"Everybody's Pretty?!"

Has anybody but me noticed that the one thing that is completely devoid of reality is reality shows? Who came up with the premise of having a reality-based program wherein everyone looks like a fucking model? I haven’t seen so many six-packs since I worked on the night shift at the 7-11 in Castaic ten minutes before 2 AM. If you want to see the formulaic attempt at reality watch any given reality show and you will be indoctrinated into a backwards world where only those with personal dieticians and physical trainers roam the earth. You’ll see one of the following: somebody from the Midwest, the South, the Northeast, the Pacific Northwest and California. In addition to that, they need one each of the following: A Gay person, a Libertarian, a Christian Conservative, A Bitch/Asshole, a Feminist, an Utter Moron/Bigot and an unrepentant Alcoholic.
Sometimes for the sake of time an interesting combination of many of the above-listed criteria are found in one body, with comic consequences. I’m waiting for a show populated primarily by Gay, Midget Alcoholics with severe racist tendencies that would be called “Little Liver, Big Mouth”. Who knows, with today’s standards of broadcasting maybe my dream will come through in a couple of seasons? I can only dream, can’t I?
My friends love reality shows, but I personally don’t get it; much like I don’t understand why people love going to theme parks and waiting in line for three hours to get on a roller coaster ride that lasts for only one minute and could possibly kill you! Wheee! Sign me up! In hindsight, I now realize that I am as sarcastic and cynical as people tell me.
But getting back to the subject, I complain about things like reality programs and theme parks because of the inherent lack of intellectual stimulation that they provide. Not to say that I only spend my days and nights pouring over vast mounds of scrolls or anything, I just think that there is more stupid available for human consumption than anything else on network TV. I am not impervious to the inestimable wave of these shows however, and though I may thrash wildly against the riptide of idiocy I often find myself watching such things as the E! or VH1 shows that catalog the failings of well-known celebrities.
Maybe it is our own Voyeuristic inclinations that drive us to watch these things, or maybe it’s the fact that life for us is so mundane that we are compelled to watch money-grabbing mouth-breathers like the freaks who go on Fear Factor eat live African Cave Spiders to remind ourselves that maybe our lives don’t suck as much as we think they do. Whatever the case may be, there will always be a part of the human subconscious that revels in hurling dung at the weaker of the species; only the dung that is being hurled in this case is made of equal parts human stupidity, advertising, hedonism and that Penny that your big sister tricked you into swallowing when you were six. So until “Little Liver, Big Mouth” crawls from the primordial ooze, I guess I’m stuck with “American Chopper” and “The Greatest Week Ever” and laughing at the inaccuracies on “The O’Reilly Factor”... now that’s great comedy!

"All Aboard The USS Tranny!"

The one thing that you will always experience while being a Sailor is the creepy consistency of the international presence of the Tranny. Now, if you haven’t been hipped to it before, I will explain what a Tranny is: A Tranny (slang for Transsexuals) is a man (typically, but not exclusively) that is so fascinated with being a woman that he chooses to dress like and put make-up on in order to appear more like a woman. The main reason that a sailor must be weary of this type of person is the simple fact that you are dealing with a person that can probably kick your ass if you start haggling over the prices of “her” services. The tell-tale signs are a slightly husky voice, muscular shoulders, stubble and of course, the hallmark of all men: The Adam’s apple. Now, if you’re so drunk that you can’t pay attention to something as obvious as the above noted things, than I doubt that you care about the fact that your date for the evening has balls.
But, don’t get all pissed if your “date” turns out to be a man when you figure it out for yourself. After all, that dude thought that you were cool with it to begin with. When you go to bed with a chick that looks like Miss Universe, you shouldn’t be surprised that she’s packing more meat than your local deli, for Christ’s sake. When we were in Navy Boot Camp in Great Lakes, Great Mistakes, Illinois we got to hear a horror story about this dude named John Perkins from Florida who experienced a particularly gruesome attack by a Tranny that rolled him and then had a little fun raping him, with the aid of the Tranny’s two large friends. Of course that wasn’t enough humiliation, so he put a beer bottle up Perkins’ backside and shattered it with a baseball bat. The last the Petty Officer heard, Perkins was surviving in a hospital on a constant stream of pain killers and a colostomy bag.
All the stories I’ve heard aren’t all tragic or horrifying, however. I saw one myself, hanging out with my Uncle in a bar in Santa Cruz, CA a couple of years ago. There was this blonde kid that just turned 21, so his friends decided to take him out on the town, going from bar to bar down Pacific Ave in Downtown Santa Cruz. The Blue Lagoon isn’t a Gay bar exclusively, but there are a lot of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Trannies that hang out there regularly. My Uncle was a regular and I used to go with him to the Blue since it was a cool place with good music and funny bartenders.
This kid, however, wasn’t a regular… so he didn’t know what type of bar it was, and his friends took advantage of that fact. I saw the group of guys go the back of the bar where the dance floor is and have some fun dancing for a while, and when the 21 year old came back; he had “Jessica”, a well-known Tranny, under his right arm. Now, in the defense of this kid, Jessica is a pretty convincing example of why some guys are fooled; very petite, with a boob job, long natural hair and a cute face. Everyone who goes to that bar regularly knows that Jessica’s really a guy, but they figured, “Hell, maybe he’s into that kind of thing,” and left them alone.
Two hours later, my Uncle and I see the kid making out with Jessica for a couple of minutes in the corner closest to the entrance. His friends are nowhere to be seen, in fact, we haven’t seen them in over an hour… so I turn to see if the kid knows that his friends ditched him, but he’s gone. And so is Jessica. Me and my Uncle are cracking up, along with a Sal, one of the bartenders. Ten minutes later, the kid comes back in, pale as a sheet and sweating profusely. He looks at the bartenders, and then at the regulars sitting at the bar and yells, “What, you can’t let a guy know?!” We all start laughing, and I call the kid over to the bar. Sal leans on the bar and says, “Honey, you look like you could use a drink,” places a beer and a shot of Jager one the bar and says, “Don’t worry, it’s on the house.”
The kid looks at me and asks, “So, how long have you known that Jessica is a guy?” I chuckle and tell him, “The moment after I asked Sal what her name was.” The kid then asks, “What’s her name?” I tell him, “Jesse, he’s originally from Campbell, outside of San Jose. At least, that’s what he told me... don’t feel bad man, I’ve seen guys fooled by Trannies before. Rarely do they look anywhere near as authentic as Jess. Besides, if you check back with him in a couple of months he’ll officially be a chick; he’s been undergoing the hormonal therapy you have to take before the sex-change surgery.” The kid started laughing, and said, “Man, now I don’t feel so bad about it.”He ended up hanging out with us at the bar every time he came Downtown after that, and still talked to Jessica, but only as friends. I think it takes a man that is very comfortable with his sexuality and has a strong ego to find out something like that and laugh it off. Hell, we’d all be hard pressed not to be psychologically scarred by finding out something that creepy. But, life goes on… and the weird experiences keep rolling in. So the next time you’re in a bar and you see a chick who’s talking about sports stats with a bunch of guys, just say no to Trannies, watch Sports Center, finish your beer and go home.

"Athletic Coke"

I’m fascinated by professional athletes that get caught doing drugs. Actually, scratch that, I’m fascinated by athletes that get caught doing certain drugs, like coke. Now, I realize that there are many people out there that have nothing against doing pot, neither do I (besides the foul reek that it produces, and the inclination those that use it get towards tie-dyed clothes and folk music, of course). But Coke? What is this, the 70’s? Did we stumble onto the sets of Boogie Nights and Scarface or something?
I realize that pro athletes are under a lot of pressure to perform, but what lures them towards drugs that haven’t been in style since Studio 54 was shut down?! Coke is nasty due to the fact that you have to either snort it up your nose, freebase it or cook it in a spoon and inject it into your veins. Take Mike Irvin and Darryl Strawberry for instance. There must be nothing like laying on the floor of your bathroom, nose bleeding as you suffer from an overdose while the two hookers you picked up are starting to freak out, not because you’re dying, but because they’re not gonna get paid if you die. Wow, now that’s the life!
And the really pathetic thing about all the drug use in sports? When they finally get caught and go to rehab to clean themselves up, these idiots are treated like heroes upon being released! Am I in the Twilight Zone? Since when is it a good thing that you’re colossal a screw up who can’t stay away from the old nose-candy, huh? Most people go their whole lives without getting involved in that kind of stuff, so where the hell’s our parade? The saddest thing about this subject? If you were caught doing coke working at a 7-11 and went into rehab, it isn’t likely that your family would either talk to or trust you again, let alone be able to get your job back.

"21 Questions Minus 18"

This next one is just a series of stupid questions that we all hear from time to time, but never say anything about. For instance, how many times have you gone to a barber shop and the “hair stylist”, who’s been trimming your hair every other week for the last two years asks you, “So, what do you want done to your hair?” “Oh I don’t know, how about we go for the mullet look, I hear that it’s hot in the trailer parks this year!” My inward response is always, “I want the same damn thing that I’ve gotten for the last two frickin’ years, idiot! Finger-length on the top and a number one faded up the side! What, do you have Alzheimer’s or something?! In the time that I’ve taken out of my life to tell you the same thing over and over again, I could have trained a monkey with Parkinson’s Disease and a palsied paw to do it for free!”
But then again, that type of question isn’t nearly as stupid as a question asked by a Highway Patrolman. “Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?” And as you look up into the mirrored shades of a man or woman that was obviously way, way too into C.H.iP.s as a kid, you silently think to yourself, “No, sir I’m not quite sure. Did you see me shooting up heroin and doing shots of tequila with my invisible friend while snorting lines of meth off of the dash, or was it because I was speeding?!”
And finally, my personal favorite stupid question, “So, what’re you drawing?” I have to preface this by stating that I like to draw while I’m in the bar, don’t ask me why… I just do. Most of the time, I don’t mind this one, but when I’ve had a few drinks and I just want to draw and not be bothered by other drunks… it becomes irritating. Here’s the stupid part of this question: If you can’t tell what I’m drawing by looking at it, maybe I’m not done with it yet, so don’t ask. Do I come up to people in the bar and ask them, “Hey, so what’re you talkin’ about there?” or, “So, you guys into sloppy, drunken sex?” No, I don’t. But then again, I mind my business when alcohol is involved. Last thing I want is a big, drunk pro-wrestling fanatic with a bad haircut and no shirt-sleeves putting me in a full-nelson and slamming my face into a men’s urinal and making me eat the urinal cake. But then again, that’s just me.

"Bumper Stickers... The Final Frontier"

Ahhh, Bumper Stickers, what other way would be more perfect for displaying your idiocy to complete strangers? As is turns out, there is a reason for the stickers being on the rear bumper of the car, after all, what better place to put something that makes you look like an ass? Take the “Calvin Pissing” stickers, for instance. If you haven’t seen these before, consider yourself lucky. For those of us that have however, there are two responses: “Man, that’s funny” or, “I hope that moron hits a pole”. This sticker has many, many variations including, but not limited to: Calvin pissing on car company emblems, NASCAR numbers, Osama bin Laden, and various flags. There’s even one of Calvin with a SOMBRARO! Great, this is what we need: importing hicks from across the border! As if we didn’t have enough here already! And you want to hear the funny thing about this sticker? The people from the middle of nowhere that refer to Gays getting married as, “An Abomination in the eyes of God” and whined about “Decency” and “Family Values” the loudest when Janet Jackson’s boob popped out have no problem having a sticker of a little kid pissing on the back of their El Camino. To counter this recent insurgency of Bumper Stickers with Calvin dispensing body fluids, I’ve come up with an idea for my own Bumper Sticker! A small cartoon of me taking a dump with a look on my face that says “I just did a no-no”.
But alas, that is just one kind of sticker in a sea of stupidity. Now, I have no problem with feminists, my Mom is a feminist (wow, I never thought of that before… that explains a lot), and I understand that women are trying to, “cut their own wedge out of the pie of respect that is the Patriarchal Testocracy” or whatever, but there are a few things that don’t help the cause, and Bumper Stickers are at the top of that list. Take the Bumper Sticker bearing the phrase, “You say Bitch like it’s a bad thing”. You want to know the reason that many people take the word “Bitch” as an insult? IT IS AN INSULT! Unless you can magically transform into a female dog, the word “Bitch” is what it is! After having seen that Bumper Sticker while my girlfriend and I were going to a movie, I looked over at my independent-minded girl and said, “Well, I didn’t think she was until I saw the Bumper Sticker.” My girlfriend and I were both laughing at that for a couple of minutes, and then we watched an emasculating date movie where the guy is always an idiot and the girl is always an eccentric genius. I came up with an idea for a feminist Bumper Sticker, and it goes like this: “True Equality shouldn’t be about Sex (except when it comes to paying for movies, drinks, sexual contraceptives and weddings)”.
And lastly, I have one final area that I’m going to touch on (although there are dozens of instances that I could bring up) and that last area is: Religion and Politics. If you don’t have an opinion that’s either insightful or entertaining, keep it to yourself. I know that many people voted for Bush/Cheney this last year, but I don’t need to know that you already have a political bias by looking at your car. You could make that sticker funny by putting underneath “Bush/Cheney ‘04: (offer expires November 2nd, 2008)”.
The same can be said for religious people, although this goes specifically out to Christianity (and its various denominations): Please, keep your faith to yourself. I appreciate that many people believe that there is an omni-present daddy-figure, and I respect those who believe enough not to belittle them… so please, enough with the Jesus fish with the words “Truth, Love, Jesus or I Like Spam” in them, alright? Same goes for “My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter” or “Jesus, the Real Thing”. I’ve come up with an idea for another Bumper Sticker of my own for religion: “I’ve been touched by Jesus (at least I think that was the priest’s name)”. My family is Jewish now, but I grew up being an altar boy (insert molestation joke here, ‘cause I know you’re thinking it) and my step-Father has a pretty cool fish placard on his car that has X’s for eyes and the word “Gefilte” inside of it. See the “insightful joke” part of that? That’s funny, even if you don’t know what Gefilte Fish is! It refers to a traditional Jewish meal and pokes fun at the silliness of referring to a biblical story about Jesus’ lunch-making skills on the back of a mini-van!
I know that some people might get offended by these jokes, but in order to enjoy our short stay on this spinning ball of dirt and water, you need to look at the world in a certain light (black or florescent, whatever you like) and see that there are far too many people that take life seriously out there. And these people tend to work at jobs that make others miserable, like the DMV. Imagine how fun getting your license renewed would be if only they served drinks and had a DJ! Sometimes you have to laugh when you see something funny, because as a great man (David Tyree) once said, “You better laugh now, or on the way home it’ll turn into a fart!” And everyone knows it stinks to go on a long car-trip with the guy who has no sense of humor.