"Okay, Okay... Here!!!"

Okay, so I guess that I have to address a subject that I've talked to a couple of my regulars about that happened this last Friday...

...Kristi broke up with me.

Now, as I'm sure many of you picked up on, being my girlfriend isn't very easy... ask Chuck and Mojo, they know all about it. By the way, Chuck... I hope those Herpes outbreaks are back under control... you know what happens to Daddy when he's got a box of wine in him. For those that don't know, Chuck once described how I looked as, and I'm quoting here, "Christopher Walken on a crash diet"... so he deserves it.

...ahem...

Anyway, those of you in the know would know what last Friday was May 5th, 2006... Cinco de Mayo... or as I like to now call it, "Single de Mayo", or "Todd's Independence Day".

I know that many people (probably including Kristi) are thinking, "Hey Todd, you're making light of a difficult decision that Kristi had to make." No, I'm actually making light of how I feel about the whole situation. That's the way I roll... always have. If you think this is inappropriate, you should ask Chuck how I acted while I was on Paxil in 1998 for severe depression and seriously contemplated suicide... that was inappropriate.

Okay, okay, back to the subject...

Kristi decided that she was unhappy and decided to end it, and to be quite honest, I can't blame her. I am an opinionated prick, and I don't view religion and family as many do in this world, but I don't apologize for it... and she knows that. So, the logical choice (no matter how hard it was to make at the time) was to not be with me anymore. Sure, it hurts, but I've had worse, and I bare no malice for Kristi... which, trust me... that's a big step for me as an adult.

Again, this is all compared to my incredibly dysfunctionally-one-sided relationship with my last ex... I'm not going to say her name, but let's just say that it rhymes with "Visa"... but without the nagging collections calls. With each woman that I date, I like to think that I learn something not only new about myself, but about women in general.

For instance, did you know that Visa taught me that apparently it's okay for a woman to have you pay half her car payment less than a week before she dumps you? I don't care how much of an ass you are, if you aren't beating a woman, and her parents like you... that's cold-hearted. I learned something important about myself, though... I'm a chump. But, to be fair, Visa is still a good person, she was just going through a tough situation and I was her rebound boyfriend to help her recover from that experience... not to mention the fact that I dumped her four years earlier was a dickhead move on my part, so in a karmic sense, I probably deserved it. Also, I was an asshole; she decided to hang out with our mutual friends in the apartment complex at the time on a daily basis and despite saying that "We'd be friends..." she never stopped by my apartment (which was on the way to our friend's apartment from the parking lot) and said "Hi" which to me is like being stabbed in the heart after a break-up. But, there's a sunny side to this situation: Being a good guy and treating a woman with respect may end up with her dumping you, but at least you can sleep soundly... albeit on the occassional pillow-full of tears.

Also, I dated a girl that thought it was alright to make out with a friend of mine because I hadn't given her a ring! What the fuck?! That taught me that that my decision-making skills hadn't gotten much better with time. The odd thing? I wasn't even drunk! Thinking back on it, I probably should've been.

For most of my life, I was the quite guy that bit his lip on everything, from being made fun of for being White to listening to Hip-Hop (oddly enough, by Black kids)... but around the age of 21, I'd decided that enough was enough and I started to speak my mind on whatever I thought. Kristi got to deal with me as that person most of the time, and after a year of being with me, I can't fault her for getting tired of it. In fact, I applaud her for her strength of character for standing up and saying that she'd had enough.

Of course, my opinions weren't the only reasons that she broke up with me, but I don't feel that it's appropriate for me to talk about that in a public forum such as this. But, I will say this...

Kristi's a good woman, and I hope that she finds the happiness that she so richly deserves.

And, I don't care if anyone chooses to call me a pussy for it, either... after all, if I gave a shit, I wouldn't have this Blog, now would I?!

"The Best Kind of Sarcasm and Open Mic's"

When I was a kid, my Mom, Uncles and Aunts used to talk to my Grandma about whatever was on their minds and would laugh at whatever my Grandma said. As a kid, we were always sitting in a different area of the Living Room while this kind of stuff went on, so we never understood what was so funny. It took me moving in with my Uncle Neal in Santa Cruz, California for me to understand why: Grandma was witheringly sarcastic. She was so sarcastic that you’d never know it if you were an outside observer, hence why us kids didn’t get it. Apparently, my Uncle Neal and my Mom are the two that most accurately reflect their Mother’s sense of humor. Living with Neal was like an Apprenticeship into the fine art of the Sarcastic Quip.

Sure, I was mentored into this art by my Mom as a kid, but Neal took me to the next level by “Grand-fathering” me into the College-level that he was at at that point in his life. Neal is quick, and when I say, “quick”, I mean that he seems to have a witty rejoinder available for any situation. Example: When I lived with Neal in the modified sheep-shack in Soquel, California we watched a lot of VHS and DVD movies together. We rented a copy of the animated film “Shreck”, and as I watched it, it was reaching the point where John Lithgow’s character was asking the Gingerbread Man questions, and the Gingerbread Man asks Lithgow, “Do you know the Muffin Man?” Just at that moment, Neal was coming into the house and putting groceries on the kitchen counter, and I asked him, “Hey Neal, do you know the Muffin Man?” Neal looked at me with a completely straight face and said, “Todd, I fuck the Muffin Man.”
I almost crapped my pants… seriously. I laughed so hard that I felt like I was going to throw up. And what sold it was the dead-pan look on his face… and the fact that he was doing something else at the same time made it even funnier; he was making a statement in a very matter-of-fact way that was so ridiculous that it was hysterical. Imagine, if you will, a man having sex with a cookie… get it?

There are of course people who are sarcastic to the point that it’s really, really irritating however, and those people don’t understand that sarcasm isn’t an answer for every fucking question posed to them. I (in my infinite loneliness) started looking into Internet Dating at around the time that I lived with Neal, and I met this chick named Gen that attended UCSC and we started e-mailing back and forth. After about three weeks, I realized that this chick was so sarcastic that she didn’t take anything seriously, and I decided to just block her e-mails. That’s when I realized that most of the people on the Internet looking for dates are there for a good reason: They can’t meet anyone in person, since they tend to fuck it up.

Neal pointed that out to me before all this of course, but I chose to ignore it for the sake of being optimistic.

It wasn’t until I came back to Lancaster, CA at the end of 2002 that someone pointed out how sarcastic I am now compared to how I was when I moved up to Santa Cruz… but really, I was just as sarcastic then, I just decided to hide it from other people. At around the age of 24, I guess I figured that I grew tired of biting my lip about what I thought and thus, “Todd, The Smart-Ass” had his coming out party. Most of my friends knew how much of a smart-ass I was years before that, of course, and they weren’t shocked at all.

It was a couple of years after I moved back here that I felt like checking out the local Open-Mic nights, and I realized that I now no longer had any fear of speaking in public; largely due to how I no longer gave a shit if anyone thought I was funny or not. My subject-matter for the first Open-Mic was my family, and how we have everyone in our family but a “Chinese Muslim”… that got a pretty good laugh from the seven or eight elderly people that were there to support their grandchildren. Open-Mic’s are an interesting experience, since a majority of the people that perform aren’t entertaining in the tiniest way; I mean, they are so bad that they’re practically begging you to heckle them.

Case in Point: there was a black guy named “Sisqo” that showed up about two months into my tour of duty at After the Game (the bar the Open Mic’s were being held), who fancied himself to be a “Comic”, the only problem? His jokes were the hackiest, shittiest jokes that were ever on “Def Comedy Jam” on HBO during the early 90’s (and I knew those jokes because I watched that show too)… and being that me and me step-brother Seth were the only white people in the room, he chose to insult me due to the simple fact that I have no melanin in my skin. Not only that, there were quite a few Bloods in the audience that he thought would be fair game too… and they weren’t laughing. Needless to say, no one saw Sisqo at the Open-Mic’s after that. I have a theory that he’s buried out in the desert somewhere… Bloods tend to be a bit sensitive when it comes to public scrutiny.

There was also a young girl named “Flower”, or something like that, that used to do poetry every once and a while… the only problem was that she was 16, and all her poetry sucked. Now, I don’t typically make jokes about poets, since everyone thinks that they’re a poet, but Flower was especially bad… and when I say “Bad”, I mean you-have-to-walk-outside-to-clear-your-head kind of bad. She had a wide variety of subject matter that she talked about, but virtually no experience in whatever the topic was, and it showed in her poetry. I mean, have you ever had a conversation on the nature of Racism with a 16-year-old? It makes a conversation with Britney Spears sound like having a heart-to-heart with Nelson Mandela.

Did I have any bad sets that I did? Yeah, of course, that’s the way it works out sometimes. But, the key to being a good performer is knowing when you did a bad job (whether you get paid or not) and working to fix it so it doesn’t happen again. For instance, never go do your stand-up set if you’re drunk… I did that once and it went over like the Hindenburg. Also, try to rehearse before you go up, and while you’re at it, take a nap before you have to perform, so that your head will be clear and fresh when your time comes at the Mic. Also, don’t expect applause in any way… because you might not get it, even if you did a great job... that’s why you bring a couple of friends! Everyone need encouragement from time-to-time, so why not bring a couple of your friends?

So, why not get out there and check out the local Open Mic’s? You might see someone on the rise for free, as opposed to paying $20 at a club to watch them perform in a major city!

"The 1979 case of Mom V. Dad"

In order to truly understand where I come from on marriage, family and politics, you must first know what kind of family I come from.

My Dad is a retired Marine Staff Sergeant who was a Drill Instructor when I was born. He met my Mom when he was laid up on the hospital bed next to my Grandfather, who loathed him as much as one Marine can loath another Marine. My Dad didn't really get the reasons for why my Grandpa didn't like him, and he still doesn't... hell, even I don't really know why. Maybe it's because they're so similar... that's the way it works out sometimes.

My Mom fell in love with my Dad after a time, and they eventually got married and had my sister, Jennifer in 1976 and then me in 1977.

Of course, their marriage didn't last much longer after that.

My Mom eventually got tired of my Father not paying as much attention to my Mom, Jen and I as he did his motorcycles and his cars, so she left him after five years of marriage... I was two years old at the time. My Mom told me once, "Well, I gave it five years... that seems like a long enough time to change, don't you think?"

My Mom isn't a person who actively bad-mouths others, no matter how she feels about them, and the same went for my Father, so I didn't really experience the whole tug-of-war crap that a lot of kids from divorced families get to see. But frankly, those kids got lots of cool presents, and there ain't nothing wrong with presents, in my book.

When my Mom and Bob got together, that changed. I'm not sure why, but it did change.

Keep in mind that around this time, Rush Limbaugh was just rising to prominence in the early 1990's, and there were two sides to be on: Rush's or Not Rush's.

My Dad picked Rush's side and my Mom is a Liberal Feminist, so she didn't... and this is where it gets sticky. My Mom and Bob believe that as long as what you do doesn't hurt anyone, and the Constitution protects it, feel free to live your life the way that you choose. Dad, on the other hand is a Conservative, so he thinks that any behavior believed to be aberrant is wrong, and therefore he's against it.

Here's the big difference between "Liberals" and "Conservatives": Liberals are open-minded on most things, and pay attention to scientific fact versus what others "Feel". Conservatives pay more attention to "Morals" and "Feelings" than scientific fact and reason; hence, why Liberals pay attention to global warming and trying to gently nudge this country away from it's puritanical past while Conservatives focus on the immorality of getting an abortion and always saying that there's a "Liberal War being waged on (insert random Christian holiday here)".

Now, imagine being a Liberal, with a Dad that has the complete opposite views as you... do you see why it's a pain in the ass now?

A lot of my friends are Liberal, and all their parents are still married, so they don't really get how frustrating it is to be in the position that I'm in with my parents. I realized in my early 20's that I am a lot like both my parents in many ways, despite the basic lack of regular contact with my Dad since I was a kid. In 2004, I saw my Dad for the first time face-to-face in a decade, and I'm 28 now... so about a third of my life was spent away from him. Nothing wrong with that, but it can create distance between family members... even the ones that you love the most.

My Dad is a good guy, even if I disagree with him on most things, and my Mom told me as a young man, my Dad's political views were vastly different than they are now, and she doesn't really know when this change in his vews happened.

However, I have a theory: My Dad's family moved to Los Gatos from Boston when he was a kid, and a lot of his friends from that area (a Liberal stronghold) never joined the service and had to see the ugly side of combat and foreign cultures like my Dad did. They had the luxury of theorizing on the nature of other cultures and peoples that a Marine on the ground doesn't have the privilege to contemplate, let alone entertain. So, my Dad, like most servicemen and women, views an attack on the system of Government that we have and the President's foreign and domestic policies as a personal attack on his 20 years of service; making him feel like his time in the Corps was a waste of time. So, he rebels against that system of thought by becoming the exact opposite of his friends... a Conservative.

This makes complete sense to me, and the more I talk to my Father, the more this is reinforced as the reasoning behind he views. My Dad, much like my Mother, is a huge history buff, so they both know the history behind the same topics, but with different political vews on the historical ramifications of said events, so there's always an interesting discussion in the works when history comes up as a subject, especially since my Mom has a Master's Degree in Political Science.

When I was a teenager, my Mom sent me to live with my Dad and Step-Mom in Sturgis, South Dakota, and that was where I was first exposed to my Father's love of military history, since he made me read a rather dry novel chronicling the Confederate side of the Civil War's successes as well as their failings. Sure, I hated reading it, but I read it anyway, and I started to understand why both my parents, despite their political views, love the same subject; it's all about the people involved, what they did and their motivations were for those same actions.

Isn't it strange, that two people that once loved each other, who have grown to dislike each other have so much in common on a single subject, while completely seperate from each other?

Maybe that's what Conservatives and Liberals need to do nowadays... focus on their commonalities instead of their differences?

Or is that too damn "Liberal" of me to ask?