Why Cell Phones Suck - Part II

Here's a not-uncommon scenario that one of my friends has to go through from time to time.

His girlfriend likes to call him whenever they are apart. Not apart as in "I'm going off to war" or "I'll be across the country visiting family over the weekend." I mean apart as in "I'm just nipping off to the pub for an ale" (no, I have no idea why I wrote that like a British person).

That in and of itself is pretty much the most annoying thing someone can do. I'm out doing my thing, you know I am doing my thing, and yet you still phone me, thereby keeping my from doing my thing. And that was a thing I wanted to be doing!
Why is this?
Just because we have the ability to make sure someone is never, ever outside of our social grasp doesn't mean we should start hounding them so they remember we exist. Maybe she's just really insecure. Maybe she's bored or lonely.
Either way, if I tell you I'm out with someone, or going to see a movie, or doing something that I specifically don't want your company for, please don't call me "Just to say hi" or to "see how things are going."
You're not my mother. This doesn't concern you.

Maybe I am just being misanthropic because my own girlfriend doesn't call me incessantly to see if I am making sure my shoes or tied, or to ask when I am coming home, or to generate some crisis that can only be solved by me coming home right now and holding her hand as I explain that you can, in fact, take more than two Advil in a 24 hour period.

...Actually, looking at that last paragraph it seems like I really do find that just really annoying.

The thing is, too much of anyone is a bad thing. Sometimes we, as people, need a moment away from those we surround ourselves with just to remind us when we return what it is we like about them so much. Failing that, and in the case of someone who just will not let you be alone or apart from them, you just feel constricted and trapped.

So if I am out, and you get the urge to call me, listen to these whispered words of wisdom: Let it be.
You will survive two hours without me, and if not... wow. Get help.

This brings us to another thing. Sometimes I won't answer your call.
It's not that I am screening you out (most likely). Sometimes I just can't hear or feel it ring. Sometimes I lose service, like when I am on the Metro. Sometimes I just don't have the damn thing on me.

Should this occur, leave a message.

Do NOT call back seven more times, leave three messages, and then text me. This makes you appear desperate and needy, which is never, ever a reason to talk to someone.

Worst of all is when a friend (ok, who am I kidding, a girlfriend or boyfriend) becomes paranoid due to a lack of answer.
If you have the kind of mind that jumps from "Not answering phone" to "banging some other guy/girl behind my back" without ever taking a stop at "sleeping" then you need to contact your HMO and look into some well-deserved trepanation. Once again, just because you can reach anyone at anytime doesn't mean you will, or should even try.

Then we come to the old standby used by significant other and parent alike: I thought you were dead.

Yes. Of course. I didn't answer my phone, therefore I had been slaughtered Jack-The-Ripper style. Makes sense. If I call a pizza place at 5 a.m. and don't get an answer I think that the place must have burned down.
Oh wait. No I don't.

Even more egregious is when the statement "I thought you were dead" is prefaced by "It kept rolling right to voicemail."
Cell phones and human bodies are not biomechanically linked. The death of one does not result in the death of the other. Were I dead, my phone would have run twice, then been answered by someone saying in a deep, throaty voice "You're next."
...or so I can only hope.

In the end, people need to realize that a cell phone is a tool. And any tool is used at the discretion of its owner and operator. By getting a phone, I have not signed a contract which states that I will always pick up.

So calm down everyone. Let's all sit back, have a beer, and not talk to one another for a moment and see how that suits us.

The Worst Thing About It...

So I found out about that job I talked about a few posts ago - the one where I said everyone in the office told me that the only way I would get it was to become blond and grow tits? Remember that?
Well, the verdict is in and the job has gone to a cute blond girl.

Now here's the thing, before you all start to say I am a sore loser.

Had she and I been up against one another for any other job, I could have lost without reservation. She's worked here longer than I, she seems pretty smart, and for all I know she does decent work. In my logical mind, my completely unbiased and uninformed mind, she is the winner by nothing by her own hard work.

However...

Because the man who hired her is notorious in our office for only hiring girls of her kind, her selection is forever tainted in my unconscious mind.

And that is the worst thing about going out for a job where the man hiring has a clear bias. She very well may have been the most wonderful candidate for that position, but I doubt I will ever be able to accept her as one.
If I had been hired by an avowed racist, and every other candidate was black, I would never feel completely fulfilled.
Am I saying she shouldn't be?
Who knows.
But I find it hard to believe that when she takes her place on that new team and looks around her to see that she has become the latest easy-on-the-eyes addition to his harem, she won't feel that small niggling feeling of self doubt.
Which is a shame, because if she does feel that way, it cheapens what should be a great accomplishment for her.

I never want to have to ask myself: Did I earn this, or was this given to me?

Anyone showing any kind of bias - who offers up incentives based on race, gender, anything - are forever tainting an entire generation of achievement.

The Merits of Moving to Ireland

Today should have been a wondrous day for me.
There is a new Muse album out. I had yet another interview for a job I actually want. It's not Monday. I had half a burrito for lunch...

And then came the moment, the pinnacle, the zenith of what should have made this day great - the arrival of my paycheck.

I am not like many people I work with. I disdain direct deposit. I want to hold my check, get to know it a bit, sign my name on it like I'm branding a pack animal and then take it to the bank so I can see it go through that kooky machine that zips it around in a semi-circle. These are the things I love. Because I earned that money, and I want it to be handed to me so that I might see it through.

According to my pay stub I worked a little over 60 hours in the last pay period. I get something on the order of 11 bucks per hour. As such, I thought it only fair to guess that I would make at least 600 bucks on this check.

So with childlike glee I tapped the envelope on my desk, ripped off one side of it, blew into it to open it enough for my fingers to reach in, and then - as an Academy award presenter would - I drew it out slowly and flipped open the folded paper within to see that I had made...

$580.83

Any younger readers should close their eyes and scroll down real fast, because this is about to get messy.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Aaaand we're back.
But seriously, what is going on here? How the hell did this happen?

So unlike most days where I simply say, Yea, that'll cover rent, this time I decided to take a good long look and crunch the numbers.

I did indeed work just a shade over 60 hours, so I was right about that. As such, my total income for this pay period was about 664 bucks.
Sweet! I could buy two PS3s for that kind of scratch.

And then came that God-scaringly terrifying field just below where it tells me how much I made... the Deductions.
Jesus, just that word alone is enough to make me want to leap out of a window because I know no love or goodness truly exists in this world.
First we have federal income tax, which I still think is bullshit. What the hell did the government do for me that I need to give them almost 30 bucks? But fine, you know what, take it. The there's the Medicare tax, which is hilarious considering that for the past four and a half years my medical plan has been slap a band aid on it, take a shot of whiskey and hope for the best. 10 dollars. Why? I don't know.
So what else was left? Two things only added up to a little over 40 bucks, and yet I had been fleeced something like eighty. So what could possibly...
...
Are you #%$ing kidding me?
Forty something bucks into....
Social Security? Social. Bloody. Security?

You mean that thing, that great thing that is supposed to sustain me when I am older and don't wanna work anymore? That pool of crystal clear life-water that is apparently being sucked through a mile-wide straw by an Oreck XL vacuum cleaner? That social security?!

Now I know what some of you might be saying:
Roan, dude, bro, calm down. All this money is, like, totally going to social programs that will, like, totally better our lives, man.

I'd punch you in the face if you weren't the hypothetical suggestion of what a hippie would sound like.
I have a fantastic plan. Anyone who wants to benefit from social programs can pay into them on their own damn time. If you think the government or someone else can better spend your money than you, then give it to them. Personally, I think I know what I want and I know how to get it (woo, Sex Pistols!) and that does not include asking someone else to do it for me.
And social security? Really? Who pays into an account at a bank when seemingly the only promise the bank gives you is that "However much you pay in, it won't be there when you want to take it out!"

Either give me hope that the system will still be operational or don't keep taking my money and putting it into it.
It's like using a priceless painting to try to put out a house fire. Sure, when the fire is small maybe you can beat it out, but once the whole bloody structure is alight there is no point anymore.

All of which brings me to the topic line (sure some of you were wondering when that would come into play) about moving to Ireland.

Basically it boils down to this:
I have given up on America and want to move to Ireland, where I won't be taxed, because I shall live in the fields in a small earthen cabin with my lovely, red-haired wife, who will knit sweaters out of the fleece of our flock of lambs, tossing her curly red locks over her shoulder as she bends over the large copper kettle to make our night's stew. I shall write and tend to our flock and will bend to no man or government. And we shall be happy there in our bucolic paradise, free from the constraints of society, able to live in harmonic coexistence with nature and God.

And if you are sitting there thinking "Well that sounds a bit too idealistic" I have this to offer.

It's a hell of a lot more realistic than the Obama-approved plans and social programs you're depending on to save your worthless ass the trouble of doing things for yourself.

Speaking of Racism...

I have a perfect sense of timing, it seems.

Over at one of my favorite movie blogs there is a piece about the upcoming Disney movie, The Princess and the Frog.
Now, for a long time groups of all stripes have derided Disney for not having any black princesses. Ariel (who is a fish), Jasmine (who is Arab), Sleeping Beauty (who is a white narcoleptic), and Snow White (who is a chipmunk... or sounds like one). None of these women have been black.

Well they finally got one, and apparently everyone is squirming because, well... she's black. And so are most of her castmates. So every piece of comedy and plot wrung from her is obviously (all together now) racist!
A firefly is proud of his butt, the music is jazzy, funny characters are black... bastards! How dare they!

Ok, it's a comedy. A COMEDY. Did white people or fish or Arabs or chipmunks get offended when people of their races were used for humor in a Disney movie? Was Disney supposed to make this movie any less cartoony and stupid than all their others?

Is the film racist? Who knows, probably not. As I said above, Disney makes all kind of characters of whatever race stupid for their movies because little kids eat that shit up. Goofy characters are Disney's bread and butter. Just look at... well, Goofy. But just because they are black this time everyone is going crazy. Well you know what, I am pissed off that it's come to the point where you can't even have a character of a race be hilarious without it being seen as racist.

We're all too sensative. Way too sensative.

It's all especially odd, considering there is a point where one of the characters says, to a frog "Only thing's important is what's under the skin."

So here's a movie that was basically created because people were begging for diversity, which is being derided for using black people as comedy relief in a comedy movie centered around black people, and yet the film tells people that looks aren't important and everyone is equally judged by who they are on the inside.

Jesus I need an aspirin.

Why Am I Never A Victim?

The plight of the white male is something you never really hear about.
Why?
Because it doesn't exist. Any time someone of the white persuasion who happens to be male feels that they are under served, discriminated against, or otherwise beaten down because of their race and sex they are accused of having entitlement issues, or narcissism, or some other such thing.

The truth - as many would have you believe it - is that all white men are part of a deceitful cabal who complain about being passed over for jobs, given worse grades, or not having enough scholarship opportunities as a way to deal with their loss of power in a world rapidly growing more diverse.

I suppose that makes sense, in a way. I mean, if this were still the 1800s.

Listen, I wanted McCain to win over Obama not because one was white and one was black, but because I don't want to be taxed into poverty, nor told what to do. I was pissed off when illegal immigrants were given in-state tuition not because they are Mexican (or Salvadoran, or Ecuadoran, or...) but because I lived here 16 years and yet just because my parents moved I was no longer considered a resident, except when it came to taxing me.
This isn't because these people are all part of a class that I used to be able to grind under my boot heel. I'm a child of the 90's, for Christ's sake. I never knew a world where we had segregation or Jim Crow laws. I went to school with people of all races, ate with people of all races, lived near people of all races. I have no glorious white-dominated past to fall back on. I just happen to have an opinion.
To some people, however, these opinions I hold are considered to be racist. Well sure, the object of my disdain happens to be of a different race, but let's be honest, I hate white people, too!
Zac Effron for instance. Or Stephanie Meyer.

Oh, you say, so you hate the female writer, eh? Because she's a successful independent woman?

No! I shout from my golden mountaintop, because she's a terrible author! I'd hate those books just as much if a man wrote them. And I don't care if she's black or white, either. If she was a black woman I would hate the books just as much as I hate them now! My disdain is equal opportunity!

In fact, as a white male in a society that practices an alarming amount of self-segregation I hate about 20 individual white people for every individual of another race that I hate.

But could I ever try to explain that to someone? No. No I can't. Because as a white male, the only excuse for me thinking that 50 Cent's music is complete tripe is that I am a racist.
Well guess what, I love Miles Davis, the Drifters, and NWA. (I'll take a moment to allow people who know me to recover from the fact that I find NWA enjoyable. Ok, time's up.)
Why is it that we as a society have to worry about our personal opinions being interpreted as racist? Why can't we trust that people will understand that tastes and ideas vary, and sometimes race and sex have nothing to do with it.

I hate Tyler Perry movies. Not because they have a specifically African-American focus, but because I hate watching movies where men don fat suits to pass themselves off as old women. I hate Hannah Montana because... Jesus, do I even have to explain? Moving on...

The problem with racism and sexism in modern America is that it is sort of our modern day witch hunt. Salem played out on a national scale. We were so afraid of witches and the evil that they sowed that if we couldn't find one outright we had to suspect that they are just hiding it very well. So we looked for any small sign and blew it out of proportion. Our fear of the witch was so powerful that our minds created them out of thin air.
The same can be true of most modern day cases of perceived racism and sexism.
I say "perceived" because we do live in a world where a number of people still practice hate professionally (I'm looking at you, Aryan Nation) and those people are disgusting. What "perceived" denotes is racism or sexism without intent. Someone says something and means it one way, but someone thinks it is racist or sexist and suddenly it is.
It's intellectual alchemy. Turning innocuous-banter coal into hate-speech gold.

Like this statement: If women want equal rights, they should have to be called up in the draft, too.

Holy shit, you just said, that's terrible! You're only saying that to scare women and keep them in their place.
I'm not. I am saying that because if we're to believe all this "Equal Opportunity" talk that gets thrown around then that means taking the good with the bad. You don't get paid as much as a world-renowned heart surgeon without having to go through the hell of med school and residency, after all.
If all you're asking for is the same rights and privileges as someone without all the responsibilities that go with it, you're really just asking for special treatment, which is more sexist than getting nothing at all.

"Aww, the little girl wants to make more money and be a CEO. Ok, sweetie, but don't worry, you won't have to fight in the big bad war because we know you don't wanna mess up your makeup."

Sexist.

"Ok, welcome to the club. Here's our list of pros and cons. Read 'em, love 'em, get to work."

Equal.

Yet because of the fact that every self-serving, publicity hungry Equal Rights Activist is looking for a new racist or sexist to burn at the stake, people self-censor to the point of hilariousness. I've heard friends start stories off with, "So I was serving this table of black people, and you know I am not racist, I mean, my best friend is black, and I love Beyonce, so, you know, but anyway..."
Come on. Stories live or die by their details. I don't start a story off with, "So I was chatting up this blond girl, and I mean, you know, I don't have a problem with blonds..." State the details so I can get a clear picture and move on. Stop apologizing.

(Also, just like hating one black person doesn't make you a racist, liking one black person doesn't make you not racist.)

I was a waiter. I hated serving tables of black people because they were, in general, terrible tippers. Now, of course there are always exceptions to every rule, and I have been stiffed by white people too, but on the whole if I had to choose one of two tables, I'd go for whitey any day of the week.
Does that make me racist? No! No it doesn't! It makes me adept at pattern recognition and playing the odds.

In fact, if you look at me and hear something I say and assume its racist, that makes you racist because you are making an assumption of my beliefs based on my skin color.

Which brings me to my original point.

I am currently up for a job working for a man who hires pretty, blond sorority girls. He's got a goddamned harem working in his section. When people heard about me interviewing for this job, they openly stated, "Good luck on that one, man. Maybe you should try growing some tits for the interview."

Now imagine this. I am a black man working for someone who hires white men, and when I tell friends I am going for the job they say to me, "You might wanna ask Michael Jackson how he got so white, because that's your only hope."
You'd have a CNN breaking news story on your hands. You couldn't keep the press away. A person who openly discriminates against black men? Queue up the specialized graphics and theme music.

But if I tried to sue over sexual discrimination I would get laughed out of court. Why? Because I am a white man, and nothing bad ever happens to me. I don't get mad because I feel genuinely discriminated against, I get mad because I can feel my racial and gender supremacy slipping away. I am hopping on the band wagon, acting offended by injustice when really I just wanna get my White Man's Club Card punched one more time.

Bullshit.

You know what? My families' roots in this country begin in the early 20th century and I'm Irish and Italian, two ethnic groups that were treated like shit when they first got here. I mean, the Irish were subjugated by the English for hundreds of years. We weren't even allowed to speak our own language in our homeland!
So I am not some redneck whistling dixie and talking about the good old days when a black man knew his place and a white man couldn't spit on the sidewalk without getting a job offer.
In fact, that statement was heavily racist against southerners, but I bet no one out there got offended.
I am just a man who has ideas that sometimes put me on the opposite side of the idealism-dividing-line from people of other races and genders. I am just a man who can tell when he is being treated unfairly, like any other human can.

What I am saying here, in short, is that equality works in both directions. We're either all equally capable of being victims and perpetrators, or no one is. If I am capable of discriminating, then I am also equally capable of being discriminated against. If you give one group special treatment and more opportunities while shutting out the formerly dominant group, then you aren't being enlightened, you're being condescending.
Put bluntly:
Level the fucking playing field, but don't fix the game.

When To Give Up (A.K.A. The Balloon and the Cactus)

Far be it from me to say that love will never, in fact, conquer all.

Stranger things have happened in this world; Ball lightening, UFO encounters, successful white rappers, frogs falling from the sky...

Geronimo!

But at some point either in the experience or observation of a truly dysfunctional relationship, someone has to ask: At what point should this lame horse be made to headbutt a bullet?

This becomes a rather tricky question. It asks at what point optimistic romanticism becomes meaningless routine. At what point does the "We can work it out" Beatles jingle become the "Remember when I said 'I love you,' well forget it I take it back, I was just a stupid kid back then" Alkaline Trio anthem to idiocy?

I suppose one way to look at it is this: Are you happy?

Seems like a simple enough question. Being with someone either makes you happy or it doesn't. Being without that person either then makes you miserable or it doesn't. To me, at a very basic and quantifiable level, then, someone is worth staying with if you feel better when they are around and feel a little bit worse when they aren't.

Not to say that living without them is intolerable (we call that an obsession, children) but that you honestly look forward to seeing them again.

As such, a significant other is someone whom you like being with and want to see again. A one night stand is someone you felt better being with and hope never to see again. And someone you are miserable with and yet want to see again is commonly referred to as "a bad idea."

Beyond simply being a bad idea, this person can also end up being ultimately destructive.

You are miserable, therefore people don't want to be around you, therefore all you have to cling to is the bad idea, who sooner or later twists you into an unidentifiable shell of your former self that people want to be around even less.

This is what I like to refer to as "The Balloon and the Cactus."

Imagine, if you will, a bright balloon, filled with air and floating happily through the world. It's a playful, kindly balloon. One day Balloon meets Cactus, an aesthetically interesting thing covered in sharp quills that make it impossible to become intimate with (for the purpose of this analogy, imagine I am talking about emotional intimacy).

Yet Balloon is in love with Cactus, and though all of Balloon's friends tell Balloon not to get involved with Cactus, the two strike up a relationship. Balloon believes that love will overcome the obviously Bad Idea that is trying to make it work with Cactus.

Before long, Cactus's quills, which before were just their problem, have pierced Balloon, sapping the poor soul of their former jovial attitude and fun. Balloon is earthbound, drained of the thing's they loved, and Cactus remains unchanged. Cactus remains remote and unapproachable, but now Balloon too is worse for the wear and is trapped with Cactus.

See? Simple. Read that to children when they are growing up and see if the marriage rate doesn't fix itself a little higher in coming generations when people learn that sometimes you really just aren't meant to be together so stop trying and for the love of GOD don't marry them thinking it will change things!

(Author's note: Same thing goes for children and pets. You can't fix what's broken by adding more complicated moving parts.)

So the question then becomes, When do you know he or she is a Cactus? How far should you go before you realize that you aren't nobly fighting for love anymore? When does it make sense to say, No, this isn't working, and to remain with you will only destroy me and my life?

Above: Not someone you take home to mom.

At what point is it responsible to make a call as to whether you have found your future prince/princess, or if you're just going to be kissing a frog for the rest of your life?

Love me!

Time, I think, doesn't even factor into this question. Say I were to put a firm stamp on two months. If after two months we are still making one another miserable, it's all over. What happens when an unforeseen incident crops up two years into a perfectly harmonious union? Jump ship? No, of course not!

Time doesn't matter because a relationship is an ever-evolving organism. It starts off small, eating plankton and what not, then swims around and hunts more wily prey, then grows legs and climbs onto the land and then wings and takes to the air (Charles Darwin hates me right now).
So at any given point there will be a problem. First the tides might be working against you, then you might stumble while trying to work those legs, and then you might have trouble finding the right air-speed velocity to keep aloft. These are all parts of the process.

It's when you're still having the same bloody arguments you were having at the single-celled stage while trying to run and flapping your stunted wings then you have problems.
A year in, if you're still arguing about how you never hold hands enough or how you never do what the other person wants to do, you might honestly think about just ending this madness.

Even more egregious - in my opinion - is when one or the other of you flat out refuses to try to forge any common ground with the other. You're not sharing books, you won't give their favorite TV show a chance, she won't let you listen to your music in the car...
That's not a relationship. That's a hostage negotiation, and sooner or later you have to ask what you are getting out of this.

Why are you still in that thing? What is the point? What are you getting out of it? If 95% of the time you are flat-out suicidally depressed and 5% of the time you find yourself saying "Things have been really good recently" then you need to wise up and move on. If you say "They've been having a rough couple of weeks" at least twice a week, then there is a problem. The thing is that you have never found happiness. You have felt happy but you haven't been happy.

Do you know why mankind seems to think of the default of the world as having daylight? Because a majority of our lives are spent in it. That's the norm. If night lasted for 18 hours, then we would think night was the norm.
When your months-to-year-long relationship is still in the sea, and when you think the sun is a novelty, you know its time to GET OUT OF THERE.