Bucket Drummers

Okay, so there aren’t many left but the few that are still out there must be stopped. It was fun for about a minute in the 80’s or 90’s or whenever it was that the first bucket man put the first bucket drumstick to the first bucket drum but the laughter has definitely died from repetitive beatings. I defy anyone to try and think about anything other than bucket drumming in the presence of bucket drumming. Not possible. Someone just seconds away from figuring out how to win the war on terror waiting for the F train could suddenly have his or her plan obliterated by one of these men and their devil buckets. That’s right, I’m saying that if the bucket drumming continues, the terrorists win. Hey, here’s something I just made up to hammer home my point: Lab rats that were exposed to bucket drumming in a controlled study didn’t show any signs of physical harm but after several minutes they did develop the ability to speak. A dull murmur is more like it but if you put your ear close to their little, stressed out rat mouths you could definitely hear them say, “please stop bucket drumming, please stop bucket drumming, please stop...” I was planning to do a street performer double-header and say something about ignoring those people who dip themselves in silver paint and pretend to be statues, because I think they are lazy and sad, but I have since come to appreciate the fact that they are not bucket drummers and I like any street performer who isn’t a bucket drummer. Except clowns. Nobody likes a street clown.

Mac Geniuses

Obviously if your Nano is acting up (like mine is) or if your MacBook Pro is making a weird “buzzing” noise and beach-balls all the time (like mine does), you should probably skip this exercise. Everyone else, roll with me a while. I mean, here’s the thing...let’s assume, for the moment, that Mac Geniuses are in fact bonafide geniuses. Let’s assume that when you walk up to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store and sit your non-genius ass down you are sitting across from a bonafide genius who, by the way, hangs out in the break room and complains about their dumb-ass genius boss with like 12 other geniuses on a regular basis. Well if you ask me, which you didn’t (which is why people blog), I think Mac is genius hogging. And I think that having all those geniuses in one place is bad for everybody. So I think we should ignore Mac Geniuses until they disperse themselves evenly about the country and the world. In other words, “fan out Mac geniuses” or, as I prefer to say, “fan the fuck out” (okay, I’ve been told I curse too much and didn’t mean to but “fan the fuck out” just feels too good to say). So fan (the fuck) out Mac geniuses. Go to Verizon Wireless. Go to Time Warner Cable. As anyone who has ever dealt with those companies can tell you, their genius levels are at dangerously low, non-genius levels. Go to Detroit and work for some car companies and go to an Airline (just pick one they all basically suck). Go to Wall Street and Washington and lastly, and I’ll admit this is for purely selfish, “greater New York metropolitan area” reasons, can some of you, just a few, please go to Duane Reade? Please? Go there so that the next time I go there to buy a pack of gum, I won’t need to wait an hour to get rung up. Go there so that when I put my pack of gum on the counter you won’t look shocked, amazed and offended that I am asking you to ring something up. Like I just walked in on you taking a crap or something and you are genuinely shocked and amazed to see me, and that I am asking you, a person whose job it is to ring things up, to ring something up. Please? Sorry, that was so self-centered of me. How odd for a person writing a blog to be so self-centered and bore his 6 or 7 readers with something so self-centered. Right. Back to the wider world. Fan out Mac Geniuses, or fan the fuck out, whichever one you prefer. The non-genius world needs you. Duane Reade needs you. And I need you to fix my Nano, and the weird buzzing noise, and the beach-balling...

Jesus

He has been a person to watch every year for approximately 2009 years but other than doing a bunch of cool stuff while he was actually walking the earth, let's face it, he’s come up pretty light in the miracle-working category ever since he died for your sins. Yeah thanks for sinning dude, you killed Jesus. Oh yeah, but he loves you anyway. What? Okay, so occasionally somebody scores a winning goal or knocks another man unconscious and he is behind it all but other than that it’s been a pretty bad showing. So let’s give him the year off. Can’t hurt. Maybe then he’ll descend from the heavens and heal the sick, feed the hungry, stop priests from buggering little boys or at the very least save us from people who still wear Crocs.

Vegan Dog Owners

A lot of dog owners love to say that their dogs are like people and then talk to and treat them as such. So I’m assuming that vegans who feed their dogs vegan dog food are doing so because they think that their dogs are not only like people but like vegan ones. Well I have news for you, vegan dog owners. If your dog was a person, he would be the kind of person that would walk into your meat-eating mother’s house, take a long cool drink of water from her toilet, then lick his balls for an hour, and then eat 3 pounds of raw chop-meat off of her kitchen counter. Your tempeh patties, on the other hand, would remain blissfully untouched.

Audiophile Headphone Wearers

"Hey, look at my gigantic, studio quality, audiophile headphones upon which I listen to my shitty collection of pirated MP3’s comprised of bands that are so obscure that they haven’t even heard of themselves." Nope. Not looking...ignoring.

Switzerland

I haven’t ever really paid too much attention to Switzerland but I think 2009 should be the year we step it up and make ignoring Switzerland an actual movement. The Belgians make pretty good chocolate, the Japanese make a decent watch and it's probably safe to say that the big cuckoo clock purchase you were going to make this year can wait 'til next. Maybe, if we ignore the Swiss for a while, they’ll wake up, join the world community and start some wars and shit.

The Amish

I was fine with the Amish until they started running those infomercials for those faux fireplace, heater things. First of all, doesn't the production of an infomercial violate some tenet of technophobic Amish law? And isn’t that sort of thing the Amish equivalent of an elevator shaft leading straight into the vice-like grip of the Devil's anus? Beyond that, what’s up with only allowing 2 per family? How dare you try and put a limit on my rights as an American consumer Amish people! It’s Amish attitudes like that that put us into the bad economic situation that we’re in. Man, the Amish are getting me so worked up, now I’m thinking that maybe we shouldn’t ignore them. Maybe we should keep an eye on the Amish or perhaps, even better, we should beat them senseless with some of their lovely, handcrafted furniture.

Celebrity Rehab TV

If John Bonham were alive today, do you think he would have allowed himself to be filmed crying because someone took his cell phone away? Man-up, choke on some vomit and die already. Okay, don't do that. John Bonham did that and he was the best rock drummer that ever lived, so don't go spoiling his vomit-choking legacy. Go die some other way. However you do it, can you please do it somewhere we can't see it? Don't ruin celebrity for us man (truth is, it was ruined a long time ago but this does feel to me like the final kick in shriveled nuts of celebrity, if celebrity had nuts, and they were shriveled, and could be kicked). The celebrity life is the life all of us non-celebrities think we want to be living, so please, be responsible and make it seem cooler than it really is. Leave reality TV to "real" people and by "real" people I mean really sad people that will make us all feel better about ourselves. I want to believe that even D-grade celebrities are living a way cooler life than I am but hey, you have now made it abundantly clear that I am living a way cooler life than Bobby Wheeler from "Taxi". I am living a way cooler life than the hot guy, that got all the hot babes (while driving a cab by the way) on "Taxi". That's a lot of pressure dude. I don' t need that kind of pressure. Seriously.

Facebook Status Updates

If there is a level of not giving a shit greater than me not giving a shit that you "can’t decide what to pack for your trip to Bali”, or that you "think edamame is really yummy” I don’t know what it is. Oh yeah, I remember seeing a video of someone’s baby on Facebook titled “first time eating solids” and I distinctly remember not giving a shit about that, a lot. Can’t we all please just go back to using the Internet for the porn pipeline it was meant to be? Imagining sex with people you don’t know makes sense. Imagining friendships with people you do know, but have made the conscious decision not to actually be friends with, is beyond retarded.

Ashley Simpson's Boyfriend

Perhaps you were already ignoring him. Pardon the interruption...please feel free to go back to what you were doing.

Pandemics

Shouldn’t we all be bleeding from the eyes and foaming from the ass from some super flu by now? What the fuck? You promised us the super-flu and all we got was the collapse of the world economy? I want my money back. No, seriously. I’m wasting my time writing a blog...I want my money back.

Hot Chicks

Hot chicks can’t leave the house without every guy - the young, the old, the mildly-to-majorly psychologically unwell - looking at them and immediately making them the star of some badly produced mental porno. That has got to suck. They also tend to be willfully ignorant of the fact that most of the stuff that the "magical hot chick wind" blows their way (money, sex, free meatball parm sandwiches) has more to do with what they look like than anything else. So let's ignore them for a while and see what happens. Think of it as a volunteer, public service project on their behalf. I mean, every do-gooder d-bag for miles is out on the streets making you feel guilty for not doing enough to save the children, baby pandas or their own lazy, drug addicted ass, but who's out there saving the hot chicks? You are. Feel good about that.

Op Ed Page of the New York Times

I’m tired of reading brilliant Op Ed pieces by the likes of Krugman and Friedman only to see so little of what they say put to good use. From now on, if you are that smart, you should be forced to stop writing books and editorials, and going on Charlie Rose, and made to go do something in the area of your expertise. If that's too much to ask , then go out and give handjobs to the homeless or something but please stop reminding us of how brilliant your grasp of the issues are as compared to the people who are actually in charge of this shit. Thanks.