You know, for all the American flag-waving and the gung-ho patriotism I often display in these blogs, sometimes I can’t help but be disappointed by many of the people who live here in my beloved U.S. of A. I’m sure that could be said of any nation around the world. Every place has its share of jerks and morons. Some have more than others. I often used to ponder the population of the United States of America and take comfort in the notion that this nation had the least number of jerks and morons “per capita”, particularly when compared to most other places around the globe. Let’s face it: this is one of the greatest places on earth to live.
The more I read the news and see our citizens’ responses to the headlines each day, the more I realize that I am not in fact surrounded only by the wonderful flag-waving Americans that I thought I was, but rather I am equally surrounded by a lot of jerks and morons. I suppose this is to be expected, as we are the world’s melting pot. We have all kinds here, and that’s generally a good thing. But such openness also leaves opportunities for the shallow end of the gene pool to thrive and multiply as well. I guess we have to take the good with the bad.
As I think of themes to write about in this blog, I try to keep a cohesive theme for each one so as not to ramble on in too scatterbrained a fashion. I know I’m not the world’s greatest writer – this stuff is new to me. But when I peruse the news each day while eating my lunch, I’m beginning to find that it’s becoming more and more difficult to settle on just one theme. They way I write, I could probably spew out gobs and gobs of stuff on each news story that piques my interest. I simply don’t have the time to do all that writing, so I try to be selective where I can.
The jerks and morons that I was referring to above seem to have a knack for intruding upon my daily news review. As I see stories on CNN.com, and also commentaries by various CNN-affiliated scholars, columnists, and political pundits, I often see the “Sound Off” section that follows each article that I read. This is the zone where readers can submit their off-the-cuff comments and from-the-hip criticisms of the preceding article. These comment sections often degenerate into a tit-for-tat combat zone for people to engage in online flaming of each others’ posts. I confess that I’ve now succumbed to the fracas and often stop eating my lunch for a bit to compose brilliant little gems of “shut the hell up” to those with whom I disagree. What I’m finding, in retrospect, is that I seem to be alone in my principles out there in the online wilderness. Once in awhile I see a kindred spirit who spouts off the same things that I was just thinking, but more often than not I’m seeing comments from people that really get under my skin and make me lose faith in this country’s citizenry.
In other words, I think the jerks and morons are outbreeding the rest of us. This is not a good trend.
And I don’t just see it online, either. I look out the back window of my house to a playground that is within reasonably close view, and I see jerks and morons “in the making” out there every day. The future generations of jerks and morons are plentiful, and they’re in my backyard. What makes them jerks and morons? Well let me tell you about it…
The playground equipment out there is relatively new – only a few years old now. Within the 2nd year, there was a group of young boys out there with bricks and boulders (left behind by the morons who built the playground), and these youngsters spent the better part of an afternoon trying to break and destroy the partially plastic playcenter with the huge rocks. Thankfully, they really didn’t succeed in accomplishing much other than making a shitload of noise, and leaving some battle scars on the surfaces. Eventually, I had enough and found a way to secretly and anonymously “dissuade” them from continuing. They hopped on their bikes and scrambled for home.
Another summer, I woke up one morning to find spray-painted graffiti all over the plastic slides where children go daily to play. The graffiti, much to my surprise, was in English (instead of illegible street-ganglish), but was full of obscenities. Again, this is a place where parents bring their children to play. By some miracle (presumably at the hands of the park department), the graffiti was gone within a few days. Not sure what they used to remove it, but it was gone. A few days later, there was fresh graffiti right back where it had been. Some of it consisted of more English obscenities, the rest was illegible street-ganglish that no one can read or understand. Again, the graffiti got removed after a period of time, and that issue has thankfully NOT resurfaced.
Recently, I’ve noticed a trend where the adolescents in the neighborhood are beginning to use the playground as a place to hide out from prying eyes or from their parents, and have been hiding out within (or underneath) the playcenter to smoke. At first, they seemed to just be smoking cigarettes – okay, it’s not good, but it’s not the end of the world. All of us probably knew a fellow 12-year old who smoked when we were that age. But one morning I woke up to get ready for work, I looked out the window, and there were four young teens near the playcenter, sitting on a picnic table that they had conveniently “relocated” to put themselves more out of sight from the street. I observed one of them pull out a joint and light up. Mind you, these kids were YOUNG – ages 14-16. I got extremely pissed that at 7:45am on a summer weekday, these punks had the audacity to bring drugs to a public playground in broad daylight and light up like they owned the place. So what did I do? I put on some clothes and sunglasses and took a walk around the long way to get to the park. I succeeded in sneaking up on them from their blind side and surprised them. Sadly, I didn’t catch ‘em in the act of smoking the joint – they must have finished it or tossed it before I rounded the corner. Nevertheless, I proceeded to scream, cuss, and belittle them for a good 5 minutes straight. They were young enough that I clearly instilled some fear in them, because every one of them had a look of shear terror on their faces, and they were addressing me with a polite “yes, sir” or “no, sir” to each rhetorical question I hurled at them. If I hadn’t been so pissed off at them, I probably would have been laughing my ass off at how pathetically scared they all looked. My parting phrase to all of them as I stormed off was, “You little fuckers make me fucking sick.”
That phrase pretty much sums up how I’m beginning to feel in general when I see the youth of America. So many of them are gangster-punk wannabes, tattooed and pierced to the gills, pants down around their knees in honor of their prison-bound “homies”, and sporting ball caps turned around their empty skulls at such weird angles that it doesn’t seem humanly possible to keep the things on their heads without duct tape or glue. And that’s just the teens I see around the neighborhood.
I spend a ridiculous amount of time in bars for some reason, presumably because I like being social and getting out of the house. Or maybe I’m developing a latent drinking problem. But now that I’m a bit older, I’m quickly realizing that I’m too old to fit in with the bar crowd, even in places where the crowd is a mix of ages. The younger, just-turned-twenty-something crowd that I see more and more exhibits the same fashion sense (or lack of it) and the same general gangster-punk attitude as their younger counterparts around the ‘hood. I realize that it’s unrealistic to expect to see civilized, intelligent people in bars on a regular basis. If that’s what I want, I need to make more money and become a yuppie so I can hang out in yacht clubs or country clubs. But I’ve always prided myself in being able to mingle and get along with just about anyone, especially if they’re willing to mingle and get along with me. You know, the mutual respect thing. I dig that. But as I’ve observed the bar scene over the course of many years, I’ve watched a general decline in civility and camaraderie amongst bar patrons.
Once upon a time, a bar was a place where one could go to unwind, have some pleasant conversation, meet interesting people, nurse a cocktail or beer, and just be social. Anymore, it seems like everyone goes to bars to get tanked, sit around and judge everyone else, and make snide comments under their breath to their “friends”. Eventually, as the alcohol kicks in, someone somewhere loses control of their faculties and starts a shoving match with someone else. The friends jump in to either encourage the fight, or perhaps to break it up, but it seldom ever ends well. I’ve seen this scene repeated countless times, and I’m developing a knack for NOT being where the scuffle is. I’ve learned how to dodge the fisticuffs. And I can usually spot the asshole who’s going to start it as soon as I sit down on my barstool. I can read a room like you wouldn’t believe.
Okay, so I’ve whined about the locals long enough. I don’t live in a gated community with a country club, so I guess I shouldn’t expect a civilized crowd when I go to the local watering holes. But what I do get to see is an overall cross-section of middle America going about their business. If this is what makes up middle America, be worried. Be VERY worried. And I don’t even see the real low-income, poverty-stricken side of America. I can’t imagine how scary that must be.
Between what I see on the street every day, and what I read on the Internet news comments every day, I can’t even fathom how this nation is going to survive in the future. And I’m not just talking the distant future when I’m wheelchair-bound and drooling. I’m talking about our future in 2 to 5 years.
The youth in this nation blindly put Obama in office without any thought as to what they were voting for. They just wanted to see a “brotha” get in there, ‘cuz it would be so cool. It fit in with their gangster mentality – put a liberal brotha in office, and we can all legalize pot and get high. We can stop worrying about our jobs ‘cuz we can get more welfare to live on. We can get free healthcare, paid for by “the man”, whoever that is. We can get huge discounts on new cars, too! With Obamessiah as the prez, we can gets all kinds o’ free shit ‘cuz he cool like dat!
The jerks and morons that support this president’s policies and programs have no idea what the repercussions are going to be in the future. It’s laughable to sit back and remember how all the Obamatons flagrantly LAMBASTED the Bush administration for wrecking the economy. Apparently, Bush spent too much, according to them. But I think it’s plain to see now that Obama has spent, and is going to spend, this nation’s economy right into the ground. When it’s all said and done, Obama’s spending will make George W. Bush look like a fiscally responsible genius. The only way to pay for all this bullshit is a major tax hike in all sectors. Sure, the rich will get hit harder with taxes, but so will the rest of us who aren’t rich.
Listen up, all you pot-smoking gangster-wannabes who can almost read this (sorry, this is in English – I don’t speak street-ganglish): quit getting high and pondering your next fucking tattoo. Quit expanding your earlobes with hoops so big I could shoot basketballs through them. Quit worrying about how you can steal someone else’s shit so that you can pay for the parts to pimp out your fucking Ford Focus. Turn down the thumping kicker boxes, because that sorry excuse for music you’re playing SUCKS. Please quit blazing down the expressway on your crotch rockets with one wheel in the air and one foot on the seat – stupidity doesn’t impress me. Quit pretending to be bikers when you’re not – that realm belongs to the Hell’s Angels, the Invaders, and all the other REAL biker gangs that have been around for years. They’re laughing at you. And so am I.
And far be it from me to tell someone else to NOT be judgmental, but for the love of God please stop sitting around the bars acting like your shit doesn’t stink, because your shit stinks worse than you can possibly imagine. So does mine, but I’m not going around in public looking down my nose at everyone who walks into the room, looking to pick them apart. That is, unless it’s one of you gangster-punk wannabes – you nimrods deserve to be picked apart, if not picked off altogether. And to the youth of America: please wise up, stay off drugs, and get an education (if you can). Learn about this foreign concept called RESPECT. Aretha Franklin can teach you more about that, if you’ll turn off your crappy Lil’ Wayne CD long enough to give real music a chance. And a little self-respect should be included in that learning process, in the form of how you present yourself. Freakish tattoos and sagging earlobes that rest on your shoulders do NOT make good impressions when it comes time to get a real job. Unless, of course, you consider a real job to be working at a tattoo parlor. Then it works fine.
I weep for the future of America, and all the nimrods who thought Barack Obama was going to save it. If I may quote Jack Nicholson’s Joker character in the 1989 “Batman” film: “This town needs an enema…” So does this nation.
