Daddy Drinks Because You Cry

I was watching TV a couple weeks ago, and I saw an ad for Dewar’s scotch. The gist of the commercial was that people should drink to their hearts’ desire on Dec. 5, which is Repeal Day. That’s the day the 21^st amendment was officially ratified.

I sat staring at the TV for a good minute and a half after that. I couldn’t believe what Dewar’s was suggesting. As if we didn’t have enough excuses to drink already, they want people to “celebrate” repeal day by, of course, drinking.

I’ll admit I enjoy a drink or nine just as much as anyone else. I just don’t understand why some people feel the overwhelming need to excuse their drinking as some sort of celebratory concomitant. What’s the point of that?

People should drink because they want to, and not because they feel as though it’s the only way to celebrate something.

It’s not like we don’t have enough reasons to tie one on without celebrating Repeal Day. Look at all the excuses we have to drink already:

St Patrick’s Day- We drink green beer to celebrate that one time when the patron saint of Ireland drove all the snakes out by luring them with corned beef and cabbage, or whatever.

Independence Day- We drink to celebrate the signing of our Declaration of Independence. This is probably the best example of a holiday during which drinking makes a lot of sense. One of the major complaints our founding fathers had against the British Crown was that they were getting absolutely ravaged by liquor taxes. I guess that means this country was founded more on the principle of cheap booze than on “freedom” or “equality” or any of that non-alcohol-related garbage.

The best part of Independence Day is that it combines two thing things that, when combined, become exponentially more dangerous: liquor and fireworks. God bless America.

Christmas- Happy birthday, Jesus! Sorry I got drunk at your party and threw up on your shoes.

New Year’s Eve- Now we’re basically just drinking because we had a lot of liquor left over from Christmas, and we don’t want any of it to go bad. I’m all about conservation. Otherwise, we’d have to throw the skunked beer out in a couple months. If you care about the environment, you’ll drink this New Year’s Eve.

Weddings- It’s the joining of two families, both of which probably have a couple creepy members. How else are we supposed to get along for three straight hours?

Bar/Bot Mitzvahs- You’re a man! Pass the wine! For whatever reason, Jewish people really know how to have a good time. That’s probably why they were chosen. (On a completely unrelated note, as I write this, Microsoft Word is adamantly suggesting to me that I should change the word “you’re” to “you is.” Apparently, “You is a man” is now a grammatically sound sentence. I think the IT guys decided to save a few bucks by installing the Ebonics version of Microsoft Office on all the campus computers. I keep having to manually delete “Holla atcha boy” after the end of every declarative sentence.)

Fridays- You’ve worked hard all week. You deserve to reward your own diligence by getting completely hammered and waking up in a pool of your own vomit on Saturday morning.

Saturdays- Obviously, you didn’t party hard enough on Friday, lightweight.

Birthday parties- Muffle your anxieties at the fact that you’re one year closer to death by getting belligerently drunk, hitting on one of your coworkers, and falling asleep on top of your cat.

Any and every camping excursion or fishing trip- Why else would anyone do those things?

Baseball games- This is at the top of the list of things that are never interesting sober.

Halloween- Beer is just candy for grownups, except we’ve finally recognized that asking your neighbors for liquor stopped being cute after that second Drunk in Public charge.

I’m sure I’ve left a ton out, but you get the idea. We already have way too many excuses to drink. Besides, celebrating the repeal of an amendment is perhaps the nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard of.

Nigga Please

I've never, never understood why any black person would ever be offended by the so-called N-word. Lemme break it down like a fraction for ya: "Nigger" is derived from a bastardization of the word "negro," which is, as we all know, Spanish for "black." Over time, it became "negra" because of most Southern whites' drawls. "Negra," then, became "nigra." Finally, "nigra" made way for "nigger." If anything, Southern white people should be insulted by the use of the word "nigger" because it proves that they are incapable of pronouncing a simple two-syllable word without butchering it. How exactly is it offensive? Is it that it reminds black people of the horrible ways in which they were treated in the American South as recently as forty years ago (and, in small pockets, as recently as today)? If so, then why do so many black comedians and rappers use the word (usually in its phonetic form: nigga)? If historical context is the only reason black people find the word offensive, then why is it still used so much? And if it's not the only reason, then what else is there? I'm just tired of the huge double standard we've placed on the word. Either it can be used without reservation, or it should never be used. People need to make up their minds.

"I got a huge phlegm ball in my mouth when I was driving over here. Good thing I had your wedding invitation in my car."

I actually said that to someone. Is that rude? I didn't think so.

I seem to have a problem with blurting things out when it would clearly serve my best interests not to do so. I'm honest. Maybe a little too honest...

The "I call it like it is" defense doesn't fly most of the time. People apparently don't want to know "how it is." At least that's my personal experience. When asked by a girl what kind of hat would look best on her, I said, "A ski mask." Now, in that particular instance, I wasn't "calling it like it was." Obviously, I was joking. Some of the other people around, however, did not think it was funny, which, of course, made it all the funnier to me.

One time, when I was a little, little kid, I saw an ugly kid on an opposing soccer team. Noting that he looked similar (in the non-ugly parts) to one of my own teammates, I remarked to my friend, "Dude, that kid looks like your illegitimate love-child with Barbara Streisand." I wasn't trying to be funny or anything like that. I sincerely thought that was an accurate appraisal of the other kid's looks. The friend thought otherwise.

One day at work, I commented to a coworker that her outfit made her "look like a librarian." I intended no ill-will with such a comment, but she apparently thought I was calling her ugly, or whatever. In my mind, it was an objective observation that held no value judgments. In her mind, I was saying she looked like an old maid or something. This was just a few days after I'd gotten into an argument with the same coworker over whether or not "lite" was a real word (it isn't, and if you say otherwise, I'll tell everyone that you touched me in my bathing suit area).

The list goes on and on and on... I have a notebook filled with jokes about the time I accidentally hit on a forty-year-old woman, the time I said that domestic violence was funny, the time I announced that I thought I was coming down with a wicked case of Down Syndrome, etc.

I know the rules of proper decorum, and if it suits my purposes, I'll actually follow them, but most of the time, I just can't help but say something either entirely inappropriate or grossly offensive. Of course, I love it when people get all pissy about things I say, but since I'm gonna have to get a real job someday, I need to be able to control it. Oh well. Maybe I'll hire some sort of midget to sit on my shoulders and whisper things to say right into my ear. That would be awesome.

People With Good Posture Scare The Hell Out Of Me

There's a guy in my Biopsychology class who sits perfectly erect for the entire duration of the two-hour-long class. He scares the living crap out of me. I realized that I really have a problem with people who have good posture. They're hiding something. People who slouch do so because we're honest about our cynicism concerning the world at large. People with good posture are androids with no feelings, fears, or worries. The same goes for people who make good eye contact, people who wear their pants above their waist, and Canadians.

WGA Strikes; TV Viewers Fail To Notice, Go On With Lives.

I've been keeping up with the WGA strike for the last... oh... seven hours or so, and I have to say I'm fascinated by it all. In the vain interest of possibly getting some Google hits, I will now list a large number of words that may pertain to the issue at hand: late night, Writer's Guild, comedy, drama, TV, television, movies, producers, studios, executives, scripts, scabs, production, DVD, digital, Internet, demands, residuals, support, reruns.

Now that that's out of the way:

I just saw a picture of Tina Fey standing in a picket line, presumably outside New York City's Rockefeller Center, holding a sign that said "On Strike." I actually think Tina Fey is a wonderfully talented writer (one with whom I secretly harbor a desire to work closely one day), but "On Strike"? A blindfolded, retarded monkey on an overdose of LSD could come up with a better phrase to put on a picketing sign. You’d think a bunch of writers would have come up with better slogans than “On Strike.” If this clever wordplay is indicative of the kind of material for which they were actually getting paid just last week, let us all hope that this strike lasts indefinitely. Anyway, between classes, I jotted down a few alternate slogans that are all, in my humble opinion, better than the Bible and/or heroin:

“No more pages until higher wages.”

“Fight for your write.”

“You treat us like Kurds, you don’t get the words.”

“Hey hey! Ho ho! The unfair treatment of writers and story editors and the exploitation of our talents to fill your own fat-cat coffers while we’re forced to endure the unimaginable and unconscionable embarrassment of being paid only once for work that we, in fact, only did once has got to go.” (It's harsh, but it's true.)

“Your characters won’t prattle until we win this battle.”

“Your pockets are fatter because of our chatter.”

“Half of us were already unemployed, and we’ll be willing to sacrifice their potential incomes for months on end if we have to!”

“It’ll come to blows before you get more prose.”

“Corny remakes of crappy 70's TV shows aren’t going to write themselves.”

“Stop with the slighting; let’s get back to writing.”

“You can’t cite our works if we don’t write for you jerks.”

“You’ll have nothing to watch if this contract they botch.”

“My degree in film theory from Ohio State is looking pretty useless right about now.”

“Say goodbye to new pictures unless you loosen your strictures.”

“The AMPTP is a big ol’ sack of crap.”

OK, so maybe I petered out a bit toward the end there, but you get my point. If studio executives are supposed to be compensating writers based on their ability to write, one hopes that their negotiations will be handled by a different person from whomever came up with those signs.