The Problem with Bullying

Like countless others I was a victim of bullying throughout most of my formative years.  Like many others I didn’t quite know why.  Like many others I often found myself asking, among other things, if my tormentors were right in their assertions.  They were not right.  It took a long time to figure that out.  It took a long time to figure out that certain things marked me as a target and that I was viewed by other kids as prey.  I hesitate to say that bullying is an intrinsic part of the human condition but it may very well be.  It tends to coincide with jockeying for popularity and merit.  It tends to teach aggression and the power of persuasion.  It tends to instruct how you can influence others and manage social spheres.

I was bullied because of things like my learning disabilities and my attention deficit disorder.  I was also bullied because of my reactions to said bullying and my posture.  My reactions were exactly what my tormentors wanted.  Usually shrinking away from the confrontation, my face contorted in a mesh of defeat, sorrow and confusion.  Other times I was loud and upset, shrieking out at their viciousness.  Those times it seemed were the only ones the teacher would take notice.  Because I caused the disruption I was in trouble.  They would twist their faces in horrible smiles happy that not only had they hurt me but I got in trouble for it.  Had I been older when this started happening and more experienced I would have known how to handle it.  There was also the problem with my posture.  It was slightly slumped.  It showed no confidence in my demeanor.  Nothing about my body portrayed don’t mess with me.  Again things I wish I knew.

But something happened around seventh grade that helped.  A girl was being uncharacteristically mean to me.  She never spoke a word to me before and had never displayed any emotion in my direction, either good or ill.  Al of a sudden in Spanish class she started making fun of me.  Before I noticed what I was doing I turned to her and simply devastated what she was saying with humor.  She was completely off guard, stunned to silence.  I turned away hiding a smirk and ignored here for the rest of class.  She was silent and her clique was silent as well.  I had found my savior.  Quips.  It was still a bit of a struggle for the rest of my school day but by the time senior year of high school rolled around I wasn’t a scared little kid anymore.  I had faced my bullies and I made it out with my dignity intact.  Sadly it isn’t that easy for so many.  Sadly what happened to me is not uncommon and worse still is comparably light.

I think part of bullying mentality is to sever empathy.  Bullying causes crying, distress, depression, and, worst of all, suicide.  The perpetrators see either no connection with the harm they are doing or devalue certain people’s emotion.  That or they perversely enjoy the pain they cause knowing the emotional toll they make.  It all depends on the bully’s emotional maturity.

But there is another big problem with bullying that exists outside the dynamic between bully and those bullied.  It’s the rest of the people surrounding it.  Those that do nothing about it, those that encourage the bullying and those who actually punish the victims (especially if they speak out).

The term has come to be called victim-blaming.  That’s where people who have suffered are further expelled from social interactions and made to suffer more because they brought uncomfortable accusations to light.

The story (linked below) is an example of how a family who was wronged by one person is shut out by the community, ostracized and demonized for besmirching the name of a popular person.  Being attacked isn’t enough harm but having to be harassed, and not simply you but your whole family, just because you seek justice afterwards.  Worse still the case was dropped.  The cliff notes version is a 13 year old girl, coerced (but not forced) into drinking was raped by a 17 year old boy at a party.  Then she was left outside in 30 degree weather just outside her house overnight.  There was good chance that this second part could have killed her.  The family was then made fun of, taunted, the mother lost her job and the charges against the boy (and the others involved) were dropped.  This was most likely due to the boy’s family having deep connections to the community.  What strikes me is the girl who was assaulted and left for dead is blamed.  The community reacted violently to the idea of prosecuting the young man.

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/12/4549775/nightmare-in-maryville-teens-sexual.html

Sadly this is only one of several instances.  There is alos the case of bullying continuing on after the teen committed suicide.

http://mashable.com/2013/10/15/bullying-teen-brags-facebook/

But it is not simply the community who is at fault for this continued cycle of victimization it is the authorities themselves.  Police, it seems, treat sexual assault victims with no tact and nothing but suspicion.  Turning an already harrowing experience into something much worse.  And we wonder why there are so many young suicides and unreported sexual assaults.  Society it seems delights in not only making it difficult to move on from the trauma but to forcibly remind the young victims of what happened daily.  But not simply remind to smear their faces in it smugly and blame them for what befell them.

http://sexologist.tumblr.com/post/69181120051/i-accompanied-someone-to-the-police-station-to-report-a

Why is this happening now more than ever?  I’m not sure it is happening more, I simply don’t have the stats, but I do know that with social media we can distance ourselves from the reaction and the fallout.  Regardless of your capability for empathy you can’t see someone crying on the other side of Facebook.  The anonymity takes out the emotional response.  Some kids need to see what harm they cause the torment they create.  Some of them realize it’s wrong to bully by seeing that and making that emotional connection.  Some simply delight in the pain in some perverse manner.  But the internet takes away that reaction and only leaves the sense of doing something funny.  I think about it thusly.  Kids aren’t emotional intelligent enough to understand their actions oftentimes.  That’s part of the reason the knock out game exists.  They don’t think to the part of sucker punching someone to knock them out might have deadly consequences – like passing out while upright and hitting their head causing brain trauma resulting in death.  To them it’s simply something that is fun and they didn’t mean anything by it.  They have already run away by the time the victim falls or recovers.  Our dismay media conglomerates have done nothing but advertise and sensationalize this trend making it spread all the much faster to impressionable kids.  But the problem often is bad kids are caused by bad parents.  You only need to pass one test to become a parent, or fail it depending on your outlook.

But social media bullying isn’t relegated to kids only.  Wither twitter and Facebook and all these venues popular posters are able to influence mass swathes of people.  In this case a man with a popular twitter decide to take to task a rude airplane passenger.  I in no way disagree that the lady was rude, selfish jerk but was this the best method in which to deliver a lesson.  In that I heartily disagree.  He stole her anonymity here and posted it all over the internet.  He posted her name, her picture, as well as her words but all from his point of view.  He was judge, jury and executioner.  Sadly news sources seemed to delight and cheer him on.  I was rather disgusted.

http://huff.to/1ccdtuS

But, fortunately, as I have found for every rotten awful person there tends to be someone wonderful who stands up and fights for others.  Sadly they are often beaten savagely as in this man’s case.  A hero this man was brutalized for standing up for a bullied teen.  Even more importantly he said he made the right choice and would do so again.

http://touch.sun-sentinel.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-78238298/

I don’t tend to think of society as broken I simply see it teetering on edge and it needs more positive examples like the man above to counteract all the atrocities committed by the bullies, those who sweep the uncomfortable stories under the rug and those who lash out at having their perfect world disrupted.  I can hope bullying will get better.  But what I will do is stand up to those who I see doing it.  Step in when I see a fight happening.  Be like that man and help my community.  That is what I can and will do.  I hope others will feel and do the same.

Ben

The Problem with Pop Music

The first glaring issue with pop music is that at its basest level is pop boils out any nuance and risk in favor of appealing to a mass audience.  To get a large mass audience you aim for the lowest common denominator.  To do that you churn out predictable uninspired overproduced nonsense.  True artists will often eschew this tactic, and its potential hordes of money, to pursue loftier ideals of harmonic bliss.  But the urge to give in to letting money dictate you musical choice and not simply follow your inspiration is not limited to the pop genre.  A lot of people will find a particular demographic and exploit them.  Not because the musicians are just that metal, or really into soul, or what have you, but because it will make money.  I understand wholeheartedly and don’t judge this action.  It is simply consumable entertainment and the value is assigned by the listener.  But pop music is unabashed in it naked money grab and its simplicity.  More so that other genres.  It’s in the name: popular music.

Something interesting to point out is that some artists begin their careers as simply pop musicians and at one point manifest into purveyors of music that has depth.  A shining example would be the Beatles.  Not all of their music is wonderful or original (some seems to be blatantly lifted) or innovative but quite a lot is.  They cast off the boy band simplicity said a whole lot less about holding hands.

Current pop music seems to fall into a few reasonable tidy categories.

   I don't want you
   I want you
   I do what I want, isn't that awesome/Parents suck

The “I don’t want you” category is being filled to brim by Taylor Swift and her secret total private so no peaking notebook of breakups.  She’s the more vapid version of Adele.  You might argue that Taylor isn’t vapid.  You might try to point out that she writes her own music.  This indeed puts her above other pop musicians (not a enormous victory).  But lyrics like “we are never, ever, ever, ever [and it keeps going] getting back together” don’t seem so terribly eloquent.  Thoreau begged simplicity (however he did so by repeating himself three times) but this was not quite what he had in mind.  But still Taylor Swift does seem far and away the least likely to erupt into a pile of shapeless atoms as she has enough integrity to hold herself together at least.  Other pop stars seem likely to combust.  And her writing, while simplistic, at least follows some manner of logic.  Other songs hold only true that lyrics make sense if sung impassioned.  They ignore lyrics before and after hoping that the listener will as well as they merrily hum away or join in with windows firmly rolled up as they drive about.

Need some examples?  I’ve got a few.  I subjected myself to sitting through the horrors of pop music videos on Vevo to try and understand the lyrical content.  I came away with a deep need for alcohol and console myself for not taking an easier path in life like these soulless idiots (too harsh?).  Take the inane gibberish of Selena Gomez’ I love you like a love song.  Hey, remember when your English teacher told you never to use the word you are describing in its own description?  That title begs that Gomez didn’t.  Also real fucking original title.  What the fuck does it mean to love someone like a love song?  If it’s like this one its over in three minutes, uninspired and easily forgettable.  Not quite the impression I’d want to make regarding love and you can extrapolate the double entendres there.  Then there is the lyric, “hypnotized by your destiny”.  That sounds like something the Ultimate Warrior might say (i.e. insane).

But let’s not leave out Bieber’s crappy lyrics.

“As long as you love me
We could be starving
We could be homeless
We could be broke”

Why lead with starving?  Should it not be the opposite direction?  Broke often only implies not having money past bills and securing basic necessities.  Homeless is worse but you could have some food and prospects.  Starving, well that’s reasonably awful.  That view of love is nice but you can't subsist on an emotion.  Marriages break up over money all the time and that the lesser of those three things.  The whole song is a childish exercise that equates to puppy love/first love.  Here every emotion is raw and powerful.  The emotion so new and unknown is intense.   A mild attraction if it’s the first time can be confused with the power of love.  Here we see someone emotionally inexperienced.  That’s the problem with teenagers.  They have enough intelligence to piece together cohesive thoughts but enough emotionally maturity to be anything but annoying to those in another age bracket.

The “I want you” category has a bit more variety.  It’s full of the garbage our love is powerful even though we’re twelve nonsense, the barely hidden meaning ‘we should bang’ nonsense (which as an adult is rather uncomfortable to listen to young people sing), and the I’m better than the other person nonsense.

An especially ridiculous example of this is the song “Want U Back”.  I can forgive the texting vernacular in the title.  I can forgive the hypocrisy… not actually, nothing in this song, catchy as might be, is forgivable.  It is full of ad hominem and bullshit.  Insulting someone by saying you’re simply better is not a good argument.  She probably followed the Avril Lavigne school of bitchy cattiness.  But I shouldn’t insult Avril she’s dating the lead singer from soon to be playing in elevators band Nickleback.  No one deserves that fate not even hollow, fake brats (Gosh, I’m sunny today).

The song is absolutely horrendous.  It treats the boy as a thing.  She only wants him because another person has him.   The aforementioned boy was supposed to be so ruined after the breakup he couldn’t bear the sight of another female.  She only wants him as a lifeless husks incapable of feeling anything besides pain and remorse.  Also the lyric “You didn’t think this through” just points to the sheer ego of the singer.  It’s said with no shame.  You dumped this guy and he got another girlfriend.  He didn’t think it through because you say his new ersatz girlfriend isn’t as good as you.  Yeah, I think he should stay with this ‘worse’ girlfriend.  But this echoes the mentality of instant gratification and ego.  I’m better simply because I believe so and because I’m better I should have what I want now.  The fact that I don’t have this now is unfair and that’s why I’m mad.

For the “I do what I want, isn't that awesome/Parents suck” genre it’s awful and unbearable to anyone but kids.  The reason being what kids think is cool is bucking authority, insulting authority but doing so in relative safety without expectations of repercussion.  You know, the world no one lives in because it’s an immature fantasy.  This is reasonably harmless and is the younger idiot brother of songs about real rebellion from people/bands like  Bob Dylan, Rage against the Machine, Pearl Jam and others.

The our love is powerful is almost cute so I won’t really muck it with it as much.  It’s still childish but that’s because like all the rest it’s aimed at teens and tweens for their obsessive consumerism.  There is always a few gems in the rough but they are more often than not overshadowed by bad behavior.  The industry seems to reward rather than punish bad behavior.  This is where the adults come in.  To us these teen aged and young twenty somethings are jokes.  They are ill mannered disasters to be mocked.  This exist for our derision and to watch garbage like the E! Network and poke fun at them.  While secretly we wish to indulge in some of their lifestyle.

They are the worst of us and they are a fantasy.  A way for us to live out a desire of being blissfully ignorant.  Of being animalistic and needy.  Full of false unearned and unconditional bravado.  So many are worshiped blindly.  Are they the problem or are we the problem for enabling them.  Would they have been such disasters of role models before our attention and money or did it ruin them?

The perfect case study is the evolving train wreck of Miley Cyrus.  She had inklings of this disaster in motion earlier but her notoriety has skyrocketing with her MTV gyrations.  He last two music videos were awkward attempts at sexy.  Her twerking with a giant bear costume is nothing short of confusing.  Her predilection with showing us her tongue is frustrating.  Her immense need for nudity and attention to her body is rather unnerving.  Put your bits away Miley.  I’m sure your male fanbase has grown by leaps and bounds.  More importantly for the love of all things good  put your tongue in your mouth.  You were licking a sledgehammer.  That is not sexy, it’s unclean and gross.  It’s too bad your father is too consumed by you churning out small mountains of cash to be concerned with the fact you’re having a slow flaming psychotic break in front of America.  It’s entirely possible she’ll shave her head, have multiple failed marriages, and a bad reality television show like another house of mouse star.

I hope you are proud of yourself Disney.  You’ve unleashed your unholy army of witless teenage sex symbols to slowly lower the IQ of a generation of Americans.  Maybe it’s our fault for letting it happen but dammit Disney you should have know better.

Ben

The Problem With Video Games

As a gamer in his thirties E3 confirmed something for me.  The gaming industry is deeply flawed and doesn’t care about me anymore.  Microsoft is in full on consumer rape mode, Nintendo thinks I need a tablet for a controller, and Sony thinks not being Microsoft is a feature.  Sadly Sony is somewhat right.  These three parties along with mainstream publishers/distributers have been systematically dismantling the industry and creating this bastardized version of aggravation and disappointment.

There have been warning signs for some time.  First there was DRM.  Implemented to fight piracy with the same draconian mindset of the out of touch film industry (let’s make everything 3D and charge more!) DRM is an insult.  Online communities have been bitching about the practice for years and threatening boycotts.  But there is no solidarity.  Why?  Because gamers are competitive and conditioned consumers.  We bitch online about all the bullshit but we still end up lining up for new release day like excited sheep.  I have escaped this cycle for the most part by using Gamefly but that might end soon, but more on that later.  Then there was DLC.  Then there was always on internet access.

The reason these things keep coming is that we don’t vote with our wallets.  The outrage never goes further than the internet.  We still buy the junk.  I’m to blame too, I’m part of the problem.  Case in point I bought Diablo 3.  I regret this decision because it only strengthened the resolve of the gaming companies.  Games have slowly acquired a list of flaws that we allow.  It was not commonplace to sell unfinished games.  Now a game is rushed through development to meet the schedule.  DLC is preplanned before the product is even released.  Nintendo the last stalwart against this has slowly and quietly reversed traction on DLC.  And Nintendo’s policy has always been about the game.  They built consoles around games.  The Nintendo 64 was built around Mario 64. Sony and Microsoft build a console and developers create games for them.  Sure they probably take some feedback but games are made to fit the platform not the platform is made the games.  This is a wholly different mindset.  I just wish Nintendo would make a console with a regular controller.

But is DLC really so bad?  Yeah, they sold armor for your horse in a video game.  And people bought it.  You don’t need to protect your horse you just get a new one.  There is no attachment to animal in the game.  I can’t even compare it buying a an accessory for a doll or action figure.  It provides nothing except a shiny pixilated reminder of how much an idiot you are and that you don’t deserve to manage your own credit card by yourself.  This was bought by the same type of person who watches late night QVC and really thinks they might need a diamonique encrusted salad tong combination ball scratcher.  Of course then you need to figure out where to store the salad tong combination ball scratcher, with your other cutlery or your with your unmentionables.

There is the argument that DLC is good revenue for the publishers and developers to combat the used games empire built up by Game Stop.  You can sell back you game to this retailer for pennies on the dollar and then they resell it a few bucks cheaper than full price.  And gamers have been flocking to the model.  Problem there is that the publishers and developers get none of the money.  It’s not really a problem but they want a part of it.  I can’t blame them they spend tens of millions to produce a game that has around fifteen hours of game time.  The DLC can’t be traded in and goes directly to the people responsible for the game.  But perhaps the idea of making a game that has replay value and more than a few hours of game time might be a better choice.  Oh yeah and day one DLC is insulting.  Also exclusive content based on where you buy also insulting.  Sell me a whole product not a partial one.

Then there is this always on internet bullshit.  This was bad with Diablo 3 and worse with the newest Sim City.  At least in Diablo they had some features that were rather useful.  Easy to drop in and out of any friends game in seconds.  That was cool.  The game kinda sucked but that’s okay.  Also quick note, developers please stop making games primarily set in gloomy atmospheres.  If the majority of the game takes place in a burnt down, cobweb infested wasteland with two colors in your palette I hate you.  A few colors are pleasing and makes me not hate to look at the screen.  You can have a cohesive but visually diverse landscape (see Bioshock Infinite or the Elder Scrolls games).  But inevitably with always on internet there is a server problem the day of release.  This is the at the maddening height of fanboys fervor when the thirteen year olds are all sweaty with excitement.  Then the crash happens.  All that joyous excitement turns to impotent, internet rage and vile expletives.

But the reaction of the gaming companies is interesting to note.  Mostly complete indifference and lying from the publishers and distributors while the developers mostly apologize profusely.  EA simply tries to ignore the issue of Sim City and ignore the press.  Give nothing to feed the trolls, eventually it will die down.  The internet has a short attention span and gaming will have a new target in a week or so.

This take me to the new batch of console coming up.  Nintendo has some exciting games ready to launch.  They have Mario in a cat suit.  The internet may not be ready for this.  Also new smash brothers, new Mario cart, and new various other Nintendo only products.  If you notice Nintendo is very tight on it’s licenses regarding their intellectual property.  You’ll never see Mario on the Xbox, or Playstation.  You won’t see him on mobile devices as well (discounting the Gameboy).  Nintendo banks on its games.  The problem is they have also banked on novelty and ugly annoying controllers.  I want a regular controller.  I’m sick of motion control.  But I still might end up getting the Wii U at one point.  I wish I could quit you Shigeru Miyamoto.

Then there is Microsoft.  The Xbox One is an affront to gamers.  It is region locked (sorry travelers and soldiers), has always on requirements (sorry rural internet or no internet users, those with connection issues), it flat out rejects used game (sorry Gamefly users and people who swap games with friends).  It’s basically a box of pure hate.  In my mind it is now the Hate Box.  I use Netflix on my Xbox 360 now.  I love streaming Netflix this way.  But I also use my Xbox to play used games that I rent from Gamefly.  I like to play offline because online multiplayer makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out and beat up teenagers.  The first time I played Halo 3 some asshat teabagged my corpse in like ten minutes.  He did so with complete disdain and the effortlessness of a person who has done this many time before defiling the faces of people avatars for his own odd pleasure.  I stopped online play shortly after.  The online lobbies of choosing games suck as I want recreational players not kids who have been playing this game online for months and doing nothing else.  Yeah, you are better than me.  I’d be good too if I had nothing to do other than waste my free time sticking my digital junk in faces.  The Xbox One has a bunch of cool features but you know what I wanted?  A gaming console.  I did not want an entertainment conglomerate.  Oh yeah and if someone bans you guess what happens to your games?  Un-fucking-playable.  It's not like there have been bans before n online gaming for no good reason.  That never happens.  Also online support for video games are useful filled with the most helpful individuals.  Wait, no, they are awful swamp trolls from where the places nightmares go when you awake who delight in ruining your happiness and providing the worst support imaginable.  Why?  Because fuck you that's why.

Sony just ended up winning by saying they weren’t going to do what Microsoft did and treated it like it a was feature.  Not fucking people over is not a feature.  But there is an issue at hand.  The Xbox One will still sell.  It will sell a whole bunch.  Because there are some cool exclusive games coming out and Microsoft doesn’t give a shit about people being pissed.  They aren’t walking back their bullshit anytime soon.  Sony isn’t an angel here.  They are changing their online policy to make you need to pay to play online with friends.   So if you have both console you need to pay ten bucks a month to utilize features.

There is a reason indy developers and mobile games are eating up the profits from these guys.  Their target audience is two segments somewhat savvy adults who are getting annoyed and kids.  The kids will bitch until their parents relent.  The adults are where my hope lies.  If sale of the new Hate Box suck they might wake up.  They might realize having a Kinect have to be on might be not awesome.

If I had my way here is what my dream console would have.  Good games first and foremost.  A decent controller with a goddamn start button (stop taking away my buttons and adding lies).  Also stop making me buy battery packs.  Wireless controllers can come free with a wire that charges through your system like the PS3.  Make an integrated easy to set up wireless internet.  Don’t charge me for some ridiculous dongle.  Don’t need a system update every five seconds for every game (I’m looking at you Sony).  Every time I turn on my PS3 I need to update something and wait twenty minutes to play a game.  Make downloads possible in the background.  I shouldn’t be locked into a loading screen while I wait.  Don’t make me use the cloud to save.  An option is great.  Also give me more than one save spot.  If I want to start a new game I shouldn’t have to save over my other game.  Maybe the industry doesn't want people to replay their games anymore.  This auto save thing is annoying I should be able to turn it off I want.  I should never have to talk to a server as offline gaming is important.  You know like the ability to have friends over who sit on the couch next to you and play coop that way.  Have an easy interface built mostly around games.  I’m buying a console not a computer/cable box.  I don’t care about internet search on my console, it's stupid and you're stupid for thinking I care.  I have smart phone for that.  Speaking of smart phones don’t let that be an integrated part of the gaming experience.  Games are already going in the wrong direction half the time with countless sequels to crappy predictable franchises simply to grab money I don’t need extra peripherals.  Just let me sit down after a long down and shoot an alien in the head.  Games should be fun not frustrating.  You are taking away my fun and replacing it with shiny pretentious garbage.  Graphics and processing power is not that important to give that up.  Just make a good product that is how you protect you investment.

I guess more than ever now is a good time to be a PC gamer.  Steam must be feeling pretty good about themselves in the coming months.  But y prediction is that gaming community will continue the slide into bullshit and allow publishers to put restraints on use.

Ben

Beer is Good For the World

Beer was probably found and not invented because beer is just that kind of thing, always helping out.  If beer was person he’s be your cool uncle who sneaks you into bars then keeps a watchful eye out for you all night and makes sure you went home safe.  The reason beer was discovered, and not invented, most likely  had to do with wild yeast.  Wild yeast is like the best goddamn Pokemon or something, gotta catch it all.  The film Beer Saves the World supposed some ancient human had this wet container of bubbling barley.  The rain filled up the container of barley and wild yeast had sexy time with all the sugars and primitive beer.  Because man is curious he probably drank the stuff.  He might have been pissed because he had hoped for dry and not bubbly barley.  However being the kind of guy who soberly decides to drink strange and new things decided fuck it I spent some time picking that stuff I’m not wasting it.  That was the proposed first experience with beer.  Three of the four main ingredients were there; barley; water; and yeast.  Hops as all that was missing.  That’s what gives beer it’s bitterness and aroma.

Beer is awesome.  It basically invented itself because it was tired of waiting.  The stuff was staple of diets for many civilizations.  Any old films got it wrong.  Egyptians didn’t drink wine they drank beer.  What do you think those monks brewed?  Beer.  Hey, you think beer is one of those predominantly male things that’s all about bro-skies and chauvinism?  Fuck that.  Some cultures only had women brew beer.  They were the brewsters , yes brewster is the feminine term for a brewer.  Certain cultures only had women brew.  Plus the word sounds like a drunk rooster.  Maybe the bastard won’t wake me up at five in morning.

Okay, so maybe beer is an equal opportunity thing and maybe people drank it for sustenance as it had the essential nutrients you needed (and was often of  much lower alcohol content so it’s not terrible for the kiddies to have it) but what else is so good about it.  What about healthy drinking water.  Eat that and you doubts Kyle.  Part of the brewing process is you know boiling, which tends to kil all manner of not so happy things.  And this is before things like germ theory.  Germ theory was before people knew that you shouldn’t handle “dirty” things before touching food.  Remember in the medieval times everything was fucking dirty.  Sewage treatment plants were the things goring in your pot before you hucked it out the window… into the street… where people were walking.  Again why men were supposed to walk on the outside closer to curb and protect the women from the splashes of actual shit.  That coat laying down thing.  So a lady wouldn’t soil herself in feces.  Those poor coats.  And backs… ick.

Well, what about those wine snobs and spirits enthusiast you?  Kyle, you just don’t give up do you?  Beer is complex as has lots of meaningful varietals just like more traditionally elegant spirits like whiskey (or whisky depending on the country of origin), or wine for that matter.  How many glasses is there for wine?  Two?  Paltry in comparison to beer.  The pilsner glass, one of many different beer glasses, has multiple styles alone.  You can pair beer with food just as well as wine or spirits.  Oh, and if you judge beer off of the large breweries you are not a smart beer drinking.  All of Europe mocks you.  And a good chunk of the states.  Beer matters.

Independent brewing, which is starting to come into its own in the States, is trying to change the perception of what beer and should be.  Sam Adams one of the biggest of the Indy’s (and yes they are still considered and independent brewer they haven’t hit enough barrels per year yet) helps out independent breweries through programs so there is wider distributions of malts, hops, barley and other items crucial to the brewing process.  These companies help each other out.  Like the time in 2008 when, shudder, there was hops shortage and Sam sold theirs (20,000 lbs) at cost to other craft breweries.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams_%28beer%29#2008_hops_shortage

They don’t just help each other out.  They fight for clean water.  That stuff they boil anyway to get all the nasty stuff out they still want it clean.  That’s why brewers are fighting against fraking.  And not fraking in the sci-fi expletive sense fraking as in that environmentally dangerous resource draining practice that lets some rather nasty stuff get into ground water.  But it’s okay water should be practically flmable and totally undrinkable right.  No?  Okay fuck fraking.  Oh, and certain companies are trying to fight this by saying there is trade secrets in the whole fraking process.  So you can’t really review it.  Fuck the whole poisoning the environment thing it’s damaging for you know the process.  I only wish I was joking this was a real ruling by a real judge in real American (versus fake America).  Yeah, fuck fraking.

“A judge in Wyoming has denied a lawsuit by environmental groups against the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission demanding that the list of chemicals in fracking fluids be made public, ruling such lists are trade secrets that may be withheld under Wyoming’s open records law.”

http://grist.org/list/beer-brewers-are-joining-forces-to-fight-fracking/

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/03/29

So beer actually has essential nutrients for you, was a centerpiece of history, it discovered itself, it creates brotherhood, it helps local economy, and it fights against environmental doom.  Oh yeah, and the star spangled banner came from a drinking song.  But drink responsibly, I don’t want any of you assholes giving beer a bad name by driving drunk or acting the fool.  Don’t be that guy.

Ben

We are all fucked but let’s blame the Millennials anyway

“Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.”  Time Magazine cover story.

Thanks Time magazine, you give me the warm and fuzzies.  By the way good luck with that whole print magazine thing, I’m sure it’ll turn out great for you.  I’m sure Egon was wrong when he said “print is dead” all those years ago.

But anyway, to be blunt, fuck you.  How dare you cast aspersions on an entire generation and so casually write off people.  Lazy?  This is an extremely competitive market with people competing desperately for jobs far below their skill set and  education.  My generation is a group of people saddled by debt from unwieldy, and let’s face it unfair, student debts.  We compete for subpar jobs with employers who face no repercussions for paying us a s little as possible and treating us a poorly as possible.  There is a reason people are protesting.  There is a reason there are so many people quitting their day job and jumping into start ups.  We aren’t lazy as a whole.  We are not necessarily hard working as a whole either.  But to survive and do reasonably well my generation needs to be either lucky or scrappy.  And luck only cuts it for part of the time.

Entitled?  Narcissistic?  Maybe.  But I have a few counters for this.  One is starkly obvious.  We aren’t as old or experienced.  Experience has yet to teach many of the generation that they aren’t special.  They are unique and wonderful, we all are, but they aren’t inherently better than others.  To butcher Socrates we can think of it this way, the more I know the more I understand that I know so little (“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”).  That’s a hard pill to swallow.  It makes sense to me now but when I was an idiot teenager I thought I was brilliant.  I really did.  I thought my life would be simple and without great difficulty as I got older (immensely foolish)  How could I have possible think I was so smart?  It isn’t sheer arrogance it’s simply the foolishness of youth.  Immaturity.  It is only cured by time.  We can’t simply judge a group of people at one age against another group at a more advanced age.  We also cannot judge them when our society has changed so drastically.  It simply is unfair and unrealistic.  And that is another thing that confuses me.  The older generation either is unwilling to admit this, willfully ignorant, completely oblivious, stupid, or looking through rose colored glasses.

Our culture does us no favors.  Just look at the dismay state of education.  It is simply an incubator.  We hold onto the youth for a certain amount of years and let them fend for themselves after.  We remove so much content from schooling in the hopes of pushing them through faster and more efficiently that we no longer care about the quality of the time spent.  We teach to the lowest common denominator far too often.  We let bad behavior and poor decisions go unpunished.  We teach the children that not trying is a valid method for success.  Why should they put in effort?  Parents have no issue complaining to a teacher.  Administration has less concerns with educating children than with keeping things in line and prepping them for the next test.  Testing is ruining our schools.  They are rewarded or punished on these tests.  Why should schools do anything but simple prepare the kids for it.

We coddle these children.  We prevent them from harm.  We tell them they are special.  I understand every kid gets to play mentality but you don’t hold back the star.  We celebrate mediocrity in schools.  Children leave school ill prepared for the world at large.  We expect them to pick up the slack at paid schooling.  We force college education on them because we failed them at lower levels.  The institutions of education are failing our future generations and we stand idly by uncertain and confused.  I know many times I deserved lower grades or certain reprimands but I coasted by.  It taught me awful behaviors that I had to later unlearn.  I cannot simply coast through life.  I cannot rely on simply being smart.  The world isn’t handing out opportunities.  But for some reason as a much younger man I thought I was owed an opportunity.  I knew I was smart.  But that means nothing.  I’m just a number, a few letters on a piece of paper on a resume to some HR person. The paper they shuffle through (emails now) don’t convey that so simply.  Having it so easy for so long was not conducive for a strong head start in my career.  For my hubris and foolishness I suffered many years moving from one shitty job to another slightly less shitty job.  Now I have a moderately respectable big boy job I’m not ashamed of.  I figured it out on my own through hard work.  I dealt with ignorance and cocksureness saddled on me by an older generation too weak to say, “things are hard out there.”  If only they hadn’t expected me to magically grow up at eighteen and come to a conclusion on my own.

I’m not saying it’s easy to tell your children they aren’t geniuses.  I’m not saying it’s easy to tell the young that things are rough out there and it might not get better.  But it’s worth it.  Children don't need friends.  They need parents.  Tell them no and tell them often.  Protect them but without insulating them.  And don't you dare complain it's hard.  Tough shit.  It's your responsibility as a parent.

Living at home?  Fuck you twice.  What do you expect us to do?  We know that salaries have gone done and the price of education has gone up (while the worth of education has gone down).  We know the market is competitive and saturated.  We know in order to survive people are taking whatever they can get.  And yet we complain that this generation moving home is simply out of shiftlessness.  Business seems more ruthless that ever.  The employees rights and benefits shrink as time passes.  The new work dynamic is mercenary work.  Jump from company to company slowly increasing your salary.  This replaces staying with the same company until you retire slowly working your way up and being rewarded for diligence.  The boys club is here and it’s here to stay for quite some time.  Good luck breaking into the group.

But times will change.  The boomers will eventually have to retire.  And the thing that should be pants shittingly terrifying is the people in charge will be us.  You eat up all that social security you assholes.  Leave nothing for us.  That’s fine.  You had your chance for change and your fucked it up.  You traded in the love ins and hippy rebellions for suits.  You ushered in a new era of greed and ruthlessness.  You have created and endless series of wars and acts of aggression.  You have lied and misled us.  And you have the nerve to call us self obsessed?  You think you can live comfortably in your golden years when we have to power.  You think it’s a good idea for the people how control your fate to be angry.  Guess what happens when some who was withheld power for so long finally gets it?  I envision a lighting strike in the background, a maniacal laugh and an old man releasing his bowels at the realization.  But maybe we as a generation who have seen the ruthlessness of those we look up to won’t mimic the behavior.  We might not behave in the same manner.  I fucking hope so.  Just because we were shit on doesn’t mean we should behave the way.

We are a generation of lost souls abandoned by our elders forced to fight amongst ourselves.  We are your creation.  You saw our anger and rage when we protested the 1%.  We saw your casual disgust and intolerance.  We can hope there might have been that rekindling of spirit you once had.  Maybe a remembrance of what happened in Ohio at Kent state all those years ago.  You railed against the police as dogs of your parents generation and yet you do the same to us with no sense of irony of hypocrisy.

We are a generation who is slowly finding its voice.  We are a generation of who lived through numbness of the nineties after the saccharin bullshit of the eighties.  We survived the awkwardness of the first decade of the century.  We are slowly coming back to coherence and we are angry.  Will we continue to cycle?  Will we cast off our yoke only to make those younger than us suffer?  I don’t know.  I have hope for us to be better.

But what can be done now?  The obvious answer is to educate the older generation and the media.  If the media who control what we consume and reaches the whole of society perceives my generation as slackers those are the hearts and mind that must be won over.  But it won’t be particularly easy.  Fortunately the way we gather news is in transition like so many other industries.  I get most of my news online.  I barely watch television and the print medium I read is books.

Small to medium side note, I much prefer actual books over reading off tablets.  I enjoy having the tactile sensation of pages turning as well as the smell of the pages, the ink and the binding.  I don’t have a terribly well defined sense of smell (due to an enlarged adenoid and deviated septum) but the old book smell, is one I have a great fondness for.  “The vanilla smell in old books comes from Lignin, a compound that is essential to trees having the stiffness to grow tall. Lignin comes out naturally in the paper pulp process which led to its prevalence in newspapers and book pages.”*

Of course turning the tide of media is not an easy job.  But places on the internet are the best forums for my generation to start.  Simply because most of these newer forums are controlled and visited by my generation.  The older “standard” news outlets are more and more borrowing from the internet sources.  Perhaps if there is an uproar there a cogent argument about the hypocrisy of the older generation may penetrate the culture.  Perhaps all that is needs is a push.  Our society is already gaining much ground in sexual equality perhaps economic and generational equality can come on it’s heels.

Ben

http://freshnews.gorhamsavingsbank.com/2011/10/bad-news-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%9Cbook-smell%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-a-casualty-from-the-move-to-digital-books/

Attention Deficit Disorder

I am going to attempt to explain what it’s like to live with A.D.D., a much maligned and over hyped cognitive disorder.  I hope to give some insights so those without this disorder can have some appreciation for it.  Jumping topics slightly, something that I should hopefully cover later on as it would also give illumination… did you know there have been some really cool improvement on the light bulb lately.  Yeah, it seems boring but improving the light bulb can have a profound effect.  How many light bulbs in you place of living?  In you place of work?  In highways and other places.  If we cut down on power expenditure we improve things dramatically.  Back to my earlier point… a lot of people use ADD as an excuse.  I remember when I was in high school people would self diagnose themselves as ADD.  I would self diagnose them as jerks, idiots and lazy douche bags.  A bit harsh, true, but I’d watch a person complain about lack of focus when they don’t understand what that really means.  I do this as I constantly repeat in my mind that at in twenty minutes I have to excuse myself from class and walk to water fountain  to take an adderal pill.  Did you ever notice adderal starts with the letters add?  And why is it A.D.D.?  It isn’t adding anything.  You’re subtracting from your focus.  The weird thing about the problem is you need speed, or an upper rather, to calm you down.  Sort of.  You need more energy to maintain focus.  The hyperactivity part is not intrinsic to ADD.  Hyperactive is a bullshit term most of the time.  Its mainly applicable to boys.  It isn’t hyper (again extra) it’s the norm.  Young boys have a tremendous amount of energy and a biological need to expend it…  It’s like telling a scorpion not to sting.  You stupid frog in the parable take that… Anyway.  School isn’t designed for the needs of young boys.  Expectations to sit quietly in your seat and absorb knowledge are not built on the true nature of boys.  Of course it’s not a good idea to let the miscreants run rampant and swing from the rafters but an innovation might be needed.  So I would watch them, quelling my rage, as they joked about ADD.  They knew nothing of the sort they just wanted and excuse, a crutch, a reason to avoid shame.

There seems to be a large chunk of people being labeled ADD wrongly.  I think this is simply the culture enabling bad parenting.  Drug your children and avoid responsibility.  Many problems can simply be helped along by time and work.  There is no test to become a parent, well there is but that’s more confirmation than a judgment of metal and psychological ability.  I don’t condone anything so Draconian as restricting parenting to ‘deserving’ individuals I simply hope that more moms and dads make time to improve their children through good parenting, which is laborious and often thankless, over cheap and easy fixes.

I sit at the computer rubbing my eyes and trying to get through this report.  I’ve pulled the information from the core platform brought it over into excel for scrubbing.  Pivoted the data and charted it.  I bring it to another workbook where I change it again from presentation.  Then  suddenly, and unbidden, a thought enters my mind.  It take over my entire thought process and I cannot purge it.  No further action can be undertaken until I see this tangent to fruition.  What happens to those puppetry of the penis guys when they get older?  Does it have a measurable effect in older age.  Is it better or worse for health reasons.  How would you explain to your grandchild why you have to wear really baggy pants as an adult because you need more room due to helping along gravity.  Then I sit unsure if I should be dismayed or amused.  I go get coffee and shake the thought from my head.  I sit down moments later and return to my previous work.  Things like this happen at least three times a day.

Perhaps it is part of the of the creative process for some.  But I cannot have a linear thought for long period of time.  It’s like surfing the internet, or specifically wikipedia.  One thought begets another and the chain can be hard to trace back.  I can sit still now as an adult and I’ve trained myself to deal with things but I have difficulty not checking my phone.  I have to set constant reminders and schedules.  I keep them in my smart phone for easy access.  I’ve made a habit of checking it rather often.  It’s not that my memory is bad my focus just weakens from time to time unpredictably.  It’s like a shield  Some thoughts simply bounce right off.  Some are so strong them blow through.  Others simply slip in once the defense have gone down from the constant barraging attack.

The arch nemesis of anyone with ADD is that fucking windsock puppet thing in front of car dealerships.  I hate that god damn thing.  It jumps and move unpredictably.  It calls to my eyes.  It’s isn’t terribly interesting or entertaining.  But… I… can’t… look… away.  Fuck that thing.  I wish sometimes I could have a better filter for random thoughts.  I wish when one takes hold I could file it the back of my mind and say I’ll think about you later when I have  moment but I need to get this done.  It does not happen.  It is an electric current.  It is immediate and must be satisfied to the end.

This is problematic for many reasons.  It makes reading a nightmare.  I just counted ten books on my night side table.  Four of which I have started at one point.  If I don’t finish a book within ten days it grows discarded.  I might pick it up again and finish it might wait there forever a mark of shame.  It might wait patiently for its turn.  It might eventually get filled away on a bookshelf.

Video games are not as bad as they are intrinsically more engaging by nature.  You are interacting more directly and much less passively.  But still some game sit partially played, possible never to be finished.  My Netflix queue grows faster than shrinks.  My want to consume always higher than my time set aside.

I’ve worked hard to control and constrain my ADD.  I look for no pity.  But I do want people to stop self diagnosing or using drugs to treat this.  The erratic nature of the disorder is only a flaw depending on the lifestyle you choose.  Office cube rats is not the most conducive environment for such things but I manage just fine.

Perhaps this post gave an idea of what it’s like to think in a non-linear fashion.  And sadly not an intentional non-linear fashion more of a o disjointed fractured version of linear thought.  A topic is started and along the way focus drifts and the path back to the original topic is gone and you wonder how you got where you are now.  My method of combat has been time, patience and effort.  The three things that I’ve found cure most everything.  If you have cognitive disorders or learning disabilities (I’m also dyslexic) I feel for you.  I appreciate your struggle and I hope you find a way to improve yourself through it.  My problems have usually been my best teachers.  They have given valuable tools in learning how to function better.  The skills I developed through my efforts have been critical in getting me where I am. 

Ben

How to Ruin a Party

There are moments in life when I experienced an indignant rage so acute I wanted to shake the stupidity out of a person.  Frothing over with unexpressed rage wondering how it was possible for a person, or persons, ability to make it thus far in life.  I have practiced restrain many times over dealing with such shocking displays of childishness, of pettiness or downright inexplicable incompetence.  This is a problem I continue to encounter as I greatly enjoy throwing parties.  Oftentimes such parties will be uncomplicated and stress free but they are like a diamond in the rough, rare beautiful and elusive.  More often they are immense undertakings with copious amounts of work, clean up and frustration.  For some reason I continue on hoping for better results.  This tendency is not because I am insane, as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results might suggest, but because I am hopeful.  I hope that people show me their best.  I hope that people appreciate effort and the niceties offered.

Here’s a few examples of the ingratitude and beastly behaviors I have experienced in the past.  I write this in part to sooth my frustrations.  I don’t wish to look negatively on throwing parties as I find them a wonderful opportunity for creating a feeling of community and family.

Dinner out

This should be uncomplicated.  Most people who act like adults I’ve found split the check without much thought.  If the bill is disproportionate between couples then actual math can be used but discounting such differential math is not needed.  Even better we tell the server of the check being split before ordering.  I find that last step fixes a large group of problems encountered with eating with certain problem friends.

I dread passing the bill to certain people.  I see them furrow their brow and I think to myself they are simply figuring out a way to fuck everyone else at the table.  They bead up with sweat wondering if anyone knows they are cheap or stupid or incapable of simple math.  I simply shake my head in frustration and chastise myself.  Why chastise myself, you wonder?  Because I should fucking know better.  Everyone has an idiot friend who simply cannot pay properly.  I have several and they all employ different ways of screwing it up.

Perhaps it’s the one idiot who pays with a card when everyone else pays with cash.  Guess what if you give the wait staff the money and you pay the difference you don’t tip on the difference.  If you do that makes you an asshole.

Then there is the person with forgetful math.  Hey, guess what you can get away without paying for you iced tea once.  If it happened every time we are out and we are always short, it’s not me it’s you.  Yeah, you’re an asshole.  And yeah, I remember you ordering refills when they aren’t free.  No I don’t think it’s unfair that aren’t refills.  Yes, you should pay extra when you ordered extra sauce and had the meal prepared differently from the way it is on the menu.  Yeah, I do remember these things.  Yes, you are still an asshole.

There is also the under tipper.  You simply have no idea what it’s like to work in the restaurant industry.  I have managed wait staff.  Many of them have been incompetent, disrespectful, many have stolen from myself or others,  many are rude or stupid.  But I still tip properly.  Why because they are still human beings and they get paid under 3 bucks an hour otherwise.  Oh, and you’re an asshole.

Of course, there is the genuine mistake.  Maybe you misread the bill.  Maybe you forgot the extra drink, or the desert of you added wrong.  That’s fine.  But don’t look aghast if the bill is short.  Don’t make excuses.  Otherwise you are bad as I forgot my wallet guy or can you loan me money guy.  Actually worse.  Unless it’s can you loan me money then conveniently forget guy.  Fuck that guy.

Organizational hell

People are busy I get that.  But get over yourself.  Either come or don’t.  Do not make it so I have to check up one you five times.  I shouldn’t have to call you, text you, email you, and Facebook you all to get a yeah, can you remind me next week.  “I should be able to come but my foot’s been hurting and my girlfriend doesn’t share her calendar and I’ve got to be on her beck and call to impress her.  Also my car exploded, so can you pick me up and then drop me off at the train station after.  I have to get to New York for a concert.  I don’t have the tickets yet.  For the concert not the train.  The train I got.  The concert tickets are held by this guy who always flakes on me but for some reason I always trust him then get irrationally upset that he fucks up.  Weird hunh?”  This is a composite of the bullshit excuses I get.  I had a friend in college who made me work so hard to get him to do anything.  I had to tell him a month or two in advance then remind him every other week then a few days in advance then the day before and then a few hours before.  And idiot like I am I did.  Response twenty minutes into said event after having counted him among those joining…  I can’t make it.  I wish I was exaggerating.  I wish it only happened once.  I simply don’t have the energy to deal with that amount of bullshit for a fifty-fifty chance of you showing.  Just tell me you don’t have the money or that you’re tired.  Or you know just flake.  And yet these are the same people who complain we never hang out.  Without irony.  You are not so special that I am willing to work hard to constantly be shunned.  You’re attention when you fell like giving it is not living giving rays of light.  Attention is nice.  Hanging out with friends is nice.  But I’ll commit energy to those who don’t flake.  I don’t care how amazing you are, if you consistently bail or flake I am not wasting my energy.

This is outside the plain old lying.  If you are going to lie to me please at least go out of the way to tell me something interesting and put some thought into it.  If you uh and ah for five minutes it’s hint.  The hint is you’re asshole with bad improvisational skills and no wit.  Just admit you’re tired or have social anxiety.  Or stop being a dipshit.  Oh and don’t say you didn’t know about an event in time.  Because I can be super petty when I feel someone is lying and check through my email logs.  Just admit you forgot.

There is of course a certain amount of busy that is excused by this.  My sister in law is a first responder (and a mom) so she actually needs months ahead of time to schedule things.  But barring that kind of nonsense there isn’t that kind of leeway.

Of course then there are the people who triple book.  They say they can come and the day before they forget that had a party they to go to.  Thanks.  This confuses me.  It either means your memory sucks or you took forever to tell me about the conflict, or you couldn’t decide which to bail on.

Party Fouls

Don’t rub Doritos on my dog.  It isn’t funny.  He has hair not fur so that shit reeks.  And he can’t lick it off so he smells the food but can’t get to it.  It’s cruel.  Plus he rubs against everything, because he’s a you know dog, and that’s what they do.  So that gets over everything in the house.  All because you couldn’t use a napkin.  You’re a huge asshole.  I would Liam Neeson your ass if I could.

Please don’t get so drunk I have to stay up and hear your life story.  I want to go to bed.  I’m only up out of mixture of trying to be a nice person and making sure you don’t throw up on my couch.  Also I want to make sure you don’t concuss yourself or choke on your own vomit.  That would be bad.  Shut up and drink your water.  If you can’t handle drinking heavily don’t drink heavily.

Please don’t puke on me when I’m driving.  It just… it just isn’t pleasant.  I really shouldn’t have to elaborate on this.

Please don’t bring friends who were not invited without asking me.  I invited you, not your entourage.  If they invite themselves to things don’t talk about it around them.  Better yet lay some boundaries like an adult.  And remember you are not a fucking celebrity it’s not expected you can bring people along.  I just invited you.

Please don’t complain at a party, any party not just one of mine, while sitting disinterested and not helping.  Guess what, you’re the fucking problem most likely.  I do the same thing with different people and fun goddamn times.

This is why I more and more enjoy hanging out with people older than me.  Maybe I’m just really cranky.  Or maybe I’m simply a pain in the ass.  But hey, I threw a fucking bacon party so cranky or not I’m pretty awesome sometimes.  And yes, it was amazing and yes I am doing it again this year.  And no, you cannot invite yourself to this party, you obviously have not paid attention to what I just wrote.

Ben

The Prolem with Caffeine

I love caffeine.  It’s one of my happy things.  But I’ve toned down my consumption of it drastically.  I stopped drinking soda altogether near the end of last year.  I’ve had diet coke twice since then as a intentional cheat/reward.  I map out my intake through the day.  I am a cube rat analyst so I know at roghly 9:10 I’ll have my first cup.  Around 11:00 I’ll have my second.  Later in the day I’ll have some tea.  Decaffeinated if I can find it.  After dinner I’ll have a latte as a pseudo desert and that will be it.  Three cups.  I stick to this number because I’ve read that is the safe amount.  Of course science, as it should, constantly updates, negates or changes the findings.   I’ll go on the current data and just hope for the best.  Caffeine is from what I’ve read, and I figure I ingest it so I might as well be aware of it’s affects, is a pretty awesome wonder drug.  It’s side effects are minimal (if you don’t go taking copious amounts) and it’s beneficial effects are rather surprising.

Cracked, shockingly well researched for a comedy site, did an article about it you can read here:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-scientific-ways-coffee-gives-you-super-powers/

But caffeine has a few pitfalls.  Like the fact that it might be synthetic depending on what your drinking.  Which isn’t terrible except for the fact that it kinda is.  The synthetic version still jumpstarts our brains and bodies  into overdrive.  But because it isn’t paired down by the namby-pamby herbal bullshit it jump kicks your teeth into your throat and puts you into hyper drive even faster than it’s boring all natural tree hugging caffeine you find in things like guarana.  You get the high faster and you crash sooner.  It’s the street version of caffeine some guy in a trench coat offers in a hushed voice.

But let’s say you don’t give a shit about chemicals because dammit you’re an American and American’s don’t read warning labels because fuck that.  Well, that’s pretty stupid.  I have two reason why.  One is a personal experience and one I read on the internet.  I drove from Savannah Georgia to Avon Connecticut in a day, with an extended pit stop in Brooklyn,  so I could have a full day to recover before going back to work.  During this twenty two hours I guzzed untold amounts of coffee and soda.  To make sure I didn’t dehydrate I had water as well.  Every two to four hours I’d pull over and move around.  At the beginning I swapped off with my wife so we had two/four hours spurts each.  At the end when we were entering Maryland it was basically the Ben show and I cranked the radio up put on raunchy comedy from Pandora streaming that would keep me awake and drove until the middle of night.  To put in perspective we left around 8 in the morning and arrived at our house around 4 the next morning.  I was slightly out of it.  The last five hours I was practically trembling from the caffeine in my system I felt sick and twitchy.  I awoke in the middle of the night, after collapsing on the bed and passing out, and had little to no memory of it.  Adi explained this behavior to me and I could just touch the memories through the fogginess of partial sleep.  The next day I felt rather awful and did next to nothing.  I’m sure the fast food at the rest stops did little to help but I blame caffeine for my somnambulism.

Then there is the story of the twenty eight year old moto cross start whose heart stopped due to drinking eight red bulls.  Not a good decision.  The red bulls not the hear stopping, I don’t think that part was a conscious decision.

http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i5/Caffeine-Jitters.html

Caffeine addiction though seemingly laughable is very real and rather frightening.  I had to totally quite caffeine for a week and the intense headaches were less than spectacular.  Honestly the phrase ‘less than spectacular’ can go stuff itself as it is such a light description in its vagueness, only giving a semblance of sarcasm and no real depth of measure.  The headaches were the midway point between migraines and normal headaches.

But the insidious thing about caffeine is that it is a drug and it isn’t treated as such.  Our children are ingesting it, in copious amounts and no one seems to care.  While caffeine is a super-drug for adults it might not be the best thing for the still developing neural pathways of our future generation.  But why do we view it with such blaze acceptance?  Yeah, on the danger scale it ranks way down there with don’t eat right before you swim but it’s an item that is so pervasive and so widely used you might think some education might be wanted.  But I guess if we treated caffeine as drug we might end up vilifying it and the food and beverage companies wouldn’t appreciate that too much.  Or worse we’d, shudder, tax coffee.  Fuck that, ignore what I was saying.

Ben

http://cenblog.org/terra-sigillata/2010/11/17/four-loko-for-locos/

http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/web/2012/02/Caffeine-Source-Bean-Leaf-Lab.html

http://www.organicauthority.com/health/need-a-lift-or-a-jolt-the-important-differences-between-natural-and-synthetic-caffeine-natural-caffeine-vs-synthetic-why-the-difference-is-important.html

Never Run a Restaurant

There are things that everybody seems to think they know a whole lot about.    I wouldn’t walk up to a chemist and tell them they are using the incorrect solvents.  First off I have no idea if I am using the correct terminology, second I can’t determine exactly what is and isn’t a solvent, and thirdly it would be incredibly stupid.  I have some vague understanding of chemistry due to my incessant book reading and perusing of the internet, I did pass my high school chemistry lass but that’s about it.  But for some reason everyone thinks they know better when it comes to food.  To an extent I used to think the same thing which was about as stupid as the chemistry example.

One of the first nights the restaurant I was “managing” was open there was a particular incident that stuck in my mind over several others.  I put manage in quotations because it was really like trying to keep order in a tornado.  We were busy are there was a gentleman and his son waiting impatiently at the door.  The person who was supposed to be greeting our customers was off doing god know’s what.  I was running around fixing problems with point of sale system that no one actually understood how to use (only moderately disastrous).  Seeing them wait impatiently I smoothed back my hair, already made slick from exertion and nerves, and tried to bring myself into a semblance of put togetherness.  I informed them there would be a shirt wait.  The teenager, whom I will refer to Asshole junior for this example, jabbed his finger in the air and belched out something to the lines that a table was open.  He was correct but he lacked several points of understanding.  I will list those momentarily after I recount this story.  I politely insisted that I would do the best I could and have a table ready as soon as possible as we were a bit busy.  This was quite obvious to any observer as we had waitresses whirring about busily tending to their tables.  Not getting an answer and having precious few moments I departed.  The father stood there silently.  He loomed, like an attack dog at the ready of this vile little spawn.  I ran about looking for a server not underwater with work.  Then I looked for  one I could actually trust finding one who had a moment I conferred with here and yes she could take another table.  I didn’t run to the back because we were actually fully staffed in the kitchen, our expeditor had shown up on time and was completely sober.  The only issue was the front of the house was all fucked up.  After securing the table making sure the shiftless busser’s had actually done their job, instead of occupying themselves with he usually persiflage, I raced back to the entry and informed the pair of assholes that they could be seated.  I saw a mischievous grin from Asshole junior and I knew they would never step foot back into the restaurant.  He took such glee in saying that it was alright and that they were leaving I stopped listening to the words and only took bits of them.  He parroted some of my earlier words about being busy and they sounded perverse coming from his lips.

They left and I felt defeated, hollow, angry.  This would be a common theme. Sadly there is a great deal of  giant assholes who treat people who work in restaurant’s like shit.  I never could quite understood this fundamental flaw in so many people.  I remember in college an acquaintance would wait for the group to leave and swipe the cash tip off the table.  Had I known at the time I would have slapped the taste out of his mouth or at least dressed him down so thoroughly he might melt into a creature of pure shame and humiliation.  I recall being yelled at angrily by patrons who acted as if I had sodomized their parents for not having their food out in a timely manner.  One lady was crying.  I think it was more at her husband’s explosion anger and the prospect of actually having to live with him for the rest of her life.  Working in the restaurant had people treat me, an educated reasonable adult, like I was pond scum incapable of rubbing out a thought if it might save my life.  I was treated as villain and an idiot.  And this was after a refund.

Back to an earlier point that people often do not understand.  Just because there is an open table does not mean there is an open seat.  Here is a few reasons why.  There are only so many tables each person on wait can handle at once.  Really shitty one’s can only handle three at most.  And sometimes you just need warm bodies so you can’t have a full wait staff of competent people.  Good ones at least five tables.  If you have fifteen tables and three waitresses chances are you can’t have all the tables full at once.  Also there is the back of the house.  Did all your cooks come in today?  Did they just get paid the day before and they spent four fifths of it on coke and booze?  Did they sneak any alcohol in from the bartender?  Are they pissed off at the wait staff enough that they’ll mess with them by either fucking up the food and letting it get cold without notifying them?  Is the host actually prepared?  Is any of your wait staff in the breakdown lane?  Did we run out of something.  Is someone currently crying on staff?

This is just the beginning of the headache faced by someone trying to run a restaurant.  I only wish this stuff wasn’t true.  I normally don’t like to make assumptions on groups of people and label it as true but restaurant people are fucking broken.  Also, sadly, everyone is stealing.  Maybe it’s comping food or drinks when they shouldn’t.  Maybe it’s pouring too much booze into the drink instead of the standard one and half ounces.  Maybe it’s they was people manipulate the point of sales machine.  Or how they forget to tip out bussers or bartenders.  Or maybe it’s simply the cash drawer being light or stock disappearing.

Here is a quick list of why running a restaurant is a bad idea.  It will be missing quite a bit but I don’t feel like dredging up all my bad memories.

If you enjoy being able to trust people and do not like harboring intense paranoia you should be doing this.  I have never felt such rampant paranoia and mistrust ever.  I actually found out people were spying on me.  I was one of the managers.  And one of the owners was spying on me without consent from the other owner.  I was lied to constantly.  Like the time an employee told me about the concert they were going to.  Then the next morning when they had a shift they were mysteriously sick.  I outright confronted them and they denied being hung over.  And that was a person who I considered a friend.

If you are not used to get yelled at and treated like shit by customers turn around.  I had a particular customer who I know came in simple to be a pain in the ass make a complicated order he knew would be fucked up, eat half, complain and expect a comped check.  Obviously the wait staff hated him.  But instead of doing the responsible thing, like making sure this awful human being had what he wanted so he could leave they ended up forgetting about it until it was too late and fucked it up.  The only solution was make sure I or someone else went into the kitchen told the cooks what the special request were, double check the slip and double check with this jerk bag his order.  At this point it was ego stroke about being taken care of so a minor mishap no longer concerned him.  He was happy to be treated so well.  This was beyond the wait staffs comprehension.  I can’t blame them as swallowing our pride and smiling to such awful people is soul crushing but it is your job.

If you don’t like firing people go home, because you’ll need to, a lot.  I had to tell a busser with ablack eye and who had, seemingly, extra muscles that most humans weren’t afforded that he would no longer be working for us without explicitly stating that everyone besides his buddy the cook hated him and he sucked at life.  I was pissed because out head busser put up the schedule to early with some notable cuts.  This large, possible dangerous, human being was looking for questions.  I spun it so thoroughly at the end that he shook my hand and walked out happier than when he came in.  I did not enjoy it.  Not because I thought he might snap and attack me but because I had to tell him I was taking away his livelihood.  This is an ugly, ugly thing.  I had to fire more people and every time I felt ill even when they had been acting in a manner so brazenly stupid after having warnings about said behavior.

If you don’t like fire drills don’t do this.  And I mean constantly.  People will quit in the middle of shifts, call out at the last second without finding a replacement, get into arguments, and alert you to disasters only at the last second.  There is always an issue with ordering food.  It’s never enough, it’s not right, the supplier fucked up, the food went bad because it wasn’t labeled right and it was stored wrong.

If you like a normal schedule and need sleep.  Say goodbye to any weekend.  Say goodbye to sleeping or having a social life.  I had Monday and Tuesday off, kinda.  I got calls almost every day.  The first few weeks I worked all seven days.  I would show up at ten in the morning and leave around one thirty in the next morning.  It was ugly.  My schedule calmed down but I was never truly away.  I got calls on days off.  Emergencies in the middle of the night.  Shifts to be covered.  Fire to put out.  I lost perhaps around ten pounds the first month, maybe more.  I looked like and felt like shit.

If you expect people to be trainable this is not a good job.  This fucking hurts the most.  I know that there are stupid people.  I also know that there are stupid people who can still learn a whole lot things.  But the laziness, the arrogance, and outright intentional ignorance was mind blowing.  I would stand in front of the point of sale machine calmly speaking in plain English trying desperately not to be condescending, while desperately wanting to be, explaining how to push fucking buttons to make shit work so I don’t have to fire your ass.  They stared blankly like cows and shook their heads yes when I asked they understood.  Hours later I would get a frantic call.  I would calmly explain to the poor idiot who got caught in the whirlpool of stupid how to fix the issue for the wait staff I had explained the same problem to earlier.

If you don’t like, drama.  I don’t mean petty high school drama like “Susie’s totally likes Brad but her friend Donna does too, that bitch.”  I mean drugs, extra marital affairs, constant arguments, lying, stealing, violence and felonies.  The back of the house is a special place.  They have their own rules and behavior that isn’t acceptable anywhere else.  Pinching nipples, grab ass, constant harassment and name calling is the light stuff.  Physical violence can and will happen.  I almost knocked someone out and I am not at all quick to go to that route.  I know too many bars where people have been roofied.  I have been shocked to find out who was sleeping with who.  I was especially upset when it involved a customer.  I know too many sob stories that I wish I didn’t.

That’s just a snippet.  I haven’t even begun to talk about menu’s, inventory, sales people, advertizing, or proper process.  There is a reason why some many restaurants go out of business.  Everyone thinks they know best but they have no idea.  So if you have this urge to open up a new vegan place that cater to all the hipsters or a new bistro pub that will be just perfect in this area do yourself a favor and just burn a stack of money instead.  I was only in the business for a year and it threw my whole life into a tail spin.  I’m still a bit angry to this day.  I’ve let go an incredible amount of hate that I harbored.  I used to say if I only I knew what I knew now but I just don’t care anymore.  It isn’t worth it.  I have nothing I need to prove in this arena.

So I give this advice so that others may really give pause as to whether they really want to put their sanity and financial well being at risk.  I won’t say I told you so if you ignore me because I know all too well the sting.  I’ll just wish you well and hope you get lucky.

Ben

The Generation of The Lost

Normally I’m of a mind to say when a person becomes an adult after a certain point in time they are no longer able to lay blame at the feet of the parents.  There is a tendency to hold onto these excuses and clutch to the safety of finding fault elsewhere.  I think one of the true tests of being a fully realized adult is accepting your own failures.  Mine are myriad and I only have myself to blame.  Yes, there were often external forces and, yes, I was often surrounded by assholes intent on ruining things but it doesn’t excuse me from not succeeding.  Everyone has their own unique difficulties.  I’ve stopped trying to weigh out such intangibles.  There a many people who think they suffer the sling and arrows of misfortune when compared to most they suffer no more than stiff breeze and an inconvenience.  It’s not like we are Chinese prisoners who are cruelly forced to play online games to farm gold and so the prison system can profit by selling them to spoiled kids in the States.  (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2011/06/02/cinhese-prisoners-forced-to-famr-world-of-warcraft-gold).  Meta humor points: Insert obligatory racist Chinese Gold Farmer joke that only gamers can understand.

I continue to mess up but as much as I want to say it’s another person’s fault, and my god is that an attractive excuse, it does me nothing but harm to embrace this false platitude.  So I’ll stick with fully realized self loathing over ignorant narcissistic rage.

However, to an extent my generation is screwed for many reasons.  There actually are forces aligned against us that are wholly unfair and completely out of our control.  Not that we can’t succeed despite this but the deck is stacked against this generation far more than our parents.  I could lead off and simply say, “fuck you baby boomers; you inconsiderate leeches, you arrogant shitheads, you egomaniacal bastards” but that gets me nowhere.  And baby boomers simply have not cornered the market in arrogance.

So what are these forces that are bending us over and violating us, you ask?  The simple answer is economic oppression and the war of the classes.  I’ll let a quote from Bill Hicks’ set this up.

"If you want to understand a society, take a good look at the drugs it uses.  And what can this tell you about American culture?  Well, look at the drugs we use.  Except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates:  Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Fridat to to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in."

As a cube rat who swills coffee every day this could be a ugly pill to swallow.  I somewhat like my job.  There are things I’d rather do but I’m not unhappy and I’m living comfortable.  But I don’t have kids and my wife also has a good job.  Now imagine like most everyone else I have high student loan debts.  My spending becomes a wee bit tighter.  Or I get sick.  Even with decent healthcare (without it I’d most likely lose my house trying to pay) I could be in debt for years.  The worst problem is if I really get hurt and can’t work them I might as well hope my friend’s couch is comfortable.  At a time when I need more money I’m making less.  How about the fact that bankruptcy doesn’t work the same anymore.

I like details and specific’s so read this if you’re ready to get riled up.

http://jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-soul-of-student-debt/

The short version is a school teacher, who is a parent, broke her back and had financial difficulties.  She applied for bankruptcy to alleviate her debt and forgive her student loans.  She won.  Which is great.  Then the people who owned her student debt filed and got that part overturned.  This kind of defeats the point of the whole tabula rasa bit of Chapter 11.  Why you might ask?  Because the law is often ugly and cold.  It is slanted because we allow it to be slanted.  There are plenty of bleeding hearts who rally for our rights and live their life for the betterment of the rest of us.  But the counterbalance is heavily funded by companies who don’t give a shit.  Your plight means nothing.  They simply want to keep the board happy and make a profit.  It’s legal and it works.  Companies will rarely take a stance that doesn’t give them funding.  Morality simply doesn’t pay.  Which leads to my other point.

Companies have more power now that ever.  Corporate politics are amazing.  They are slick smart well funded sharks.  I admire them from afar and with just about every inch of me hate them passionately.  These are people who think nothing of trampling my rights.  They give less and charge more.

My generation pays more for less.  Look at the worth of a college degree.  The cost of an education has risen dramatically but the reward has dwindled.  A college degree is only good for entry level position at best.  A masters might weigh you down more than help you.  There are over qualified member os the workforce  everywhere.  I tell anyone who can listen it is worthless to go into law school.  This isn’t true of course but the market is oversaturated.  Old firms have imploded and you see senior level partners competing.  Who luck does a person who graduated from a garbage law school have against those with ten, twenty years of real work have.  None essentially.  And guess what, you have some nice student loans coming due real quick.

Remember when only person from a family of our had to work and the other parents could stay home.  There were two cars and a house.  No?  Neither can I.  Where the fuck did that go?  I’d trade a smart phone for some of that.  I mean we do have the whole living longer thing and cooler technology and my TV has awesome fucking resolution.

I mean it is nothing new the wealthy have their thumbs pressing down hard on the rest.  We couldn’t be allowed to have a fair share.  Wealthy elite are there for a reason.  I can’t blame them.  Why give freely when you don’t have to?  When there is no punishment other than a moral stance.  It’s not like ending corporate tax loopholes and doges could improve our economy that much.  Or maybe not:

http://boldprogressives.org/limiting-corporate-tax-deferrals-would-cut-deficit-by-twice-as-much-as-hiking-medicare-age/?source=reddit-politics#.UQWBUb872Ag

According this article we could actually raise somewhere around $114 Billion this way.  That about $1,000.00 per person living in the United States.  Obviously you should trust everything on the internet implicitly… but there is undoubtedly some truth there whether or not the math proves out.

Our society is built to keep the poor to stay poor.  Education in this country is going to shit.  Guess where the shittiest schools are?  The cities.  Guess where the bulk of poverty is?  The city.  Sweet, so we under-educate those who most need a leg up.  Oh, and guess who gets to control the context of our textbooks?  Texas.  This isn’t necessarily a problem.  Until that is the religious right figured it out and now things like creationism gets shoved into books and treated as fact.

Read more here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

http://www.alternet.org/culture/revisionaries-texas-schoolbook-battle-crazier-you-thought

Yeah, so our education system is in the hands of people who think science is myth and faith is fact.  This should disturb rational human beings.  I know plenty of people who are religious.  They are not ignorant or hateful and they do not push their beliefs.  They wouldn’t push this nonsense.  But these alarmist fringe assholes are pushing the envelope and are hurting the educational system.  Science is under attack by these people.  Science is part of what made this country a leader.

Don’t think the US is alone in this.  Look at the issues Spain is having:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/world/europe/in-spain-having-a-job-no-longer-guarantees-a-paycheck.html?pagewanted=all

So we are screwed by the legal system with less ways to get out of debt, we are held back by educational costs and worsening standards, as well as being oppressed by the mighty corporations (this is only slight exaggeration).

But now I come back to the first point.  If we know the issues we have inherited why has there been no change.  Because it’s hard and it feels like pushing a boulder uphill that threatens to roll back any instant.  Our apathy, our bitter bleak outlook stop us before we start our action.  So yeah, we are a generation of failures.  We are a generation of the lost.  But staying that way we only have ourselves to blame.  So the question is what does it take to create change?

Ben