Look Like A Terrorist

I know it's human nature to fear the unknown, it's an innate fear that's probably the single biggest reason our caveman ancestors lived long enough to have the kids who had the kids who had the kids who eventually became you and me. It's self-preservation turned to 11.
   But I hear people talking about other people who look like terrorists, and I ain't buying it. Timothy McVeigh, the single worst terrorist in America until 9/11, looked like a guy who used to play on my middle school football team. And if you think middle-school football teams harbor terrorists... well, you'd be right. But they're the kind of terrorists who light paper bags of dog poop on fire on your front doorstep, not the kind who use fertilizer bombs to kill daycare toddlers like Mr. McVeigh.
   What people mean when they say someone 'looks like a terrorist' is that 'someone looks foreign,' or more specifically 'someone is wearing a turban and a robe and a they have olive skin and a long beard.' Because, really, people from Ghana wear turbans and robes, but no one calls them terrorists. And the Amish sport beards that are eerily similar to the ones Muslim mullahs wear, but you wouldn't call anyone Amish a terrorist. They wear suspenders and straw hats, for God's sake.
   I'm in no way an apologist for Muslim extremists - they are dangerous and they are responsible for much of the violence in the world right now - but someone is not a terrorist because of the way they look, they're a terrorist because they're sullen, resentful cowards. It's what's inside that counts.
   Think about it. What if I was visiting, say, Fiji, and the people there had decided that pale white guys wearing uninspired office worker clothes were terrorists? I'd be stopped and frisked on every corner (they have corners in Fiji, right?), my picture would be on the 'no-canoe list,' and they'd have satirical t-shirts of pale white guys in office attire. How fair is that?
   While the Ku Kux Klan is vile and reprehensible, at least they're honest in their extreme bigotry. They don't like anyone who's not a white American Protestant and if you're anything but they'll tell you straight up that's the reason why they hate you. They don't hide behind 'looks like a terrorist.' So, when you think about it, the 'looks like a terrorist' crowd are bigger cowards and losers than the KKK.

It's Still Funny

I'm not eleven years old any more, haven't been for some time. But inside me there's an eleven-year-old who still laughs at the wrong time and at the wrong thing. At least wrong for an adult.
   It's raining in LA today, and rain is a rare commodity in SoCal if you didn't already know. That means Angelenos don't know how to deal with wet pavement of any kind, in a car, on a bike, or on foot. Especially on foot.
   I saw three people fall down today, and - God help me - it was hilarious every time.
   The first was at lunch. Today is Taco Tuesday, which means the building where I work (Ugh...) allows a local taqueria to set up a catering line and cook tacos to order out on the lawn. Evidently it was a half-day at some local school - or the kids were cutting class - and about ten students were availing themselves of the low-price tacos. One kid was harrassing another, slapping him on the back of the head, that kind of thing, and when the other kid had enough and was about to fight back the first kid ran. He hit some wet tiles and SLAP! down he went. It looked like it hurt, but it was also a really good fall, laid out like he was taking a nap. Too funny.
   Driving home through Echo Park I saw a guy in what I thought was a trench coat running for the bus. Turns out it was a bath robe and he was wearing Crocs. In the rain. One wrong step and WHOOOP! down he goes, with the bathrobe belt just dangling in mid-air and one of his purple Crocs sailing over his head. Also hi-larious.
   Finally, I stopped at Trader Joe's for food. As I was leaving I saw a lady quickly approaching the (extremely) slick tiles by the elevator. Before I could think to myself 'Self, she ought to slow down...' she puts a foot on the slick tiles - in baby blue Crocs to match her scrubs - and SLAM! hits the ground like a sack of lead potatoes. Other people were there to help her up and ask her if she was okay, so I just passed her by and tried to hide my smile.
   There are two lessons here. One, it's funny when people fall down. It's probably always been funny and it'll probably always be funny.
   The second lesson is 'don't wear Crocs in the rain, dumb ass.' I would extend that to 'don't ever wear Crocs at all, dumb ass,' but I'll settle for the first one.

This Is Humor?

I don't usually watch sitcoms. I make an exception for The Big Bang Theory - because it's about my people - and I do watch Modern Family from time to time but only because Sophia Vergara is a luscious handful. But tonight I decided to watch some sitcoms that normally I avoid.
   What a colossal crap sandwich.
   Seriously, it's bad. Very bad. Alarmingly bad. Not funny in the least, which is the best you can say, and insulting to boot. I think it was Seinfeld that started the trend of not-funny sitcoms, which continued with Friends and all those related mind-numbingly dull and awful programs. But it's even worse now, if you can believe. A room full of monkeys could write better jokes and situations.
   Or someone with a blog could do the same.
   So here, with absolutely no forethought or editing, is a list of sitcom premises that would do better than everything on TV today. Or at the very least they couldn't be any worse.

A wacky short-order cook leads a double life as a cannibal chef in an underground forbidden-foods club.

A motley collection of ne'er do-well itinerant jugglers decides to leave showbiz and settle in a small town where juggling is illegal. When beanbags are outlawed, will only outlaws have beanbags?

A frazzled young weather girl tries to find love in the big city alongside her work friends, all of whom hate her guts and are secretly trying to murder her.

An agoraphobic man meets a woman under house arrest on video chat. They find love and romance through the internet, and never realize they're next door neighbors.

A Victorian-era genius inventor must deal with the chaos that ensues when his half-wit lummox of a brother moves in with his ill-mannered, dirty family, complete with adorable talking piglet. Will our hero ever perfect the steam-powered zoetrope?

   See? Just off the top of my head and any of those would be better than 'How I Met Your Mother.'
   And I swear to God, if I see any of these ideas become shows I will find you and I will cut you three ways: hard, deep, and repeatedly. Try me.

Arkham Horror

Once a month, when the fog invaded the town after midnight, the citizens of Pelican's Crest locked their doors and stayed away from drafty windows. They never knew exactly what kind of fog it would be, but they knew that no matter what the fog was never a good thing.
   This time, as he watched the thick, puffy mist rolling in from the bay, Benjamin could tell it was an evil fog. Over the years he'd made a study of which kind of fog brought what kind of menace, and Benjy, his friends called him Benjy, knew the different fogs like he knew the way from his bedroom to the refrigerator. Zombie fog showed yellow-green under the street lights, and Dracula fog made noise because of all the bats and rats and centipedes, the 'children of the night' that stayed in the mist. Ancient Old Ones fog made Benjy's skin crawl in a way nothing else did, what with all the half-seen writhing tentacles and the crazy, babbling shrieks from people who'd seen something human beings were never meant to see.
   When he recognized what was coming Benjy grew disappointed. An evil fog was just no fun. Maybe there were a few random burglaries, maybe an armed robbery or two, and there was always some hick or out-of-towner who got caught out in the evil mist and became a serial killer or something, but it was nothing Benjy hadn't seen dozens of times before. Hell, most of the people of Pelican's Crest were already half-evil to begin with, so evil fog didn't affect them much. He almost closed the curtains and went to bed. Almost. But on this new moon – the fog always came when the night was darkest – he decided to peer into the enveloping mist just a bit longer, to see if anything good popped up.
   And that when Benjy saw him. A man in a pinstriped suit.
   He seemed so normal, like a regular guy, but he was walking in the fog like he knew where he was going. Which was right to Benjy's front door. Usually the people caught in evil fog twitched a lot, or scratched their faces, or mumbled to themselves, that kind of thing. Not this guy. He walked straight and tall, and as he passed under the street lights Benjy saw his deeply tanned face and silver-gray hair, his starched white collar, his shining gold watch and rings. And Benjy shivered. This was one seriously evil fog.
   The man knocked on Benjy's door just as if he were a regular guy instead of something that had escaped from the other side. Benjy didn't want to answer the door, he knew he shouldn't, but his feet took him downstairs anyway. Even though he didn't want it to, his hand grabbed the doorknob and twisted.
   The man stood there in his pressed suit, his tanned face grinning a jackal's grin, all teeth and no emotion. He rubbed his hand across his fresh-shaved chin, his pinky ring glinting in the porch light.
   "Hello, I'm from Wall Street," the man said, a serpent's hiss. "You have money in there, I can smell it. Could I come in and help myself to it?"
   No no no no no no no no no no no no no no....
   "Well, sure," Benjy said, his body refusing to obey his commands to run and hide. He felt like someone - or someTHING else - controlled him as he opened his front door wide and stepped aside for the tanned man in the suit.
   "Thank you ever so much," the man hissed, "a rising tide lifts all boats you know."
   "That's what the government tells us," Benjy replied.
   "Did you know I have a boat?" the man said. "A yacht, actually. Paid for it with my 2009 bonus. Some people seemed to think a bonus was... unmerited. What with all the unpleasantness last year."
   "Well, I'm sure you deserved it," Benjy said, the words coming from somewhere else.
   The man just laughed.
   Benjy closed the door. Neither he nor his money were heard from again.

Had About Enough

I stayed late at work today.
   Big deal, you say, who doesn't? Well, not me, for one, and not on a Friday, and not for over eighteen months now. When I was 'between assignments' I didn't have a work to go to, and for the past six months (yeesh...) I've been working as a contractor. When I hit 40 hours it's time to skedaddle, because they ain't paying me for 41. But today I stayed late, to fix problems that weren't even mine to begin with. And I got two words for that.
   Bull and shit.
   I got out of IT work - ostensibly - five years ago, when I went to work in HR. Sure, I was doing IT kind of stuff, but I was on the business side, not in IT. And it was good. So good that I kind of forgot why I was eager to get out of IT in the first place. But I remember now.
   Not only did they expect me fix things I had never seen before, they seemed kind of astonished that I didn't relish the chance to do so. This is the part of IT work that I absolutely hate hate hate hate hate with a passion that rivals Ignatz Mouse's hatred for Krazy Kat. Not only am I supposed to be responsible for other people's crap, I have to stay late and work on someone else's schedule for the privilege.
   I'll say it again. Bull and shit.
   See, years ago, back before I realized what a complete fraud corporate work is (in both the literal and figurative sense) I ended up working 50 - 60 hours a week on a project that was ultimately doomed to fail. And I got no thanks and nothing extra for it. I don't mind hard work, especially if it's my own projects, but slaving for some corporate shill for no other reason than to meet an artificial deadline is just foolishness.
   So let me ask you this: if I let it happen to me again am I a victim, or am I a chump? I'm thinking chump, because I know better. It just took a little reminder of what I moved out to California to escape to bring it all back.
   Time to pull the plug on this, stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Rocktober

I can't believe I haven't gotten up on my soap box about this one yet. Not last year, not this year until now. And this is such a big deal to me too. A mission. A calling. My raison d'etre, if you will. I have but one thing to accomplish in life and it is this:
   I want to get everyone calling this month 'Rocktober.'
   Always and forever. I want the calendar makers to change the calendars, I want the dictionary people to bow to public opinion and rename the months. I want elementary school kids to write 'Rocktober' in their awkward little printing, and bring home 'Rocktober' things to their mothers to hang on the refrigerator.
   I don't remember when exactly I first heard 'Rocktober,' but I can guarantee you it was the late 70's or early 80's on 99.5 KISS-FM, the home of rock-n-roll in San Antonio. Along with Rocktober came Rollvember. And then, in a fit of creativity and hero-worship, they came up with Zep-tember in honor of the best rock band in the history of, like, ever. No, not Hootie and the Blowfish, Led Zeppelin.
   For years now, probably since college when I had a lot of free time on my hands, I've been trying to get people to call this month Rocktober. Usually I'm greeted with a polite chuckle and a sad shake of the head, but a few people have eagerly come on board with me.
   And that's all it's gonna take. Just a few people here, a few there. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know, so to get my goal of having everyone agree that this month is called Rocktober is also going to take time. And perseverance. And maybe giving out candy as an incentive.
   Yeah, that's it. I'm going to give out free candy to people who swear they will use the term 'Rocktober' from now on. You don't even have to sign anything, just believe it in your heart and it'll be true. And I'll pass my free candy out on... oh... let's say Rocktober 31st. That sounds like a good day. If you get free candy on or about Rocktober 31st, you know it came from me, and you know that you're now obligated to use the phrase 'Rocktober' until your time is up.
   Deal? Good...

Modern Magic

Time was, back before the Second Industrial Revolution, back before the germ theory of disease, before the secrets of the atom were revealed, before Man had extended his reach to the Moon and beyond, people believed in magic.
   I'm not talking about sleight of hand or sawing a lady in half, none of that noise, I mean for-real, no-shit magic. Voices from the aether, visitations from beyond, spontaneous generation, spirits in trees and mountains, demons in black cats. The world back then wasn't something to be pondered and taken apart and understood in minute detail, the world was a place full of dark things and entities beyond human comprehension, and you had to remember your tiny place in the grand scheme of things or something was gonna get you. People were afraid.
   But not any more. It seems to me that we're entirely too pleased with ourselves lately, smug without due cause. Sure we can split the atom - some of your light bulbs are probably burning with nuclear juice right now - but that doesn't mean we can really control it. We know just enough to put the energy to use, but we can't clean up the mess it causes. But we think we're hot shit because we can get uranium to release a few particles for us.
   Or take bio-engineering. We can stick fresh genes into a plant or animal, been doing it for years. Most of the corn corporate-farmed cows eat is actually genetically engineered, designed to keep corn worms at bay. But we're so proud of ourselves for eradicating pests we haven't stopped to ask why we're feeding corn to grass-eaters like cows in the first place. Or if there are any consequences to doing that.
   And what about what we're doing to the environment? The defining characteristic of Mankind is our ability to adapt our environment to suit us, no other animal builds and plows and constructs. We're pretty special because we have thumbs and tools and we can make things out of other things. But we do it without regard to the consequences not only to ourselves, but to subsequent generations. Bigger, higher, faster does not always mean better in the long run. But we're glad to leave the solution to our grandkids.
   I think modern Man needs a good healthy dose of old-fashioned fear. We need modern magic, a big, black, nasty unknown to keep us honest and frightened. And in our place. I haven't figured out what the frightening thing is yet, or what modern magic should comrpise - there are so many options - but when I do you all better watch out.

Squatchologist

Over the past several months I've been pondering my options, so to speak. Thinking about what I'm going to do with myself, how I'm going to make a decent living doing something I actually want to do, what sort of a mark I'm going to leave on this society when I'm gone. I hope to make an impact with my novels, of course, but there's no reason fiction has to be my only outlet. I can do other things too. But what...? Then, last night, it hit me right between the eyes. The answer. The thing I can do that will both contribute to society AND make my name a household word. I know now the path my life must take.
   I'm going to find Bigfoot.
   That's right, I'm going to get out there in the wilderness - what little there is left - and find the hairy ape-man of North America. But I'm not going to do it like those other crackpots, I'm going to do it right. I figure I'll need lots of scientific equipment, you know, the kind with lots of lights and dials. I'll need a helicopter too, and an iPad for some reason. And new boots. And some sort of flannel shirt because Squatchologists always wear flannel. Just like Canadians.
   How will that make me a household name? I'm not only going to find Bigfoot, and capture him, and bring him back to display in a series of cross-country railroad stops, I'm also going to make him the darling of the salons. And I don't mean hair salons or nail salons - where they really are talking about you* - I mean the intellectual salons. They still have those, don't they? Places where adults can have a calm, rational discussion about the issues of the day? Like Fox News? HA!
   Hoo-boy.... anyway... That's right, I'm going to make Sasquatch into the Mark Twain of the 21st Century. I'm gonna need corporate sponsorship, of course. I figure Nair would be a good first sponsor, seeing as how I'm gonna need to de-fur Sasquatch to make him presentable. And then maybe a Big and Tall Man store, because Sasquatch is gonna need a tuxedo. And a top hat.
   Yeah... sounds like a plan. All I gotta do first is get out there and find him. How hard could that be?


* my friend Andrea went to one nail salon where the ladies speak Chinese. Andrea speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese but she was born here so she speaks English without an accent. And, evidently, she looks a little more Korean than Chinese, so the ladies assumed she couldn't understand what they were saying. They weren't being nice. At. All.