MEET ME AT THE MALL, IT'S GOIN DOWWWNNNN: BODY BAGS IN OMAHA

Sorry to quote Young Joc, but it had to happen.
I think I am going to have to rename my blog “times I’ve cried while watching cable news.” As you may have gathered already, I cried today. Like most times I shed tears, there were several contributing factors. Sleep deprivation, nagging hangover, three hour marathon masturbation session, candy cane themed Christmas tree, but I think the thing that put me over was when the teenager walked into the mall in Omaha and killed nine people.
Jesus Christ. I guess it’s time to put the Virginia tech football jersey back in the closet and break out my conhuskers gear. When I heard about it is not when I cried. I cried when this little, plain woman in a Christmas sweater with a keychain lanyard around her neck told the story of what she saw. She works in one of the department stores and she was fitting a pregnant Mexican woman for a pair of shoes when the shooting began. To skip a few steps, she saved a barefoot pregnant immigrant from getting shot in the mall and she couldn’t stop crying. So I started.
What I want to do is be glib and flippant and make off color jokes, but for some reason the tragedy hasn’t settled in my sick pot belly of irony yet.
I hate cars. I’m over it, done. I hate that they crash and pollute and make places like phoenix and Atlanta impossible and labyrinthian, I hate the idea of paying 30 dollars to pour liquefied Iraqi orphans into the tank. To clarify : I don’s HATE cars, I mean I like Xzibit and Jay Leno’s cars, I just can’t comply with people who spend four hours a day eating buffalo snackers in their Hyundai. That’s just me.
I crashed a car the other day. Nobody was hurt (although that median won’t be talking any more shit), but it surely was terrifying. And annoying. And a reminder I did not need: I am seconds from death at all times. Go to the mall, get shot. Drive a car on prom night, get a steering wheel wrapped around your neck. It’s all so absurdly random that it’s pushing me further into “nothing means anything. I am the victim of a series of accidents called my life, as are we all”, and so forth.
And then the other night, two people were shot and killed on my girl’s block. Nosy and inquisitive as I am, I went up to the line and I saw that man’s brains on the floor and his sister was screaming and spitting in my face. The whole community of adorable, hard working Mexican expatriates was devastated.
I shuffled home and sat up all night talking to God.
So I came full circle from dark, dismissive nihilism back to divine purpose: there IS a reason. It’s God’s symphony. Our universe is a grand and beautiful performance and I am proud to witness it and oil its gears as I do as I wilt.
When I was 17, my girlfriend was shot in the head and died. She was beautiful and brilliant and honestly, hilarious. The police officer who mistakenly shot her never suffered any consequesnces. I’ve thought many times about abducting him and putting a bullet in his brain, but that’s absurd. It would strike a sour note in the symphony.
The day I saw that man’s brain on my girl’s sidewalk, I found out that an old friend of mine had also been shot and killed. His name was Robert Chatman and I was in juvenile hall and a group home with him for nearly three years. He was insane and unintentionally hilarious and also an idiot. He used to pretend that he was Chinese (though he was as black as the night is long) and make up Chinese words and scream them at people. My favorite was a word that went bachhheeeeyaaahhh!!, which I screamed at a french woman in her basement behind the Eiffel tower. He would also pretend that he was a car and “drive” around the house all day, screeching and shifting invisible gears and turning his invisible steering wheel and doing donuts and figure eights and such. He got out, became a tranny and then he was shot and killed.
I found this out from a thirteen year old boy with dust in his afro, who laughed and said, “that nigga got lit up. Clap! Clap! Buck! Buck” and so forth. I wanted to slap the nap off of that child, making light of my friend’s murder. But that., too, would disrupt the symphony. Instead, I let the guy go ahead of me in line at McDonalds today. And I told the woman with the red weave at the salvation army that she looked pretty. And I hung out with the guys at the comic book shop and told a few jokes. I drew a picture of a fat man eating alone. And then I came home and wrote.
I’m going back to God. I like the symphony. The death and carnage and tragedy are just as vital and gorgeous as the birds and girls and little kids.
So, yes. Smoke that roach. Draw a hopscotch on the sidewalk. Read the guiness book of world records. Watch sesame street. Hold hands with a girl. Tell gay couples to get married. Send a Christmas card. Go to a weird church some time. Hand out candy canes. Give a homeless guy a bottle of scotch. Call your grandfather. Get oddly colored shoelaces.
This is our symphony. It’s our job to do these things. There is a divine, beautiful energy keeping this leaky tub afloat. You are third chair violin on the deck of the titanic. And it’s gonna be great.

IF THE MOTHERS RULED THE WORLD, WE'D HAVE NO GODDAMN OIL IN THE FIRST PLACE (maybe cooking oil)

So . . . I won't pretend that I'm going to read Alan Greenspan's rousing new thriller, but damn, the boy can write some pull quotes. The dashingly snoozy bean counter apparently wasn't happy with being master of the universe for 20 years, now he's got to write a tell all in which he claims, and get this: THE WAR IN IRAQ WAS FOR OIL! What the hump? Next he's gonna tell me OJ did it.
This on the day that I thought I fell aleep in a time machine. After week two of the NFL season, the 49ers, Cowboys AND the Packers are undefeated. Hilary's got a plan to save health care. Then I hear O.J.'s back in jail. Not to be all hetero-male with the sports references, but are we back in 1995? If so, I should be getting a lot more house party handjobs.
Let's turn away from that mess for a moment and have a gander at today in Judeo-Muslim relations. Sadly, September 17 was a bad day for the tribe. First, Iran declares its official policy is to wipe Israel off the map and there are 600 missiles aimed at them as we schlep. And then Israeli Prime Minister Simon Peres plays host to Madonna, who tells him she is an ambasador for Judaism. Dear god. We should up the ante and have Lyndsay Lohan tell the Ayatollah she's the ambassador for Islam.
Seriously, could there be a more perfect totem for the Islamic perception of the lunacy of the western world than the blonde (fake) Jew who introduced slutty to the globe? Bin Laden must be spinning in his grave. Oh wait . . .
Let's move from one crazy broad to another. If Sally Field thought people were never going to stop yelling "you like me, you really like me" at her in the street, she may have permanenetly erased that from our collective memory with her embarrassing tirade at last night's emmys. From what I can gather from her largely indecipherable shrieks, she thinks war is bad and mothers are unappreciated. Sure, Sally. Tell that to Tupac. Everybody loves moms. It's dads that aren't appreciated. Watch any cell phone commercial and you'll know that dads are just bumbling, know nothing dumb asses who need to get the hell out of my room and stop pestering me about my text messaging! I pray that one day, we can have a well spoken, intelligent celebrity to articulate the rational fears and reasonable desires of the left. Sad to say, the Not Without My Daughter/Boniva Spokeswoman isn't doing it for me.
Also, it's no longer an edgy or risky position to take that the war is bad. We're all with you Sally, but what does that have to do with your role on "Brothers and Sisters"?
Also, the suspicion has been floated that Ms. Field was censored by the FOX network because she was cut off mid sentence. Well, that's another no doye. FOX is a crooked corporation with all of its eggs in an evil basket, so OF COURSE she was censored. But before Sally Field said it, did you really think the war in Iraq was cool?
Take a breath.
Between Greenspan and Sally, I say we declare September 17th No Duh Iraq day. Yes, it was for oil and yes, it sucks. But that doesn't mean we can't fly Lyndsay to Tehran for some face time with the clerics to get a head start on the NEXT war.

9/11 IS PLAYED OUT -OR- MISTER ROGERS IS MY GENERAL PETRAEUS

I don't cry very often, but I cried today. Sometimes when girls play the piano or I'm bargaining with God, I'll let a few drops go. Today, as General Petraeus articulately bumbled through his performance on capital hill, I couldn't hold it. It was one of those cries where your lip quivers and you have to work to catch your breath. A real good, cleansing cry.
Six years ago, I went to a Sade concert the day after 3500 people died under the weight of some rather large office buildings in manhatan. She sang a song with the line, "you didn't suffer in vain" and again, I had to cry a little. At the time I thought, "she's right. these people suffered and died, but now that the world has seen what hate and hostility has spawned, humanity will purge itself of the fuel of fear, so they didn't die for naught." As you might recall, that fruity new age masturbatory hippie idealism was shattered in short order by the clumsiest foreign policy since the third reich.
To be fair, I have to say that I cannot report on Petraeus' testimony, because after I vomited last night's Tecates and an ecstacy pill, I changed the channel.
Wiping bile from my chin and tears from my eyes, I turned to what I knew would flush my brain: E entertainment television.
They've been going bonkers all day about Britney's dastardly performance at the VMAs. That, too, made my lip quiver. To know that every bored and lonely desk jockey in America is youtubing Britney's prozac-induced shuffle to ease the pain of the desert bloodbath also makes me cry. It is comforting, however, to know that General Petraeus isn't the only one phoning in a forced performance.
So I turned to PBS and an was surprised by an old friend: Mister Rogers. He was playing the piano and singing a lullaby and I was on the verge of tears yet again when I realized that the public demi-god of gentle kindness who essentially raised me looks EXACTLY LIKE GENERAL PETRAEUS! If only Mister Rogers could gauge the success of our troop surge in a warm and soothing voice. Before we get on the imagination train which takes us to the white house, where it's a winnable war and not a repulsive scam, Mister Rogers will preface it with "Let's have some make believe now". And then I'll know what's pretend.
I've spent a lot of time in NYC this summer, where every guido in a tank top has a 9/11 tattoo and girls are still flashing their boobs at passing fire trucks. One of my favorite things to do in New York is tell my 9/11 joke.

Me:Knock Knock.
Police Man: Who's there?
Me: September Eleventh.
Police Man: September Eleventh who?
Me: I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU'D NEVER FORGET!

I'm done with 9/11. I'm over it. And I think we all should be. It was a tragic event which stole the lives of thousands of innocent, beautiful people and I acknowledge that. But it's become the preface for illegal wars, constitution shredding and the misery of thousands MORE innocent, beautiful people. 3500 people died in that rubble. More people than that die every WEEK from lung cancer. Are we going to declare a war on tobacco?
Soon after the towers fell, a pundit famously coined the phrase "irony is dead." At the time, we were so emotionally wounded that it seemed we would never be able to be smart asses or make sideways comments again. Six years later, irony has become an untamable and tyrannical beast that my generation relies on to blind us from the lunacy and carnage of our modern world. Irony is how we cope.
The hippies had LSD. We have Stephen Colbert. How else to process the tragedy?

So I have no choice. This is my America and I embrace it. I'm gonna go see about a sub prime mortgage to buy some property in New Orleans where I can curl up on the couch and watch Deuce Bigalow: Osama Bin Gigolo.