Thursday, December 29, 2011

Wow... Really? You Blogged That?

I have a passion for horrible jokes.  I can't help it.  Sometimes it seems that the more moan and groan inducing the joke is, the more I adore it.  I've fought the urge to include these in this blog but you know, after much consideration, I decided to include them after all.  It won't be a daily thing but you'll definitely start seeing more of them.  Email submissions are always welcome as well.  If I post your joke I'll make sure you get credit!

So here are two of the absolute worst jokes I've heard in recent memory:

The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza place.  He asks the waiter to make him one with everything.

Two men walk into a bar.  The first man orders a scotch.  The second man remembers something he'd forgotten and suddenly doubles over in pain.  Moaning in agony he falls to the floor and then falls through the floor and into the earth.  He looks up from the bottom of the pit he's fallen into and sees the first man drinking his scotch yet says nothing.  They're not that close.

Thank you I'll be here all week....

And I wonder why someone emailed me the suggestion to rename my blog "Brain Droppings."
Hey, if George Carlin (requiescat in pace) hadn't already used it as a book title, I'd be all over it. 

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Happy Holidays from the C.S.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Cynical Sarcastic.

Look for the year end post coming up on 12/31.

I'll be back to ranting and raving once again beginning 1/2/2012!!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

With All Thanks and Due Respect

Good evening loyal readers.  Here we find ourselves once again.  Something's going on in the world and I happen to have a little something to say about it.  To quote En Vogue:  "wrote... about it, want to hear it? here it go..."

As we are finally withdrawing our forces from Iraq with all due pomp and circumstance, I would like to take a few minutes and say something to our men and women in uniform that I truly feel they deserve and genuinely do not hear enough:

THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU DO AND HAVE DONE FOR YOUR COUNTRY!

I hate to have to continue to crib lines from movies to make my points - wait, check that, actually I do like doing that so strike that last bit but continue on - but to paraphrase Jack Nicholson's speech from A Few Good Men these men and women choose to walk those 'walls' so that we don't have to ourselves.  These soldiers are volunteering to place themselves in harm's way to protect this country and our way of life no matter how they may personally feel about the situation and for that I believe they deserve our gratitude.  I promise you that when our members of the armed forces were sitting sweat drenched underwear deep in sand, grit and camel shit while all manner of Hell's IED wrapped fury rained down on them that not one single one of them gave a red-assed-babboon's nut hair about 'probable weapons of mass destruction' or 'securing oil rights.'  All they cared about was getting themselves and their buddies safe and homeward bound.  Patriotism, no matter how it manifests, is a funny thing.  These young men and women did what they did because they took an oath and volunteered to put a boot in the ass of those who needed it courtesy of the red, white, and blue (thank you Toby Keith).  Regardless of politics, regardless of fifty cents a gallon cheaper gas, regardless of how you personally feel about George Bush or Barack Obama, they had a job to do and they got it done.

So don't you think that we owe them a whole shit load more than they are getting from us now that they are currently or are on their way back home?

I'm not trying to get an honorary membership to the VFW here folks.  I've heard horror stories over the past month of veterans of our armed forces going through poverty, neglect, homelessness, and even worse being denied medical and psychological treatment because of some pencil pusher who works for the VA or some other administrative group was too tired that afternoon and late for a golf game to finish filing out someone's authorization for treatment.  I've personally watched two instances of newly returned soldiers being derided by some high and mighty ass ferret because we 'shouldn't have gone to Iraq to start with.'  I've even just today been given the details of a Vietnam-era vet who is being denied treatment by the VA and left to essentially rot in an emergency room in Carteret County due to a desperate act that in reality was a cry of desperation for aid.

I try fairly hard not to get on too large of a soap box on this blog.  I don't try to advance political agendas and the like.  My only goal here is to cry foul when I see it, blow the whistle a bit, and try to get the game moving again as it were.  This, however, needs to called what it is.  It looks like bullshit, it smells like bullshit, and it is 100% Grade A, made in America, July 4th flag napkin covering up dog turd on a picnic blanket BULLSHIT and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

There is a solution, however, and I challenge all of my readers to do this in the coming week.  Take a minute out of your holiday cheer and tell a solider thank you.  That's all.  Just start there.  It's that simple.  If you feel ready to move to the next level, visit a VA hospital, call a veterans service office to volunteer, or hell, just take some cookies to National Guard post for Christmas.  If you really want to get creative, consider looking into and giving money or volunteering your time to a little program called the Wounded Warrior Project.  They are actually doing some good and I think more of us need to be a part of it.  We as a nation owe a large debt to a lot of our citizens and, as a society, I think we're starting to bounce some metaphorical checks.

Thanks for indulging me on this one kids.  We are all going to benefit from the improvements to the corner of the world our military just helped to clean up.  As these folks return home from a job well done, let's make sure we give them their due.  To those of you lucky enough to have a veteran in your life, no matter who they are or where they served or when, take a second over the course of the holidays and tell them thank you for doing their part to ensure that we all continue to have the freedom to argue each year over who gets the drumstick at Christmas dinner.

Enjoy this last week before the holiday!

Oh yeah, as a by the way, I have a little piece of parting advice to all of you as you finish your holiday shopping up over the next few days and prepare to spend time with your family, friends, and/or Chinese restaurant of choice over the coming week.  There are three items that you will not find in any store at this time of year that I have found out are actually in very high demand.  I feel it's in the best interest of my readers to let you in on this information as it will save you a immense amount of stress over the next few days.  First of all, every store in the continental United States is completely sold out of "I Don't Know," as in "what should we get for Uncle John's present - I Don't Know."  I have a great contact in retail merchandising who assures me that the shelves will be stocked with IDK sometime around late January, just when they begin to seriously market tax prep software.  Secondly is "O.F.U."  Yes, the F stands for exactly what you think it does.  Normal stores are already sold out but I understand it can be ordered On Demand like reruns of old HBO movies.  Apparently the best way to receive an expedited order of OFU is to wish a particularly surly person Merry Christmas, as in "Merry Christmas - Oh F. You!"  My understanding is that they are doing a particularly brisk business on this item in most high end car dealerships this time of year.  Finally, there is one product you will not find for sale anywhere but you may actually find yourself in need of during this holiday season:  "F. IT"  The good news is that F. It is actually free and can be found lurking near the bottom of third drink poured at your local tavern of choice.  My understanding is that it takes two drinks to be able to see the F. It clearly and then the third actually allows you to claim your prize.  Be careful though as it has also been brought to my attention that F. It has been blamed for as many as seventy-five percent of all last call hook ups and two-thirds of all unintentional pregnancies. 

Just a little holiday humor spun the Cynical Sarcastic way boys and girls.  Have fun this week and look for another post just before Christmas!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Uncle Bubba Has Had Enough!

My youngest sister has called me 'Bubba' for most of her life.  I think it started from an inability to say brother as a very small child and then evolved into a means of sibling derision as time progressed.  When my niece was born the 'Uncle Bubba' jokes began and still, upon occasion, raise their head when anyone chooses to make an undefendable joke at my expense.

Well boys and girls, Uncle Bubba has officially had enough.

What have I had enough of?  Well at this point in my existence I have decided to focus my ire on celebrities and their antics.  To explain, I should tell you how I started my morning...

I woke up this morning and started my day as always: walking the dog, checking my email, trying in vain to jumpstart my quickly advancing on middle age central nervous system without caffeine, when a posting on CNN.com caught my attention.  It would appear that Lindsay Lohan, celebrity still for God only knows why, has posed for Playboy and oh-the-horror some of the pictures have leaked out onto the internet.  I'll admit, I'm male, I looked.  You know, I am well aware that have the ability to be crass upon occasion.  In fact, I occasionally revel in it.  But this crap, well, I can't really find a nice way to put this so I'm just going to state my opinion and be done.

This moronic, pendantic, and sophomoric display of oh-God-my-career-has-gone-to-turd-so-hey-everyone-look-at-my-boobs-and-maybe-I-can-stave-off-the-inevitable-for-two-more-minutes was not worth the callouses.  I mean seriously?  I've seen drugged addled crack monkeys before but I never thought Heff and Co. would stoop to placing one in a high profile centerfold.  Never mind, I immediately retract that statement.  If they remotely followed that ideaology they'd have closed up shop around 1985.

So anyway, after my early morning shudder of revulsion and the subsequent need to go back to bed and try to pretend it was all just a very very very bad dream, my little brain started turning and I realized that I am so over the whole 'celebrity' due to bad behaviour phenomenon.  It occurs to me that the only reason these idiots are even in the public eye is that WE PUT UP WITH IT! Take Princess Lohan for example.  Most of us run screaming from anyone we know in our lives with a felony rap sheet as long as hers.  We make snide jokes about Cousin-So-And-So with the 'little problem' that goes in and out of rehab.  But let the unfortunate remnants of what used to be a fairly serviceable little Disney actress Amtrak her way through one miserable public failure and embarrassment after another and oh-dear-God can we not get enough.

I am so sick of all the Lindsays, Snookies, Kardashians, and Real Housewives of Dumbshitville that I honestly don't think I can take anymore.  Why do we as a culture glorify this nonsense on such a continualy basis?  It seriously makes me want to line everyone one of them up in a 1995-esque Janeanne Garofalo hangover lineup, get a big handful of powder, and take a cue from Katt Williams and slap the shit out of each one directly across their plastic surgery enhanced coke vacuum while shouting "Simple Bitch!"

And besides people, if we're going to be honest about it anyway, Brittney already pulled this crap earlier last decade and she was, at least, entertaining about it.  Honestly, who hasn't had the urge to beat someone with an umbrella or two...

All I can say is maybe if we as a society stop glorifying the failings and misdeeds of others that maybe, just maybe, some of this tidal wave of offal would subside.  Nah, nevermind.  The second that happens Twitter would shut down and Discovery ID, A&E, and about 15 other minor cable networks would be reduced to three decent dramas and old Shamwow commercials.

To hell with it.  I'm going to read a book or go outside or something.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Pardon My Testosterone Count

Hello all.  I'd like to start this week's post with a quick apology for the two weeks of silence.  Hey, what can I say?  Even the loudest among us all must occasionally take a little time for the holidays and to mourn the occasional birthday.  I'll make sure that any future silences are accounted for well in advance, and thank you for the emails wondering where my next post was or when to expect it to show up. 

Jeez, you'd almost think I had a fan or two.  Considering I still find it almost unfathomable that anyone finds my little musings here worth reading anyway, I definitely take it as a compliment.

So without further ado...

I'd like to ask a question to mainstream American if you don't mind.  Exactly when did it become a social crime to either be or behave as an alpha male?  I didn't see the memo, no one let me know, hell for that matter I didn't even have a chance to shoot the carrier pigeon as it went overhead.  All I know is that one day I woke up, scratched, took a few minutes to get myself together, then opened the door into a world where being the dude in charge of his personal situation was suddenly a bad thing.

What happened?  Seriously!

For the purposes of this little discussion I do need to clarify one or two things.  The alpha male I'm talking about here a lot of things but he is neither a bully or an abusive person.  This guy is not the one who wedgied you until your legs were numb in middle school, nor is he your mom's ex-boyfriend from when you were fifteen who used to hit her when he drank too much.  Those assclowns have hopefully been allowed to either see the error of their ways or been whistled out of the gene pool by now so they don't merit discussion.  What I'm talking about is the old school man who could take care of things.  The guy who felt obligated to take care of his family.  The man who could fix things around the house.  The dude other dudes looked up to.  The man who stood up when things went south and handled business.  The quiet badass.  The stoic.  The real man.  See Humphry Bogart / John Wayne / Harrison Ford / etcetera for reference material.

Seriously dude, where did you get off to lately and why oh why oh why did you suddenly get such a bad rap?  Why do our children all suddenly need participation trophies to protect their self esteem?  Why is it such a horrible travesty for a child to protect themselves when physically assaulted by another child?  Why is it so suddenly taboo to stand up for something other than the constant and consistent pussification of our culture?  And for sweet baby Jesus doing eighty on a freeway's holy sake why is it suddenly so bad for a man to have an opinion and heaven forbid be willing to defend it in, gasp, public?

Well, as you might have guessed, I just happen to have a theory or two on what may have happened.

I think it all started when men as a group decided to get in touch with their emotions.  You all remember the whole mid-nineties drum circles induced searches for inner growth.  Then came manscaping followed by the horror that was metrosexuality.  Sometime after that, okay in fairness I think it came around during that same period, men seemed to lose their drive.  I don't know exactly where it happened or when but somewhere around the time Gen-X started to pop out children our social values tended to the man being the guy in the house holding down the couch in front of the Playstation instead of the person leading the charge.

BEFORE I rouse any feminist ire out there, please be assured that understand that the roles of men and women in our society have changed in the last few decades and that women are now taking more of an equal place as the breadwinners in the home due to the economy and three thousand other factors.  I mean nothing to detract from that in any way.  But I will take a moment to mention that even the most hardcore girl power endorser has to take pause when Women's Health magazine runs a five page article on the decline of the alpha male in our society, particularly when they note that while the change has a few benefits it's a negative in the overall.

Face it guys, we let this happen to ourselves.  We lost our place as leader of the pack, figuratively and maybe literally.  Do I endorse chauvenism?  Not hardly.  I'm not saying take it all over boys, but I am saying it just might be time to step up and actually participate enough to have an opinion in what happens in your home. 

Oh yeah, and while you're at it, man up just a bit.  Learn to fix the car, change that diaper, whatever works in your house and needs your attention.  Hell, it's cold outside now.  Grow a beard for good measure.  Get your chubby butt to the gym and do something about the love handles.  Chase your wife around the house like you did when you first started dating her.  Play with your kids.  Talk to your parents.  Be a good friend.  Listen when others speak. 

You know, do the stuff all those men you looked up to when you were a kid did.  Whether you realize it or not, someone's looking up to you right now...