OUT OF FOCUS

So You Say You Don't Like Living in America?

I was walking my dog on one of New York's beautiful piers yesterday evening and I heard a snippet of conversation:

"I hate living in this country". It stopped me in my tracks. I looked over and their sat a very well dressed, overfed white male in his mid to late 30's.

Because I have ADD and keep neglecting to by that taser gun, I had to keep walking. And walk with disgust I did.

What does a very well dressed, overfed white male in his mid to late 30's living in one of the most exclusive zip codes have to hate about this country? Where has he been done wrong?

Well, Michael Moore-wannabe, why don't think about this:

You're white. You're privledged.

You're male. You're privledged.

You're rich. You're privledged.

You're Fat. You can afford a 6 lb. T-bone steak. You're privledged.

And why don't you think about this?

You don't live in the Iraqi village of Hasira where 60 percent of the women and girls have had their clitoris removed.

You don't live in the Islamic Republic of Iran where I would be buried up to my head and stones to death if I got a little loose one night after one beer too many (of coarse, there is no beer for them).

You don't live in Southeast Asia where my highest paying job available would be prostitution.

You don't live in China kidnapped, drugged, placed on a train and sold for about $1,500 as a bride to a brick maker. That's right. China.

Do us all a favor, shut up and run some laps around that pier. Or better yet, jump off.

The following clip is from Trey Parker & Matt Stone's Team America: World Police. If you haven't seen the film, rent it!

China's Imports: Poisonous or Paranoid?

Definitely not paranoid.  OK, so the timing to last night's  blog post could not have been more timely.

Anyone up for a night of fishing off the FDR?

Read more about it.    

I'm pissed off at the Chinese

I'm pissed off at the Chinese. That's right. Here's why:

1. They tried to pioson my pet.

2.  They tried to kill me with anti-freeze tainted toothpaste.

3. They tried to derail are kids for good with lead poisoned Thomas the Train.

4.  I'll take a worm in my tequila but not in my chocolate.

5.  They tried to choke me with cardboard in my vegetable bun.

That's right.  I'm pissed off at the Chinese and I am on a crusade to avoid buying MADE IN CHINA as much as possible.  And believe it or not, it''s not as bad as you think. 

All my holiday gift this year are being bought at ETSY.  Everything at Etsy.com is made by people like you and me who live in the U.S.A. 

Reasons to buy at Etsy:

1.  Be cocky and ethnocentric.  Its all made in the states.

2.  It's not being made by the small hands of a six year old enslaved in a sweat shop.

3. You don't have to wait in line and deal with bitter cashiers who think that you should
be paying them instead.

4. Overcrowded department stores can trigger overeating.  Look what it did to Sandra Bullock and I loved her in Speed.

5.  Look what it did to your other favorite-once-fat-free celebrities.

So, now every store that I walk into, and with every item I pick up, I yell across the store, "THIS ISN'T MADE BY THE CHINESE, IS IT?"

Get your fellow citizens attention.

And do something Good for the Holiday Season.

Virginia Tech

Every Monday, I take the Greyhound bus from New York to Temple University in Phili with the hopes of finishing my undergrad.  Its been a 13 year, hiatus but who's really counting.
Yesterday afternoon, I was in my Asian Religion class and I just envisioned some sociopath barging into the classroom and gunning students down.  Just like an other act of terrorism, I can't imagine what the students at Virgina Tech were feeling at that very moment.  And I thought, well how would I react?  Events this tragic, make me a very angry person.  To the point where I cannot think of anything else. I wished that I could have walked up behind this killer right before he riddled so many innocent civilians with bullets, and just gunned him down inch by inch.  A bullet in the foot, a bullet in the shin, a bullet in the knee.  I would play a game of connect the dots with him before I put a bullet in his brain.
If you were to ask a very liberal-minded friend of mine whom we shall call Bob(whom I adore but can't get in any political debate without wanting to choke him), Bob would say, "where as a society have we gone wrong?  We, the people are responsible, for his actions.  If our government isn't going to be financially responsible for the social services we need to help these sick people, than we're responsible!".  SHUT UP already! I can't listen to that dribble and neither can the families of all these victims.  No one deserves this and someone sick enough to commit a crime like will never benefit from social reform! He's better off dead.

I pray for all those that have lost their lives during this tragic event and for all those who will suffer in the aftermath.

I HATE DAN SMITH

Add Moment of the DAY:     Went on Amazon.com with the intentions of buying a Speedo cap and instead I had landed on the web pages of William Coopers, Behold a Pale Horse, which was followed by a panic attack over supposed Extraterrestrial conspiracy theories. I never bought the cap.

One of the paradoxical symptoms of A.D.D. is the ability to hyper-focus.  On one hand, we struggle to focus on everyday activities, but on the other hand, if something of interest catches our attention in, we have the ability focus for hours on end, in a transient state.

I remember experiencing the Art of Hyper-focus when I would draw for hours on end in my college art class.  On hot summers days, I would lock myself in my bedroom for hours on end and hearing nothing but the persistent knock of my Mother five hours later calling to see if I was still breathing in there.  I would emerge with a smile and an 18x24 pencil drawing.  I'm fine, Mom.

The last time I experienced that type of hyper-focus was when I was channel surfing and landed on The Robin Bird Show but lately the hyper-focus is coming back and its honing in on a guy named Dan Smith.

Let me start off by saying I abhor Dan Smith.  Ive never met Dan Smith, never stood by him or looked him face to face but I see him everywhere and everyday of my life. Dan Smith is a local musician in New York City who has made the conscious choice to plaster paper flyers of his mugshot and guitar  all over the streets of Manhattan.  He’s uptown, downtown, midtown and underground.

Lord knows the guy can never pull a Dog Day Afternoon because 10 million new yorkers know the face of Dan Smith. And not by choice.

This past winter, I had considered petitioning City Hall to to get him off our storefronts but the snow fall did a pretty good job of keeping his Xeroxed ad soggy and illegible.  Besides, I thought there might be a chance that the news station, New York 1, might capture the story and give him more unexpected press.  Frankly, he doesn't deserve it. 

The following is an example of how may times I can encounter Dan Smith in one day:

I wake and walk four blocks to get my coffee and I walk by Dan Smith twice.  Later that day I go to the gym and walk seven blocks and pass Dan's face three times in three different windows.  I feel like eating pizza for lunch.  Well who the hell do you think is sitting right next to me??  Dan f*cking Smith! (Not the actual Dan Smith but the flyer itself) Later in that afternoon, I get on the subway and I travel downtown from the east side to the west side and not ONE day goes by when I don't see that guitar-playing fool dressed in his long Johns trying to sell us his services.  How many people really want to learn how to play guitar anyway? With all the time he spends desecrating our city's windows and walls with his flyers, should he be practicing guitar?  Since he's not spending the day teaching guitar, should that tell him something like..ugh..I dunno..maybe he's NOT THAT GOOD!

There are other ways to advertise than on store windows. How can this guitar-playing, Danny Terrio look-a-like be so pretentious to think that his face is what we want to look at when we pick up our dry cleaning an the end of the day? His flyer is a constant reminder that he exist and because we are not blood-related, there is no reason why we must be constantly reminded. Dan Smith's gotta take his Dance Fever hairdo and ukulele and move to Provo, Utah where he can meet a nice Mormon Fundamentalist and play his guitar at his many weddings and build a friendly fan base.

If you or anyone you know has seen these flyers, please let me know.  We'll have a Tear Down Dan Smith Flyer Day.  Stop the bombardment by Dan Smith. We'll say its for the environment.