...and the idiot shouts down from his ivory tower

now the bastard doesn't want you to take this the wrong way but...

i don't care about your dog...

i don't care what you are listening to on spotify...

i don't care how many reps you did today...

i don't care that it's leg day...

and the bastard doesn't really want to read your daily affirmations about how good god is to you.

i don't wanna hear it.

now let's pull back...

this ain't yer fault screw...

i read this article in the times yesterday...

via gawker of course, because i'm lazy and i'd rather read some guy rant about it instead of reading the actually piece...

because who wants to read the sanctimonius talkey talk from some guy who earned 420 million dollars off of selling his "pre netscape" web browser telling me how we, the common folk, should live with less...

however...

he's not wrong...

we should live with less shit...

it leaves you more room for your smug sense of self worth...

also, it just shows that you spend less and in barry's economy, i need to be spending less.

but...

for some reason, having some really wealthy guy telling me what i already know about scaling down rubs me the wrong way.

call it righteous indignation or perhaps it's just that i've become comfortable disliking the rich or moreover the people that have what i do not have.

and perhaps that's petty but, the bastard is petty.

but let me get back to the beginning here...

after reading this times piece, i started noticing the little things that i'd like to see less of.

like how many reps you did...

or how many retarded daily affirmations hashtagged #truth on instagram...

or any of that nonsense...

there's just alot of it out there and i'm wondering if it's time to bury myself in a hole or take a vacation from social media altogether.

then it occured to me how many times i have taken the above photograph from my balcony.

has to be at least 1200 times...

so now, i'm part of the problem.

one time the nice lady and i had a disagreement when the boy pointed at a starbucks sign and said, "that's daddy's coffee"...

and we spoke at length about her problem with name brands and the pervasive nature of advertising in society and how she wanted no part of it.

and i agreed but with a proviso...

there's nothing you can do about it and expect to be a part of society and that you might as well burn all of your designer clothes, toss your cellphone and ANY technology that delivers information for free and start walking to a cave somewhere in the middle of kansas and sort of live like the amish but with machines that have no brand names.

it's a quandry.

i'm gonna root around my desk now and look for some whiskey

—the bastard

god is in his heaven and the bastard is on his earth and all is right with the world…

last week...

 or is it two weeks now, the bastard was talking with the singing copy chief about the past and since we were at the shot show…

and the toddler is rooting about somewhere around there that perhaps we'd run into him.

"I love to run into him, see how he's doing", she exclaimed.

"i wouldn't.", putting the kibosh on this line of conversation.

I mean, I don't wish the man ill…

okay, I do…

I'm a petty man.

petty is what I've got and if the toddler never makes it to the gates of the walled city that we are…

I'm a happier man for it.

the year he put me through, still resounds in me and I don't think I'll ever get around to feeling right about things again.

I know I never sleep right unless I have some help.

but I did get some recently at the show in the form of news.

a friend of mine ran into him at a function who knows him and knows where's he landed and told me

"he's doing great. says everything is awesome and super angine. which is a lie. he hates the man he works for and that is his lot for now."

and with that, the bastard felt a little better because someone is making it suck for him somewhere in the world…

and that's real good to me…

because I'm petty.

perhaps I'll talk about the other characters who made my 2010-2011 suck a lot and how their doing since we've parted company.

that makes me feel good too.

—the bastard

turnstile

the bastard has a sliding scale of moral relevance when it comes to theft…

if you're gonna steal a car…

steal a fly ride but don't break my windows to steal the linzer tarts off of the console.

if your gonna shoplift…

you best work for the store you're stealing from because fuck the man.

if your gonna steal candy…

best not to steal from a baby because that shit will wreck my review of you on yelp.

and of you're gonna jump the turnstile…

show some balls and jump the goddam turnstile.

don't be like that middle aged lady waiting on the side with a Louis Vuitton bag or knockoff of said brand…

waiting for someone to hit the emergency exit.

I see you.

we all see you you frikkin grifter.

you don't look like you're eating catfood.

you have a Louis Vuitton bag or knockoff of said brand…

buy a damn metro card like the rest a us rubes.

cheapskate.

—the bastard

…on wholesale disdain

the bastard has always been easily disappointed by things.

people.

circumstances.

behaviors.

inconsistency of these things.

simple and formulaic any one or two of these factors never raise an eyebrow

but, all of them create a perfect storm of disappointment.

maybe I'm still tired and jet lagged from my trip to the desert but I know better than that by now.

I'm thinking of writing a book about it.

—the bastard

the captain

baggage claim.

this portly rather nasally sounding fellow kept his leg on the carousel.

moved it whenever a bag hit his foot.

then put it back down.

he had a little bit of the captain in him.

or

he thought that he looked majestic in his track pantss

but he did not.

too bad.

—the bastard

asses and elbows

you see,

there's a reason why the bastard likes the window seat.

first and foremost, I don't have to check my elbow everytime the goddam drink cart rolls by.

secondly, the bastard doesn't have to look at you.

yes ladies across the aisle, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but mayhap you should keep you frikkin hooves in your shoes.

no one wants to see your filthy frikkin feet.

unless you're some manner of foot fetishist.

which the bastard is not.

thirdly and most importantly, the bastard likes the window seat because

HE CAN CLOSE THE GODDAM WINDOW!!!!!!!

this means you jerk. the bastard has been up since 3am and he would have like a small bit of frikkin sleep but that's not at all possible with you reading your fucking tourist guide to fucking Guatemala with the rising sun as your reading light.



god dammity damn.

at least there's coffee on the plane and mötörhead on my phone.

—the bastard

PS: fml! the woman with the window seat apparently likes to sleep with the window open. hell really is traveling with other people. just as well I suppose. the caffeine is doing it's job now.

the more I change…

…the more you stay the same.



"I'm gonna excuse myself for a sec", and my wife heads for the powder room.

and for a few minutes, it's the little lady and I.

I rock the stroller back and forth and tell her that her feet stink.

and who should walk by but, thing1.



SIDEBAR: thing1 and thing2 were my old neighbors from the fhills.


and since the bastard was in the fhills this made sense.


you see, we had to get out early and go to sing song singing and stay out of doors for a while due to the perils of open houses.


you see buyers and sellers can't meet up as some manner of matter/antimatter shit might occur.


so we went to some open houses of our own across the river in what we expect to be our new land.


this is most efficiently completed by getting groceries at trader joes. which puts us in the fhills.

AND WE'RE BACK: so there's thing1 walking away and my ladyfriend returns from the powder room and i tell her who I saw.

"did you say hi?"

"she was walking away and n0t wearing her glasses and knowing what I know about people with glasses and their lack of periphery, i assume that she didn't see me"

and no sooner did these words leave my mouth, did I see thing2.

and she saw me.

and the look was the look as if she had just stepped in dogshit.

you see we haven't really been friendly since the whole "doorgate". besides,  the lowe laid the groundwork for bad relations with her anyway.

and there she was, picking up her lunch at the panera bread, scowling at me.

which is how I will always remember her.

—the bastard

hat trick

"ahhhhhhhhhhh"

"whu"

"ewwwwwwwww"

"izzit time?", the bastard follows up with. you see every distressed utterance from my ladyfriend may mean it's go time.

"nooooo"

"home invasion?, aliens have landed? who shot who in the what now?"

"kitty pooped on the floor"

"god dammit."

now the bastard was never really cat person to begin with but, it's stuff like this that clinches it for me sometimes. i had another 40 minutes of unconsciousness coming to me and poops mcgee here has trashed that.

i mean i'm all upons now. when my ladyfriend is distressed, i think it's go time. baby's on the way. time to grab the bags and head up to the hospital. i don't enjoy my bastard sleep getting interupted.

so we clean up the crap. settle down to enjoy 30 minutes of quietude and the little shit machine jumps up on the bed and starts pissing on the bed.

and it's all i can do to not fling this old ass creature out the window.


really. it was harder work to just start yelling than to toss this beast out the window

hard

fucking

work

so after a stern talking to, and some sheets in the hamper, i feed this jerk who i have ceased calling by his name. i just scowl and call him "cat" the way i'd call someone "jerk".

and i settle down for what could only be phoning in 20 minutes of unwind. this creature irks me. sure my pet craps all over his floor but he's in a frikkin' tank.

at least food will keep him from any more morning theatrics.

but, i'm wrong. apparently an 18 year old cat doesn't do scoldings well. so he throws up his breakfast.

yeah.

i look at the ceiling and say, to the fates, "i didn't need the sleep anyway; go to hell"

so mess cleaned up, i go to work, and after 3 cups of coffee, the bastard still feels like this


i'm kind of hoping that this isn't the bellweather for the day.

carpenter is coming in to finish some crap for the apartment. my ladyfriend and i are making a go at trying to raise a baby in 455 sqare feet so, we're working some furniture solutions. problem is this guy's bush league too.

it never ends.

hopefully, this'll be it. touch wood. the accountant is coming in for a visit. the mofo is picking her up from the airport so we can all have some family time. and by family time, the bastard means be irish. slanche, ye pogues mahone.

—the bastard

...on postponing the universe

the bastard had business in the fhills yesterday.

so after waking up at the crack of noon, the bastard set out in his lil blue pill towards the williamsburg bridge.

traffic on grant street.

asshole in an acura decides that the rules don't apply to him.

goes around everyone by heading into the wrong lane.

he's a danger to us all, i think.

underdog by kasabian queues up on the stereo.

tooling along the nonsense i end up next to him and i have to move in.

he doesn't want that.

so the bastard makes it happen. somewhere in my caffeinated chest, predatory behavior ensues.

he goes around the crowd again and i give him the finger.

flashback: a man who owns a restaurant near my office passed some advice along to a friend of mine. he says to him, "give your problems away to the universe".

it's a very hindu phrase.

the bastard like this phrase. it makes it easy to make your problems less stressy. make the rigors of the day less, well, rigorous. makes your problems less...yours.

give your problems away to the universe.

OK flash forward: fuck that noise.

threatened, jerkinatruck makes a right from the left turn lane. he feels caught up in his own road rage. missed his turn.

the bald man in the little car is shaking his fist at me.

he must be a nazi.

but, actually, i'm not. you're just a dick. and a crappy driver to boot.

chase ended, the bastard makes his right, left, right, to get on the willy bee.

and there he is.

and now he's maneuvering to get in front of me for what would appear to be the "sake" of it.

i laugh.

he's ridiculous.

i make my right to the inner lanes.

jerkinatruck makes his right into the outer lanes making a mess of his chase.

he's caught, i'm not.

sailing over the bridge at 80, i stick out my hand and wave at him in the distance as he becomes part of the intenet and i become a scary story he tells at the dinner table later.

bastard: 1

jerkinatruck: 0

i'll give my anger away to the universe tomorrow. petty victories feel too good this time. what can i say, i'm petty.

—the bastard