A Memo Concerning: WikiLeaks, Food Deserts, and Poison.

Making trips to a gas station is without doubt the most emasculating experience an individual can make in the year 2010. It anything it magnifies the embarrassing fact that we are all slaves to a long antiquated technology controlled by the morally sociopathic and fear mongering fundamentalists. As if being caught in the bear trap/swirling shit storm of Iraq and Afghanistan weren't enough abuse over the past 10 years (and beyond), the immediacy of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill this year has been the equivalent of receiving “The People's Elbow” while laid out flat on the wrestling mat. What could be worse than that? Well, watching the morbidly obese painfully make their way out of gas station convenience stores at lunch time with their “meal” of 64 oz acid based sodas, cheddar wrapped, deep fried, weiners made of spare animal parts, and laboratory engineered “potato” chips, all of which come wrapped in plastic packaging that will last on this earth far longer than the corpulent individuals who have purchased them. There is horrifying harmony to the modern gas station as it pumps out a fluid whose base ingredient currently poisons unsuspecting sealife, while simultaneously dispensing food containing poisons that aggressively increase ass size while proportionally shortening lives, only to watch vehicles inefficiently use the aforementioned fuel to transport said fat asses while producing gases which poison everyone's air and turn skylines the color of armpit stains in white t-shirts. It is this harmony that leads me to two questions. How many inches does it take before you know you are getting screwed? How much longer does it take to know you are banging yourself? And so we have A Memo Concerning: WikiLeaks, Food Deserts, and Poison.

I've avoided this topic for months because as a skinny man I inherently lack the experience to fully empathize with the obese. But, as I recently flipped through photos of oil bukake-ed sea turtles I realized that the look in their eyes were curiously, and tragically familiar-- the image of a car wreck or gruesome injury, something you try to forget but whose image haunts in random, violent flashes, something like Hedi Montag or Carrot Top. It was a look of perpetual shock, helplessness, confusion, and silent surrender. “What. The Hell. Happened to me.” It's the same pain shelled stare you can find on the corpulent, bottled oxygen dependent as they scooter their way through the shitspray of exhaust accumulated in the middle of a busy intersection on their way to go grocery shopping at the 99 cent store.

The painful reality is that given recent studies it is increasingly difficult for me to judge the morbidly bovine any differently than I would a fish who has made the horrible mistake of deciding to swim through BP's million gallon sea of poison. For millions of Americans the option to not poison themselves is simply unavailable as large communities have zero access to fresh food without making a pilgrimage past an ocean of cheaper, toxic options chemically engineered to create addiction and dependence. This creates a horrifying Catch-whatthefuckdoyoudo. Given the option between traveling over an hour to find expensive yet healthy options or heading down the street and hitting up the dollar menu, what would you do? For the poor the first option leads to hunger, the other to a living death. In the Land of the Opportunity not everyone who has the desire to eat healthy food has the opportunity to pursue it. The results are frightening, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the most obese state in the US in 1990 weighed less than the most healthy state in 2009. In twenty years, fat has become the new skinny.

I am not looking to absolve responsibility from those who have access to healthy, sustaining food yet choose to drink oil, but it would be equally irresponsible not to consider the waters we swim in. The concept of a Food Desert is dangerously foreign to many who live outside of them, but just as a non-smoker can get lung cancer from living in Los Angeles, the effects of this poison extend well beyond those actively killing themselves. Currently children are assaulted with more fast food advertising than any other form of food advertising, including ads for Frosted Covered Sugar Bomb cereal and High Fructose Acid Blaster beverages. The horrifying truth is that shit food is a more devastating killer than alcohol, drugs, and tobacco and yet shit food is able to wage a billion dollar seduction campaign promoting ways children can slowly kill themselves.

I'm sick and tired of having to wade through oceans of invitations to poison because in the end moments of weakness are inevitable. I ate Wendy's last week goddamnit, it gave me the shits, made me feel like my lungs were lined with bacon, and two hours later I wanted more. Isn't that what heroin does? Suddenly the answer to “Taco Bell, why can't I quit you?” is a lot more simple.

We live in a society where you can get McDonalds delivered, order a foot long cheeseburger from Carls Jr., and buy meat product in any shape you desire, while professional athletes peddle beverages scientifically proven to create weight gain, high blood pressure, and tooth decay (Gatorade). Yet we reserve our outrage and calls for action for instances/disasters when people poison other species by MISTAKE, rather than on purpose. Maybe the solution to this round of Gulf Crisis is to add sugar to the oil, get Nemo and Flipper addicted to oil consumption, and then say it's their fault for swimming in that shit.

I'm sick and tired of seeing people who look like they have been exposed to nuclear radiation and now have front butts and rooster jowls. Yeah, its a “free” country, so if people knowingly want to poison themselves, that's fine I can deal with it. But, that freedom shouldn't be a function of your tax bracket nor should it poison the water for everyone.

These things considered, I'm afraid that the underlying issue here isn't complacency or surrender, its an overarching desire to consume things that have already been digested. Too many of us choose to be chicks waiting in our nest for Sysco, Kraft, and Monsanto to vomit food into our mouths. Too many are afraid to acknowledge that meat has a face (and it's delicious) and that food, like all living things, shouldn't all look the same (you got that bleach blondie?). Too many are afraid to realize that eating living food means that sometimes your favorite food isn't available or in season. But this isn't just about food, its about frayed jeans and wood that's been painted to look old, its about facts that have been filtered through bureaucracy and panels of editors with conflicts of interest. It's about a desire that far too many have for things that have already been processed. I don't want to have to be a millionaire to get my food via WikiLeaks.

Click here for more information on Food Deserts

For more information on Nationwide Obesity, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation can be found here

A Memo Concerning: Zonies, Migrants, and Cowards.

Every year my community is invaded by a vicious hoard of unholy land beasts in pastel colored SUVs wearing oversized fanny packs and thick white cotton socks pulled high and split by Tevas. They come and go in migratory fashion, like Wall-Mart outfitted vikings pillaging up and down the Southern California coastline, sacking and raping our resources and turning our beloved homeland into a melancholy whore. Over time we have come to anticipate their migratory return just after the two days the grass is green in Spring, usually about the time we get that first sun burn, when the Padres are playing good baseball. Just as our beaches reach their most aesthetic potential, like petals of a flower finally extending themselves, a heard of monstrous, pastey white asses decide to plant themselves in the middle of it-- a shit streak down the middle of a recently washed pair of undies. They are leaches who threaten the safety and well-being of our children, are burdens on the tax paying citizens of Southern California and blights on the aesthetically appealing San Diego landscape. They are of course Arizonans. And so we have A Memo Concerning: Zonies, Migrants, and Cowards.

I'd say its about long time for residents of San Diego to rise up and confront the beast. Housing prices have dipped drastically, unemployment is up, the city flirts with bankruptcy, it is about time we start doing what everyone else does when they are frustrated and feel powerless: start assigning blame to faceless groups of people. The Arizonan, or Zonie, is obviously the destructive force behind our current plight. They make roads unsafe with their clueless stumblings through our cities, fumbling along the 101 or I-5 like geriatrics trying to find and mix Metamucil in the dark. The result is about the same as well: a series of curse words and shit flung everywhere. Recklessly driving the wrong way down one way streets, parking in fire lanes, veering into bike lanes while desperately stabbing at GPS devices fixed to carpeted dashboards, it almost feels like these people are purposely trying to get in car accidents so that they can extend their Southern California vacations longer by claiming residency in our hospitals.

I can't blame them though; their state undeniably blows. The people of Arizona are bleach white from days on end spent indoors in air conditioned cellars because their summer is hotter than donkey balls. Lets be honest, what does the desert state really have to offer? People have no business living there in the first place. It is no wonder then that Arizona is the crystal meth capital of the world, boasting the highest percentage of positive results for meth in workplace drug tests. But that is what makes the annual migration of Zonies to Southern California so dangerous. In addition to aqua colored Ford Excursions, chin strap facial hair, gold chains with faux-chinese medallions, tribal band tattoos, and oversized, grease stained No Fear T-shirts, Zonies also bring their meth in droves, specifically targeting small children, puppies and Shamu with their extraordinarily addictive drug. Whats even worse, some Zonies are even setting up shop on our side of the border, creating meth labs in East San Diego County. They have crept from El Centro all the way to Lakeside, slowly infesting the county with peach fuzz mustaches and TapOut apparrel, establishing anchor-businesses in form of meth labs in grandma's trailer. While not having a full set of teeth used to be a Zonie thing, their invasion into SoCal has made it an East County phenomena. Sometimes I wonder if I'm even in my own hometown when I see the amount of 98 Ford Mustangs with chrome painted plastic rims on the road. We must act swiftly, before our own children start wearing bandanas underneath their baseball hats. The number of dudes swimming in the ocean with white tank tops on is rising at a frightening rate. Outside of filling our restaurants and hotels, and buying messloads of pointless shit, I have a hard time seeing how these people really contribute to our economy at all.

When assholes force me to look at history, something many people try to avoid at all costs, I will admit that it is hard to acknowledge that yes, even my own family immigrated from western New Mexico to San Diego in the 1920's. But listen, the difference between my family's move from the desert to San Diego and modern day Zonies is huge. Those people in the past were my family, these Zonies are not. That's a difference whose weight cannot be minimized.

Considering the hazards that Zonies present I suppose we could close off our border with them and systematically remove those who have infiltrated (a task as dubious as removing gray from tan grains of sand). But, I don't think we should because outside of it just not working, that level of short-sightedness, mis-directed angst, and cowardice is the kind of shit Zonies like to pull of late. I call their recent legislation cowardly because it targets those with the least amount of power in the equation while at the same time doing little if anything to combat the issues that they face.

This is because confronting the real problem would mean acknowledging the extent to which America depends on migrant workers to fuel their economy. It would mean acknowledging how the US has looked at Mexico as its personal battery for the better part of the last 75 years. It would mean acknowledging how powerful domestic industries have used migrant labor as a means to navigate around our own labor laws. It would mean acknowledging the extent to which, because of agreements like NAFTA, our own successes are dependent on the success of Mexico, how our fates are intertwined. It would mean acknowledging that our trade decisions with Mexico hold significant impacts on our own qualities of life domestically. But Arizona Senate Bill 1070 does not acknowledge any of this and I think this is for a very clear reason. Deep down inside, we as Americans don't really want to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country. If we really did, we'd stand up and acknowledge the issues we like to keep secret.

What this legislation does is simply scratch the itch of a group of confused, angst filled individuals. It points their attentions to the least powerful in the equation, allowing those with heavily invested, domestic interests to continue to maintain their status quo while avoiding blame for their involvement in this horrendous scheme. It is a trap, a means of giving people the illusion of victory. Perhaps the most disingenuous accomplishment of this movement has been the ability of its supporters to illustrate that gestapo tactics are the only way to combat illegal immigration.

This could not be farther from the truth. As Mark Flores of the Critical Minds recently put it, “you do not have to condone illegal immigration to condemn racist policies.” Its not just that the strategy outlined by SB 1070 isn't the only way, it is that it is the least effective. We are in the middle of a crooked relationship, one whose problems are exacerbated by our willingness to deny it. I feel it is best described as domestic abuse. No matter how much we beat the shit out of our favorite girlfriend (migrant workers) in front of our friends, the next day we'll still offer roses and chocolates, because in the end it's not that we don't like her company, we are just embarrassed with how much we are in love with her.

A Memo Concerning: Big Wood and Why Stephanie Meyer doesn't want you to grow up.

The female equivalent to the male awkward/unjustified/phantom boner is the Twilight Series. I once felt that I got the most random phantom boners in the history of Pubescence. No really, I'm comfortable with that distinction. I don't mean to be irreverent or crude when I write about this, I believe that our bodies and their functions deserve the observation and reflection I have given them. The Boner Phantom struck me often and with a violent lack of consideration. Ms. Asilstein, all two hundred pound, moo moo dress wearing, hairy wart, varicose vein cankle, sausage toe ready to explode sandal straps of her, could be talking about exponents, and for some reason my Weiner would increase in mass exponentially; the Phantom seizing on the opportunity to exploit expanding sums in my universe. And so grows (pun) one of the great paradoxes of the human condition. The angel on one ear told me I was sinning when having an awkward, Bronx-sized boner while looking at an actually attractive young lady because sins come from your mind and inevitably become actions. From the other ear an angel told me it was totally natural for me to get hard when driving along an extra bumpy road, that I was no better than my dog who used to hump the shit out of pillows. Since the last Memarandus, what may have seemed like an eternity for some of you, I have witnessed funerals, weddings, and birth in my life. Old men will scramble to open the next box of Cialis; a 13 year old will frantically flip his erection beneath his waistband because someone said “thrust” while talking about model airplanes. But during this time the course for the modern female has been particularly difficult to navigate with a semblance of dignity and self respect. This is because Stephanie Meyer wields pubescent nostalgia like a massive phallic sword, knighting middle aged women as damsel in distress nobility, and slicing back the proper growth of teenage girls. And so we have A Memo Concerning: Big Wood and Why Stephanie Meyer doesn't want you to grow up.

During my childhood, family and community were two elements in life that I was told and shown to be of unparalleled importance. They were to be respected and honored, much like in the way that gravity should when standing safely on the edge of a vast cliff. This is why Disney's “The Little Mermaid,” and the character Ariel, really confused the shit out of me. Here was a scantily-clad princess who was willing to exchange the safety of her family and well-being of her community for the affection of a dude she had seen in fleeting moments. We often identify “creeps” as people with hair dolls, or with alters filled with photos and possessions of their lust target-- this bitch had a life-sized statue of the guy she was stalking. Yet, at the same time Ariel was/is the most attractive looking female character in the entire Disney catalog of centerfolds. I mean really: a smoking hot ginger with eyes like abalone rocking a shell bikini and a stomach that could make a full grown man want to motorboat a pile of broken glass just to touch. Ariel was my object of intense prepubescent desire. She embodied something strongly opposed to my own values, yet I was intensely attracted to her. And that is precisely where we found common ground. My deviant attraction to her (how exactly does one sex-up a legless nymph?), and her dangerous elements, were very much like her attraction to a two-legged prince.

Stephanie Meyer's “Twilight Series” is by no means a unique tale, it is a reprisal and dangerous elaboration on “The Little Mermaid,” unflinchingly reinforcing prepubescent follies and delusions. I find no difference between the careless, disturbing, and shallow lust illuminated by “The Little Mermaid” and “Twilight” than the desire of a child caught in the allure of a brightly packaged piece of candy. I could put a bronx sized bow on a piece of shit and unfortunately someone would try to unwrap it. The most dangerous part of this dynamic though is that I was able to grow up and learn that broads like Ariel will never be happy, and their unhappiness is cuntageous. Stephanie Meyer though, through the course of her abhorrent trilogy, does not want you to grow up. Her attempts to write on the same plane as her supposed target audience (teenage girls) only magnifies a stunted development in adult clothes, much like Vern Troyer (mini-me) trying to drink alcohol with full sized humans.

I'm going to try and ignore the demented nature of an extended narrative disingenuously promoting abstinence while also being infatuated with blood. I'm going to try to ignore a narrative that obsesses over the hiding of unwanted blood, of keeping said blood clean, and that the appearance of blood suddenly makes the female protagonist vulnerable. This is because the correlation between this obsession and the pubescent fears of menstruation are too obvious and the message too disturbing. But honestly I can't ignore this, the message is quite clear: “Girls, as soon as you have your period, boys will begin to assault you. The only ones who are safe are the ones who aren't attracted to you.” Unfortunately logic then dictates that the only safe boys are either gay or are the ones who aren't nice to you. The fact of the matter is, you don't empower teenage girls, or help them develop into functioning adults by making them fear interactions across gender lines. I'm sorry I cannot ignore a narrative that condones suicide attempts as a means to gain attention, the idea that women exist in a perpetual state of needing to be saved by men, the helplessness of attraction to love interests who would be otherwise considered abusive/engaging in criminally obsessive manners, the promotion of the idea that a female only reaches their fullest potential when producing babies.

At some point I have to give respect for Stephanie Meyer for so fully capturing what she feels is the pubescent condition of females. But that point holds the same strength as the period at the end of a run-on sentence-- a forgotten mark, almost like an apology, placed far after the damage has already been done, but in the end just a reminder that someone fucked up. For Meyer the pubescent female condition is about rejection, not feeling good enough, being ignored, and then when finally given attention, realizing that the greatest show of affection is something that will destroy her. Essentially that you must destroy your ego and self respect in order to do something that you have always been told is wrong and immoral. If you were to write the male version of “Twilight” it would be about boners, having them explode randomly, and of the fear of putting them in anything with a pulse, even though you may have to pay for shit..

I guess my problem is that I believe people can be better than that.

I cannot blame the attraction to the “Twilight” series by teenage girls. It offers reassurances that their fears and preoccupations are normal for that period in life. That's the key though, it should just be a period in life. Puberty is a very difficult and rough time in life for both men and women because those fears and preoccupations characteristic of the stage hold no value in successfully relating to other people. Helplessness, selfishness, visceral dependencies on other people, these are things to grow out of in order to be happy adults; but, unfortunately they are celebrated within the “Twilight” series. The danger of Stephanie Meyer's narrative is that it crafts these elements nostalgically, it causes adults to yearn for those days and fails to show teens the dangers of behaving this way. The danger of nostalgia is that it idealizes the past and allows us to forget that in reality the way things used to be weren't really that great, that's why they aren't around anymore. If everyone decided to be helpless, selfish, and viscerally dependent on each other, we'd all be screwed. Nostalgia is hypnosis, and too many of my peers have been duped. Now I am not implying that everyone who has read this series has developmentally disabled themselves, but I do offer one simple question in assessing the effects of this narrative on you. Has your reading of “Twilight” played a role in helping you improve your relationships with real, healthy adults, or has it made you yearn for something that has never and will never exist.

A Memo Concerning: Cartwheels, Encinitas, and Swimming in Fountains.

Time is far too precious to keep track of. That is what I say to myself when obsessively checking clocks in anticipation of some next great, grand and wonderful thing, all the while letting moments escape. I was once propositioned by a horrible person. When she became offended that I declined her advances I simply answered “I'm sorry, I'm more concerned with having good memories.” She didn't like that. I suppose I could have done some rather sinful things, and perhaps would have liked it within the moment, but the manner in which Time returns to us is far too precious my friends. The following memo isn't about wasting time/waiting or about declining to bang sub-par partners, it is about how the Wind Cries Mary, and the act of suckling the delicious teat that is one's own pulsing heart. And so we have A Memo Concerning: Cartwheels, Encinitas, and Swimming in Fountains.

When Encinitas, Califronia, my home town, opens itself, swollen and raw, pulling the sun down upon it, there are those who ignore its bold and explosive advances. Prudes. The day spreads itself before you, ripe, and you may yawn. As many of you know, my tolerances have been exhausted. Of late I have been targeting the Emo, those with a despondent disposition, self imposed derelicts, dickheads who have decided that life is what presses down upon our shoulders with each passing moment. I believe in moments, that our happiness hinges on our ability to make each moment more kick ass than the last, or next. I believe that happiness is a decision--that we can draw strength from even the most hideous of elements. I enjoy high-fives from strangers at the DMV when I give a rebel yell and first pump after my number is finally called. As a child, when at the Dentist, I used to imagine myself being transformed into a glorious half man/half robot/100 percent bad ass machine that could crush the shit out of kickballs when at bat and be able to do handstands on top of monkey bars. The pain of the Dentists knuckles slamming my jaws open further, tooth shrapnel spraying into my eyes, Michael Bolton pillaging my ears through the office speakers, all of these things were just a means to become a more efficient warrior. I'd get home, with sore jaws and swollen cheeks, and chase my dog feverishly around the yard until it felt like the Novocain had spread across my entire head. Me: invincible.

I'm impatient, when walking somewhere to experience something specific, more often than not I will run.

At age four I started WWIII via a series of deft and savage maneuvers. It was an act of bold strategery that history has not seen since Germany allowed Lenin to return to Russia. Unfortunately none of you will get to read about my fury in history books or watch over-powdered actors feign journalism and grotesquely comment that my war defined the Greatest of Generations (those born in the year of our lord 1983). The lone trigger of my War: being told that older people, most importantly my siblings, lived and shared memories from before my birth. At the moment of tragic realization (anagorisis, really) I screamed and ran from the room, returning only to wag my finger in vicious accusation and denial. My explosions were intense and even long after my family had talked me down into accepting that others lived well before my time, when trying to sleep, deep into my pillow, trying to think of nothing so that my brain could move into slumber, all I could focus on was the time, the life that I did not get to live before my own began. The pain kept me up all night.

I've made a concerted effort to not turn “Memarandus” into a platform on which to explain myself or my behavior. And that is probably why I have failed in that very regard. The fact of the matter is that there are many who don't understand why I will do a cartwheel in public or yell “LETS MAKE A SANDWICH” with both arms in the air when walking into a Subway, or dance with myself when waiting in an unforgiving line. I'm haunted by memories of opportunities that I have let pass. The chick in Intro to Shakespeare Freshman year of college. We used to secretively hold up sheets of paper with frown faces on them when pretentious students would talk for too long. Never asked her out, she totally wanted me. Not calling out a teacher at La Costa Canyon High School for blatantly lying to all of us about students that he had taught. But then again, lets be honest, I did whatever the hell I wanted at that school. Or maybe swimming in the fountain inside of Terrace Dining hall at Ithaca College, one of the few fountains within a five mile radius that I did not swim in. Entering my diorama of our Solar System in the 5^th and 6^th grade science fair even though I was only in third grade. My teacher wanted me to. I was scared. That diorama belonged in the freaking Smithsonian. These are just a few of the regrets that drive me forward though. They remind me that every opportunity is precious. That is why I find life to be delicious-- a supple element, meant to be experienced in glorious terms and as such I choose to give it the very things that I draw from it. Simple moments, waiting for love to be made with them, waiting in the “same way that the complex form of a plant is contained in the seed.” The tragedy of our lives are the moments un-lived.

There are those who don't allow themselves to be shaken. These are those who walk right by magnificence and blindly find concern with other, supposed practical or serious things. The unimpressed continue to move forward, unmoved by the majesty that surrounds them in the way a song strikes them at the perfect moment, or how the wind pushes a cluster of clouds over them, or someones words catch exactly what they are feeling. And they are fucking cowards. They lack the courage to allow elements to change them. I want everything I encounter to change me, and I only want to be surrounded by those who feel the same. Quality of life comes down to being bold and open to inspiration within any moment. I have listened to Beethoven's “Ode To Joy” while while watching the sun rise from a park resting against the ocean, the rolling waves behind me, deliriously tired, but so thankful for each breath as it falls into the next. I hold my experiences to be self evident, the only things we get to keep when tomorrow washes everything away. Will you come with me?

A Memo Concerning: The Assault on Youth, Lohan, and Parenting.

Working for an organization with a fitness center exposes me to regular overdoses of the bizarre, the equivalent of a syringe of human eccentricities injected directly to the brain stem with the same frequency that most Americans sip their coffee. On a normal day this double shot of awesome manifests itself in the amoeba shaped ass of a middle aged woman trying to tame her undulating caboose within spandex. Just past her ass, and trying to ignore it, is the cut off/slash mid-drift baring tank top of a curiously tanned and ambiguously aged dude with frosted tips hairstyle sucking on his teeth like plaque was birthday cake frosting. He is distracted harmoniously by the retentive walk of an over-appareled and esteem-deprived individual who has chosen to be so romantically engaged with their fitness that they hold the demeanor of someone embalmed in vinegar and lowered expectations. I believe we live in symphonies, music of our masses that travel thousands of miles before they slam into each other within every individual moment of our lives. This particular one is played for me almost every day with simple variations. Why take note? The fact is that in three distinct and horrific episodes during the last month I have been infested with Miley Cyrus lyrics. Certain tolerances have been exhausted. And so we have A Memo Concerning: The Assault on Youth, Lohan, and Parenting.

About a week ago I was sauntering through my workplace when I found myself staring directly into a conflict that was beyond just the two of us. A young girl, maybe 12 years old was sprinting towards me with feckless and reckless abandon. Naïve as I am in the year 2009 I quickly looked to help her, shaken by the Jihad in her eyes. I was blind to her tennis shoes, shorts, t-shirt and sweatbands –yes, the usual signifiers of fitness-- and found myself focusing on an apparition of Miley Cyrus chasing her in heinous wrath. The Menace, Miley, tore behind this poor young lady beneath a cloud of glitter, pink accessories, shit cosmetics, air brushed pictorials, music studio produced low-grade narcotics breathing over-sexed lyrics in several media platforms. Yes, this viciously assaulted girl in front of me, before her teenage years, was working-out and on a “jog.” Behind her manic eyes I couldn't help but see her as a victim, disoriented by the silent assault that shapes her. I understood that all of this poor young girl's actions were a defense mechanism against ethics deprived adults with their hands lodged firmly up poor Ms Cyrus's asshole-- turning that child into puppet, then into predator. Pinocchio is staring at the newly transformed donkeys and in the year 2009 he is no longer frightened.

Time is a very violent thing. It will never pause for negotiation or allow its self to sympathize with the elements it unceremoniously leaves behind, heartless. As a people we don't allow ourselves to fully appreciate our lives. Botox and Ferrari's, hair coloring products. What began as a fear of dying has evolved into a fear of no longer being cool. When older our birthdays haunt us, as if the landslide of experience now chases, forcing us to run to places we do not want to go. We long for the past, not realizing that it is the very thing that shoves us away from it . Yet when young, we hunger to be older. The ridiculousness of this dynamic is magnified within Ms. Cyrus and “High School: The Musical,” when the old prey upon the young and escalate their desire to advance in years. This is the very reason why Pop Puppeteers and “High School: The Musical” are a terrible thing to do to kids.

“High School: The Musical”? Really? Listen folks, adults portraying teenagers in media targeted towards children...are you fucking kidding me? I'm sorry but the age dynamics are too bizarre. I think I'm going to do a Biopic film about Lindsay Lohan, starring Bea Arthur with post-mortum botox and propped in “Weekend at Bernie's” fashion as Ms. Lohan. Then I'm going to play the film only in theaters near Columbian cocaine operations where no one speaks English. I'm pretty sure everyone in that audience will start ripping the coke they produce and think that it's cool to wear Depends at night clubs in Los Angeles. Does Lauren Conrad have a nice ass? Naw, man, she's just wearing a DooDoo rag under those apple bottom jeans.

Did that last paragraph not make sense? Of course not, we are dealing with madness here. Listen, it is like this: Forces like “High School: the Musical” and Hannah Montana are the spearhead of the disillusioning assault on youth that began midway through the 20^th century and is gaining even more vicious momentum in the beginning of the 21^st. We have developed as a people who continually prey on youth through pedophilic economics. Marketing degenerates have given up on selling to adults. The only ones with an open, manipulatable ear are children. They are a hyper-active consuming base because we feed them what their parents cannot give. They fiend for certain levels of guidance and models and the only nipple, consumption, feeds them. Our markets exploit the void left by parents, then make those same parents pay for the deficiencies they have left. Why are deodorants now more marketed towards teens (not because they smell horrible) but because they feed to their most base desires (see my Memo on Tag/Axe Body Spray). Alcohol commercials test best with children. If I hear another child ask me what kind of cell phone I have, then list the one they want to have, I'm going to flip the fuck out. But here is the tragedy. The assault on youth has made even the most diligent parents helpless to the army of consumption built upon the backs of parents disinterested in the details of rearing humans. And that is why I write about it, because now it is hurting the ones doing a phenomenal job.

I have said it many times, but I'd like it on the Savagerious Permanent Record: Puberty is a terrible thing to do to kids. But even more vicious is the savage economic hand of adults attempting to rip youth into their adulthood. The fact that this is often built on the nostalgia of adults captured within their own past is the most creepy. I choose to live each moment of my life with the value that the past has built for it, and the radical times that the future patiently waits for. No more, No less, immediacy holds enough weight. Many of you think I'm strange or act weird because of it. My actions are unpredictable or jolting, rude, or without direction. Well it is a fact; I choose to get caught in the rapture of the moment, realizing that my direction is built one series of moments at a time. When we fuck with the dynamics of age and time we fuck with the quality of our lives. I'm going to make right now kick ass because my past drives me to it, and the future waits for it. Right now I'm doing a celebratory dance because I just finished another memo. Fist pumps, high kicks, booty shake or two.

A Memo Concerning: TJ Max, Naughty Dogs and Rod Freaking Stewart.

I don't think anyone actually gets weened off of breast feeding, we just swap one nipple for another. Now this isn't going to be a long winded diatribe about why we suck. I stopped wasting my time wondering why we have to breathe a long time ago (although I am still disturbed by the autonomic nervous system). My preoccupation with understanding these so called needs (air, breast feeding, American Idol) really stems from my love of studying economics and the illusive pursuit of logic. It is a simple fact that across the world we are punching each other in the private parts trying to retroactively build roots for a tree whose branches were too pre-occupied with the sun. In other words: fabricating capital to pump into a system that grew under false pretenses. It is nothing new, in fact history, as my friend Charles Kindleberger illuminates, tells us that it happens often. Again, we trade nipples for other nipples. I truly believe that the global problems we face are no different than conflicts between children, only there are greater elements at stake and the resolutions are less civil because the players are sexually aware. But honestly, the subject at hand here is not the outer shell of human behavior, namely economics and global conflict, rather what I feel is the pseudo-whatthefuck.com of motivation and complacency. And so we have A Memo Concerning: TJ Max, Naughty Dogs and Rod Freaking Stewart.

One of my favorite things in this world is the look of a dog that has obviously “escaped” from their owner's backyard. Those jackasses who do the “Girls Gone Wild” videos-- you know the videos where blacked out hammered co-eds flash their tits because their fathers marginalized them as children and thus failed to instill a concept of self-worth-- really missed the boat. A “Bad Dogs Gone Wild” video series would be exponentially more entertaining/not depressing. Anyone who has seen a dog on the loose knows that Bad Dog usually keeps a low profile, their heads dipped close to the ground and decorated with a savage shit-eating grin that undeniably signifies that they know fully the naughtiness of their behavior. They usually trot with the awkward briskness of a competitive speed walker, realizing that this moment of bliss may end at any moment while also saving energy for the possible longevity of the excursion. The most gratifying element though is the manic, juvenile glint in their eyes, so innocent yet sociopathic, filled with the euphoria of delinquency. The other dog's in the neighborhood usually freak out completely when they see Bad Dog and begin screaming “Attica! Attica!” in Woof. This causes Bad Dog's smile to shift into the smile of the fat kid with chocolate all over his face sitting next to the kid who is gnawing his way through a piece of organic fruit leather. The other day I was walking to work to begin a day that I anticipated would be about as gratifying as dry humping a porcupine when I crossed paths with one of these glee filled canines. The poetry of the moment was undeniable. The rest of the day I whispered to myself “Just be a Bad Dog, you are a bad, bad dog.”

They say that only in America will large groups of people wait patiently for a traffic light to change when there is no cross traffic. Even though it makes my skin smell like hotdog water just thinking about it, I'm forced to recognize the ridiculousness of this behavior. There is something bizarre about a man dressed in business casual squeezing the shit out of his driving wheel with knuckles jittering in the manic pulse that obviously followed the consumption of a thirteen phrased Starbuck's beverage. How could an individual so in touch with their needs and particular over so many variables (double venti, jamaican, chai, cumshit, mocha, fetus, double pumped, latte, pulled out, single whipped, twice homogenized, thrice fellatiated) later surrender all control to a light on a small metal box? I'm forced to think that freedoms are only given in exchange for dignities. Fish in an aquarium may be able to convince themselves they are in the ocean by staring at the sea-floor rendition on the other side of glass. The chick wearing painful, but “stylish” footwear is having a goddamn party. The dude going to a tanning salon to look like an Oompa Loompa is having a goddamn party. The guy at work whispering to himself “You are a Bad Dog” is having a goddamn party. But the truth is some parties are more kickass than others. So if you catch me sitting before an empty intersection, singing my heart out to early Rod Stewart and ignoring the honking horns of cars behind me, then you will know why toddlers scream with glee when running through their house naked. Just chill you muppets, the song is almost over.

It is 9:52 AM and in 8 more minutes someone will briskly move behind finger print stained pane glass and unlock the door to TJ Max. There will be a click at the moment the deadbolt slides, but only one person will hear it. Just seconds ago I pulled my car into an anemic parking lot positioned deep within the walls of this strip mall, buildings extending like an exposed ribcage. It is a ghost town, tumble weed shopping cart stuck against a curb, For Lease signs on empty storefront windows. The ghosts are the middle aged women waiting within their cars, spread across the lot in a few stoic blemishes to emptiness. None of them park next to each other as if hoping to hide within an empty sheet of paper. They are junkies waiting to tie off another one in the wrist jerk reactions of credit card swipes. An empty home with children at school, a husband at the office, the television voices that have grown so common they are hard to distinguish from their own. From within my vehicle I look across them, spread like a constellation within polished SUVs and wearing meticulously painted make up. Two years ago they congregated at Nordstrom's and Banana Repbulic, now they cower as if stepping into an AA meeting for the first time. Either Alcoholics Anonymous or being leashed by bank statements into shopping at TJ Max. They are mothers, and they suckle, waiting for daddy to blow up another balloon. Attica! Attica!

A Memo Concerning: Excess, Stimulus Packages, and ejaculating into the future.

Rolling tumblers and ticking clocks, as deep and real as waifing sheets of calendar paper, they thrust us forward like the uncontrollable Gatling gun of rabbits banging. Even Bob Barker, for all his tanning salon, intravenous viagra ingesting, creeping hand dangerously close to the ass of contestants-ing, holding his microphone as if it were as delicate as Michael Jackson's nose-ing, knows that some beasts won't allow themselves to be spade or neutered. In our bizarre reality it is as if suddenly the once fumbled drive of goals and dreams set in in the past are now recklessly thrown to the future, rejuvenated by the bizarre idea that after 365 slumbers we have reached a marker that can finally deliver everyone a swift kick to the ass. Yeah I love it; I fiend for the absurd. Lately you may have found me swimming with a nose plug and floaties on my arms, navigating through a sea of pomp and champagne glasses, resolutions that echo dreams forgotten, inaugural addresses, vehicle registration tags, Y2K-like scramble, Oprah's fluctuating waistline, Sasquatch's illusive penis. Yes the New Year is a goddamn circus kids, but lets just step back and grin at this elaborate production. And so we have A Memo Concerning: Excess, Stimulus Packages, and ejaculating into the future.
(Before you judge look up the word in the Dictionary.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm putting together a search party for Sasquatch's penis. I am appointing Robin Williams as associate deputy chief vice supervisor of weiner larceny vice and schtein. Yes it is also a law office. It is my belief that Williams is best suited for this position because of his love of suspenders and his personal duty to our cause: finding a long lost “member” of his fury little family. He will be directly supervised by the band of gnomes living underneath Rod Blogojevich's come-over. My girl Lindsay Lohan will also be involved with the search as Special Counsel. In the air of transparency I will admit that her involvement is solely due to the fact that cameras have seemed to unwillingly find her pubis with bizarre frequency while Monseigneur De Sasquatch, a figure of grand infamy, has, after eighteen hundred years of activity, failed to surrender his beast-hood to the catacombs of print immortality. In the tighty whiteys of circumstance I suppose it is all fitting. If Sasquatch wishes to remain a deceptive creature in our lives then of course his most private element would be his privates. But what are we to make of an entity well documented without clothing of any kind, yet who has failed to reveal that crucial element that truly signifies nudity. In a matter, Sasquatch has given us a delicious cake, but has miserly withheld the sugar. Does this penis really exist? Is it as majestic as mathematic equations and simple ratios would persist? Will it set precedents and build complexes? Will it inspire many to purchase landbeast SUVs, Don Johnson sports cars, or Rolexes that could choke a bullfrog? And what does any of this have to do with the year 2009 and the current set of myopic crisis mongering?

As a finely crafted product of America I possess an inherent affinity towards excess and convenience. As a child I used to wear my pajamas underneath my clothes. There were two primary functions to this behavior. First, as a slender young fellow the additional layer of clothing made me look less an Ethiope and more a filled out, dope ass dude ready to try and kiss hotties underneath the big kid slide during recess. Second, when it was bed time all I needed to do was shed one layer of clothing and I was ready to dream about being an underwater cowboy herding a band of multi colored seahorses through an undulating anemone. It seemed so silly to have to completely change clothing twice in one day. Convenience demanded that I put on all of the day's clothing once and then simply shed layers. Things change though people. I haven't worn underwear in over ten years. I think there is a lesson to be learned here, and at the end of it we might find both Sasquatch's “penis” and Obama's “stimulus package.”

I believe in pruning, hunger, seasons and recessions. Deficits ignite some very powerful survival mechanisms. They force efficiency. When Rudy Giuliani tells us that billions of dollars worth of Wall Street bonuses are necessary to feed the same New York City economy that feels justified in charging nine dollars for a domestic beer I am forced to believe that the excesses we have grown accustomed to are about as necessary as the penis of an 8 foot tall hairy man beast. I'm sorry Monseigneur de Sasquatch, in the year 2009 certain cuts have had to be made. And suddenly it all makes sense.

I usually love watching people freak out, but when parents decide that death is a better option for their family than unemployment I have a hard time enjoying the myopia. During our nation's Great Depression the image of business men jumping to their deaths captured the times. The suicide of two unemployed parents and the homicide of their own children is the image that ejaculates us towards 2009. And that's when I gotta say “Ladies and Gentlemen, chill the fuck out.” Yeah it's gonna suck bros, the sun must set in order for it to rise. It's like going through adolescence again: you're gonna take some hits, there will be some awkward posturing, you might get a silly haircut and listen to some terrible music, but if you can get through it with some kind of semblance of identity and dignity you'll end up looking back on it all with appreciation that it happened, and that it's over.

It is true, the past 29 years our economy has been fueled by the excitement of a household with absentee parents. Well, somebody got knocked up in Mom and Dad's bed (even if it wasn't called sexual relations), some kids gave the neighbors all the laundry then bitched that they had nothing to do, the older kids spent all the home improvement money on an Atari system, the septic tank has overflown into the backyard but it was decided that it'd cost too much to fix it, when the septic ooze went into someone else's backyard the neighbors set a couple of trees on fire, someone used grandma's china as projectiles to fight off imaginary thieves, on the front porch some kids have been selling empty lemonade cups then flashing their quarters and nickles to other kids hoping that they will keep the lemonade stand going, the babies have been eating leftovers and as a result never had a proper bowel movement, the older kids have been feeding the middle children marshmallows and chocolate syrup to get them to stop asking for steaks, nobody knows who is supposed to mop the floor or vacuum, and at the end of the day the only response from anyone in the house is “Not my fault.” So they'll bitch about the parents coming home in 2009 and getting all bossy. Half of the kids will say the parents should go away again, they can handle it, having parents is bad for their development. The other half will be super stoked that there are rules again. Meanwhile I'll be scared shitless knowing the parents were once kids themselves.

History repeats itself. For some reason this is a mystery for people even when our clocks are circles and calendars return to the first month at the beginning of the “year.” Get on the ferris wheel kids. My Angel of History again and again reaches into the inferno of mankind and pulls out a delicate flame. It will run with the flame as far and as fast as it can, taking different routes each time, some will get them farther than others. But the burden of History is that the flame will always burn out, destroyed by its need to run. It knows that this will happen every time but it always moves with the hope that the next journey will be more special than the last.
Either way I'm going to start referring to my manhood as “the stimulus package.”