So I was watching this SNL Digital Short that a quick Google Search tells me is deadpanning the end of season two of The OC. I'll go ahead and get this out of the way, when the OC came out I thought "That's kind of quick-witted and boy, don't I wish I could have a rich daddy with fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows?" But I quickly lost interest as I was living in Southern California at the time and became disenfranchised as no rich families wanted to take me on as a financial responsibility and give me the chance I never had as a troubled teen.

In the end, Ryan achieved his dream. A college graduate who became an architect. It's fitting that the series ended on the same note that it started. Someone lending a troubled kid a hand. The whole thing is cyclical, as Sandy said earlier in the episode. What goes around comes around. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see another show as well crafted and culturally meaningful as The OC come around again any time soon.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see another show as well crafted and culturally meaningful as The OC come around again any time soon.

as well crafted and culturally meaningful

culturally meaningful

I've always been a fan of The Daily Show. I almost never watch it because...I just don't watch a lot of "current" shows. Nonetheless, I caught this clip of Jon Stewart working through his emotions on the subject of the Tuscon shooting of Representative Giffords and 19 other people, leaving six dead.

Jon - thank you for being a voice of reason.

I don't get political very often - in fact I think that our entire system of "politics" is inherently flawed beyond salvation and as such, just accept that until I can get Swiss citizenship I'll just have to be instantly hated in other countries of the world, subject to the same extremist ideologies we chastise in other countries and just another gear in the great big grinding machine that America has become.

But I digress. I'm not an anarchist. People need to be governed. That's evident in our anthropology; even before we evolved into humans, primates realized the benefits of having a "family" structure. And what is family, if not a form of government? It's ingrained in us. Someone needs to be in charge and someone needs to be on the other side challenging the one in charge. Sometimes one side wins, sometimes the other side wins. Usually though, it's a little bit of both.

Think about the last fight you got in with a loved one. You really only have four options: 1) win outright, having the other party acknowledge that you have the winning argument 2) acknowledge that you were wrong 3) meet somewhere in the middle (because it's likely that each side contributed a bit to the fight) 4) completely disconnect from that person and never speak to them again.

Now let's extrapolate this and look at it on the aggregate, say as, oh I don't know, the big clusterfuck of a government we have. If the Republicans are daddy; conservative and protective, concerned with defense and protecting the sovereignty of his house; and the Democrats are mommy, interested in social issues, with a nurturing streak that can sometimes make the kids feel like they're getting smothered - then that makes the American people the kids. You've doubtless heard the expression "stay together for the kids," right? Sometimes Mommy and Daddy can hate each other's guts, but they still keep up the appearances so that the kids may have a chance at "normal." Ha! What's that??


Well Mommy and Daddy (forget about "Uncle" Sam - Daddy doesn't know about Mommy's relationship with him) are charged with caring for these hundreds of millions of babies. To do that they have to each go out and do their jobs each day to bring income into the house. Inevitably, sometimes Mommy and Daddy don't see eye to eye, and let's be honest - as a kid who didn't have moments where one parent was the "favorite" of the moment because they gave us what we wanted. Sometimes we got mad at Dad for not letting us stay out late, but it's only because we live in a dangerous neighborhood (and Dad likes to occupy his neighbor's houses with guns a lot) so we turn to Mom who offers to give us a ride as long as it keeps us out of trouble. Mom and Dad argue about it. We pick a side.

Either way, it's still in Mom and Dad's best interest to ensure the stability of their family - otherwise they'll lose the way they've been doing things all along. Not to mention how their pride keeps them from seeing a marriage counselor...

And so the family goes, dysfunctional though it may be; it chugs along. Mommy likes the lifestyle Dad is able to provide and Dad likes that Mommy takes care of the kids and keeps them from getting too rowdy when they feel shat upon.

Take a look at what's going on with the immigration issue in Arizona. Daddy doesn't want those dirty Mexican children to come play in his yard with his kids, because sometimes they don't say thank you and sometimes they take a toy back to their own house. Mommy knows that they don't know any better and argues that we should give them a chance. The kids are split on the issue. Some of the kids don't really like to play with these kids, some of them do. They take sides. They make a ruckus, they make noise on the issue until Mommy and Daddy are ready to pull their hair out. Point is - both Mommy AND Daddy are gaining support on the issue from their kids' respective favor.

If you're not with me, I'm going to dumb it down for you: the children making noise and vocalizing their support of Mom or Dad...that's the voters. Making a big ruckus and donating millions of dollars to their side. Mom and Dad know it's not the best, but it's what they've got. So they have a big drawn out argument over it and end up somewhere in the middle. Or Mom wins. Or Dad wins. Either way, what the kids had to say was really just noise. Mom and Dad are still going to make the decision they think is best, and when was the last time a parent took their kid's advice on a serious issue anyway?

So how does the story end? I'll tell you how it ends. The kids grow up, they go out and get jobs and live the same way their parents did. We have a 234 year old government. In anthropological time we (the American people) are barely toddlers. Nevermind that in geological time we're like...a protein on a strand of DNA in a probiotic soup. So go on, pitch your fits, pick your sides and donate your money. Mommy and Dadddy are just going to go ahead and do what they want to do anyway.

Eventually though, the kids will grow up, and it will get to a point where Mommy and Daddy aren't doing it for the kids anymore. And they'll have to choose - do they split up or do they stay together and let a counselor help them work things out?

I'd like to tell you that you'll get to decide, but from where I'm sitting, I'm out of juice.

Well folks (me). It's me (me) again. I have work tonight but I can't sleep so I thought I'd wake up and see what's going on on the interwebs. Most unsurprisingly, jack shit is going on (name dropper). It's funny, when you put stuff out there on the internet, it's [theoretically] there to stay. In this modern day and age any fat guy with a collection of pocketed sweatpants (and really, who doesn't LOVE sweatpants with a back pocket for liquor store runs?) can, in a sense, accomplish what the great authors of history have had to toil for.

For fuck's sake, the godawful Jason Chen at Gizmodo (too lazy to link...but you know where the fuck Gizmodo is) posts some of the most dreadfully awful commentary that I've ever read ANYWHERE. Annnnnd yet - thousands of page clicks a day. Look at their site stats on Technorati. It's ridiculous. Writing...it used to be about connection. Look at the greats - Thomas Hardy, Alexander Dumas, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and if you're hipster enough, Kerouac. These guys are so well known that my spell checker doesn't even flag them as a problem. But there used to be a connection. People used to read not just to learn, but to share in experiences. And these men, these masters (in more than a few cases there are some female masters, too), they saw the human experience so clearly...the futility of trying to escape your reality while simultaneously realizing that you can still change who you are...their message is eternal. It doesn't matter what century you were born in - these greats write prose that speaks to generation after generation.

I'm as guilty as Chen (though with a better vocabulary and, I think, a better cadence to my writing) because I mostly publish mental masturbation material - throwaway writing (that nobody reads). Although my site stats have indicated that I've picked up something of a following in the Ukraine! So...holla to my Ukranian brothas from another motha and sistas from anotha mista!

Yes, I publish a blog. Yes, I blurt out quick spurts of information. But I work hard to make contributions to fucking literature, yo. That's the eternal conversation. Sure you can read it on your Kindle or iPad or Poopbox or whatever, but the point is - and my hope is - that books never die. The masters of history, the masters who through the gift of storytelling have reminded us of the human condition; those are the ones we should seek to emulate, or to at least learn from.

Enlightenment can be a pain - and it kills as many as it saves, but we owe it to ourselves to discover something outside what we know. I joke a lot about having no readers, and the stats indicate that most of you click a link and then drop out, which saddens me, but alas - I'm here to stay.

Take a moment. Put down your Blackberry/iPhone/Buttfacephone whatever. Turn off your Google Talk account. Log out of Facebook. Read this short story by the one and only man who I ever looked up to, F. Scott Fitzerald.

I know you won't. But think about it. Here's the link. I won't tell you anything more than it is a piece of prose that possesses such powerful imagery and such vivid character that...well. Let's just say it's worth it.

On a final note, I wish that J.D. Salinger had been publicly psychoanalyzed. From "Franny and Zooey" (another great short story) to his seminal work "The Catcher In the Rye," homeboy clearly explored his subconscious in a very personal and intimate way.

That's what I hope to do. Hopefully you and I can connect. Hopefully we'll share a random experience together and the world will...for once....seem a lot smaller. In the age of Chatroulette where you can see everything from random penises to disappointed men waiting for something other than random penises, we've lost our connection. The human experience is digitized - I say we go analog. I say we live together. We experience things together. The more that write about what's right...the better. There are few voices left that are not tainted by commercialism, let your voice be heard, let your voice be heard for free...that's what this is all about - in a world full of people yelling for attention, let us be silent and listen. Our fellow (wo)man will teach us about ourselves if we have the patience to listen, the forethought to learn and the determination to proceed.

If you do read this, whether Ukranian or otherwise, I deeply appreciate that you even slightly care what I have to say. I realize I'm just a voice in the ether (although, if I may brag....the 32,000th most read blog online), and maybe my voice means nothing to you, or something. But thank you. Thank you for enabling me to realize where I need to open up, and thank you for not reading or reading. This is, after all, my blog. So anyone else who comes is a welcome guest to a very real party. For now, I'm off to read some more Fitzgerald and hopefully grab some more sleep.

Nobody may love you, everyone may love you. You must first love yourself.

Ladies and gentlemen, pornography has spoken: Adobe's Flash is dead.

Just read this interesting piece over at NPR:

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Sorry, Skipper: Was Gilligan (Bob Denver) the devil in disguise?

Poor castaways. Each week they would devise a way off the island. Each week Gilligan would thwart their escape  usually with the best of intentions.

Years after the show ended, its creator, Sherwood Schwartz, admitted that each of the characters represented one of the seven deadly sins — Pride (the Professor), Anger (Skipper), Lust, (Ginger), and the rest. Gilligan was supposed to be Sloth.

But a closer viewing indicates that the island may well have been Hell — and the red-clad Gilligan the devil who kept them on his island.

The greatest part of the metaphor, though, is that if the others ever wanted to get off the island, what they needed to do was kill Gilligan — and that each of us has our own inner Gilligan, that sweet-natured, well-meaning part of us that always sabotages us from getting what we really want.

Maybe if we truly want to succeed in life, we need to kill our own inner Gilligan.

Courtesy of Gizmodo, check out this startling video of one possible trajectory of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico as ocean currents sweep it out into the Atlantic.

I just figured out how to stop the oil from spilling into the gulf!

You know how oil and water don't mix? If only we had a bunch of WATER to put with all that oil, it'd just separate out!

Wait a minute...

My whole reason for quitting Facebook (I know...I know...you told me so) was because of the opaqueness of Facebook's whole approach to privacy. As I'm so sure you all read my treatise on the subject, you'll be well versed in my reasoning. However, Facebook announced a few days ago some changes that negate some of my concerns. The keyword here is some.

So for those following at home, I'm now on the fence. 51% of me wants to stay off of it and 49% wants to jump back on...we shall see.

For now, I hope you are...I don't know...smelling good.

Look, some people think global warming is a myth and some people even think that Barack Obama is actually a white dude who underwent skin toning to become President.

I'm on Facebook. You're on Facebook. We may or may not be friends on Facebook.

While I'm possibly a little late to jump on the "What the shit is Facebook doing with my privacy?" bandwagon, I do feel like it might be worth my time to add my two cents to the pile of...two-cent pieces. Let's start from the beginning.

I was against Facebook from its onset, partly because I wasn't currently among the collegiate, and partly because I thought "Who wants Facebook? On MySpace I can have MUSIC that automatically plays on my page and annoys people who were already listening to music!" Then MySpace got reallllly boring and buggy as it collapsed under the additional weight of its own growth.