I’ve wasted my youth.  Pissed it away on drinking, partying, video games, TV, and other forms of time wastes.  I’ve consumed the only precious thing I’ve been given, time.  Spent it on worthless pursuits, if you want to even call them pursuits, complicit with the system in every imaginable way.

You wake up one day to find yourself fragile, finally realizing what all those old people were telling you when you were young.  The realization that when you reach a certain age, you are incapable of recovering the time you’ve pissed away.  And now you most certainly are destructible; recklessness is all of the sudden frowned upon, unlike the days of a teen.  Being set on a path of self destruction usually leads to just that, although at the moment when that realization hits, you’re not ready to fly over the edge.

But the real enigma is what could’ve been, what is the line between wasting time and spending time wisely?

It’s probably a safe bet that we, as comfortable living westerners, waste most of our time inventing excitement and manufacturing “experiences.”  Unless you’re in a real struggle to survive, which these days means making enough money to pay bills and eat, then escape is the only outlet to combat boredom.  Think about it, you have a decent job that pays at least OK, you have a roof over your head, plenty of food that you’ll never ever have to worry about acquiring (at least not in the foreseeable future), and an unending appetite for something more.  What that something more is is intangible, can’t be defined, and is most likely the result of having every basic need taken care of and then some.  A void, I suppose, that needs to be filled.

If I had it to do over again, I’d make different choices.  Who wouldn’t?  Not to avoid mistakes, but to involve myself in more interesting pursuits, other than just shrugging them off and going out to party with my stupid friends.  Now it’s too late to recoup that lost time, but not too late to reinvent and begin something worthwhile.

WARNING:  Contains truthatoods and other factoids that may deter you from working your hardest at your shitty ass job.

Dear Employee,

I would like to thank you for all the hard work, long hours, dedication, and sacrifices you have made to help in my quest to line my pockets with gold.  You’ve made me an extremely wealthy man, and in the process I’ve fed you booze, teased you with hot girls, and given off the illusion that “we care.”  And boy did you buy it!  In fact, you bought it so much that I paid you as little as I could get away with; the bare minimum amount to keep you slaving away for my glorification.

To show my appreciation, I’m spending millions of dollars to throw myself a ridiculous, over blown, ego stroking party, where you’ll be able to stand at the base of a 15′ stage and worship me as I parade around as if I was a rock star.  But don’t even think of getting close to me, and it would probably be best to not make eye contact with me either.  I’ll rope off a special section for those suckers who paid to have the honor to lobby for my company so the laws would land in my favor and I could rake in even more money for myself.  Oh, and there’ll be plenty of booze on hand, but only the first two are free, the rest I’ll be making a huge profit off as you overpay for them with pleasure.

The best part of the party is, it doubles as a PR stunt and actually gets the media thinking that my company is a great exciting place to work!  Instead of sharing the wealth with the people who have worked hard to make me a filthy rich man, I’m spending it on myself.  Is that really a surprise?

Your’s Truly,

Egomaniacal CEO

p.s. Ha! Ha! Fuck you!

Have you heard the new single from the freshly reunited Van Halen with David Lee Roth?  It’ll only take about 10 seconds to figure out it sucks balls and that most likely the rest of the album will suck balls as well.  Not to mention how tired Van Halen has become since 1984 through the Van Hagar years.

The most interesting thing about Van Halen is they were more popular (i.e. sold more records) as the one dimensional Van Hagar than as the original with DLR.  Why?

I think it’s two things.  First, they were more generally appealing as Van Hagar, writing more radio friendly songs and not being even remotely experimentally, unlike the original, more dynamic version.  Second, they found the winning formula with 1984, which rocketed them into popularity.

But there’s something more interesting going on here.  As the edgy, often times experimental Van Halen, they were a better band.  And by better, I don’t mean more musically gifted.  Rather, they had a rabid fan base that anticipated every record, every single, and every concert they produced.  They looked forward to it and was willing to plop down money to be a part of it.  Sure they didn’t make as much money or sell more records or get more radio play, but they had something going that could’ve lasted a very long time, something that Van Hagar destroyed the second they formed.

There’s a big difference between making a record for your truly rabid fans and the general masses.  As a rabid fan, you want them to be pushing the envelope, even if they go a little too far and it’s unlistenable.  You want them to experiment with different styles, different sounds, different instruments even to try and go beyond what you’ve heard from them before.  It’s not always going to work, but your loyal, rabid fans will most likely support you through it, unless, of course, you shit in their mouth and keep producing crap.

Or you shit in their mouth by becoming hugely popular, which is exactly what Van Hagar did.

I’m not saying they sold out.  They couldn’t have, because how could they have known that Van Hagar would be more popular than the original?  But what happened did destroy them, creatively, musically, and financially.  They became hugely popular and as a consequence, they became a commodity.

When you’re making a record for the general population, you can’t be experimental.  You can’t push the envelope, because if you fail, that’s it, people will jump off the bandwagon and abandon you.  So in order to continue the level of popularity, you have to keep churning out the same hit (garbage) and keep following the formula and keep appeasing to the executives, the distributors (radio in this case), and the generic housewife who just a few years early, had no idea who you were.

And the worst part of all, when you reach a level of general popularity, nobody cares any more.  Even though they’re buying the album and going to your concerts, they don’t care.  Because when you eventually fizzle out, when your formula becomes old, they have something else to glom onto, the next big thing.  There’s always someone on your heals who can follow the same formula, except they’re younger, better looking, more appealing, fresh, etc.  When that happens, you’re toast.  Career over.  It’s very hard to recover once you’ve been tossed aside.

Bands achieve longevity by flying under the radar and appealing to their core rabid fans.  As a result, they become richer than any megastar super band.  The lesson here?  At all costs, don’t become a commodity, build something that a handful of people care about and the rest will fall into place.

Now that Christmas has passed, we can all stop giving a shit about the poor and unfortunate for another year.  As long as they get fed and have a few shitty toys for their kids to open on Christmas, that’s really all that needs to be done.  They should be good for the rest of the year.

If you went down to the Wal-Marts and bought a cheap ass toy and put it in the little collection box at your job, then you can feel good knowing you made the most minimal effort possible to help someone celebrate Christmas.  And who knows if those toys actually make it into the hands of kids whose parents really can’t afford it (or they get sold on ebay, or they’re given to kids who don’t really need it).

It’s all good now though, we can go back to forgetting about them.  I’m sure they’ll be around next year.

After his stint in maximum security prison for raping and murdering a reindeer, Santa was released.  Actually, he was more guilty of first degree manslaughter after disposing of the dead reindeer while on his route Christmas Eve.  It (the dead reindeer) fell on a drunk elderly man who just finished earning $20 to jerk off some well-to-do family man.

Now Santa could no longer carry a whip on his jolly rounds, bringing joy to all the children of the Earth.  The whip he used not only to whip his loyal, subservient, repressed reindeer, he also used it, while drunk, to whip girls he found in bikinis.  It was rare during the Christmas season, but every once in a while during his pass over Miami, he’d find some young, hot girl in a bikini just walking around in the middle of the night.  (He even pitched Google on a girl-in-a-bikini-finding-device to install on his slay to make the search easier.)  The authorities decided it was time to take that whip away after his unfortunate incident with the reindeer.

Santa’s biggest problem has always been keeping his elves in line, who he compassionately refers to as his own personal “joy makers.”  Not because they work in a sweat shop building toys for the fat man to keep the spoiled kids happy, but because sometimes, late at night, when Mrs. Clause is on the rag, and Santa has had a few, he slips his Santa dong in their mouth while they are sleeping and proceeds to “date” their mouth.  Franco was his favorite.

After his little run in with the law, and suffering numerous butt rapping in prison, Santa is more feared and revered in the elf community.  Franco contemplates suicide every day now, because Santa is more violent on their little “dates” these days.  And since elves and Santa never die, it’s become his own personal living hell.

Suffice it to say, Santa will never be viewed the same again.  And the experts recommend buying a cork for your butt and an old school hockey mask for your face when you’re sleeping on Christmas Eve.

DRM is your punishment for being a paying customer.  It’s certainly not meant to deal with actual criminals; they’ll get around it regardless.  Rather, DRM is the proverbial guilty until proven innocent.  And more like guilty until proven guilty, because you’ve already given money for the piece of shit zeros and ones, now it’s simply a matter of time before you break the law by breaking the fucking DRM, so you can use the piece of shit zeros and ones as you see fit.  It’s yours after all.

Or maybe it’s time to just stop fucking giving money for the piece of shit.  BitTorrent, I hear, is a snazzy little piece of software goodness that allows you to…you fucking know what it does.  I think “stealing” it, then donating some money directly to the artist is a good system.

So far in my lifetime, I’ve paid for and downloaded one movie from iTunes, Louis CK’s Hilarious.  It’ll be the last, because now I have to join the digital criminal underworld to break the fucking DRM so I can consume it as I please.

Thank you God for giving us greedy corporate America.

Let’s make this rule, a societal rule that it is unlawful to walk around unconscious.  Punishment: death, or at least a severe beating at the hands of everyone who isn’t “checked out.”

Let’s release some angry, hungry Lions, whose only hope of scoring a meal is taking down a weaker, fatter, slower human in a crowded mall.

Let’s make being fat, lazy, stupid, and/or unconscious a penalty, a disadvantage to simply being alive, a punishable offense.

Essentially, let’s stop catering to the weak, and start forcing everyone on this planet to be conscious, alert, and fit at all times.

Is this too harsh?  Is it unfair?  It definitely goes against the system, a system that has rules and laws in place to protect the weak.  A system that is built to keep people fat, lazy and dumb, consuming everything they come across without thought.  Hungry Lions don’t give a fuck, they just want to eat and survive.  A fat lazy human on the other hand?  What’s their need to exist?  What motivates you to keep on living?

A steady diet of video games, T.V. and electronic distractions are exactly what the system has in mind.  Keep stuffing horrible food down their throat and they’ll obey every command.  Keep promising “the good life” and they’ll keep showing up for jobs they hate and spend money on things they don’t really need for the opportunity that someday, they’ll be showered with money and pussy and will never have to try again…ever.

Or maybe I’m just projecting?  Perhaps there is no end goal or a destination that comes from walking around as a mouth breather.  It could be that you’re just born and raised to be a pawn, and that is ordinary, and beyond that you have no understanding.  So it is your life, all you know and ever will, which I suppose in a sense is just fine.  After all, I’ve always believed in the mantra “ignorance is bliss.”  Maybe self awareness is a trait we should strive to eliminate, so we become a collective.  Maybe that’s our destiny as humans?

Unfortunately, there’s no turning back once you come online.  Once the switch flips to bring you into awareness, there’s no turning it off.  The mouth breathers become apparent and stick out like Santa Clause dry humping a telephone pole.  You tend to notice things like that.