Morton Malaise

I’m going to be me. I’m not going to label myself anymore as a Libertarian, or a Green, or a Democrat, or Right Wing, or Left Wing, or Republican. I’m going to think on my own. I’m going to have my own ideas about what the Constitution means. I’m going to do what the 300 million people who live in my country’s borders are supposed to do. I’m going to think for myself. I care very deeply for the well-being of others. I refuse to align myself with the myopian bullshit that the mainstream media forces on the plebeians and the hoi polloi. I am intelligent, I can distinguish between right and wrong, and I am not fucking fooled by the lies that television propagates. Fanny Adams ain’t got shit on me. I know that MSNBC and FOX News are full of shit. I know that the DEA is destroying the 4th Amendment. I know that the DARE Program is a gargantuan waste of money. More than any of this, I know that our country will have to make some scary sacrifices to get our debt below a trillion dollars. A TRILLION DOLLARS. That’s a big damn number.

I would love to blog every thought I have had in my life for the last several years. I wish I had something important to say about the great music I’ve heard. I wish I could talk to Ryan Bingham about how his voice scratched across my heart. I wish I had something important to say about this blizzard. I don’t. I know the music I hear, I know the people at whom I get to smile, and I know about the music that makes me happy. I’ve discovered Outlaw in the past few years with Josh. I’ve discovered my perfectly beautiful wife in those same few years. I’ve discovered the beauty of the city of Peoria. I’ve discovered the beauty of myself, and I’ve gotten just a little better at not hating everyone. I care more about the people around me more than I ever have, and I have an amazing woman who smiles at me and wraps her arms around me like no one ever has to thank for it. I married her because she’s the most amazing woman ever. 9 October 2010 will stand forever as the most important date ever for me.

I’m not very good at remembering some things. I don’t remember my first words. I don’t remember the first day of school. I have chosen to forget almost all of my middle school years. I don’t remember the specific moment when I blew my college scholarship. I don’t remember the things I say sometimes. I don’t remember who has heard a story I have to tell and who hasn’t.

Other things, I can recall like some people can pull pictures from a box under their bed and look at. I remember the first time I listened to Pearl Jam’s Ten straight through on my Discman that Chuck Howard sold me. I remember my first car accident. I remember the first time I drove a car over 130 miles per hour. I remember what it felt like the first time I fired a shotgun. I remember sunset over a burning sugarcane field. I remember standing at the end of an offroad trail in Corbett Wildlife Management Area and hearing a silence I’d never heard before and will probably never hear again. I remember the one and only time I stared down the sights of a pistol at another human being.

I remember one thing most of all. I remember the day that I looked at the woman who is now my wife and realized that she might actually be attracted to me. I love her so very much, and every time I get down I go to that picture in my head. We were all leaving a restaurant. A few people and I were standing on the sidewalk and she was backing away because she had to get home to the sitter. I didn’t want her to leave but I didn’t think it was OK for me to ask her to stay. Even if she had, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I was in a wild place in my life and had no business dragging someone as wonderful and grounded as her into it. But I remember it. I remember her running her fingers through her hair and I remember that I thought that she didn’t really want to leave but she had to. I am madly in love with her.

Some things I don’t remember so well. Other things, I can recall like some people can pull pictures from a box under their bed and look at.

On Monday, my cousin found out her baby daughter, who was due to join us in four short weeks, had died in the womb. My cousin had to go through full labor because it happened so late. Only to birth a deceased child. The funeral was this morning. Life is rarely fair or just or kind, but if there’s one thing I wish more than anything else today, it’s that no one ever has to make a casket that small again.

I’m sure everyone has heard AI’s famous “Practice” press conference. Someone took a hiphop beat and an autotuner and made it infinitely more amusing. Also featured are Dennis Green, Joe Namath, and others.

I don’t like watching golf on TV very much. Unfortunately, my current employment situation and the atrocious programming on television during the day have dictated that I watch the US Open. It’s really not terribly bad, but for one thing. WHO THE FUCK LET BERMAN START DOING FUCKING GOLF?!?! His voice makes me want to slice my dick off with a grapefruit spoon. He knows about as much about golf as I do about knitting. The stupid shit he says on NFL PrimeTime and Sportscenter sounds 20 times dumber when he’s talking about golf, because instead of saying stupid shit about something he knows about, which occassionally makes some people somewhere laugh, he says stupid shit about something he doesn’t know about and makes the entire golf-watching world want to slice into his stupid bald head with their lob wedge. I hope he chokes to death on the next load a 12-year-old Thai ladyboy blows down his throat. Fucking asshole.

From Deadspin:

The best subplot of the Stanley Cup Finals is the tale of Marian Hossa, who turned down a long-term deal from Pittsburgh after last year’s Final to join up with the team that vanquished him and his Pengiuns. I bet he didn’t expect to run into those guys again.

Hossa got his wish, riding the Red Wing bandwagon back to the championships round, but now he has to beat his old team if he wants to claim that Cup. I wonder if anyone has reminded him that if he’d stayed with the Penguins, he’d be in the exact same position—or arguably a much improved one the way Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are playing. Oh, and he would be much, much richer. If Hossa wins the title with Detroit, he will look like someone who made a shrewd, calculated (possibly cynical) risk and saw it pay off. If Pittsburgh wins, he will look like a colossal chump who jumped ship at the first sign of trouble and got a much deserved comeuppance.

In that eventuality, people will probably even joke that Hossa was the dead weight that dragged down both losing teams, which isn’t true—he lead the Penguins in playoff goals last year—but will still sting like a mighty bumblebee.

“He came here, we took him in, fell in love with him, made songs for him, cheered for him,” said Pens fan John McClelland, of Squirrel Hill. “Said he wanted a big deal. We offered it to him, then he goes to them for a one-year deal….”

“He abandoned us after the season was over, and I think a lot of people are still angry about that,” said Pens fan Kim Piganell, of Oakdale.

Seriously, no pressure though.

I’m a Red Wings fan. I have been a Red Wings fan since 1990. The Red Wings have been called the Yankees of hockey. There is a very, very clear difference. The Red Wings are classy, they play the game right, and they don’t charge $3,000 to sit next to the glass, even in the playoffs. And we don’t have a fuckwad cheater on our team. GO. WINGS. GO. 5 Stanleys in 12 years like whoa.

Like the wrath of the Looch. It seems Mr. Luciano may have been overserved on Friday night at the Owl’s Nest and got himself into a little trouble.

I, for one, don’t really think it’s a big deal. Phil has taken his share of ribbing on this site in the past, but let’s face it- we all get a little drunk every now and again, and most of us have done something stupid that we would probably never do sober. It’s a shame Phil got the cuffs for this one, and being a local columnist who can be a bit abrasive certainly doesn’t help.

The fact of the matter is, we haven’t heard Phil’s version of the story. As we all know from watching years of Cops, all suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Unfortunately, the court of public opinion is notoriously premature on passing judgement. Especially when the court of public opinion is being held for a person who has rubbed more than a few people the wrong way.

So, good luck Phil. I enjoy your column and hope you can keep doing it for a long time.

Richard Ashcroft was appreciated by the press in the UK and the US as a great songwriter, but he gained only marginal success on American radio. The song “Rolling People” is a favorite of mine from the album Urban Hymns:

I got one more life
Can you see it wasting away?
But I got a plan
Do you understand?

The drugstore wife
I was dealing soul and other white
I won’t shake your hands
‘Cause death has no plans

But here we are the rolling people
Can’t stay for long
We gotta go

So come alive with the rolling people
Don’t ask why
We just know

I’m on a big jet plane
With my briefcase and crime in my veins
I’ll be the first to toast
To my rotten soul

But here we are the rolling people
Don’t ask why
We don’t know

So come alive with the rolling people
Don’t ask why
We just go now
Yeah

Don’t even know which way I’m going to
The lights are on and I am feeling blue
I hope you know which way I’m going to fly
Thank you for my life
I said good night, good-bye

You see me going

But here we are the rolling people
Can’t stay for long
We gotta go

So come alive with the rolling people
Don’t ask why
We don’t know now
Yeah

While reading Autoblog today, I learned of a wonderful, wonderful website called Zapatag. It offers a forum, free of censorship, to vent about the bad drivers we all encounter in the course of our travels, including their plate number and the location. Imagine my relief when I found that my plate wasn’t mentioned. I’m sure BJ will be particularly fond of this website, as his ire at bad driving is pretty apparent and often blogged about.