What Makes You Laugh 4

I can't help chuckling, putting the coffee pot on and thinking about where the day is going to go and where this presidency is and that faint fog of dread that crawls along the ground these days.  To be clear, we all know how this story ends, right?  Regardless of if he actually helps a single person that actually needed it or makes lasting, real, improvements to any segment of the country that actually needed improvement, it goes like this:

In the waning days of his presidency, he will declare that he was the greatest president to ever overcome what he had to overcome for you, the hardworking, tax paying, glorious American citizen.  In the face of adversity, mountains of prejudice and discrimination to him and his family, unprecedented and unjustified scrutiny and opposition propaganda, and a congress of Democrats that refused to get out of the way of progress and reform and change, he worked tirelessly to make this country the greatest it has ever been since the days of the revolution and he will further declare that "haters gonna hate" and that history will tell the true testament of his tremendousness long after the fake facts have faded.  He will declare the war on terror to be a He will then proceed to throw absolutely everyone he can't use in his businesses under the bus for anything and everything that blew up in his face or turned out to be completely empty campaign gibberish lies and then walk off to one of his golf courses or towers, hopefully never to be heard from again with a half built, useless to begin with, wall as his lasting legacy.

I can't help chuckling because you know that's how it's going to go, right?  Dear god, please just don't let him end up on the motivational speaking tour... his ego, probably won't let him fade into obscurity though. Another thing that makes me laugh is this visual in my head of Donald as a kid with his arm jammed in the bottom of a vending machine absolutely thrilled he found a way to get what he wants out of it without having to risk tipping the machine over onto himself by rocking it, but not realizing just yet that he is stuck...

What Makes You Laugh 3

What has been cracking me up over the last few days is a thought problem.

Everyone works to advance themselves in one way or another.  What happens when you find yourself in a field you can excel at, but have an Achilles heel for?  I am not a negotiator, but the field that I find myself in and doing very well with does not reward merit.  It rewards negotiation.  You are only worth what people are willing to pay for you.  If you would like to price yourself out of their range, you are more than welcome to do so.

The field does not operate in the same ways the rest of the customer service field operates.  If you want a job you can have one and if they ask what you would like to be paid you are welcome to write down whatever number you choose and they will come back to you with the starting and only number and you either say "yes" or you say "no."  Very simple.  Very straightforward.  Very easy.

I have been laughing trying to gauge what I am worth to other people.  In this field, what you are worth is an algorithm whose nuances run deep, parallel, and cross cut with sudden violence and stark contrast with blood and bone on the line should a miscalculation be made.  There is no room for guesswork.  Or is it that there is infinite room for guesswork because time is money and time is beholden to whom.  For whom does the bell toll these days?  For how long can negotiations continue and if you did get what you wanted, when would you feel armored and steeled and learned enough to ask for more?  To demand more.  Hell, if I know.

Given what I know, where I've been, the way I carry the fire like it is my pants on fire when the client's is, the willingness to tax flesh and artery until the tread falls off to make the date agreed on, I still have no idea what those values register on someone else's Richter scale.  I still have no idea what dialing my number means to them when they want something done right, done thorough, and finished to the dotted "I."  In terms of valuation, I don't know what I'm worth, but I'm pretty, inexactly, sure I am a cost effective means to whatever ends are summoned.

I am well trained and well versed in many modes.  Control is lacking, but only because it is not easy to corral 700 horses in one direction at the same time; we manage.  Adaptable, robust, and the commercial ends.

It does crack me up.  Folks tell you so-and-so should be paying you "X" amount of dollars.   Person "C" should have paid you this-and-that.  What is stopping you from paying me what I'm actually worth?  I'm not going to say no to money.  I'm not going to ask for more.  What's stopping you from returning a smile to me the way I gave one to you that you will enjoy much longer than the life span of the paper that passes from my hands to vendors?  That is what has made me laugh lately.

You hear the same thing from so many different people and it makes us wonder if my asking for more money will actually change anything in the right direction.  You've seen my body of work.  You know what I can and cannot yet do.  You know what you can ask me to do.  I know what I can ask us to do.  We are all familiar with one another and are either friends or thoroughly acquainted to a degree that we can rely on one another to follow through on our word.  Why don't you trust me yet to do what I say I can do and have done?  Why do I have to ask for more?

You've seen me operate enough times.  I've worked with you enough times.  If you believe I am some sort of benchmark to keep, you are mistaken.  I am skewing the market low.  What really, what really, cracked me up (because I had no option beyond cackle laughter) was thinking about all of the over paid clowns you rowd and rail about.  Wondering why this clown is somehow ten times more efficient, ten times more reliable, 60 times more faithful, five times more communicative, 100 times more driven, and ten times more accessible and somehow..............   somehow..........  worth less to you than the other, menial, infantry clowns you employ.

Grade S infantry?  "No, I will settle for grade D and pay them like a scientist apprentice."

Maybe, I'm just not cooperative enough.  Eventually the question will boil over and we will have a discussion to resolve points that our sextants align.  In the face of heartache, the only option is irrational, hysterical, laughter.




///Stereolab - "The Free Design" live

What Makes You Laugh 2

This cracked me the hell up yesterday.  As a kid I always had trouble with math.  I remember sitting in the temporary trailer classroom in my AP history class.  It was near the end of the year and the teacher was taking some of his sick days.  He may have actually been sick.  I don't remember.  He was kind of an intense guy.  Everywhere he walked he walked like he was walking into a steady fifteen mile an hour headwind.  He couldn't have been more than five foot six, so the combination of the fast and choppy gait and the constant forward lean he rocked combined to create this Charlie Chaplin silent film physical comedy that left people giggling in his wake.

Advanced Placement history was hard enough, but he wasn't there he would leave worksheets for the less than competent place holder substitutes.  There was a steady stable of substitutes so the substitute you had for German two would in all likelihood be the same one you had a few weeks later for chemistry.  Their job wasn't to teach, it was to keep order first and foremost.  If you learned anything while they were there it was incidental.  The worksheets were usually word finds and other time killers.  I don't know why they didn't just pass out crayons and blank paper.  Wait, I do know.  The number of people who could keep themselves busy inside of poorly airconditioned trailers without devolving into the chaos of recess could be counted on one hand.  Maybe two.  The worksheets that time around were math problems.

I sat near the front.  Parents orders, and there was the standing threat that they might check up on you at any moment and if you weren't there or sitting where they told you to sit there would be a body tax to pay when you got home.  So I'm sitting near the front with this xerox of math problems that's faded blue because school infrastructure updates itself about as often as government infrastructure.  Are those basically the same thing?  I don't know why I think of them as different things.  Maybe it's just the division of public and private that happens so glaringly once you finish high school and realize there was a private system when you were just a pint too, but you were light years away from it then and student loans come preying as soon as you can make that decision yourself.

Anyway, I'm sitting near the front and getting nowhere.  I got beyond the first few algebra problems because they were easy.  I remember getting stuck on this problem that had X and Y on both sides of the equal sign and I was going crazy trying to figure out who the hell would torture someone with that kind of difficulty.  Just start off with the Xs over here and the Ys over there, but how will the children learn about life's complexities if they can't fit the building in their heads?  I couldn't.  Half the classroom was, by then, devolving into a dozen different conversations and spoon fighting and pencil fighting and laughter everywhere and I'm just trying to think because I was told if the worksheet was finished, I could start my homework.  If I finished my homework I could go outside as soon as I got home and the faster you could get out of the house and go play and ride all afternoon and not be around the dead air in that building and the anxiety couched inside the better off you were.  Can't get into trumped up trouble if you're not around to get pegged on made up charges.

The substitute teacher came over after several minutes and asked me if I was okay.  I said yeah, of course, just trying to think.  Turns out I had my eyes closed and my head on my desk and I was rubbing the worksheet on the short naps of my hair and it was making this paper on velcro loop sound that was loud enough to distract him at his desk.  I liked the sound.  I didn't like being interrupted.  To me it was really soothing.  It was helping me focus and draw away from the noise of being there and the difficulty I was having and it kinda sounded like the noise the wind makes when you're in a car with the window down and it goes fwoosh by your ear.  Beautifully white noise.  As soon as he snapped me out of it I couldn't get back there.  I ended up making little drawings of airplanes for the rest of my answers and turned it in at the end of the day.  The answers didn't matter that much.  Check, check minus, check plus.  It was mostly a way of taking attendance.

Yesterday though, I was in a similar way.  I couldn't get the windows I was working on to stay up.  I spent hours reading up on the product.  I installed them correctly.  Insulated them correctly.  Nothing over tightened, nothing under done.  There was a slight bowing, but it shouldn't be affecting the sashes the way it was and it was driving me crazy.  Every time I adjusted them I had to take the window out of the frame, adjust the settings, put the window back in and test it.  Hours into this I began to zone out and go over all of the steps I covered over the last few days, from demolition to installation to fine tuning to the now.  Going over the entire ocean of knowledge accumulated over that time and evaluating each nodule for a potential mistake.  While I was doing the sun went down.  There were no blinds in the window.

Sometimes to help myself think these days, an extension of my head rubbing habit from yesterday, I rub and cup my dick.  It's not a pleasure thing, but it kind of is.  Hearing the sound of the paper rubbing against my skull and feeling that movement and motion put me in a good place to think straight.  I don't rub things on my skull as much anymore, but I do enjoy rubbing my crotch when I'm trying to figure out and navigate particularly difficult things that require brain power.  I guess when my bodies happy, my head is freer to roam.

So I'm standing in front of this window, staring blankly into space and eyes defocused to the point where all I can see is my vague shilouette, while I pound the details of why the hell nothing I'm trying to do with the window sash springs seems to be working, and one hand all the way down my pants cupping my cock and bulls and giving them a little go, and it comes to me:  it's vinyl!  If the screws won't work and the springs cannot be moved or adjusted manually, just shim the frame in and that'll create the pressure to keep the window from falling on its own.  Eureka!

I break out into this massive grin and my eyes come back into focus and I look through my reflection into the darkness beyond the glass with my dick in my hand and the sixty something year old neighbor two yards over is scowling directly at me with a cigarette in his hand with a look of disgust so intense I have not seen anything remotely like it since the last time I "disappointed" my dad and was there face to face to see his closed mindedness   It was hilarious.  My brain immediately searched its data banks for the universal sign language of "oh my god, I was not jerking off to you just now!" but it came up blank so I just carefully took my hand out of my pants, turned off the light and walked out of the room... into the next room over which also had a light on... so I pretty much hid behind the wall of the door until he finished smoking and went back in his house.  I laughed so hard I almost pissed my pants.  Speaking of which I once pissed my pants outside of a bar and the guy who was my ride wasn't done yet so I had to go back in and sit down at the bar and my pants made this ridiculous squishing sound and I had to explain myself.  Not a single person there was as upset as that guy was standing out in his yard yesterday night.

Cracked me the hell up yesterday.

What Makes You Laugh

I was just thinking about unfortunate super powers and I laughed a little bit because of a dream I had.  Not a dream, but a day dream while I was riding.  I was burning down Center Avenue on my bicycle next to a tanker truck that had the high polished aluminum finish that was so glassed I could see my face and helmet and glasses in it when I glanced to my right.  I was going fast enough to pass it, but the light was red so I cruised next to it while we rolled up to the intersection together.

I could of waited, but I was about to pull a right turn at the next light after the stretch of  200 feet, once the next light came up, so I figured (correctly) I would be out of the gate fast enough to beat him there by enough of a long shot and why suck truck exhaust and obstruction when you know what the score already is.  Plus, sometimes it's just fun to flirt with disaster when you know the whale couldn't give two blinks for what you want to do, you being so small and flit a fish.  They know you know if you knew what was good for you, you'll stay away from their fins and wheels, and I for the most part do.  Sometimes I am a reckless jackass, but most of the times, this being one of those times, we both know I'm operating at my own risk and out not to cause trouble and enjoy the sights and speed.  At least that's what I think.

It occurred to me, in day dreaming about it, how awesome it would be to see the tanker explode in slow motion, but not have to actually be there physically, yet have my point of view so close and so slowed down to see it happen.  And then I wondered if, in real time, I would be able to see the flash or if my eyes would be disintegrated and turned to mist before my brain could know what was going on.

The whole thing made me think, in the few seconds before the light turned green, what an awful super power that would be.  The power to make flammable things explode as long as you were close enough to be exploded too.  You wouldn't die, but the one drawback, because super powers with no actual drawback besides responsibility makes you a comic book caricature, would be that you always experience the pain of death even though you are immediately reconstituted and the pain stays fresh.  Furthermore you experience the compounded pain of everyone else who dies in the blast, directly and indirectly, so that even the people that don't immediately die still channel and communicate their living, burn ward, debilitated, living pain for as long as they live directly into your brain beneath the layers upon which drugs can intervene.  So you have to really think about who and what you blow up and when and where, but not necessarily why.

Unfortunate super powers.  Like the power to make yourself drunk.  Like you can think about a specific BAC and put yourself there instantaneously.  Instantaneously.  However, you still get to deal with the health repercussions and you still have to figure out ways around hangovers and you still have to live your life.  But, you get to be as drunk as you feel like, whenever you feel like, because you can call upon a secret power within yourself to generate alcohol directly into your blood stream from your bones.  So, if, for instance, you have painted yourself into a corner and you know you are about to get the ass beating of a lifetime, you can instantly push yourself up to .2 BAC and not feel a thing and then meter yourself when you wake up at a solid .05 and continue to not feel a thing, but still be functional enough to ride a bus to work and do your job and go home.  You could, potentially, never be hung over again, but will likely poop out your foam sponge liver by the time you're 40.  I don't know, man.  Every boring movie would suddenly be interesting.  Every bad hookup would be forgettable, because you could have the power to black out instantaneously.    It would be one hell of an unfortunate super power.

Speaking of explosions, I got an exploding pound today at the gas station.  It was pretty absurd, because it came out of the blue.  From a man who was clearly in his sixties.  I don't know what that means.  I wish I knew why I was attractive to older people.   I have no idea.  And why, of all things, the explosion pound?  Is that what they think we're up to?  Because I have no idea what the kids are up to today being the age that I am, I guess I probably would have no idea what the people my age are up to when I will be his age so I guess I will probably fire shots in the dark after the same fashion when I meet people my age when I am his age so I will probably go for some antiquated (but what I consider timeless) dap and talk about long resolved issues and the merits of industrial music, dub step, and the last relevant artist I knew or maybe go on a good fifteen minute rant about Goldie and underground hip hop by people that sold out decades before.

I have no idea why they love me, but I have no misgivings about loving them back.  I think we ended up talking for a solid five minutes in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes.  When I was walking home I couldn't help snickering a little bit.  Still though, it was nice to connect briefly.  I've been taking some talking point notes in working this up, mostly because I couldn't sleep, still can't, and didn't want to have to comb through my voice recordings to find the parts I wanted to expound upon.

Which brings to the point that people that fire their cum must have a hard time jerking off on short notice.  Not super short notice, but I mean like you just rubbed one out and someone rang your doorbell, but you didn't go get toilet paper because you are almost broke and you're down to your last bit of lotion anyway, and who rings a doorbell at 1 P.M. on Saturday anyway and you're already downstairs opening the door before you realized you spooged four feet away from your computer and your chair is angled in such a way as to avoid spraying your monitor, but is pointed directly into the swatch of sunlight where your cum landed and when your guest comes upstairs to shoot the shit with you it'll be there sparkling like pixie dust on a Pan's head if a Pan's head were floor boards and pixie dust were cum?  Did that turn into a question half way through?  The next time you feel like less of a man for not having rocket cum, just remember it's a two edged talent.  And everything will be okay.

Which is more than I can say about late night commercials.  It seems every commercial after ten at night is about talking to people while jerking off, jerking off better, having sex with strangers, having sex with strangers better, buying cars, buying food that is somehow more expensive than it was last year even though it is in principle the same fucking thing it was the year before, buying cars, buying cars that cost the same for less money somehow and letting strangers jerk you off over the phone if you sit on your hand long enough and download the latest application that lets you download the latest application for getting strangers wet in the pants or making you feel less inadequate in your powers to make strangers wet in the pants.  That and sleep aids that are non-addictive, and what fun is a drug without the blown relationship of all out love?  An excuse, is what that is.  Is what that is?  Nyeh.  Television outside of the hours of ten P.M. and 5 A.M. is garbage anyway, unless it's football.  Plus, we all know commercials are lies.  Sexy, colorful, somewhat intriguing lies.

Kinda sort of brings me to comics.  Comedians.  You like to think that maybe if you met them you'd be good friends, but they actually hate you.  In real life.  Which is in itself a little bit hilarious.  They can't stand you.  But they're so accessible, aren't they?  The trip up is that you get excited and thrilled about the small, obscure, things they don't give two shits about.  Where the common ground lies, they find very little joy because the joy in them is in the spaces where differences are most acute.  I'm kidding.  I'm sure they're nice people in real life if you are a part of the things they don't like.  But they don't like so many things.  Do they do that on purpose?  I suppose this is a bad venue for dissecting comedy.  The dissection simply reminds me of when you tell someone that you're going home, and sometimes suffix that comment with "to jerk off" or "to play some video games and then jerk off" and the person you are talking to comes back with some absurd bullshit like "well, I'm going yachting tomorrow so I should probably turn in."

What the fuck is that?  Number one: I did not ask you what you were doing tomorrow.  Did you decide to throw that in to make me feel worse about what I'm doing for the rest of tonight?  That's kind of fucked up.  It's not like I'm thrilled to say "yeah, my big plans are pretty much encapsulated in two hours of shame followed by sleeping into Saturday until the NCAA games start and then I'll get up and jerk off some more while half watching them and then go back to bed until the bars open and I can thinly veil a little afternoon sousing in catching late afternoon games."  Did you want me to feel bad about myself for not having plans as grand?  Because if you wanted me to feel included in your adventures you could have invited yourself over for the yankfest, but that would have been understandably awkward, but at least give me the chance to say so and decline instead of feeling left out of your life altogether, if that's where we're going.  Because I mean, I only broached the topic of plans so you would know that I know my plans are not as great as yours, but at least you know that I know I'm not leaving the party because I don't want to be there, it's just because I can't over stay my fucking welcome.

I didn't ask you what you were going to go do, and you didn't ask me either, but I'm rolling over.  It's a complement to your party.  Why can't you take a complement?  And that's why comics will never be your friends.  Because you get excited about dumb, irrelevant, shit that is basically the frills and lace on the sides of granny panties to life.  Granted, I'm not going to break into your house, duct tape your wrists together behind your back, drive you out to New England in the middle of the night until dawn, haul you out of the trunk in the middle of nowhere, and shove your face into the leaves by the side of a one lane road and scream "this is Fall!!!  This is what autumn tastes like!!!"  That's just not me.  Plus, who has the time to do that these days?  I don't.  But forgive me if I don't give a !@#$ about the latest tech or music or who's hot on what coast and is performing half price and where.  I'm never going to be in that sphere and the people that are also are not particularly fond of folks like me anyway.

And  that's what's made me laugh these days.