social upheaval of their world order that will markedly impact ours.

The Middle East is in the throes of their own incredible, sweeping revolution A  grass-roots rebellion that is not contained to one country, one race or one culture. This revolution is encompassing entire continents and its coming soon to a gas station near you…

First Tunisia, then Egypt and now Libya, hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people are jamming the streets and protesting the tyrannical and corrupt rule of their “elected” governments. Even the Saudi’s are sleeping restless and have resorted to a fifty billion dollar handout to its populace to keep them from the streets. Typically in the Middle East, these kinds of protests go hand in hand with car bombs, public stoning’s, kidnappings and all the earmarks of terrorism not rebellion, but this revolution is something different altogether.

It’s pacifist.

Peace be with you now leave:  This revolution has – up until Libya – been non violent (at least on  the side of the protesters).  It’s incredibly viral, respects no borders and is fueled in no small part by an under employed, unsettled but well-connected (connected as in internet not connected as in political) youth and a frustrated lower-middle class. It’s an awesome display of people power. Millions of people massing together to take back control of their countries and their future, to wrest power from tyrants and put it back in the hands of the people. It’s the modern-day people’s revolution that is wholly and truly by the people for the people…and it’s pacifist. As in Martin Luthor King and Ghandi kind of pacifist.

Rebel with a Blog: Protesters from Tripoli to Benghazi are using their voices, their feet, their phones, their blogs, their tweets and their passion, to mix one of the most powerful social molotov’s the world has ever seen.

This revolution is being fed by instant communication through mobile phones and social networks. Censorship has been rendered moot. Sure TV Station’s are shut down but YouTube keeps on blasting the images of repression and struggle to the rest of the world. Rallies are announced on Facebook.  Atrocities are tweeted.

Out with the Old: The old guard has struggled desperately to contain the spread of information while the old-school propaganda trick of disseminating misinformation has backfired and spluttered. It’s like teaching your grandfather to use an iPhone app to check the weather. It should be easy but when you have not grown up with technology, with instant communication, with entire libraries of information available with a fingertip tap, then this education process is painful and begrudging. Old father will use the iPhone but he won’t get it, he won’t truly understand what it means and he will use it with trepidation and reservation. He’ll use it because he must. Because if he want’s to survive, he must get the hang of this newfangled technology. That means that he will use it but he won’t embrace it. At least not like the Grandkids are doing.

That’s whats happening in the Middle East. The old dogs – who for years had prattled about one God, vestal virgins, and sacrifice for the motherland on one hand and used brutality, bribery and bombs to rule their oil inspired oligarchy on the other – were prepared for rebels with rifles. They were not prepared for peaceful, popular protest by Facebook or for every human rights outrage they committed to be youtubed to the world. The old adage about taking a knife to a gunfight took on a new twist. Do you take a gun to a knife fight when billions of people are watching? You win the fight but lose the war. (Actually the knife in this analogy is more like a Blackbery but the point is made hopefully)

This conundrum has left the old boys with an ugly choice. Kill your own people publicly and try to suppress any rebellion…or leave town like a schoolyard bully who got spanked by the nerd.

De-Friending your Dictator. In Egypt and Tunisia the choice was the latter.

In Libya the rambling   despotic megalomaniac – not to mention smartphone challenged – Muammar al Gaddafi is sticking to his hired guns. His black gold funded hordes of African mercenaries scrambling to fill the ranks of his ever dwindling military. These non-Libyan trigger happy ‘tough guys’ have no compunction about machine gunning foreign children to earn a paycheck.

Bairhan, Yemen, Iraq, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, all are right now feeling the weight of hundreds of thousands of feet stomping their protest through their nations capitals.

And it’s going to get worse – or better depending where in the world you are.

What’s next: Here’s a sneak peek at how the rest of 2011 may play out for the Middle East.

• Libya will oust Gaddafi and he will either be killed or seek refuge in Venezuela or Zimbabwe.  Perhaps even Saudi Arabia. It won’t matter because if he is not killed, he will eventually be brought up on charges by the world court and then returned to Libya for trial…where he will be summarily tried, convicted and executed in the space of a week. Arab justice.  They don’t mess around.
• The Iranian regime will fall. After a brief period of celebration a civil war will break out as the Sunni’s and the Shiites go at it. Look for the US to get involved when the Oil prices edge over $5 a gallon.
• The regime in Yemen will fall. They will attempt to go to the polls and usher in a faux democracy but there will be violence at the tolling booths and martial order will be enacted which will kick off a much more violent revolution. It will be a north vs south civil war.
• Jordan will follow Egypt and Tunisia. New governments. New Leaders.
• The Government in Algeria will survive…for a while. They are too canny to follow the lead of the other dead duck Arab leaders and will give enough rope to quell a major uprising. But, it will not be enough. Giving too little, taking too long to deliver, the revolution will begin anew. Then Algeria will be forced to hold UN enforced elections and the Government will fall.

The Anti-Christ? Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about this Arab revolution is that there is no one set leader. It’s very much led by the people. But that is actually the soft blanket that covers the armor. There must always be leadership and with the Middle East, leadership is inexorably dialed into religion. Religion is in turn,  so often the blanket of the soul that humanity turns to for comfort and warmth.

If a leader that embodies the Arab soul rises to prominence, he will be the spiritual, if not also the cultural leader of a fragmented but primarily Muslim world. The Arab equivalent to the Christin Pope.

Is there such a man? Absolutely. He has not appeared yet, but his day in the sun will soon be shining and it will be a long day indeed.  He will have such prominence in the hearts, minds and souls of the Gen X to millennial Arab world that his influence will be incredible. The old dogs in our neck of the woods will cling to their Sunday suits and wail about the Anti-Christ (as many scholars have predicted that he will come from the Middle East, a hangover from the days of the Crusades) and they are not that wrong, because he sure won’t be a christian.

But, he won’t be a Devil either. He’ll be a well schooled, well spoken, youngish Arab who will connect to the young Arabs through iPhone and Parables and he will eventually hold sway over the entire Arab world.  And, by virtue of his influence, he will be able to dictate much that happens with the West, because of course, we are still dependent on their oil.

The interesting thing about this Ivy league Arab, other than that he won’t grow facial hair (a big tut-tut for the old school Arabs who see him as a child unless he gets the beginnings of a Goatee) is that he will not advocate violence of any kind.  He’ll be like an Arabian Ghandi who went to Yale and tweets on life from his bathroom. He will be the spiritual leader of the Arab youth, a Muslim but not a fanatic. The Politico’s in the west will publicly love him but privately loathe him. The Old Dogs had their status quo. They knew the enemy. They knew how to combat them. How to negotiate. Not with this young puppy though.

Amazingly the Clerics and the Ayatollah’s of the Arab world will be forced  - eventually – to accept and then begrudgingly endorse him. The voice of the new Arabia will prove to be that much stronger than the croaky squawks of the old birds who will find their mandates of religious rule by martyr’s and car-bombs don’t hold quite the holy water that they used to.

And he’ll elevate woman too. They will be afforded rights and powers that they had never dreamed possible. Behind every man of influence is a woman who influences him and there is no place in the new Middle East for old men without Gmail. Especially when the women of Arabia are tapping and tweeting too.

Every revolution needs a leader and while this revolution may have started without him mark my words, he’s on his way to join the party, with his iPhone in one hand and the Qur’an in the other…