I found a really great post on Craigslist that I thought I would share. If anyone is looking to hire a great young businessman, I have found the solution to all of your problems.
Hello im ready for greatness and this is out to all the up and coming great people i know how to take charge and i want to do business withyou…. im young strong and can do what i want….. lets make connections
At one point, I can’t remember when, using the word fat became tantamount to cussing. Flippancy towards weight became taboo, and meanwhile the North American tectonic plate began sinking lower and lower into the earth’s crust.
Ever noticed how some people find flippancy towards the establishment so shocking? Offer up nearly any amount of disregard for government, academia, common belief, or culture in general: congratulations, you’ve made Instant Pariah! Welcome to the club. Nostradamus is right over there.
Flippancy (or iconoclasm in any sort of manner) is obviously something I enjoy, but the hard part is keeping it intelligent and professional. If I were into sports I could ridicule the Miami Heat, for example, but in doing so I would join the legions of mindless testosterone containers across the country slobbering away in their recliners. See what I did there? Forget ridiculing the Miami Heat! I just ridiculed sports!
A good time for flippancy is when someone is very agitated about something not worth being agitated about. Things like gas prices, or after school programs, or the 1%, or obesity in America, or Proposition 8, or whatever. Because none of these really matter any more than worrying about what brand of soda to buy on your next grocery trip. If they do agitate you, they’re easily solvable. Carpool. Read a book. Save money. Eat less. Move to Massachusetts.
But let’s get back to fat.
The other day I read an article about the top 5 skinniest cities in the United States. They were Boulder, Colo., Bridgeport, Conn., Fort Collins, Colo., Barnstable, Mass., and Santa Barbara, Calif. Now there’s a good reason for these cities to be the skinniest. Colorado is full of hippies with bikes that cost more than their Subaru. Bridgeport and Barnstable are where billionaires live and billionaires cannot be fat. And everyone in Santa Barbara is just naturally a supermodel.
But the author of this article seemed concerned that body image was such an important concern in American culture, because we should, you know, “be okay with who we are” and “curvy is beautiful” and all that stuff. Pssh. Curvy? That’s nice! Obesity in America is more like beached walruses wallowing in a coastline of cinnamon sugar.
Not curvy. Curvy means your hip bone doesn’t protrude or you can’t count your ribs. Curvy does not mean twin moons coming in for collision with couch cushion.
Let’s bring flippancy back.
My mom doesn’t know (until now) but I got her tickets for next month. We’re sitting way up close. I’m such a great son!
Sara Bareilles – Let the Rain
A few days ago one of my friends posted a quote that, I think, succinctly describes the root problem behind many problems today. It was retweeted from some Buddhist meditation account, and it said: We’re sometimes caught in the assumption that we are actually ‘this person’ with these problems.
This tweet is a very good tweet: if you’re a Buddhist. It falls right in line behind your theology of the permanent self, or rebirth, or karma, or the Noble Eightfold Path (essentially, the way to the cessation of suffering). If you believe this, of course you’re not actually this person with these problems. You’re merely part of the universe skipping merrily along at some point on the Noble Eightfold Path. So like I said, makes sense if you’re a Buddhist. Good for you. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s false, and that it’s doubly harmful if you still believe that and aren’t Buddhist.
Even evangelicals, from the progressive to the conservative, tap into this thought in some manner. While the emergent progressive might actually fully question absolute truth & reality in general, even the fundamental conservative pulls some strands of thought from this detachment of reality. They spiritualize nearly everything, building for themselves an alternate spiritual reality in which things really matter.
I’m going to venture deeper into this and try to explain myself.
It’s not inherently bad that folks attempt to spiritualize everything that happens or exists. What tends to become problematic is when this spiritual side of things is fractured from the material; it becomes subconsciously Gnostic even though they might consciously reject Gnosticism. Of course material things aren’t evil, they say, but then they might go on to prove that they find greater righteousness in various forms of pietism or legalistic living.
It swiftly morphs into extrabiblical judgmentalism. You bought a shirt made in China under poor labor conditions, they might say, and therefore you’ve now been knocked down a rung on the ladder of goodness. You are eating organic beef just like God made it, they say, and you go up a rung. You listen to choral gospel chants. Plus one! You’re a farmer. Plus one! You read only enriching theology books. Plus one! You have like a dozen children. Plus one! You pull important holy messages from everything you read & watch. Plus one!
It’s not that these things can’t be spiritual. But what’s bad is the disconnect. What’s bad is taking all of the behaviors of life and creating a false alternate spiritual reality out of them: merely jogging is not enough, so let’s praise jog for glory. Merely eating well is not enough, so let’s eat well because it makes us holier.
What’s the difference? It should all be the same thing. If you’re truly looking for the proper way to live life, then you mix it all in together. Jogging is already good in and of itself. Watching The Office is already good in and of itself, even without drawing important life lessons from each episode. There’s no need to spiritualize everyday behaviors, because we were already meant to do them and to do them well.
That is why I would propose that it is good to just go drive around, not because you’re meditating while you do it or because you’re driving it for God’s glory or because you’re taking a crate of organic asparagus to the homeless shelter…but because it’s just good to drive around in a car. Sometimes it can just be good to go out and shoot a few hundred rounds of ammo. Or to pull a shot of espresso. Or to crochet a doily. Or to drink a glass of wine. Or to rake some leaves. Just for the plain darn heck of it!
Assigning spiritual brownie points to so many actions doesn’t make you holier. If anything it can fracture your worldview and misalign your priorities and mix up your judgments, until even an evangelical begins to regard the spiritual and physical worlds in the same manner that the Buddhist does, which is really not that different than flat-out Gnosticism. Bills? They don’t matter. They’re merely physical. I’m living for heaven. God will take care of me.
The sad part is, it’s difficult these days to get reincarnated. You’ve only got one chance, and that’s a very real chance on a very real Earth, and that’s why you have to pay bills.
I get a kick out of a lot of things, obviously, and I found quite a few recently on a fine piece of work called Craigslist. So I’ll start dissecting a few of these.
You can find things like this, posted just today:
Ark beauty wanted for handsome Fla Prince (50)! If you can still turn heads and you want a great life with a respectful man …send pics and put HARD ROCK in the subject line and don’t forget to say HI BRUCE! Age is only a number…and of course good legs and feet are always a plus! I am a recording artist…and hair stylist!
Let me translate this.
Any Arkansan woman for mediocre Floridan (50)! If you’re somehow still better looking than me and for some reason think that finding mates on Craigslist will result in a harmonious relationship, send me pictures and don’t forget that I’M SUCH A ROCK N ROLLER! I don’t care if you’re old, because I know anyone younger is way out of my league, but you can’t have cankles. I once recorded a song on my iPod…and I also work at a Krazy Kutz behind the mall!
It’s pretty much just common sense, ladies. This handsome Florida Prince is one TV dinner short of an Alabama Thanksgiving. Don’t fall for it. It’s very similar to thinking that Nigerian princes with an inheritance of nearly 11.2 million dollars will give you a cool million of it to help them transfer it to America. Let’s also look at this one:
SWM (32) looking for SWF, 20-30 years old, enjoy playing games and have sense of humor. I’m a bit on the heavy side but I enjoy going to the gym. Love to have dinner and get 2 know u.
Now this only means one thing. Let’s imagine this romantic first date.
After the single white male (32) and the single white female (29) have a great dinner at the All-You-Can-Eat, they go back to his place to relax. The dank man-cave-basement is decorated with posters of fantasy movies from the early 90s and he introduces her to his arcade machine, and they spend five hours playing Gauntlet. Valkyrie, your life force is running out! She giggles and they go further into the dungeon. Wizard, you are about to die! but then the Wizard saves Valkyrie and by the time they reach level 118 the sun is coming up and they grab a few energy drinks and so goes the romantic first date of SWM (32) and SWF (29).
They never see the inside of a gym.
Great song by Manchester Orchestra, a band out of Atlanta formed seven or eight years ago by Andy Hull. As a junior at a private Christian high school in the suburbs, he got sick of his peers and left school. I like him already.
I’ve got friends in all the right places
I know what they want
And I know they don’t want me to stay
I’ve Got Friends – Manchester Orchestra
Warhol never did much for me, now that I think about it. He screenprinted or painted pictures of soup cans and apple crates and Marilyn Monroe, none of which particularly interest me. Yet somehow he managed to rake in the dough, and for that I suppose he deserves some credit. He knew how to know the right people in the right places, we’ll give him that much.
Saturday I walked through a Warhol & Picasso exhibit at High Museum in downtown Atlanta. The museum’s worth the $18 ticket just for the extensive collection of classical & modern European art. Paintings like this, for example:
But walk over to the American section, well, let’s just say that with the exception of a few really good Homers and Whistlers my patriotism didn’t get a huge morale boost:
For crying out loud, I wanted to say, junk this trunk and make room for some Rembrandts. But it’s cute, you insist. No it’s not. It’s disgusting. It was made by a fully grown adult with chewing gum and human hair and there is a flower sprouting out of the butt or something. Nobody, and I say nobody, drives a thousand miles for this.
But in the meantime, the band Karmin played on SNL the other night. I’m pretty glad that SNL has introduced a few lesser-known artists lately; much more interesting than mainstream acts. So listen to some white girl rap!
Brokenhearted – Karmin
I’ve got a trunkload of drafts backlogged up in here that will eventually see the light of day, but I’m heading out of town before sunup tomorrow. So I’m going to leave you with a list of confusing things to ponder:
Now before I throw a wad of jeggings out the window, so to speak, let me throw a few qualifiers & disclaimers out there. I’m talking about voluntary personal style & likes here, not what they wear during house painting, auto maintenance, gardening, or childbirth. This is what you squeeze into during dinner, parties, drinks, shopping, the normal one-two.
Now to describe the style which is best described as white guy who hates being white style.
Example #1 is the young male with a buzz cut, Ed Hardy or Afflicted shirt, loose jeans, and those massive perfectly white & really flat shoes. If he doesn’t already have a rhinestone stud earring, he wants one. He listens to cheap pop rock like Avenged Sevenfold or Linkin Park and drives a lowered Mitsubishi with xenon headlights.
Now to describe the style best described as cheap cookie-cutter Southern babe style.
Example #2 is the young female with straightened hair, North Face jacket, ripped jeans and Uggs. In the summer she changes to a brightly colored tee and flip-flops. She was likely born in Texas and has her nails done in a Vietnamese strip mall salon for $15. Her music of choice? Easy pop, nothing that takes too much effort to understand. Michael Buble, Lady Gaga, Jack Johnson, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj.
More to come, including disaffected hipster who listened to indie music before it was popular style, and perhaps I’ll also try to approach the progressive highly educated fauxtelligent style.
With the full knowledge that no one reads this blog in order to learn about diesel maintenance, I decided to not write about spewing diesel or braided fuel lines or pliers or anything. What kind of gossipy goodness can they glean from in between lines of diesel maintenance? What is he doing? What has he seen? What twisted thoughts is he thinking?
I’m thinking lots of twisted things.
Have a gander at this one. It’s nearly as good as Pink Floyd’s Shine On Crazy Diamond album.
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 – Franz Liszt