My problems are three:

1. I have what the polite refer to as a “friendly face,” and what the impolite refer to as “the visage of a warped Cabbage Patch Kid who’s grown up in the slums of Beirut and pulled out all of its yarn hair.” Somehow, despite this somewhat intimidating description, my recent Maori facial tattoos, the even more recent lacerations by broken bottles graciously bestowed upon me by an offended Tribesman, and the intense facial reconstructive surgery that resulted, I get approached by strangers approximately 1372% more than anyone I know.

2. I desire, nay *require*, a fair amount of alone time. Time when the world around me no longer exists and I am a contemplative, perhaps even hallucinogenic mushroom feeding porously on the wastes of man and cowkind. Often, this is called “lunchtime,” as it is a welcome reprieve from maintaining my professionalism and kind demeanor in the face of unhalting ignorance.

3. I do not have, as many people do, a map of my fair city laid out in my head. When I moved to Milwaukee, I needed only to know where three places were, and the rest was Mapquest. After living here for five years, I am on the precipice of a breakdown dealing with highways that do not always travel the direction they are designated. 94W goes North into Milwaukee and West out of it, 43S comes into Milwaukee from the North and leaves to West as well. 894S? I haven’t the slightest idea. When I drive somewhere in Milwaukee, I need specific directions, or I end up in Beloit. It’s as simple as that.

These three problems lead to this all too common occurence:

11:30 a.m.

With half my day behind me, I mindlessly slump my jacket onto my shoulders, zip up, and move down the back stairs into the street. The honking and screaming of the drivers maneuvering around me now go unnoticed. I am alone. In a world of noise, I am silent, recessed entirely into self and daydreaming little daydreams of video game dominance. My subconscious shifts me effortlessly out of the path of oncoming pedestrians, my feet tread determinedly toward destiny: Cousins.

The Red Hand, my id murmurs. We always must stop for The Red Hand. Roving, my eyes return to me only the data needed to keep from stumbling. I am immersed now in conversations that have not yet happened but in the babbling time-stream of my mind. Chilled from river winds, my thighs burn with anticipation of motion. We always must stop for The Red Hand.

And another warning, this one from the rotund scouts in the front of my face. A car, red if that matters. A passenger, an older woman if that matters. Her window is going down. Brain, I hate to call when you’re on vacation, but…

“Excuse me young man, where is the train station?”

“…midgets…”

“Young man?”

“Uh. Wow.”

“Yes?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Thank you.” Window rolls up. “I’m not certain about this policy of letting the mentally disabled out on their own…”

Dammit Brain! demand the eyes, Where were you on that one? Where it always is when I get asked directions while walking downtown: elsewhere.

This scenario, without exaggeration, replays on every lunch journey I make alone. I have observed in despair as vehicles brimming with the lost troll past cafe employee after police officer after land surveyor only to home in on me as their beacon in the bewildering sea of street signs. And more often than not, I send them away disappointed and perhaps more confused. On the rare instance that I have known where to send the person, my brain only fessed up to the interrogation long after I had shrugged ashamedly and forced away the inquisitor with their loathing of me.

Please, if you see a bald, jolly-looking fellow plodding the street, reciting Family Guy scenes in a mumble and snickering lowly to himself, leave him be.

Related note: Czeltic Girl (who, if driven around Milwaukee in the trunk of a car, blindfolded and asked how to get there from here, would laugh in your face at the simplicity of your request) lunches with me frequently. Naturally, no one asks when she’s around. The closest we get is an impromptu wedding officiated by a friendly, drunken panhandler.

I’ve been semi-depressed since the election, for obvious reasons. A showing of Shaun of the Dead* and getting into the final stress test for World of Warcraft have both helped, but what helped most were these words from Mitch Hedberg:

“Every McDonald’s ad ends the same way: ‘Prices and participation may vary.’ I want to open a McDonald’s and not participate in *shit.* I want to be a stubborn McDonald’s owner. It’d be like, ‘Cheeseburgers? Nope. We got spaghetti…and blankets.'”

For a moment there, I was thinking since my brain is a warehouse of tiny comic bits like that (I’ve been called Xerox on occasion), that maybe I should turn this blog into a pile of those things and get them out of my head. I’m waffling on it now. How much different would it be than a music blog? Not much, sez I.

* – FYI, Shaun of the Dead is hilarious, but it is an actual zombie movie, with gore and dramatic deaths.

I will be making a wonderful post today, pictures included, of the eventful and satisfying Hallowe’en weekend I’ve just lived through. I know you can’t wait.

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Wheelchairs probably targeted toward kids, but still an unfortunate product name. Some wannabe South Park writer somewhere is thinking of their Chris Reeve joke right now, and failing to get that “oh-ho” mortified laughter they so want to produce.

In the opinion of Czeltic Girl, “TIMM-AY!”

Which File Extension are You?

Need a good curse for Samhain? Raven St. Crowley provides. Also: rockin’ dirge.

So, this is a public apology to Czeltic Girl, who in the last few weeks has patiently withstood a hat trick of irrational complaining on my part.

1. Farscape. I got all uppity about her like/dislike quotient of this show. The subject is forgettable and relatively insignificant, and my ire was undeserved and ill-aimed.
2. Chipotle carnitas. She was disappointed in their saltiness and their lack of resemblance to traditional and authentic carnitas. I like my Chipotle carnitas fajita burrito. It’s one of my favorite semi-healthy fast food meals. That doesn’t mean she has to agree.
3. The job. I’ve just been crabby the last few days and have done my fair share of dribbling, incoherent Instant Messaging on and about the job.

She’s cool. She’s grinned and borne it. Thanks, CG.

Please welcome Chris “Christmas” Rodriguez. Link shamefully stolen from Screenhead.

Yes, I am aware of the possibility, nay likelihood, that Mr. Rodriguez is some sort of viral marketing. But shit. He is *so* stylin’ on the funked out tip that I cannot complain.

My apologies for the comment problems. I’m working on it today. For now, you can comment and when you see the error screen, just ignore it and hit your back button.

I wrote this today in response to an email I received. I don’t know if it covers what I really have in mind, but it comes from the heart. The emailed opinion is in the “more” section below. I agree with Mr. Manweller on this point at least: this election holds a great deal of importance. Please vote your conscience, and make sure our government and the world know where you stand.

And by the way, MHG rebutted this better than I ever could.

—

In America’s time of revolution, when our forefathers threw off the shackles of religious and political persecution, they had allies in the French. Did the French care one way or another that Americans should be a free people? At the level of government that made that decision, no. The British called such revolutionaries as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington “terrorists.” The French most likely agreed with them; they funded the colonists to weaken Britain’s political and commercial influence over the New World.

If the Iraqi people had been fighting and dying to remove Saddam Hussein from power before American forces stormed in, and we allied ourselves with the revolution there, I would be proud of what we have done in the Iraq war, even if our government’s motivation had more to do with trade than liberty. The Iraqi people would now have pride knowing that they are fighting for their freedom and earning it, with the help of a global community who support them. But now, even if we are able to affect democracy in that nation, we will only have succeeded in proving our imperialist and capitalist rationale for defending democracy. The Iraqis will trade a dictator for a long period of war, backward infrastructure and the knowledge that “America freed them” and they owe us.

Before we become so high and mighty about our “responsibility” to free the world from terror (an admitted impossibility) and oppression (noble, but misguided), why don’t we work first to free the world from poverty? To free it from hunger? To free it from fundamentalist religions that corrupt their own teachings so as to revere mass murder and genocide? How many fewer bombers would we face if their families were not constantly in starvation? With proper nutrition and education, there would be far fewer zealots willing to end their lives and the lives of others for some religious leader on the verge of madness, or worse, simply to provide for their families’ well-being with those suicide bombs. With refuge and opportunity in other nations, instead of racism and derision, they would remove themselves from such elements and help weed terrorists out.

Terrorism against the United States is fueled almost entirely by the impression that we are wealthy and powerful and that we do what we like and take what we want. Osama bin Laden would never have had the determination to organize such an attack as 9/11 if we had been ethical in our approach to the Afghani-Russian conflicts. There would have been no 9/11 and Saddam Hussein may very well have listened to reason, seeing that he had no power to pull us away from our cause. If we had finished and been victorious in Afghanistan and then turned our sights on him, he would have immediately given in to sanctions. This is the way to use offense as defense, this is proactive assertion of strength, this is how America shines: by ending conflicts, not starting new ones.

The Iraqi war only shows our lack of determination to finish what we began, to bring Afghanistan to peace and destroy the warlords’ grip on that region. A questionable democracy is not good enough. The war in Iraq does not show strength, it shows greed. It shows corruption and hatred in the highest levels of our government. It empowers those with a complaint to continue devising ways to affect us any way they know how. Just as we fought with guerrilla tactics against our British oppressors, so will these “terrorists” attack the greatest military power of their time in whatever way will show them to be serious. And these “terrorists” are fighting for freedom from an oppressive and corrupt system as much as the patriots of this country did in the 18th century.

America does have a responsibility to lead the world. It does have the responsibility to defend people who are fighting for their freedom. But most importantly, we as Americans have the responsibility to keep from becoming the very fascists, communists, dictators and empires against which we fight.

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