Dear ancient, ancient elder monkeys of the road,
Specifically the road I'm on, directly in front of me, going 20 miles per hour, on a major interstate.
I write to you today out of confusion. I've noticed lately that you, and many others like you, have had a sudden onset of affection for a class of automobile usually reserved for bald spots and shrunken penises. Of course I mean clichéd, mid-life crisis sports cars.
You know the ones I mean. Factory stock Corvettes and Porches that come with customized key fobs and license plates that say "TOP GUN". Painted bright hues of Yellow and Red and Orange like beautiful road flowers using their spectrum to attract bees to their pedals. Bees, or in this case, vagina to take back to their rented condo.
But, I digress. I am describing the usual owners of these particular automobiles. Owners that, even though are usually disgusting and annoying, I don't have a problem with. Why? Because a balding former high school quarter back with a large alimony payment and tiny, tiny balls has everything in the world to prove. They get in their BMW Z3 and they hit the road like a banshee escaping the fires of hell.
So what if they have the sense and coordination of a fetus? At least they are away from me.
But you. You people with your hip replacements and your Lasik on both eyes. You don't need to be in these cars. These cars aren't for you. I know they're not for you, because I'm behind you while you drive them. Stopped. In an intersection.
Oh God. Did it happen? Are you dead? Maybe I should get out and che …
Nope! You're awake! There you go. Fucking asshole.
Why did you even get that car? What are you? 60? 65? Get a goddamn Camry and just accept that you are no longer the sex symbol you were during the Spanish American War. You can't just pull up to a Luby's and have any woman you want. Or, at least any woman that is allowed to leave her assisted living bus as long as she signs out.
So what is this car? A way to reclaim your youth? The youth you can't remember along with where you left your shoes or who your grandchildren are? Or is it really a way to get the old wrinkled sex ball rolling again?
I don't think your sporty two seater is going to be the lube machine you're hoping for. Have you ever seen what honey does to a bag of sand? Let me give you a hint. Afterwards, you still have a bag of sand, and you're out a bottle of honey.
You see, sports cars are a symbol that mixes danger with wealth. They are a way to make regular, stupid, ugly men to feel like James Bond. The idea being the speed and the price will excite the young ladies into carnal acts of expression. Young being the operative word.
When you take speed and high dollar and introduce them to the stable of ladies you are eligible for, all you get are strokes and hour long piss and moan sessions about how much milk has gone up. So you get the car to spice up your 85 year marriage and the first time you take it for a spin, the wife is gripping the arm rest and squeezing her eyes shut because she knows you're legally blind in 5 states and it's only a matter of time before you plow right into a telephone pole going, what is that, 28 miles an hour.
But, you don't want to take the car back, because then that would be admitting that your ratio of hair to skin tipped a long time ago and you are, in fact, old. So guess who pays the price.
That's right, me.
A young man in a moderately priced mid-size CAR. Cursing your fragile bones as I realize it's going to take me twice as long to get dog food because the advanced state of atrophy in the driver in front of me is actually causing him to go slower and slower as the muscles that allow him to press the gas pedal deteriorate to goo inside his own leg.
I'm not asking you to floor it, I'm not even asking you to speed, I'm just asking you to stop wasting that vehicle on yourself. Trade it in for a gigantic SUV for your wife that she can use to wipe out a school bus while she's trying to answer her cellular telephone. Give that car to someone who will use it for what it's built for, statutory rape.
You know, someone like a high school track coach or a recently divorced dermatologist.
Just not you, dude. Just not you.
Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen
Trying to choose the lesser of two completely fucked groups of people.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
A Letter to Helpers Concerning Helping
Dear thickheaded, obnoxious people who think they are helping,
You're not.
I feel like there has been some kind of line crossed in your head where you think you can contribute to what I'm doing. Well, let me assure you, that line is still very much there, and will continue to be there until I have some sort of brain trauma or you reveal to me that your stupidity has been a large practical joke on your part this whole time.
Well, if it was, you got me. Because I was just sure that you were a complete fucking moron.
So here's the deal. I'm going to do the thing you asked me to do, and you aren't going to be involved. You're not going to be involved because you can't fix it, which, and follow me here, is why you asked me to be here in the first place. And, yes, I know I'm wasting my time with just coming out with the point of the letter like that right off the bat, but don't worry. I know you have trouble understand sentences that don't have words like "hamburger" and "Deal or No Deal" in them, so I'm going to walk you through this.
I get that you want to be part of the process that makes things that are broken, into things that are working. I get it. But, you have to understand the situation from the point of view of a fixer. I get there, shit is fucked up, and the only thing I see is you standing there kind of shrugging with your arms out.
So, you broke it, and now what? You want to help? What could you possibly bring to the table besides the skill of seeing if something CAN be broken?
Let's imagine this situation in a different setting. Pretend I'm not in your store fixing your computers. Pretend we're in a kitchen and I just found out you ate all the cupcakes for the big bake sale, which is in just two hours. And, with your mouth still stuffed full of chocolate icing and yellow cake, you mumble that you need me to make another batch of 40 and to hurry because I'm going to make us late.
Then you look at me funny when I threaten to jam a soft rubber spatula into your abdomen.
So, now that I've established that I'm mad because you did something you weren't supposed to, let me get on to what you can do to help me fix your situation. It's very easy to remember. Try chanting it, as a little mantra, to help solidify it into memory.
Get the fuck away from me.
Get the fuck away from me.
Got it?
Get. The mother fuck. Away. From. Me.
And while we're at it, here's a heap of things that you can print out and read before I show up to the call in the first place.
1. Don't watch what I'm doing at a distance that allows me to feel the heat of your testicles against the back of my neck as I crouch down to pick up a cable.
2. Don't sigh at the Windows errors EVERY FUCKING TIME THEY POP UP.
3. Don't stand in front of the thing I'm trying to fix. Just writing that one down makes me wish you were dead.
4. Don't ask me what I'm going to try next and expect an explanation you can understand.
5. Don't offer me tools like a hammer and saw and think you're being funny.
6. Don't talk to me about your grandchildren while I'm trying to read through a database.
7. Just don't talk to me at all.
8. Oh really? Your daughter recently decided to become a bail bondsman? That is so interesting. No, I mean it. I'm really thrilled.
9. I lied. I would react to this conversation the same way whether you told me you had just won your weight in gold or if you just told me that the previously mentioned daughter was killed in a car accident. And you were the murderer. Because you had gotten her pregnant. I don't want to talk to you THAT much.
10. Get the fuck away from me.
You have to understand that I have a stressful job. I come in, look down, see the aftermath of your wrath, and am just expected to know which one of these eight atrocities is the problem. It's going to take an investigative team weeks to sift through this wreckage.
If we had robot equality rights, what you just did to this pc would be considered aggravated rape of a minor, and you would go to robot jail. Where they would robot beat your shit and robot pound you in the butt all day while they robot sell your pink ass for robot cigarettes.
But as it is, there won't be any Enforcers bursting through the windows any time soon, so I just have to piece together the poor girl knowing that as soon as I leave, you're going to have your way with her again.
I also have the added bonus to this line of work that after I leave, and you break this thing again, then it will be my fault. Because when dealing with technologies that knuckle dragging dipshits won't take the time to learn, responsibility lies with those who last laid hands on said technology.
It's like a cursed statue to you people.
What? The screen is making beeping noises? Call Chiggie, he touched it last.
But I fixed your printer. I didn't touch your monitor. What? The cables connect everything?
Well, the roads connect the nation. I was going to blame that big turd in my front yard on the neighborhood dogs, but, seeing as there are roadways that would allow you to make it to my house, I'm going to go ahead and blame it on you.
So I'll come fix your screen, if you promise not to shit all over my driveway. You know, like you have been lately.
It all comes down to this. You broke something and need it fixed, and I would be happy to do so. Without you there. Think about other people that fix things. Mechanics tell you to come back later. Doctors make you sit in a little room. Dentists, contractors, electricians, plumbers, all don't interact with you unless absolutely unavoidable.
I'm no different. And you're being a jackass.
Get the fuck away from me.
Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen
Did you pour antifreeze all over the cooling fan? No, it doesn't work like that.
You're not.
I feel like there has been some kind of line crossed in your head where you think you can contribute to what I'm doing. Well, let me assure you, that line is still very much there, and will continue to be there until I have some sort of brain trauma or you reveal to me that your stupidity has been a large practical joke on your part this whole time.
Well, if it was, you got me. Because I was just sure that you were a complete fucking moron.
So here's the deal. I'm going to do the thing you asked me to do, and you aren't going to be involved. You're not going to be involved because you can't fix it, which, and follow me here, is why you asked me to be here in the first place. And, yes, I know I'm wasting my time with just coming out with the point of the letter like that right off the bat, but don't worry. I know you have trouble understand sentences that don't have words like "hamburger" and "Deal or No Deal" in them, so I'm going to walk you through this.
I get that you want to be part of the process that makes things that are broken, into things that are working. I get it. But, you have to understand the situation from the point of view of a fixer. I get there, shit is fucked up, and the only thing I see is you standing there kind of shrugging with your arms out.
So, you broke it, and now what? You want to help? What could you possibly bring to the table besides the skill of seeing if something CAN be broken?
Let's imagine this situation in a different setting. Pretend I'm not in your store fixing your computers. Pretend we're in a kitchen and I just found out you ate all the cupcakes for the big bake sale, which is in just two hours. And, with your mouth still stuffed full of chocolate icing and yellow cake, you mumble that you need me to make another batch of 40 and to hurry because I'm going to make us late.
Then you look at me funny when I threaten to jam a soft rubber spatula into your abdomen.
So, now that I've established that I'm mad because you did something you weren't supposed to, let me get on to what you can do to help me fix your situation. It's very easy to remember. Try chanting it, as a little mantra, to help solidify it into memory.
Get the fuck away from me.
Get the fuck away from me.
Got it?
Get. The mother fuck. Away. From. Me.
And while we're at it, here's a heap of things that you can print out and read before I show up to the call in the first place.
1. Don't watch what I'm doing at a distance that allows me to feel the heat of your testicles against the back of my neck as I crouch down to pick up a cable.
2. Don't sigh at the Windows errors EVERY FUCKING TIME THEY POP UP.
3. Don't stand in front of the thing I'm trying to fix. Just writing that one down makes me wish you were dead.
4. Don't ask me what I'm going to try next and expect an explanation you can understand.
5. Don't offer me tools like a hammer and saw and think you're being funny.
6. Don't talk to me about your grandchildren while I'm trying to read through a database.
7. Just don't talk to me at all.
8. Oh really? Your daughter recently decided to become a bail bondsman? That is so interesting. No, I mean it. I'm really thrilled.
9. I lied. I would react to this conversation the same way whether you told me you had just won your weight in gold or if you just told me that the previously mentioned daughter was killed in a car accident. And you were the murderer. Because you had gotten her pregnant. I don't want to talk to you THAT much.
10. Get the fuck away from me.
You have to understand that I have a stressful job. I come in, look down, see the aftermath of your wrath, and am just expected to know which one of these eight atrocities is the problem. It's going to take an investigative team weeks to sift through this wreckage.
If we had robot equality rights, what you just did to this pc would be considered aggravated rape of a minor, and you would go to robot jail. Where they would robot beat your shit and robot pound you in the butt all day while they robot sell your pink ass for robot cigarettes.
But as it is, there won't be any Enforcers bursting through the windows any time soon, so I just have to piece together the poor girl knowing that as soon as I leave, you're going to have your way with her again.
I also have the added bonus to this line of work that after I leave, and you break this thing again, then it will be my fault. Because when dealing with technologies that knuckle dragging dipshits won't take the time to learn, responsibility lies with those who last laid hands on said technology.
It's like a cursed statue to you people.
What? The screen is making beeping noises? Call Chiggie, he touched it last.
But I fixed your printer. I didn't touch your monitor. What? The cables connect everything?
Well, the roads connect the nation. I was going to blame that big turd in my front yard on the neighborhood dogs, but, seeing as there are roadways that would allow you to make it to my house, I'm going to go ahead and blame it on you.
So I'll come fix your screen, if you promise not to shit all over my driveway. You know, like you have been lately.
It all comes down to this. You broke something and need it fixed, and I would be happy to do so. Without you there. Think about other people that fix things. Mechanics tell you to come back later. Doctors make you sit in a little room. Dentists, contractors, electricians, plumbers, all don't interact with you unless absolutely unavoidable.
I'm no different. And you're being a jackass.
Get the fuck away from me.
Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen
Did you pour antifreeze all over the cooling fan? No, it doesn't work like that.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
A Letter to Living Zombies Concerning Actual Reality
Dear inconsiderate walking slobs, so caught up in your own little universe that you can't even hear me right now can you? Hello? This letter is for you, you ass.
Fuck it.
I write to you today to try to pierce the diamond palace you've built for yourself and educate you on the world outside. That, while uncultivated and dangerous, is full of adventure and fortune.
At least, this is what I would say to someone with a legitimate reason for becoming detached from the world, like, a plane crash victim or a soldier back from war. But, for you, the average modern human, I would put it a little different.
Something like, "please take your eyes off of your iPhone long enough to see that you are pressing against the chair rail on the wall instead of the handle on the exit door. Your outstanding idiocy has reached a level that is actually frightening the other people at the Pizza Hut. You fucking moron."
Now, of course, along with that phrasing I'd also have to scream at the top of my lungs, as well as physically shove and shake you to get your attention. Since in your world of instant-low cost-Bluetooth enabled-wireless internet-phone-plans, complete with mp3 recognition, video camera, and high tensile steel grappling lines, if a person isn't acting like he's afraid of a mummy in an old black and white film reel, well he just isn't even there is he?
At first, I was actually surprised that you even bothered me, being bit of an escapist myself. Ever since I first owned an mp3 player I have rarely left my house without one. I just find that music is such a pleasant contrast to what real life actually sounds like, that it has pretty much become a requirement to me. But, in my defense that's mostly because real life is full of stupid ass people like you. I'm an after effect. A symptom of the illness.
It's the all encompassing entertainment boxes that you carry around that make me cringe when I see them. Because I don't see a GPS that is going to help a lost family find a Holiday Inn Express, or an mp3 player that saves a beach party after someone forgets the CDs, or a video phone so that grandmothers don't ever have to miss their granddaughters' recitals. No, I see a 16 year old girl with a tramp stamp and huge bug eyed sunglasses, moving in slow zigzags in front of me in a Fossil outlet barring my passage to the door.
And what are you wearing? An animal print skirt and cowboy boots? A denim jacket over your t-shirt when it's a hundred and four fucking degrees outside? Dear lord, child, you look like a basket of clothes my mother once gave to Goodwill. Did the [b]phone[/b] tell you to dress like that? I would avert my eyes but that would just sweep my vision to three or four other carbon copies of this girl, all looking at their feet, all slowly wobbling to find their footing as they attempt to walk. If this was a movie and violin music was playing, I would be allowed to shoot you while trying not to be covered in your infected blood.
Of course, the walking dead of Teen Magazine are nothing compared to the bewildering road behavior of those taken over by the thin digital siren call. It's like I've been sucked though the hole from Sliders and shot out in a universe where everyone makes driving decisions like they were the Captain of the Titanic. Just briefly looking up to see a turn coming, rotating the wheel, and expecting everything to go to plan as they glance back down at a clip from the Daily Show. Content that their massive vehicle and slim to none chance of there being anything in front of them make up for acting like a complete retard.
I bet the designers of these devices never even thought this breed of people would come about from their creations. They were thinking Tricorders from Star Trek, Ziggy from Quantum Leap, Rimmer from Red Dwarf. Thinking that the faster Man could receive information the faster he could use it to better his life and his enjoyment of that life.
What they probably didn't count on was you. And by "you" I mean complete idiots. A population of stumbling mouth breathers that have turned Steve Jobs into Herbert West.
I don't mean to attack all internet phone users. There are lots of people I see use them the way I would expect a balanced person to. Getting the phone number to the theater or passing a joke back and forth between friends while they wait on a bench outside a restaurant. The ones I can't stand are the people that can't seem to stop playing portable Bejeweled long enough to keep themselves from rubbing their genitals all over me as they stumble onto my seated form while I wait for a take out order at the deli.
Yeah, that has happened to me, more than once.
Is the draw of entertainment just that powerful? Are you so devoid of any substance whatsoever that you have to fill your every waking moment with nonsensical input from a little portable oracle? You make me scared for the future of our planet. I see you frantically texting your girlfriends while your children sit across from you at the Applebee's doing the exact same thing and all I can think about is how Futurama warned us all not to start making out with robots.
Electro Gonorrhea, people.
Or maybe it's not the pleasure of it. Maybe you just can't stand to be inside your own heads for more than 15 minutes anymore. Is that it? I'm just asking, because without knowing, I just have to assume you are buried in your phone all day because you hate being with yourself.
To me a life full of entertainment is a life devoid of introspection and experience. I picture you on the deck of the Santa Maria as the sailors point to the beautiful naked Indians and you are thumbing through your Yahoo news. I picture Dave texting Frank about how his "round ass" space pod is "so lame" and not noticing the corridor of flickering light opening up before him. I picture Leonardo snapping a quick pic of a pretty brunette with a subtle smile with his 5 mega pixel camera phone and calling it a day.
I don't know. My phone is circa 2002 so I can only report on what I've seen other people doing. Maybe your life, that of a lump of shit staring into a one and quarter inch screen, is a life of pure happiness. Maybe it's like modern meditation and you are one iTune download away from true enlightenment.
I doubt it, but maybe.
For now I will be content with having a Zune for mp3's and podcasts, a cellphone for calls, a computer for the internet, and a GBASP for the occasional traveling game of Metroid. Because, frankly, iPhones and the phones like them, are starting to look like evil goddamn Skynet brain slugs to me.
For now I'll continue to keep my technology separate, so that I may remain separate from my technology.
Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen
He probably wrote this letter with a pen, how quaint
Fuck it.
I write to you today to try to pierce the diamond palace you've built for yourself and educate you on the world outside. That, while uncultivated and dangerous, is full of adventure and fortune.
At least, this is what I would say to someone with a legitimate reason for becoming detached from the world, like, a plane crash victim or a soldier back from war. But, for you, the average modern human, I would put it a little different.
Something like, "please take your eyes off of your iPhone long enough to see that you are pressing against the chair rail on the wall instead of the handle on the exit door. Your outstanding idiocy has reached a level that is actually frightening the other people at the Pizza Hut. You fucking moron."
Now, of course, along with that phrasing I'd also have to scream at the top of my lungs, as well as physically shove and shake you to get your attention. Since in your world of instant-low cost-Bluetooth enabled-wireless internet-phone-plans, complete with mp3 recognition, video camera, and high tensile steel grappling lines, if a person isn't acting like he's afraid of a mummy in an old black and white film reel, well he just isn't even there is he?
At first, I was actually surprised that you even bothered me, being bit of an escapist myself. Ever since I first owned an mp3 player I have rarely left my house without one. I just find that music is such a pleasant contrast to what real life actually sounds like, that it has pretty much become a requirement to me. But, in my defense that's mostly because real life is full of stupid ass people like you. I'm an after effect. A symptom of the illness.
It's the all encompassing entertainment boxes that you carry around that make me cringe when I see them. Because I don't see a GPS that is going to help a lost family find a Holiday Inn Express, or an mp3 player that saves a beach party after someone forgets the CDs, or a video phone so that grandmothers don't ever have to miss their granddaughters' recitals. No, I see a 16 year old girl with a tramp stamp and huge bug eyed sunglasses, moving in slow zigzags in front of me in a Fossil outlet barring my passage to the door.
And what are you wearing? An animal print skirt and cowboy boots? A denim jacket over your t-shirt when it's a hundred and four fucking degrees outside? Dear lord, child, you look like a basket of clothes my mother once gave to Goodwill. Did the [b]phone[/b] tell you to dress like that? I would avert my eyes but that would just sweep my vision to three or four other carbon copies of this girl, all looking at their feet, all slowly wobbling to find their footing as they attempt to walk. If this was a movie and violin music was playing, I would be allowed to shoot you while trying not to be covered in your infected blood.
Of course, the walking dead of Teen Magazine are nothing compared to the bewildering road behavior of those taken over by the thin digital siren call. It's like I've been sucked though the hole from Sliders and shot out in a universe where everyone makes driving decisions like they were the Captain of the Titanic. Just briefly looking up to see a turn coming, rotating the wheel, and expecting everything to go to plan as they glance back down at a clip from the Daily Show. Content that their massive vehicle and slim to none chance of there being anything in front of them make up for acting like a complete retard.
I bet the designers of these devices never even thought this breed of people would come about from their creations. They were thinking Tricorders from Star Trek, Ziggy from Quantum Leap, Rimmer from Red Dwarf. Thinking that the faster Man could receive information the faster he could use it to better his life and his enjoyment of that life.
What they probably didn't count on was you. And by "you" I mean complete idiots. A population of stumbling mouth breathers that have turned Steve Jobs into Herbert West.
I don't mean to attack all internet phone users. There are lots of people I see use them the way I would expect a balanced person to. Getting the phone number to the theater or passing a joke back and forth between friends while they wait on a bench outside a restaurant. The ones I can't stand are the people that can't seem to stop playing portable Bejeweled long enough to keep themselves from rubbing their genitals all over me as they stumble onto my seated form while I wait for a take out order at the deli.
Yeah, that has happened to me, more than once.
Is the draw of entertainment just that powerful? Are you so devoid of any substance whatsoever that you have to fill your every waking moment with nonsensical input from a little portable oracle? You make me scared for the future of our planet. I see you frantically texting your girlfriends while your children sit across from you at the Applebee's doing the exact same thing and all I can think about is how Futurama warned us all not to start making out with robots.
Electro Gonorrhea, people.
Or maybe it's not the pleasure of it. Maybe you just can't stand to be inside your own heads for more than 15 minutes anymore. Is that it? I'm just asking, because without knowing, I just have to assume you are buried in your phone all day because you hate being with yourself.
To me a life full of entertainment is a life devoid of introspection and experience. I picture you on the deck of the Santa Maria as the sailors point to the beautiful naked Indians and you are thumbing through your Yahoo news. I picture Dave texting Frank about how his "round ass" space pod is "so lame" and not noticing the corridor of flickering light opening up before him. I picture Leonardo snapping a quick pic of a pretty brunette with a subtle smile with his 5 mega pixel camera phone and calling it a day.
I don't know. My phone is circa 2002 so I can only report on what I've seen other people doing. Maybe your life, that of a lump of shit staring into a one and quarter inch screen, is a life of pure happiness. Maybe it's like modern meditation and you are one iTune download away from true enlightenment.
I doubt it, but maybe.
For now I will be content with having a Zune for mp3's and podcasts, a cellphone for calls, a computer for the internet, and a GBASP for the occasional traveling game of Metroid. Because, frankly, iPhones and the phones like them, are starting to look like evil goddamn Skynet brain slugs to me.
For now I'll continue to keep my technology separate, so that I may remain separate from my technology.
Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen
He probably wrote this letter with a pen, how quaint
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