Happyblox

R.I.P. George Carlin & Back That Shit Up.

When I was a footsie pajamas wearing tyke I used to play records on my fathers old record player and they had a strange collection of stuff. Old Jewish records, Broadway plays, things like that but every once in a while I would find a gem. One early favorite was a George Carlin album from the 60's with a character called Al Sleet, the Hippy Dippy Weatherman. I was entranced. Of course I was also entranced by The Morton Downey Jr Show. As it turns out Carlin stuck with me. It was not long after I saw him live, with my parents no less! Sometimes my parents push toward exposing my brother and I to as much culture as possible backfired. This was way after his "7 Words you can't say on TV" skit where he was very dirty and really starting to be anti establishment except he had logical reasons why religion was stupid and people were dumb, all things I had been trying to tell my parents. I felt like I had someone on my side. I think he was one of the most genius writers, speakers and thinkers of our time. A master at putting things into the correct perspective and pointing out how horribly backwards the world can be but all the while trying to pull us all out. Trying to save us. Trying to teach us to think for ourselves and not to rely on others. I will miss him. He was one of a few people I consider a hero. 

Speaking of heroes, people who give you a terabyte of storage space for 200 bucks are my heroes too. Thats what Fantom Drives has done with their GForce MegaDisk. I know, it sounds like it has metal balls and swings a laser battle axe but in reality it is almost as cool. USB 2.0 and SATA connections and a rad blue led light that glows from in back of a cool metallic grille. The whole drive is beautiful and completely silent other than a few initial clicks and clacks when you turn it on. Got this one through Tiger Direct and I am very happy.  

White Water Rafting & Not Driving 55.

This weekend the crew descended upon upstate New York's Gore Mountain area for some white water rafting to celebrate my friend Dave's bachelor party. We were blessed with a perfect weather day (thank you FSM) and spent the majority of it floating on and in the Hudson river. The water was cold and our boat was the by far the most vocal and excited out of the half dozen or so on the river that day. Daves brother Howie even sabotaged another ship during "lunch" by acquiring their pump powered water cannon. Of course none of the other rafts knew they were at war with us but attacking an unprovoked and unprepared enemy is historically pretty successful. Minus Pearl Harbor anyway. The class 1 through 4 rapids were super fun. I am not sure how they class rapids but I bet it was really more like class 1 though 3. In any case it was a very enjoyable day. Pictures will be coming soon from various sources. I know, the anticipation must be killing you.
 
It is inevitable that in your travels you will wind up on highways with strict speed limits. I don't get them. Here in New York state the speed limit for most of the highways is 65 miles per hour. When its busy or a particularly poorly maintained section it will drop to 55 but mostly cops wont even blink at you unless you pass 70. In the city speed limits are virtually non existent which is the way it should be because it's all about keeping things moving. Traffic is horrible not only for the drivers mental health but for a million other reasons like being extremely expensive and unnecessary. Similarly the local roads in the small towns off the highway upstate are 50 miles per hour and those are 2 lane local roads with houses, factories and trails criss crossing them. My average speed on those roads is about 65.  Highways in upstate New York and New Jersey are the minimum of 4 lanes with no houses or buildings at all around and any trail that crosses over gets it's own bridge overpass. My average speed on these highways is usually around 70 because of traffic and people nervous about tickets. So the local roads I average 65, 15 over the limit but on the highway you average 70, only 5 over the limit. This is unacceptable. The risk of an accident on the local 50 MPH roads has got to be far superior to the risk of upping the highway speed limit to 80, even 85 mph. The most dangerous thing about driving on these highways is the speed limit. The cops heavily ticket these areas and tickets are freakin expensive, trust me I know! This leads to 2 lane each direction highways being parking lots at 30 MPH. People get too close. There are only 3 ways of relieving this. One is to up the speed limit and enforce the use of the slow lane. (On the autobahn they ticket just as much for slow people in the fast lane as they do for reckless driving) The second is to put more lanes in so people have more room to maneuver and the third is to stop ticketing drivers who speed when there is space to speed. This will make people 10 times less nervous and maybe they will spend more time watching the road and not their speedometer all the time. I can't drive 55 man. I just can't. (I am not even mentioning the improvements in safety and performance on cars and trucks in the past 15 years.) Plus who wants Germany to have better highways? Germany people! We need to get on this, pronto.

Here Comes My Hero... More On Drew's Life Saving Rescue.

That is a picture of the scene, what is left of an automobile and the scarred landscape off the highway in Colorado. A local news station got the full scoop quoting Drews friend Scott, "This minivan rolled at least 15-20 times before it hit the bottom, and by this time Andrew had stopped his truck and yelled "I've got a fire extinguisher!" Good thing he didn't stop and name everything he had with him or he would still be there now listing things like climbing ropes and freeze dried Chinese food. Here is a link to the article and please, check out the 3 other pictures and a full audio commentary of the press conference (staring Drew and his buddy Scott) at the bottom of that page. Rock on Drew, now you can stop saying your life is pointless. Oh wait, that was me saying that. Ok, I will stop then.

We Are All Monkeys On Fire.

I would like to start todays blog about a video I surfed upon in the inner bowels of Break.com. It's an interesting generalization of the Human race and our superior abilities to deny things. It's narrated as if the Humans are being gazed upon by an alien trying to make scents of this messed up planet, although the alien sounds very North Eastern Earth and has the sarcasm of just about every person I know. Maybe it is just easier for me to believe that another race is doing the commentating because the thought of Human on Human violence makes me sad. Curiously, it's my favorite kind of sex though. Go figure. Main theme? Were all monkeys. Do I believe we are all monkeys? No. I believe we are all lizards... maybe a couple of spiders. It is an interesting view and I look forward to finding out more about it.

You know what is worse than hearing all of mankind's faults in 2 minutes? Seeing one person on fire. Unfortunately my buddy Drew had to witness that on a highway in Colorado. Fortunately he is a man of action and is also morbidly obsessed with safety gear of any kind. Of course he had a fire extinguisher in his ride and pulled the guy out of a burning car to douse before he could perish. This reporter did not get the full story as Drew is only named as "a good Samaritan" but the truth is while he didn't stick around for the papers he has met the family of the victim and there will be a full story here when it becomes available. Amazing thing to save a life. I once ate a tater tot that I am sure my buddy was too drunk to chew so I probably saved his life. I do what I can. Screw you Drew, you goody two shoes.

Spin Cycle Cause We Been There.

This is an old poem I wrote about my feelings regarding.... well I am not sure exactly. Military based governments? Governments in general? Crowd mentality? Evolutionary regression? Who knows but originally it was my way of schooling the stupid "Tool" and "Insane Clown Posse" generation. Your not the first kids to get angry at the world, and killing yourself, your peers or your dog ain't going to make us stop bombing other countries. Trust me, we tried that. I am not sure any of them are intelligent enough to recognize that this poem is even aimed at them, or even that poetry is a form of witting. They listen to ICP for Christ sake! Seriously, can music be any worse? Oh wait, yes it can.

Spin Cycle

Living in a spin cycle, violence, from water trickle down to form the point of an icicle.
Maniacal minds know were larger than rhymes, their twisted perception, false recollections and fake historical times,
provide the basis of racist, corrupt and ignorant views, snooze you loose or stay away, choose and loose.
I don't have it bad, we ALL have it bad. With what's possible with logical thought, we've been had.
It's not just in Baghdad we get mad and kill granddad, time is the enemy of all of us from New York to Lennongrad, but I digress...
Because progress no longer means progression. Moving forward is all that is required; blind raging obsession.
Put down that rock. That stance has been created. Created, dated, repackaged and inundated into you. You would sue if you only knew, think you rebelling but your selling yourself to the cycles renew.

Audio Version.

Reverend Billy Says "Stop The Shopocolypse" & I Say "Seriously".

If by now you have not heard, the movie What Would Jesus Buy comes out December 14th. (limited release.... New York location is Cinema Village 22 East 12th Street, New York, NY 10013) This is by the same guy who brought you Supersize Me. It's about The Reverend Billy and his Church of the Stop Shopping. Reverend Billy is an anti consumerism activist who travels the country protesting how and where we spend our Christmas loot. At first I was merely amused by his outlandish style and really smart comedic timing (as seen on this Glenn Beck interview). I soon realized that it is a lot deeper and a lot more important than the whimsical pace of the movies tailor. It is a lot more important than any movie can ever be because it is about real issues that effect real people right now. Issues that we are on the wrong side of. Issues we couldn't look at unless spoon fed to us through a flashy sarcastic religious figure, seemingly mocking the church but scrupulously and intentionally spreading the truth about our spending that we knew was there all along. This is about so many things that are completely back ass wrong in this country that it is literally hard to keep up with them all.
It is about the end of the small town businesses through our "Wall Mart mentality". It is about the combined power of the consumers that is being ignored and used by a tiny fraction of people to buy low and sell high causing chain reactions that end in horrible situations for hundreds of thousands of people you will never meet. It is about fiscal responsibility, a term politicians throw around with no regard to it's actual description. (along with "freedom", "security" and "patriotism".) It's about the amount of incredibly stupid Americans (I am sorry, but I am looking at you Mid West) who feed at the troth with no care in the world or even worse ignore what little information they can retain. This is where I am supposed to say "it is also about making changes yourself" or "doing your part" but thats bullshit. Most people I know do buy local and are aware of foreign brands and how bad knock offs are. I am not saying they don't (we don't) buy things from large chains but we don't rely on them which is what makes them able to get so large.  (seriously, it's freakin mad! watch this 3 parter and you will see what I mean)
I guess, most of all, it is about greed. About how powerful that "sin" is. How intoxicating it is. You think the top Ceo's at Nike don't know that their shoes are being made by 12 year olds? You think the top dogs at Mall Mart, selling Chinese plastics being made by unprotected women and children for next to nothing don't know where the product is coming from or how it is that they can buy things that cheap? It is scary because it really is as evil as a comic book. So far the good Reverend has officially been banned from Starbucks by protesting like this. So that is another notch in his cool belt. I hope he succeeds in opening some eyes, he sure opened mine and I hope that people who rely on these large corporations for absolutely everything realize that he is speaking to them and buy something in a local store sometime. Who knows if it will help but at this point it can't hurt. Go see this flick.