Experience Hoarding- The real funny truth and nothin' but.

Experience Hoarders

Disclaimer: I curse in this blog a whole lot. If you are offended by that, please understand that my outlet is in my writing and I don't expect this to be printed out for anyone under 16 years old as quality reading material. 

What in the hell does that mean exactly? Well, I'm here to tell you what my new term is, and how it's defined.. as well as...What it means in your life, and how you can avoid being a douche.


The other day(actually like 2 months ago) I was at this party with several people that I haven't seen in years. I've "seen" them, as in I've looked at their posts on a 2x4 screen... but I haven't SEEN them in a 3-D environment sharing the same atmospheric elements.

 I was super stoked to go to this shindig and catch up with everyone, tell stories, have what the old humans call, "a conversation." However, about 4.5 minutes into this gorilla sized let down, I looked around the room and e'rrrbody was on 'dey phones. ERRRRRBODY. They were tagging pictures, posting updates, taking photos of their fucking overpriced bullshit liqueur and as I was sitting there sharing the same air with these fucks, I started getting "notifications."

"_________ is hangin' at ________ with peeps from ol' school days! Having the most AMAZING time, jealous world?" 

"_________ is at the dopest bar in Dallas kickin' it old school with some bad ass AMAZING biaatches! Wooooot! OMG I love this place! Take a looksy at my drinksy, stay classy San Diego! :) " 

(and now my personal favorite)

"ROFL, Melodee Lenz is like the FUNNIEST person in THA WORRRRRLD. It's so amazing to be here with all my super insane friends. lol." 
(this one was tagged with a photo of me looking lonely and staring distantly into the darker part of the bar)

Let me say something... I hadn't told any funny stories at that point when the notifications started streaming to my iPhone. I wasn't "on" yet because to be "on" one must gain some momentum within the perimeters of an ACTUAL CONVERSATIONAL DIALOGUE.

I had to relieve myself in the restroom and regain the personal strength I lost when I started receiving these notifications of how awesome this party was- because I feared ( like you do) that I had eagle-eyed the wrong party and possibly could be (as I've historically always feared about myself) crazy.

Like they say... if you question whether or not you're crazy, you most likely aren't crazy.  "They" say a lot of dumb shit though so....

The night went on and there were some conversations peppered into the duration of time between 7pm and 2am, but for the most part it was pretty fuckin' lame.

Jump to NEXT DAY...
I wake up with a barrel full of notifications regarding comments and "likes" and one fingered approvals of my fucking "amazing" night out. That my dear sir is quite queer because I don't remember it as such? How fuckin' daft of me! How could I not recall such an explosive night of "amazing" shit? "AMAZING" drinks, "AMAZING food," "AMAZING bartenders named Raj," an "AMAZING vibe here..."

Fuck you, it's not amazing, stop fucking saying everything is amazing, don't you remember the story about the boy that cried fuckin' WOLF you assholes? Yeah, when a fuckin' unknown metallic hover craft comes in through the Einstein Rosen bridge fuckin' wormhole and lands in the middle of the field during the Superbowl half-time show crushing Paul McCartney's piano from the EMF waves...what fuckin' word are you gonna say then bitch? Oh what? What? You can't say AMAZING because you fuckin' used up all your amazing punch card slots! ... and that was THE wolf.

I digress.

This whole thing got me ta' thinkin'.

I started playing a little game I call, "what really happened last night?" This definitely got me out of the house more because to play this game you have to actually GO to the places you are invited to. I started going to various get-togethers, birthday parties, cook outs, events, etc... I would take notes in my head about the 'said' event and then I'd compare my notes to the shit that would surface on Twitter or Facebook the next day. They NEVER match up. I began reading the "feed" on these sites and came to the conclusion that most people now are hoarders. Experience hoarders.

They hoard their experiences by storing them in their phones. These experiences became so cluttered that they are now spilling out of the phone and into your phone. If this were actual physical objects we're talking about here- the entire US would be buried in blurry edged washed-out 1975 filter photos and 10 second film reels and the muffled sounds of "hilarious" custom ringtones or notification bells... the occasional hand that shoots out from the rubble to take a "selfy," etc...

This term "Experience Hoarder" popped into my head after watching a live performance  and having ridiculously great seats, and seeing everyone else around me-Also with great seats- watching this show through the 2x4 screen of their iPhones. They aren't IN the experience, they are hoarding it for their status update and they will never watch it again but will recall it as "amazing."

Now it's time to call myself out and take the plank out of my own eye...

I was syncing my iPhone about 2 months ago and it was taking FOREVER. I got this shitty pop-up Apple "your computer doesn't hold all this shit Melodee" window. I was so angry at my devices... "work damn you, do what I say, I'm the boss of you Come the fuck ON! What do you mean there's no space for my collection of self-important shit?"

 There wasn't.

 I had actually crashed my hard drive's motivation with the amount of self-deemed important shit. It didn't fit.

That's when you have to evaluate the following:
1. What is actually on my phone?
2. What is that photo/video even mean?
3. When did any of that happen?
4. Why was I there?
5. Is it important enough to keep?

By the time you get to #5 on that list the very nucleus of that internal correspondence with yourself starts to fight back like a primitive pagan forest demon in a cleansing ceremony. "BLAHHHHH, GRRR, FUCK YOU IT'S IMPORTANT, YOU FUCKIN' I WILL FUCKIN' RAPE YOU AND I DESERVE TO BE INSIDE THINGS, I AM THAT ONE TIME WHEN YOU WENT TO THAT ONE PLACE.. DON'T YOU REMEMBER YOU FUCKING AMOEBA, YOU FUCKING SINGLE CELLED BITCH, I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE ADMONISHED AND REVERED AND I WILL GRRRRR STAY IN YOUR DEVICES GRRRRR."

Remember that time I was wondering about whether or not I was crazy? (hi hat drum riff) Lil' joke recall there folks.

I had a choice. I could either buy another computer to store my forest demon on, or, I could delete some shit. Some of you might be saying out loud, "well, why doesn't she just get one of those external USB drives to store the forest demon on?" Because I did that, A LOT, and I have three of them full to the brim with my self-important shit and 2 out of the three are busted and will cost more than my car's blue book value to get fixed. AND AND AND... the one I GOT fixed was stolen out of my car on the very night I got it back.  So that's why. Got it? Good. Moving along...

This philosophical sage that lives in part of my head began to really analyze the societal implications to our culture by hoarding experiences. Here's why it's a perfect word to describe what we are doing as a society...

Hoarders start off by liking something. They start liking.
Here's an example-
You know those nice ass brown paper bags with the handles on them? It begins by thinking, "I find these nice ass bags useful and I'd like to make sure I always have this useful tool in my life." There might have been one or two times when the bag's handle broke while they were taking their lunch into work. They get angry because the nice ass free bag let them down. Then they think, "I'll have to always make sure I use TWO of them just in case." Someone else gives them one of those REALLY nice ass reusable bags one day and says, "Hey Scottie, looky here! Here's a better version of what you have! You want one? I have several." Scottie agrees and then thinks, "I find these bad ass reusable bags pretty useful! I still like my old brown paper bags with the handle on them though? Well, I guess you can't have enough bags in your life because you'll always need to put your shit into something, right?" 
Before you know it, they have acquired a monumental amount of bullshit just because they had the bags to put it in. It all becomes "useful" and then it avalanches into the dirty swamp of the forest demon who tells them that it's all real real real important...And that's when then the City of Dallas comes and kicks you, your suffocated dog, and your wife with stage 5 smokers lung and an empty O2 tank, out of the house, deeming the house "hazardous," and NOW all you want is like one or eight of those paper bags out of there.  Maybe like five of them...

Let's replace "bags" with "devices"  and "house" with "social networking site" in the story above and you'll get my point... the dog is still your dog and your lungy wife with no oxygen is still exactly that... in that story I mean.

Saying all of that, I MUST say this...
I'm not one of those people who say, "I just wish all this internet stuff would just go away. I just hate all of it. I just really do. I just think I will keep my 1999 flip phone because it's a phone and if you won't talk to me on the phone then we aren't friends and I'm old and I'm fucking old and I want things to never change and that's why I never had any balls to get out of my bad marriage or quit the job that makes me have reoccurring nightmares about dying in a swivel chair...No, no sir. I want to stay the fucking same. I like same. I hate change. I believe in America and support the troops and if you can't just call me instead of texting me then I just don't have to have friends I guess... I'm fucking old fashioned I guess, call me old fuckin' fashioned, that's me, I guess I'm just ROOTED IN THE SOIL OF MEDIOCRACY."  Yes you are.

So I'm not that, that's my point.

I think there's a real happy middle ground between old dehydrated dreams- afraid of change- whiny- bitchy- negative- technologically on-purpose retarded person Compared To... hipster with scoliosis from looking down all the time "uploading amazing experiences" asshole... there's a fuckin' middle. I'm that middle. I will be the Middle's Mascot. Put me in a fuckin' oreo costume with an arrow pointing to the icing part, saying "Melodee is this part, the middle."

The question is- Is social media a good thing?
Here's the deal... Yes. Yes it is. I know the bad shit is what everyone is building their case study out of, but let me give you an example of how it's good...

In the Kenya mall attacks recently, the ONLY reason anyone lived in that ordeal was because of texting and tweeting. The phone people who called up 911 and had to  TALK to someone, were capped in the fuckin' head. Not a ninja move if you're HIDING from masked gunmen with automatic baller ass guns and an agenda to murder the capitalistic pigs who shop in malls. (their words, not mine) I heard an interview with the head of the Red Cross in that area and he said that there would've been no way they would've been prepared for that level of emergency response deployment if TWITTER feed had not been streaming in from within the kill zone. It was as he said, "the most efficient means of communication at that time."

Another example I'll give is of a global value.... Fifteen years ago people thought of anyone outside of the US and UK as being like fuckin' neanderthals with no culture beatin' on cave walls and cookin' up chicken feet. The kind of power that the world of social networking is creating, has/is uniting the world in more ways than it could possibly divide us. Nobody would be shocked, even in rural parts of West Virginia(dig), to see someone "dressed diffrnt" or "havin' opinions about gays and Jews," or whatever else...  We have a new problem we've created which is "cyber bullying" but that's just hilarious to me because I remember "sticks and stones....."

Here's the whole tired truth of where we are, in my stupid ass opinion, as a society present day...

Historically speaking, any great invention that changes the way in which we conduct daily life has always been met with 2 types of reactions. The first group being an outpouring of energy and excitement which only adds to the advancement of 'said' invention. The second group being the fear of invention overtaking what is established in society as being "good enough".

The  first group get's a bit overzealous in the beginning of that invention and changes the usage and function of it with lightning speed thus propelling the invention and daily life into such rapid social transitioning that it gives the appearance, in that whirlwind of momentum, as being the very undoing of culture as we know it. Tower of Babel type thinking.  And lo, I do love a great conspiracy theory or doomsday prediction, but fuckin' FACEBOOK and TWITTER aren't ever going to be bad ass enough to make God himself destroy it with a thunderous roar of angelic warriors charging toward the..... It's fuckin' Facebook, I mean come on.

Look at the invention of radio. Families were rushing out to buy radios and gathering around them instead of the dinner table and listening to stories being acted out and songs being performed and comedians doing their 5 minutes, etc...  There was a backlash of social/religious/political leaders saying that radio was "replacing family time at the dinner table and corrupting moral values," and "women were going to stop cooking and the family unit was going to turn into a new babylon of sin and mayhem."

  WE WOULDN'T HAVE WON THE WAR WITHOUT RADIO. Radio was THE thing that united people. It created movements by being a platform of which information could be shared en masse.  This tool, "the radio" could be used to gather up civilians to help with the war effort ...or it could be used to brainwash an entire nation into thinking Hitler had some good ideas. And there's that dark side again damn it.

Humans create. We create new things to make the old things work better. Humans become fascinated with their creations and exploit them. They eventually reel it in to a rational and practical application of that invention and then everyone will think that invention is perfectly acceptable... and that is exactly when some new smart game-changer will try to make it better....

Rinse and repeat until the end of time.

Enjoy life... even your fake one on Facebook. Please be aware though that it is fake. It's fake. You ARE NOT having that much fun and you are making other people depressed because they envy your life and if they only knew that nobody actually gave three shits that you were there, they'd probably not stay at home and eat an entire 23 gallon trough of pizza rolls... which is contributing to obesity in this country and making my grocery store shopping difficult because of so many fucking fat people in electric carts blocking out the aisle and talking about how fucking tired they are... STOP EATING!  But seriously... keep it kind of real once in a while.  Trust me, it feels great. You might even be called a 'cyber bully,' but if someone calls you that, you can prove that you are in fact a REAL bully by getting their address and kicking their ass.

Enjoy invention, even the ones you don't fully understand yet...Like that As Seen on TV pillow thing with the lights in it...how do you even sleep with that on? See there... I don't understand the luminescent pillow but I also know that it exists and respect that some people may want a rave blasting in their face all night long. You know?

But don't forget that humanity was involved in the creation of all of this shit.
So wake up, look around, make eye contact with the people you are tweeting about, and stop hoarding the experience. It can't be an experience if you aren't actually experiencing it.

If you start having out-of-the-phone experiences, you won't have to hoard it.
Your brain will hoard it for you and the playback gets better with time.

Hulk, Freddy Kruger, & Me

Hi World. 


Many of you have seen my latest glamour shot- the Freddy Kruger neck? Which by the way one can't get unless one "builds to that."  God graced me with having perfect skin in my teenage years and most of my 20's... when I hit 32 years old, I no longer had good skin and instead I looked like a bad after-school movie on teenage angst. 
I decided about a week ago that I'd try ProActive AGAIN and this time I wouldn't puss out and not do it "by the book." (unlike previous attempts when I decided that I was too awesome for steps 2 & 4) Don't worry, this blog isn't about acne. 


So...For the last week I've been "by the book" on the ProActive treatment as well as being "by the book" with every aspect of my life currently. I've been running myself ragged with multiple gigs on the same day, plus running my own booth at various trade shows across the BIG FAT state of Texas. I sold my prized drum kit in order to start this business and made a lot of sacrifices to ensure that I would be able to not only help myself but help out my family too. THAT is/was a mistake...the helping of my ungrateful ass family.  


These bucktoothed slobbering "simple country folk" of rural Texas have lost their charm to me.(this isn't about my family) Once upon a time when I lived in Los Angeles, I would've given my entire torso area, plus tax, as a gift to the gods in order be in the presence of "simple folk from Ruraltown USA." 


Now, I understand why all "virus outbreak" movies happen in rural towns in Texas because they are all one dog bite away from being post-apocalyptic mouth-breathing groaners. All of them. You want a stereotype, there, I just gave you one and I f*cking mean every word of it. 


I saw a lady that looked EXACTLY, NO LISTEN TO ME, EXACTLY LIKE A BULLFROG WALKING UPRIGHT. WHAT DNA STRAND SLOUGHED OFF OF INTO THE OUTHOUSE TO CREATE THAT?! anyway... back to my story... 


*By the way, when I say RURAL, I'm not talking about suburbs here people... I'm talking about places where the sign says, "Quinlan 6 miles, Fate 7 miles(that shit is real) and You are currently in UNKNOWN FM DISTRICT 775." I was in the last one on that list. *


Why was I there? There are these things here in Texas called "Trade Days," and you pay a price to rent an area of sacred ass Indian burial ground land (complete with Skinwalkers) to sell your goods to the surrounding villages of mouth-breathing groaners. Well, I can't be sure about the sacred Indian burial ground part but I think I'm onto something with that. Anyhow...


 Some days you make good money and other days you make rashes on your neck. A quote was said by L.Kimes recently on one of these journeys, "If I hear one more southern accent I'm going to pop someone in the testicles." I should mention that I thought I was doing everyone a favor by saying "Why don't you guys run the booth this weekend, I've got other gigs and can't be there until later in the evening..." This was no favor on my part. 


I might have lost Kime's friendship and respect over this "favor." My brother, Chancho, who tries his best to irritate everyone around him as much as possible (because it's how he has survived for 30 years...deep psychology there, folks) is along for one of these journeys into the abyss of DUMBF*CK County Fair Trade Days. I dropped off my brother and L. Kimes off at this rented space which faced the sun and had a backdrop of galvanized steel... perfect for cooking a rotisserie pork loin or your head. 


 Here's where it gets real f*cking funny... 


I had another gig going on simultaneously and you know what it was? Give up? 


I had to be(brace yourself)... A Mime...at a grocery store. A MIME. AT. A. GROCERY. STORE.  And you know what else? The pay was greater for 2 hours than if I worked half a week doing 10 shows @ 3hrs each show on THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. How in the hell does that happen? Well... it did. I paid for my good fortune with a 3rd degree chemical burn on my neck thus giving me that Freddy Kruger look that is so sought after in Cosplay circles...which I am not into by the way for the record. Apparently you can't wear ProActive in the sun with grease paint a'top of it or you create a melty molotov cocktail. 


Moving along...After mimin' it up at the Central Market for overly entitled rich assholes who buy 12 dollar blueberry fucking muffins, I checked my phone and there waiting on the lock screen was 7 texts from my peeps manning the booth.  


Text: 
"We sold a puppet to the corn guy next to us. That is it." 


"Do you think there is any way we can get our rental money back on this?" 


"I think we need to leave." 


"I just found out the other trade day is 1 mile from here and is packed with people." 


"No more vendors are here. It's just us in an abandoned parking lot." 


"Let us know when you are close by." 


"We hurt real bad." 


I get into my car, drive 50 plus miles to retrieve my product and my people when I get to the frontage road I can clearly see their sunburn faces from 200ft away. What happened the rest of that day can only be explained as... well... they were angry, burnt, and probably severely dehydrated... I however, had plucked chicken neck and when I turned my head to specifically the right, my neck would bleed. I found this out the hard way, in public, at the QuikTrip down the street from my house. The guy who works there that I named DeadBabyJoe asked me if I was okay? I call him DeadBabyJoe because he was going to have a baby and I went to Ringling, etc.. when I came back from tour I said, "How is that baby of yours!" He replied, "it died a year ago today." I said, "Oh my God! I'm so so so so sorry!!! How is your wife doing?" He said, "She divorced me after the baby died." Well, fuck. 


The next day I try to make metaphorical lemonade out of the rotten lemons of the previous day's woe. I schedule another booth at a trade expo way out in Hunt County. In order to get a good space you have to be there by 7:00am. It's about 60 miles away so that means I have to get as soon as I lay down- the night before. (don't worry this gets better) 


My brother is one of those people that you've never met before because he's fucking insane. He gives no information when you need information, he will stare at you when you ask something in an emergency setting and when you want him to shut his face he will give you a fucking play-by-play of his stupid buttfucking Star Trek online game. He's fucking nuts...here's how I know he is... because if he read this rant he would feign laughter and stomp his feet in toddler amusement over how he was talked about negatively... it's fun for him to be hated.


 Riding in a car with my brother is the worst, it's probably worse than camping out in the Vietkhang without a rape whistle, knife, or a mosquito net... but you know what sucks even more? Working alongside my brother while he's trying to "shoot the shit" with the buttfucking FROG PEOPLE! 
It's like they all have a secret handshake, a codebook for retards. They change their voice when they get around their "own kind" and go from being semi-coherant to grunting squawks. I had to listen to this kind of thing for 9 hours out in the hot hot hot sun...Here's a real sample..(I'll write this phonetically, sound-it-out people.)


"heyl mane dere I cun see yoo gut yer sum lil'ol'puhhpets. how much'n yood say dey g'fer." 


Give up?
Translation: "hell, man, there I can see you got your some little old puppets. how much 'n' you would say they go for." 


Guess what... any way you fucking hear that shit it's fucking wrong!


The guy who said this shit "had indian in him" because he had to tell us that... AS ALL THE WHITE TRASH PEOPLE HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT FUCKING HAVE INDIAN BLOOD IN THEM... they fucking don't.


 They are from the stock of humans that scooped up filth and put it in baskets to dam up the moats so the Crocs didn't feast upon the noble's horses. They are the people in scene from Monty Python's "Holy Grail" that say, "there's some lovely filth ov'here." Every time one of these white trash filth hoarders says they "got Indian in they blood," the baby Jesus cries.  I should mention that this asshole had a mullet with a long long long thin n' mealy french braid down his back. He told us he would sell us some more stock of puppets because...something something... couldn't understand... and then he said,


 "Cuz I cuhd run y'all out'tere wit wut I got but I 'n't gon' do dat y'know, but heyl I sail 'em ta yoo fer heyl bout two fitty tree fitty peece." 


Translation: "Because I could run you all out of here with what I got but I ain't going to to that you know, but hell, I sell them to you for hell, about two fifty three fifty piece." 


My fat ass brother understood this asshole and said, "Heyl, that is a pretty guhd priiiiiice." 


I know what my face was doing as if I was looking in a mirror. I could feel the muscles in my face dying. I had to watch this guy pitch me something and then mildly threaten me in order to get me to buy his stock at a wholesale price. I guess I was supposed to feel as though this was a favor? 


Aye, there's the rub. This Cigarbox White Trash Indian was doing me a "favor" in the same way I did a "favor" for L.Kimes and my brother the day before as they sizzled on Planet X selling puppets to NOBODY for 8 hours. 
Instant karma I suppose. They got sunburned, I got a chemical burn that transformed me into Freddy Kruger from the chin down.


The moral of this story is that I now understand why rent is higher in urban cities and it's not because it's supply/demand. You have to make it higher because GOD FORBID any of the FROGS and Cigar Store White Trash Indians came into the city to breed. Holy shit we can't let that happen. If you don't have a gun, go and get one because if these people in the surrounding "UNKNOWN FM 755 TERRITORIES" get wind of you "havin' things," they will slowly schlep their way to your house and talk their way into your front door and sell you broken shit at premium prices while threatening to "run you out of your own house." 


If you wanted to prank call the people who run this hell hole flea market I've decided to list their number at the bottom of this blog. Feel free to ask them philosophical questions, life advice, or any sort of deep inquiry you may have... I can promise you any response you get will be comedic gold. Mark my words, they will not hang up on you right away. They don't mentally process things that fast... you will get a solid 2 questions in before they start to "figurin' yoo is full uh shit." 
The guy that answers the phone has a 4.2 second delay when you ask him questions he DOES know the answer to... "How much is the rent for the space this weekend?" (count to 4) 
"Thirty Fi' buhhhks." 
So I can only imagine if you asked him something like, "What do you think the future of Nasa's involvement concerning finding life on other planets will include?"  


(Spontaneous Combustion Sounds...BOOM, Sizzle, Drip, Drip...Dial Tone) 


BucktoothedRetard Flea Market Guy THAT RIPPED ME OFF: 
469-569-0448

That Ain't Gonna Hurt Ya None

I remember hearing the phrase, "that ain't gonna hurt ya none, " more than I heard my own name as a child growing up in rural Texas.

I was talking to someone recently about this and it dawned on me- the truth of that phrase, and how it previewed terrible accidents, food poisoning, and various vermin bites/stings, etc...

I woke up this morning with a request from my Dad to help him steady a ladder. Simple enough. Not simple. I had no idea that my father was going to be climbing to the top of the ladder with a chainsaw rigged up to a pole to cut down a LARGE tree branch that was nestled in between 2 power lines. I kept asking him, "Dad, it's too high for you to reach it." He agreed. So instead of aborting mission, he gets a rope and ties a large hammer to the end of it to "lasso" the tree branch thus pulling it down and tying it off to a post in the ground. The hammer was barely hooked on the branch and all I kept thinking about was how this could easily become a Three Stooges Fail resulting in death by: hammer to the face at full force, tree branch falling on me, tree branch falling on my dad who was on a ladder holding a pole with a chainsaw attached to it which then would all....fall on me.

I said, "Dad if that hammer comes unhooked from that branch....." He interrupted me with, "Melodee, this ain't gonna hurt you none." Fine. You win.... until you don't win. Until you lose...hard.

When I was around 8 years old and out in the middle of the woods with my Dad I saw a beautiful snake. I knew it was venomous and he told me to "move the snake out' tha way" so he wouldn't roll over it with his giant wheelbarrow. I said, "Um... I think that snake is one of the bad snakes." His reply... "that ain't gonna hurt you none." I moved the snake. I was bitten by that very snake. It was venomous.

My uncle, Dad, and brother told me to eat a fist full of these wild berries that grew on out in the fields of South Texas... He called them "Dewberries." I was a fat kid with a pension for sweets so I ate the hell out of those berries. Within seconds my mouth was numb, I couldn't feel my tongue, and my eyes started to water. I ran back to the farm house and couldn't explain myself properly and I was met with laughter and pointing. I cried and they said, "Don't worry, that ain't gonna hurt you none."

My family has a problem with understanding expiration dates on food items. I have been a fridge nazi since I was a little kid because I throw things away with expired dates clearly printed on the side of the package. My family flippantly ignore expiration dates and I think I've even heard a few family members say "they don't believe in them." Well... they exist? Right? Yeah, they exist. I realized later in life when my family says, "I don't believe in..." what that really means is, "I am choosing to ignore that detail."

Very recently I was plagued with wicked food poisoning/stomach virus pot luck surprise. I realized that the culprit was my Mom's own version of consolidation. She consolidates expired things with non-expired things as a sort of trash alchemy. I busted her doing this a few days ago with some really really really old cheese. She was trying to mix a bag of new fresh shredded cheese with old rotten putrid cheese. I confronted her about this and she said, "Well, Meluh'dee that ain't gonna hurt you none, you just bein' silly." No. No. No I'm not. I'm not being silly when I make a full sprint at 3:30am into the bathroom and have my head stuck in a toilet for 30 minutes while I moan and audibly cry, "Why?! Oh God.... (puking noises) Oh why...Oh God..."

While I do believe that people now are contributing to "global laming," by not disciplining their kids, forcing their dogs to be vegans and feeding their newborn babies pre-chewed food (*Alicia Silverstone).... There has to be a middle ground between everyone being afraid of everything to everyone saying there is nothing to be afraid of. I don't think one kid in the USA under 10 years of age would've made it a week growing up in the 1970's and 80's. Example: The slide at my elementary school was at least 25 feet high, made of solid stainless steel and if you fell off of it you would hit hard ass gravel. If you used the slide in the summer months wearing shorts (we did) you would get 2nd degree burns on the back of your thighs and sometimes on your arms if you tried to "slow yourself down." Nothing about this was okay. We played with cinderblocks, threw rocks at hornets nests, pushed each other off the tree house, dared each other to belly crawl through barbed wire fence. For most of my childhood I was covered in scabs from turfing it off my BMX bike because I decided it was a good idea to launch off of something really sketchy. If we had any fear as young Texans about doing any of the dangerous activity surrounding daily life, we were told, "that ain't gonna hurt you none." I can very clearly remember being covered in rocks and blood with a nail sticking out of my foot and hearing that phrase with the tag line, "you is alright Booger, put some Camphophenique on it." Most of the times I was told to rub some type of over the counter shit on my wounds is when I most certainly needed medical attention.

All the years of therapy in my 20's and hearing shrinks say, "Your biggest issue you need to deal with is your inability to ask for help when you really need it." I get why that was hard for me to wrap my brain around after realizing that most of the time I was told "that ain't gonna hurt you none... You is alright."

You know what though? I was alright. And though I don't agree with consolidation of rotten food-trash alchemy, playing with venomous snakes, or running barefoot through a field with rusty nails.... I do agree with not living in fear of germs, playground equipment, or occasionally reaping the reward of living dangerously.

It's April Fools day and I'm patiently awaiting a nice slice of "dewberry pie."

Afterall... it ain't gonna hurt me none.

Commercials That Turn Me Hulk

I think everyone will agree that the following blog will be full of comedy and rage. If you don't agree by the time you finish this blog, you should watch TV for one hour and commit to understanding why I was prompted to write this....

Below is a list of the commercials and a description of why I hate them.

1. Dove Soap Queefy Scat Song: There is a commercial with 3 dentally challenged females of mediocre appearance in granny panties who are giggling, frolicking, and rejoicing in their moisturizing body wash from Dove. If that wasn't annoying enough, the song that accompanies the frolic is some high pitched singer who is doing a "jazzy scat" to the children's song... "The tail bone connected to the hip bone... the hip bone connected to the leg bone... etc.." The worst part- there are 3 key changes in that queefy version of the song and with each key change the "frolicking" increases as does the gigglin'. This song will get perpetually stuck in your head for a minimum of 3.5 hours. I woke up to this song this morning and my day has sucked ever since I heard it. It makes me want to set myself on fire.

2. Fuck "Flo"- I hate Flo. I hate her. Progressive Insurance "Flo" can suck it. There isn't anything cute, adorable, funny, attractive, querky or anything about her that is redeeming. I don't understand why she has a regular gig or why the makeup department doesn't put some fucking bronzer on that bitch. Toss some honey colored highlights in her hair or dye it fire engine red or slap a B-52's Love Shack wig on her... somethin! If they are going for a "rockabilly" look or a "vintage housewife post WWII" thing... it isn't fucking working. Tease that bump on her fucking head a bit more and curl the ratty ass ends of her hair. Do it. Do it now so that somehow I can "get it"... Did you know they sell Flo Bobbleheads?! They fucking have merchandising for her plain ass! I'm sure someone in the marketing department took an improv workshop with her and thought she was "fun" and brought her into the audition and somehow drugged the casting directors enough to where they were impressed with her vapid expressionless face. The newest ads are trying to show "Flo" in her "environment" which looks like a 12 year old boy's bedroom and she's fucking "dreaming about insurance," 'cause you know, it's "cute n' all".... it's fucking not. Who dyed her hair with chestnut dk brown from Clairol? Who? Nobody can have that hair color unless you are the coloring of Salma Hayek. Nobody. To top the chestnut brown flat hair, you put the lightest makeup on her with a solid black line of liquid liner... no shading... and then and then and then you slap the worst shade of red lipstick on her real thick... She is a chinless wonder. I've written letters to Progressive Insurance asking why she is the spokesperson and to investigate the "good feedback" that came in because I'll bet money those letters came from a retard day camp.

3. General Insurance- The shitty animated "General" who has a fucking Penguin sidekick? The fuck is that about? It's like the animator had a fully "done" Penguin in the stock footage file and through it into the production contract for "good measure." This animated General hangs out with a Penguin and goes to clubs n' shit with him... it makes no sense at all. It's terrible and every time it comes on I want to.... set myself on fire. The latest version of this ad is in a comedy club setting with a "cute" hispanic guy trying to fake doing stand-up... it pans to the audience and the fucking shit ass General animated guy is slapping his fucking knee and throwing back booze. Guess who picks him up in a red corvette from the comedy club? DING DING.. You guessed it... the fucking Penguin is driving that Corvette and they are headed to their urban loft or some shit I guess... I don't know I hate it. I hate hate hate hate it. It's the most half ass bullshit I've ever seen. I think they used Microsoft Paint to color in the animation... It's like the quality of someone who is going to Dallas Art Institute and working on government funded Dells with Windows 98. Want proof... just watch...

This is the short version...

4. The winner of the worst commercial in the fucking world is SUBWAY.

The song... Five Dollar Foooootlooong.... is the worst shit I've ever heard in my life. Period.

I did the music theory on it and there is no music theory. It's the same note for 2 bars and down a half step/rinse & repeat. It is from the devil. I'm sure if you played it backwards it would have embedded lyrics like, "Dark Lord of the Syth eats babies in hell."

5. Kit Kat- Don't make mouth noises an intrinsic part of the marketing of your candy bar... just don't. (SNAP, POP, SMACK, CRACK, GULP, SMACK, SIGH, SNAP, SMACK, CRACK).... STOP.

6. YOU CAN'T MAKE IT- Mariah Carey's Jenny Craig Commercial... This shit will wake you up and find you in a cold sweat of fury. I won't even talk about it. If you have 30 seconds to spare just watch the link below... This commercial came on back to back (same one) the other day when I was struggling with a load of laundry and it actually made me throw the 17 pound bag on the ground and scream...

That's enough for now.... These commercials are the reason intergalactic communication isn't happening. Aliens are wondering why "the monkeys" are buying Flo bobbleheads, why Penguins hang out with military officials, and why 40 year old women find it absurdly fun to bathe while listening to a toddler's learnin' song.... It's why we can't have nice things... from space.

Reactionary Locomotion

Does anyone remember "Bed Knobs & Broomsticks" ?

I'm going to talk about why I named the blog reactionary locomotion.

Locomotion is self-propelled movement. 'Reactionary' is defined as doing something in opposition to another way of doing it that you don't like.

Put them together and you have the makings of a steam engine or my current state of being. So what is driving the steam engine? Combustion. My own combustion is the way that I typically process the mix of life...i.e. pressure chamber style.

I think the biggest challenge, and listen to me, I think this is the biggest challenge of life in general: Retaining, or being able to sustain enough of your unique blend of energy that keeps you authentic. I know I spent a great deal of time growing up daydreaming about who I'd become, what I'd do, where I'd go, what I'd look like, who I'd meet... possibilities were endless. They still are but the difference is the daydreaming to problem solving ratio.

Very recently I asked a friend of mine who I absolutely think is one of the most brilliantly talented people I've ever known a simple question... The question was this: What is next for you? This friend of mine gave me some tragic answer that drove a knife into my solar plexus. It sounded like a "I give up" answer. I know that isn't true but maybe in someways I was directed to ask that question in order to prompt a response that wasn't audible...i.e. I believe this friend probably did some thinkin' after our talk.

In the past 2 weeks I've had some strange occurrences come a' rollin' my direction. This is nothing unusual for me, but what was unusual was my reaction to all of it.

For example... Within 2 days of each other, I met two different unrelated people who struck up a conversation with me that made me shift in my chair from being emotionally uncomfortable. I didn't know it at the time of the conversation but they were both well-known psychics. No matter what you believe or don't believe about that... the information that rolled out of their mouths was so shockingly specific and secret that only I know how to process it and I know that they were directed to me because I was SUPPOSED to hear some of the things they said. I won't get into the details of all that because it would incriminate me and it will stir up a hornets nest of controversy.

So... that being said or unsaid I'd like to say that the pressure chamber/combustion cylinder I put the data of life's many signals in, is needing a good scrub down. A lot of residue is on the walls of my combustible brain.... in more words... My engine has overheated too many times and now needs a closer look.

I looked.

What I saw was horrific. (for me anyway) I saw that I'd been so busy pressing onward that I had forgotten how to read the signs that said "dangerous curves ahead," or my favorite, "slow down. Dip in the road."

So... that movie, "Bed knobs and Broomsticks,"... the opening of the movie you see Angela Lansbury's character who is a secretive type person who has shut herself off from being truly emotionally close to anyone in particular because she is a "serious scientist/wizard" and has a goal that has overtaken her.... In this scene in the very beginning of the movie where her character is being established, you see her riding a motorbike that looks similar to the one Jack Black rides in "Nacho Libre." In otherwords, a real hunk of shit on wheels. She is driving this thing in the most spazzy way you can imagine Angela Lansbury doing anything physically demanding. Her gait or walk is fast, nose up, and pressing onward in a military type fashion to get done her daily "go to town" errands. If you've seen the movie you know that she ends up getting manipulated into temporarily taking 2 children who are being sent there because of the war. She pleads with the Yoda-ish crazy old lady from the church that she is not suited to watch children... The lady reminds her that she has a huge house, lives alone, and in a nutshell says, "yeah well you're taking them."

So.... we find out that Angela Lansbury's character secretly practices witchcraft because she thinks she might be able to help the war effort if only she could get this one last spell from her mentor via vocational witchcraft school... she's never met him but she's invested a great deal of money and time and energy into putting to practice his methods. The bratty kids of the movie end up becoming the distraction she needed in order to actually KNOW how to put to use her own power and she saw the "wizard of oz" i.e. her mentor/teacher was nothing more than a scam artist peddler who was trying to make a buck. She eventually embraces his inadequacies and together they win the fucking war. Whatever... But they used a spell that made inanimate objects locomotive...the reactionary response was "oh it works" but "oh shit how can we control something that is self-propelled and on a course for chaos?" The museum held artifacts of metallic/bronze soldier uniforms so... she put to good use (made them animated and alive in a robotic sort of way) they became unruly and terrifyingly destructive. She wasn't able to stop them initially, but then mustered up the mojo to reverse what she had done.

I was always fascinated with the idea that the "pressure chamber of your life" could thrust you into a instantaneous belief of "I can" which then becomes self-directed action. After the result of that level of self-directed action- you are different, a more superior version of yourself. It's alchemy. An alchemist has to use extreme heat, pressure, more heat, more pressure, and then has to stabilize the new creation with a cool down period. The result of what once was; will forever be what is. It's new. It's stronger. It's more valuable. Of course in some cases the creation becomes extraordinarily priceless depending on what elements were used and the courage it took the alchemist to "see what happens."

I know this blog is sort of all over the place but I'm trying to type out an abstract thing which is always hard to do. (for me anyway)

I've also been interrupted about 100 times while writing this...

Anyway... My point? If anyone is going through a real pressure chamber of life right now, just remember that you can direct it with action that stems from an organic intrinsic nature that is specific to you and the outcome will be something that is more valuable, stronger, and extraordinarily priceless to your locomotion of life.