2014 Predictions

Here are some predictions for 2014: with one hopeful prediction, one realistic prediction, and one bold prediction.

US FOREIGN POLICY

Hopeful: We make some progress in our peace talks with Iran and we start leaving the countries we occupy.

Realistic: The status quo remains; we find a new country to get mad at.

Bold: We finally invade and conquer Canada, finishing the job we started in 1812.

YANKEES

Hopeful: The Yankees win the 2014 World Series and set themselves up beautifully for a future dynasty,

Realistic: The Yankees go far in the playoffs but are unprepared for the next few seasons.

Bold: Alex Rodriguez becomes Commissioner of Baseball and orders executions of all who stand in his way as supreme leader of the Baseball Federation.

KNICKS

Hopeful: The Knicks turn it around and make a run at respectability and win some playoff games.

Realistic: Knick fans continue to be amazed at the news surrounding the world’s most dysfunctional team.

Bold: Knick fans protest a horribly run franchise by only selling out 90% of the remaining home games.

PRESIDENT OBAMA

Hopeful: Obama starts to act like a leader and doesn’t take no shit from these Republicans.

Realistic:  A hard road of bitterly fought compromises and half deals coupled with more damning revelations about our true secret government.

Bold: President Obama starts to act like Candidate Obama (this is a pipe dream).

MIDTERM ELECTIONS

Hopeful:  A real seismic change occurs in Congress which means an incumbency rate of only 85%.

Realistic: A semi-seismic change occurs in Congress which means an incumbency rate of only 90%.

Bold:   The Earth shatters as Congress yields only an 75% incumbency rate.  Oh the humanity!

PRIVATE TRANSPORTATION

Hopeful:  We start to use more environmentally friendly vehicles because c’mon already, my god.

Realistic:  People who drive those tiny, electric cars will be mocked on a continuous loop.

Bold:  Flying cars or jetpacks.  Please!

WOMEN’S ISSUES

Hopeful:  Women are finally able to live in a progressive, 21^st century world away from all the regressive morons.

Realistic:  A million think piece articles on why _____ is/ isn’t a feminist.

Bold:  A man says something stupid about rape.  I mean, what other stupid shit is left to say?

RACISM

Hopeful:  Every Confederate flag gets taken down and burned and we put a moratorium on people shouting reverse racism.

Realistic:  Al Sharpton at the center of an event that doesn’t really concern him.

Bold:  Each race picks a champion and a race war battle royal commences to determine the superior race for the calendar year.  The results are final and there is no complaining.

BOB DYLAN

Hopeful:  Bob Dylan tours again and plays some crazy set lists with some crazy guests.

Realistic: Bob Dylan tours again and plays some crazy set lists.

Bold: Bob Dylan plays Blonde on Blonde in order for a concert.  Insanity ensues.

MOVIES

Hopeful: We stop splitting movies into millions of parts.

Realistic:  Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2: The End Part 3: The Real Beginning of the End

Bold:  The Oscars Ceremony lasts for 8 hours - another example of how the Jews run Hollywood

TV

Hopeful: All the shows I enjoy watching come back strong.

Realistic:  A new show comes on that everybody likes and I don’t watch out of spite, only to find out 3 years later it was amazing and I was an idiot.

Bold:  Arrested Development movie/season 5 comes out.  Please.

MUSIC

Hopeful:  Bassface becomes all the rage.

Realistic:  The noose around the music industry grows ever tighter.

Bold:  The Grammy’s honor talent and skill rather than who can get them the biggest ratings.

THE FATE OF THE AUTHOR

Hopeful:  Become rich and famous and beloved for my expert writings and careful witticisms.

Realistic:  Win the lottery and stop writing these god awful blog posts.

Bold:  Beat my brother in a game of paddleball.  

Subway Musings

Subway Musings:

That girl in the Dr. Zizmor subway acne ad still doesn’t look so hot after she got her skin cleared.  She went from having some terrible acne to looking like the before picture in a weight watchers ad.  Plus the photo they use of her in the after shot looks like it has been heavily bleached.  She nearly changes ethnicities from picture to picture.  I’d love to see what she looks like today and if she has ever had to sit on the subway staring at her old acned face.  Imagine being reminded everyday on your morning commute on how ugly you once looked.  Now imagine that millions of people get to share in your disgust.  Sounds like the life to me!

I hate when people asking for money on the subway can’t finish their speech before the next stop.  These people should know how long each stop is and should have everything timed perfectly.  Its shoddy craftsmanship is what it is.  You have to know the restraints of your location.  Begging on the subway is an art and a skill.  You have to be able to sell to the rush hour Wall Street crowd and the midnight L train brigade.  Change it up, vary your word choice, and tailor you’re the lengths of your speeches (I cannot emphasize this point enough).   Hit all the major points (I’m out of work, been looking for a job, 2-3 kids) within no more than halfway to the next stop.  You don’t want to finish giving the speech of your career just for the doors to open on Canal Street and everybody to leave.  That’s not good begging.  Look to the subway dancers and jumpers.  They have their acts expertly timed to include both entertainment and money asking.  Watch them for a week or two.  Study how they time every single little detail.  Take some notes and put it all together and beg on the 6 train like a champ.

Those New York City Public Health posters are the scariest things on the subway.  All their ads are about paying child support, getting tested for venereal diseases, and losing your hearing.  Never a have a nice day post.  There’s always an ad with a picture of a baby crying or a young woman looking into an uncertain, but mostly likely miserable future.  And more importantly, what kind of parent would put their baby up as the poster child for practicing birth control?  I hope this kid never sees that he was the reason so many New Yorkers chose not to have a child.  Just one look at his crying mug and we all double timed it to Duane Reade.  Nothing says self-confidence like knowing you played the part of an unwanted child in a birth control ad.   

The subway.  Oh what wonders will you behold to our smiling and disheveled populace next?  Will it be a bum jerking off to the women sitting across from him?  Or will a race war break out late one night in the outer boroughs?  Only another magical ride will tell.   

The Joke of The Wolf of Wall Street

WARNING: Contains spoilers about The Wolf of Wall Street - sort of, I guess

The joke was on us as we left the 10:00 PM showing of The Wolf of Wall Street at the Times Square AMC Theater.  We had all enjoyed the film and it was a great film, but the conversation of the group of Long Island gentleman in front of me and my friend showed the great power this movie possess.  This group of men kept talking about how awesome Jordan Belfort was and how the government wrongfully took his money.  They kept talking about how they were born in the wrong decade and how they would have been even more debauched if they were of age during the time this film took place.  They had fallen for joke of the film.  These guys actually thought they could be wolves of Wall Street.  They thought that if they had been born 15 years earlier they would have just strolled into a life of high class hookers and midget tossing.  Worst of all, they sympathized with Jordan Belfort and his buddies. 

They weren’t the only ones to sympathize with Jordan Belfort.  The movie does an incredible job of making the bad guys so likable and the good guys the villains.  Leonardo DiCaprio does a helluva job and should get numerous awards for his performance.  You laugh at their antics and go along with all their wild tales of debauchery and swindling and when reality hits, you feel bad.  When Leonardo DiCaprio gets his comeuppance, nobody in the theater clapped or applauded like in the scenes where he was cheating on his wife or fooling his middle class investors.  The theater was silent when the FBI sent him for his slap on the wrist jail sentence.  Nobody cheered when the FBI agents fucked with Belfort on his yacht.  They only laughed when Belfort told them to get off and threw money at them.  The bad guy got caught and nobody cheered.

The movie does do its part to set Jordan up as the villain to the audience but nobody in the theater seemed to care.  In several scenes he will start talking to the audience about the illegal procedure he is doing or begin explaining a finance term and will abruptly stop in the middle of his discussion.  He says that you guys don’t care about this and the film cuts to more scenes of stacks of money and naked women.  The villain is looking the audience straight in the eye and telling us we are too dumb to understand these practices and don’t care anyway.  All we want to see is the money and excess we will never achieve or earn in our lives.  We want to engage in the fantasy world that Belfort resides in.  Belfort got rich off middle class suckers and proudly wears that as a badge of honor.  The majority of the people at the Times Square AMC were proudly cheering on every move Leo made.  They could not see that they were the suckers.  Every early sale Jordan and his pals make in the beginning of the film is off middle class suckers like the ones watching the film.  And those people (including myself) couldn’t have clapped more in glee to watch him win every time.

The danger and brilliance of this movie lies in the viewer who sympathizes with Jordan and aspires to live that life.  They see a man who got everything he ever wanted and more and only had to repent with a 3 year prison sentence (he got out after 22 months).  The man beat the system and now gets his life immortalized by one of the greatest directors of our time.  He won and we lost.  And anyone who comes out of this film and wants to live the Jordan Belfort life just proves that his kind continues to win while the rest of us continue to lose.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Out of all the lovely movies that focus on Yuletide greetings and what not, my favorite is the 30 minute cartoon of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  From Boris Karloff’s tongue-twisting narrating of Dr. Suess’s world to Chuck Jones’ Looney Tunes inspired sequences, nothing rates higher on my list of favorite Christmas movies.  Did you know that the guy who does Tony the Tiger’s booming voice is the same person who sings “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”?  Did ya, huh, huh?  That man has quite a cartoon resume.  The scenes of the Grinch slithering across the floor with that sinister grin never fail to amuse me.  But like all good stories, How the Grinch Stole Christmas raises more questions than it provides answers to.

Like, what does the Grinch do for the other 363 and a quarter days of the year?  He hatches his plan on Christmas Eve, and steals stuff on Christmas, but that leaves a whole calendar year free of Christmas like activities.  I wonder if he terrorizes children or runs a law firm in his free time when Christmas isn’t practically there.  Some think December 26^th must be his favorite day of the year but I think it is not.  What if the Grinch is the Joker to Christmas’s Batman (stay with me here)?  I bet that old Grinch goes into a catatonic state until he sees the first Christmas light flicker or the first who-zippler who-zappling.  He starts to unthaw, but what really gets the Grinch going, is not the noise, noise, noise, but when the Whos down in Whoville practice singing their song.  A song that perfect in sound, must be practiced for weeks, and that probably drives the Grinch crazier than all the carved roast beasts.  He lives all the way on top of a mountain and can still hear all this singing and noise coming from the town way down below.  Why, the Grinch is at least 53 years old and probably doesn’t want to be fitted for a hearing aid.  So, shame on those Whos down in Whoville for all that noise, noise, noise!

I do enjoy all the burglary the Grinch partakes in, and how easily everybody forgives him.  He was only trying to ruin Christmas, so logic dictates that he would only steal Christmas related objects.  Instead, he decides to steal everything he can get his grinchy green fingers on.  He steals food that has nothing to do with the season.  He takes their ice from the ice trays.  He even steals fireplace logs.  The Grinch turns from holiday humbug into cunning kleptomaniac the second he enters the first home.  The best part is how he gets away with everything ever so cleanly.  Sure he returns everything, but how confused must the Whos down in Whoville have felt when they found out that their houses had been burgled a lot.  I know I would have been mighty mad to have been handed back all my non-Christmas items from a supposed “Christmas only” robber.  Plus, he himself, yes the Grinch, got to carve the roast beast.  That would have been the final straw.  Here I am a pillar of good tiding for the community 365 days a year, watching a serial burglar get to carve out food for the whole town.  And he gave his dog the biggest piece of meat.  The gross indiginity of it all!  I would have been so fumingly mad, I would have only mouthed the Fah who foraze or Welcome Christmas song during the great big sing along (but not really because I practiced really hard for weeks on that one). 

I find it cool that the Grinch, in all his grinchy evil, has a dog that generally seems to have a good time.  Aside from the reindeer episode, the Grinch treats his dog right.  They seem like good pals and it’s refreshing to see somebody with a heart two sizes two small have room in his ice lair for a delightful dog accomplice.  Max is the perfect companion for any holiday heist. 

The Grinch is my favorite of the holiday movies and I welcome it every year.  It comes every year without CGI, Claymation, or network greed.  A great Christmas special doesn’t come from a network think tank, because maybe a great Christmas special has a little bit more

The Perfect Employee

Some Tips on Being the Perfect Employee:

Underdress at all times.  Nothing says a try-hard like wearing a suit or even a button up shirt.  Way to try hard try-hard. 

Do your best to instill a strong sense of distrust and dissent into your coworkers.  Do this by slowly convincing them that the work they are all doing is utterly pointless and vaguely evil. 

Provoke your fellow employees until they cause you physical or emotional harm that will lead to a big cash settlement and an early retirement.  Make sure to doctor all tapes and sound to make you the clear cut victim.  Also, make sure to not fall for any tricks at the hearing or arbitration.  If you have a neck brace and somebody makes a large noise behind you, resist the urge to instinctively turn your head that way.  That juts looks bad. 

Make sure to not talk about work related matters when your boss walks into the room.  We want our employer to think we have a life outside of this soul crushing job. 

Office gossip can be harmful to team morale and can make going to work a living nightmare for most people.  Those people are pussies.  It is your job to destroy them to keep our glorious company for the mentally strong. 

It is natural to feel some jealousy and resentment when your colleagues get promoted around you.  Turn those negative feelings around with an intricate plot of revenge.  That’ll teach those little try-hards. 

I hate try-hards.  Mock every try-hard at the office even if that means mocking yourself you little fucking try-hard.

Resist the urge to enjoy your work.  Enjoying what you do is the first of 3 steps to selling out and becoming a shell of the person you always wanted to be.

If they are asking for it, sexually harass that person.  Corporate will understand (chances are they are doing it right now).

If a colleague tells an unfunny joke, don’t laugh.  It will only encourage them.  Yell “haha, NOT FUNNY”.  Repeat this until they get the message.

When at an office party, only hook up with somebody in the copy room or on a copy machine.  Provide the room or the machine if the party location does not have either. 

Proudly display a countdown clock of how many more hours you’ll have to spend with these insufferable morons and their “important work”.

Openly Christian

In wake of this proud nation realizing that a redneck is a redneck, I have been fascinated by the comment sections on numerous web sites and the arguments that they sustain.  Those in support of the bearded duck man have been using a phrase I find to be curious.  This phrase is “openly Christian” and it usually pertains to how “Openly Christian” people are being persecuted in this country because one of their strongest adherents had his television contract was revoked.  As a hedonistic New York City atheistic Jewish person, this phrase of “Openly Christian” and the belief that true believers of the Christian faith are facing persecution in this country is something completely foreign to me. 

First off, what is an openly Christian person?  Even though they may hate the gay community, they certainly do know how to appropriate a killer phrase.  Openly Christian though.  How does that work?  Do scared, young teenagers gather their families together and explain to them that they are a follower of Jesus Christ?  Is one born Openly Christian or do they choose to be Openly Christian?  I like to think of a young man getting bullied for quoting the bible while the rest of his friends are involved in a Caligula style orgy.  This poor boy must have been trapped in the confessional for so long.  Coming out as a Christian most be one of the hardest thing to do in a country where only 75% of the populous identify as a Christian.  That means only 3 in every 4 people you meet will share your beliefs.  I certainly know I wouldn’t feel safe or protected in this country with those odds.   Where is the “It Gets Better” campaign for Christians coming to term with their faith?  How long can we sit along and let Openly Christian children get bullied?  I want a world where Openly Christian people are not bullied but are the bullies. 

The other thing that confuses me is this idea that “Openly Christian” people in this country are facing mass persecution akin to real persecuted groups.  It seems very difficult to persecute a group of people who hold a super majority in this country.  What are these modern forms of persecution?  Is it a series of lynchings for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ?  Could it be a series of pogroms for adhering to the principles of the Christian faith?  Or is it simply not getting your way after continually getting your way since the founding of this country?  Manufactured Christian persecution always centers in on Christmas; the biggest holiday on the planet.  Every year there is a big hoopla about having to say Happy Holidays or something of the sort.  Why is that a problem?  Despite what the Hallmark Channel tells you, there are other holidays that occur in December.  Hanukkah and the Winter Solstice come to mind (the original Christmas).  It doesn’t hurt to live in a world that is inclusive and happy to acknowledge everybody’s winter holiday.

So now that one of the bearded duck men is on extended hiatus, freedom of speech for American Christendom has been threatened at fascist levels.  People have defended this man by saying he was quoting his bible when discussing his views on gays, but I am curious to see how these people defend him on his non-religious backed racism.  The comments he spouted pretty much likened black life in the Jim Crow South to a scene straight out of Song of the South.  Where are the Christians on this one?  Where is the outrage from the conservative right on how disgusting these comments where?  I can’t wait to see the Bobby Jindal statement or the 1,000 word Sarah Palin Facebook post protecting these comments from the PC police.  The man has freedom of speech for sure, but we also have freedom to criticize and condemn the hell out of him with our own freedom of speech.   

Openly Christian and the idea of modern Christian persecution in this country is just another attempt of people not adapting to the times.  Despite all this rhetoric, we are not a Christian nation.  Read the Treaty of Tripoli if somebody tells you otherwise.  Christianity is not threatened in this country like real persecuted groups (like perhaps a group of people today who still can’t legally marry in 33 states).  The duck guy is a bigot plain and simple.  Hiding behind his Christian faith won’t change that.  

Exhaustion

Exhaustion is a unique feeling that emerges where only the sweet embrace of a flat surface can bring along an eternal relief.  That moment where when you lie down, your body begins to melt away and become one with the bed.  Your body no longer belongs to you.  Every muscle fades away until you realize that any movement will require a mental strength that you do not possess at this moment.  Maybe you never will regain the strength again.  But why move?  Everything you could ever wish for has been granted with this short respite from the day.  Now every blink of the eye progresses the day by a crooked number.  Whenever your lids shut, you are immersed in the middle of a new dream.  There is no beginning and there never is an end to the story.  You appear solely in the middle, ready to do what is required for the present crisis.  Of course when the moment overwhelms or underwhelms, you deftly regain consciousness only to dive headfirst into another story with subsequent blinking.  True to form, the story changes, but the timing never does.  You blink again and return to an old pirate tale, where the bombardment is already underway.  Before you can face the mutiny of your dastardly crew, you awake again, head fraught with exhaustion.  To move would be foolish, and most importantly, physically impossible.  Re-acquaintance with the world begins with a flushing of blood to the front of your head, or so it feels.  Who has ever woken up refreshed from a sleep designed to ward off the all-encompassing exhaustion?  Confronting the world as a tired soul is far better than being ripped from the beauty of heavenly rest.  Why would anyone ever want to cut short paradise?  Better to never experience it than to long for its passing spirit or anticipate its glorious second coming.  There’s nothing more to do but trudge on and wait for that heralded moment where the body again succumbs to exhaustion and basks in that sweet reward of a few unconscious hours.