This is just a list of things that are pissing me off…
January 18th, 2004 by TEX#1 - Guys who stand around in public holding their dick
This just needs to stop. Today I was walking home from the grocery store and two young lads were standing at the bus stop doing a tandem dick hold. It might have been interesting if they’d been holding each other’s dicks, but jeezus, what is the appeal in standing on a street corner clasping your prick? Are you afraid if you let go it might get away? Granted, these two guys looked like the kind of people a penis might run away screaming from, but sheesh. Does your mother know you do this? Maybe it’s time to let parents go back to hitting their kids when they’re trying to emphasize a point about decent and acceptable behavior. I have to believe that had the mothers of these guys who walk around/stand around clutching their privates in public belted them one but good for fondling themselves when they were ten they might not be so enamored of this practice, and the world would be a better place for it. Ok, well, at least the world might contain fewer guys who grasp their pricks in public.
#2 - People who insist on shaking hands when they meet someone
When and how did this highly questionable practice previously only common in business situations become the way that people of my generation and younger greet one another? It’s annoying. It’s especially annoying since I can be reasonably certain that most of the guys who want to shake my hand have recently been clutching their dick with the hand they’re thrusting out for me to grasp. Put it away. Say hello and make eye contact. That ought to be more than enough.
#3 - Pete Rose
Pete, you were a great hitter and a brilliant ballplayer but even when I was a little kid I thought you were an asshole. I sincerely hope that you do get into the MLB Hall of Fame… after you’re dead. The last thing I want to see is you crying and enjoying all the attention at your induction ceremony. You bet on baseball while you were working as a manager. You deserve to be banned from any formal association with the game for life. You broke the rules and got caught, ya big jerk. While I don’t believe that the hall has anything to do with virtue (if it did, Ty Cobb wouldn’t be in there), I do believe that the sport has the right to police itself, and if keeping you out of the hall until you croak persuades others to behave themselves better while they’re playing or managing then I’m all for watching you rot.
#4 - American Idol
This show loses its appeal the minute they weed out the truly crappy singers. Once they’re gone Simon’s barbs and rude comments are no fun anymore. Besides, they always end up with a litter of crybabies who all sound alike. Why is this still taking up space on my TV? Oh yeah, it’s on Fox.
#5 - Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews and all the other shouting jerks on alleged news programs
These guys are the TV equivalent of standing on a street corner holding your package.
#6 - The Democratic Candidates for President
What the fuck is wrong with you people? The bickering and tearing down of each other is not doing any of you any good. Just look at what happened in Iowa over the weekend. John Edwards, who was pretty much looking like an also-ran, suddenly jumps to the front of the pack. Why? Because he’s not calling anyone else names. Gephardt, face it, you couldn’t be President if Sam Giancana came back from the grave and did a JFK special on this election. Ripping up Howard Dean is just small, petty, bullshit politics. Even if you win Iowa you’re still toast, but the voters are going to remember that you told them that Dean is a liar. How does that help him if he ends up being the guy to go up against Dubya? Face it fellas, you’re going to just have to concede the war issue to Dean sooner or later. Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt - you all voted for the war resolution. Kucinich - you’re against the war, but you abstained from voting on the resolution. And well, Lieberman, you would have led a brigade into Saddam’s palace if they’d let you. The only remaining candidate who can say he was against the war from the start, apart from Dean is Al Sharpton. Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt - you need to show the courage to say “we were wrong.” That’ll carry more weight with the voters than all this “well, I voted for it, but I’m against the way it’s been waged” bullshit.
#7 - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold, fuck you. Fuck your goddamned skelator-looking wife too. I didn’t vote for you. Lots of people in this state didn’t vote for you. But you’re acting like you got some kind of massive mandate. You didn’t. Dismantling higher education isn’t going to bring jobs to California. One of the main reasons businesses locate in this state is because of the well-educated population. You’re a nimrod, Arnold. If what you were doing wasn’t going to mess up my life so badly I’d enjoy watching you fail miserably. Here’s hoping the state legislature finds the courage to stand up to you.
#8 - San Francisco
What a pathetic excuse for a city. Matt Gonzalez would have been a terrific mayor. Instead you folks elected Patrick Bateman. Seriously, you just know that Gavin Newsome just LOVES Huey Lewis & The News. Is it too soon for the Biotic Baking Brigade to reform and give this choad a pie in the face?
#9 - Bands who cover bad songs to be ironic
This must stop. It’s not clever or funny when a band resuscitates a Billy Squire song or adds something by Britney or Pink to their act. It’s just fucking sad. Worse, it’s annoying to listen to. A shitty song is always shitty. When it’s played by a punk band with tongue planted firmly in cheek it’s shitty and pretentious.
#10 - Bands who reform
The latest crime of this type to be perpetrated on us is the apparent reformation of the Pixies to play the Coachella Festival this summer. Folks, I hate to break this to you, but the Pixies were boring as sin. Sure, some of their records have their cool moments, but live they were *gasp* more boring than the Cure. Frank Black/Black Francis is a far more interesting performer when he’s unencumbered by the weight of the rest of the Pixies, especially the mega-super-odious Kim Deal. Either one of two things has to happen - either a fund is established to pay for hit men to dispense executive relief to any members of any old band contemplating a come-back or a law has to be passed requiring said people to come up with a new name for their tired-as-shit endeavor. Here’s a thought - all reformed bands have to append their name with the phrase “just doing it for the money.” So, here’s the bill at a festival that’s sure to come about sooner or later:
The Stooges Just Doing It For The Money
The Pixies Just Doing It For The Money
The Buzzcocks Just Doing It For The Money
Jane’s Addiction Just Doing It For The Money
KISS Just Doing It For The Money
That’ll serve ‘em right.
#11 - Personal trainers
Ok, I go to a gym. I swim three days a week and work out with weights a couple times a week. I do this because I was cursed with bad genes and I’m trying to stave off the massive coronary that is, no doubt, gathering in my arteries for a surprise visit somewhere around my 45th birthday. When I swim I really don’t care who else is around. Swimming is solitary stuff. Unfortunately working out in the weight room isn’t so solitary. It’s a given that there will be at least one person in the weight room with their personal trainer. These are inevitably white guys with completely shaven heads. As Reverend George said - this is reason enough to execute these dorks. Ah, but that’s not all that makes them candidates for capital punishment. Heavens no. They couldn’t say something to someone without assuming a pedantic and superior tone if their lives depended upon it. Now, it’s one thing for them to treat their customers like recruits in basic training. I sort of suspect that part of what drives someone to hire a personal trainer is the desire to have someone else make them suffer, and far be it from me to deprive my fellow human beings of their god given right to be miserable for a couple hundred bucks an hour. What galls me is that these over muscled chumps feel the need to be pedantic and superior in the direction of people in the weight room with whom they have no professional or personal relationship. If one more of these guys whose cranium resembles a freshly bris’d penis decides he needs to give me advice on how to hold a barbell I’m going to toss it at him. Since all of these guys have forearms bigger than my torso this will surely be suicide, but if I can just nail one of these jerks in the crotch with a barbell it will be worth it.
#12 - Terror alerts
As if Americans need anything else to be frightened of. We’re a people who are largely terrified to go for a moonlight stroll in our own neighborhoods. What fucking use is there in making us all perpetually fearful of unknown, unseen (and probably nonexistent) merchants of doom? Fear is a useful emotion. Fear tells you to keep away from the edge of the cliff. Fear tells you to slow the fuck down on the freeway in a rainstorm. Fear is probably the only thing that keeps most of us from skipping work three or four times a week (we probably should skip work more often, but in the interest of a functional society it’s probably best that most of us don’t). Fear keeps you from playing Russian Roulette. Fear keeps you from pitching to Barry Bonds. But these are fears of real, tangible threats to our safety and well-being. Being afraid of what might happen, whether it’s Osama bin Boogie-man and his maniacal evil minions or some potential mugger you might meet on a moonlight stroll is just sad and self-defeating. This business of issuing alerts every time the CIA hears some background chatter is turning us into a bigger bunch of ninnies than we already were (and we were already huge ninnies). Imagine what it would have been like if everytime things got tense between the US and the USSR if a nuclear threat alert had been issued. Mass panic would have been the result, and along with it mass idiocy. How about this - the government should just do it’s job of trying to protect our country from outside threats as best it can. We’ll keep paying taxes and you G-men do your best to earn your pay.
Anyway, that’s it for today. There’s plenty more pissing me off, but the furrow in my brow is starting to give me a headache. Time to go watch some TV.
