All Over But The Shoutin'
I wish I were a better person. I wish I could control the impulses that draw me to do bad things completely against my own will. Look at me: I'm a victim of my own bad ideas. Some of you might look at that statement and think "Did he just say that he consciously makes bad decisions and then blames his choices on the ravages of an unchecked internal force? Isn't that just a lame, second-rate cop-out?"

To which I would answer, "Of course it is." Unless, of course, I had multiple personality disorder. Which I don't. But if I did, think of all the other shit I could get away with and blame it on Kim, my slutty cheerleader personality with an eating disorder or Jaleel, my hard-knock gun-totin' stereotype of a character from NWA lyrics. Jaleel and Kim would be totally hot for each other in a sweetly animalistic bondage-torture self-mortification kind of a way. They'd want to have kids together someday, but can't because Kim would be inexplicably sterile. It would be because she's me and I'm a dude, but poor Kim wouldn't know that and would instead spend all her time in drag bars picking up she-males to have fumbling, confusing one-off encounters with.

But I don't have MPD, so I have no one to blame but myself. Oh, and the unseen force that lives within me and forces me to do things I know are wrong in a totally legally deniable way.

If I were a better person, I would use this blog to further some kind of social cause or just for the betterment of mankind. Instead I force myself to use this space to make people giggle at odd turns of phrase, ridiculous mental images and a slew of immature jokes about ninjas, my own sexual identity and the male sex organ.

And yes, God help me, I laughed when I wrote "male sex organ."

If I were a better person I would devote today's limited space to the massive, remarkable public protests over immigration or the growing call for some kind of oversight or responsibility from the present administration.

Or I would devote my time to human interest stories that could possibly change lives by highlighting the plight of a homeless family who needs help or a child suffering from some kind of disease. And has a PayPal account, ideally. Not to hack and steal from, you sick bastards, to GIVE to. Money = love. That's what my dad taught me. And then he punched me right in the face. But I got $5 to tell the teacher I walked into a door, so we were cool.

But my God, instead of anything useful or life-affirming or even fucking pleasant, I cannot--cannot--get past the story about the deaf Italian tourist killed by a falling tree.

Look, it isn't funny. It's not. I'm sure the victim had a family who loved him and told him so often in a series of wildly over-exuberant hand-gestures that I imagine make up Italian sign-language. How do you "talk with your hands" if you already talk with your hands? Why I never considered Italian deaf people before is astounding, frankly. I can (and have) sit and think about for hours and hours and never stop being entertained.

Apart from that, there is the question of whether or not, when it fell, the tree actually made a sound. I mean, even though there were people around, there was still no one around to hear it. That's going to fuck with my brain from now until the day I die. Which, once the deaf Italian mafia reads this, should be very soon now.

The part that is really hanging me up is this one:

"The bus driver shouted to warn them..."

God help me. I am a very bad person.

There's an apocryphal story about Stevie Wonder visiting a White House function, George Bush seeing him across the room and making a point to wave to him.

At least I hope to Christ it's apocryphal. We may have to get Orrin Hatch on this one as well.

Anyway, I can understand the bus driver's plight. He knows they're deaf. He drove them out there, right? It was probably the best bus drive he'd ever taken in his life. Absolute silence the whole way, nobody complaining about the radio station, etc.

And then he sees this horror unfolding. He's too far away to reach anyone, so what can he do? He's only got the sound of his voice to try and reach someone... natural instinct. Completely reasonable.

And tragically useless. If only the tree had fallen more slowly he might have had time to do something more likely to work, like semaphore or building a signal fire.

But alas...

Jaleel is mad at me now because why can't I just back up off a marginalized minority and let people be? For Kim, Italy makes her think of spaghetti. But she's really, really stupid.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 3.1(x3)


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 12:30 PM