Relativity for Idiots; Or, How You Should Learn To Stop Worrying And Love Me

There are some places in this world where the people residing in certain locales fail to either live up to the history of the place or the potential of the place. It's a sad phenomenon, something akin to a gold miner walking out of a mine in disgust because he just discovered veins of platinum, silver, lead, and uranium but deciding it's more worthwhile to instead to take up abstract art that draws every single ounce of its inspiration from some unholy combination of Prince during his I'm-going-to-make-bad-albums-on-purpose era and the United States Internal Revenue Act of 1986 in its full, unabriged glory, being compared to the Internal Revenue Act of 1954. Make sense? Of course not, there are too many commas in that last sentence to make sense. Neither does entire region of Arkansas south of the Ouachita River.

Basically, this place sucks. In terms of the general theory of relativity, where the idea of "suck" can be measured via gravity's impact on the fabric of space-time, I could stand on the fucking surface of Jupiter and scoff as your spine was fused into a single, inch-high vertebrae. Except for people from Jasper, Texas. Those people, as unfortunate as they are to be from that infinitesimal pinprick of suck in an infinitely deep well in space-time, have the insanely awesome ability to go clubbing in black holes with Elvis, Meatloaf, Corey Feldman and all the other celebrities that are dead, whether they realize it or not. Regardless, this place sucks and I will trump any and all of you whom deem it necessary to engage in the timeless game of "My Town Sucks More Than Yours," you pathetic hipster freak.

El Dorado, in particular, is an angry geriatric who's children have left it (gender is indeterminate due to sags, wrinkles, and the distinct probability their genitalia just falling off on the ground with plopping sound that is not entirely unlike an over-ripened exotic fruit being dropped in Kroger's).* It realizes that not only has its glory days of easy ass and high tolerance to alcohol passed, but it also realizes that no matter many Nazis ('cause its a faux pas to acknowledge the Italians actually played a meaningful role in WWII) it killed in the war, it will soon be just as dead as Tampa Bay's hopes for a MLB dynasty in the 21st century or Corey Feldman's acting career.

I've talked this over with some of my friends, my little term for people who will sit down long enough to talk to my bloodshot, fuzzy-faced, mumbling ass to actually listen to me. It's a term that's all the rage right now, you can thank me later after it enters the lexicon. I hear it's que-ed up right after "que-ed up" and "LOLocaust."

Some of them agree. Others look at me, spit out their t'baccy, "say" something in decibels that we call "yelling" that is entirely unintelligible due to a terminal infection of Twang, and promptly fail out of my college. They then gravitate back towards the seductive appeal of El Dorado's suck, where their kind are welcome to interbreed regardless of relation or any other social taboo. These people then enroll in a community college that, bless its non-existent heart, really honestly tries. They then get an Associates degree in incest, drive their well-intentioned professors to alcohol and pills and the high bridge over the Ouachita, and go on to further drain tax dollars from more deserving people by merit of simply leaving footsteps upon our Earth.

The ones that agree with me never cease to amaze me. The main reason is because I take an incredibly long time to get to my point, as you've figured out so far. Trust me, it's at the very end.* The other reason is because I really am an insufferable asshole, but not so much as Corey Feldman.

The fact of the matter is that I can't call a single girl in this town in a platonic manner without being hounded, harassed, and just generally annoyed by some redneck. To be honest, I think it's the same one. I swear I hear the same drawl, the same scratching sound of his drunken soul trying to escape the miserable life it has found itself in and go join Plato as he swoops around the sun, the same disgusting smacking sound that I can only hope is not the result of his ingestion of the nearest stranded driver on a county road. I call him Cletus Bocephus McMomfuck (How in the hell redneck culture came to co-opt the Latin -us suffix so efficiently as they did and with such little protest from Italy is beyond my comprehension).

I would like to take this time to clarify something I said earlier. Simply put, I said that Arkansas south of the Ouachita River was an abysmal hell-hole, devoid of any redeeming human qualities (it's quite beautiful otherwise), a bit of nature that proves that either God is retarded or hates us, and the thing that would make Dante realize his version of hell was as inconvenient as getting floor-level tickets to a Rolling Stones concert for free.* I will not, out of principle, mock other towns the way I have here. Dissatisfied youth always mock their own town, and look to any other town with bright eyes. It's been that way since Goethe (nerds off the starboard bow). I spared you Camden, Hope, Magnolia, Lewisville, Stamps, Buckner, Texarkana (AR), Strong, Huttig, and De Queen. You remember that. YOU REMEMBER THAT!

So, continuing. What bothers me more? The fact that Cletus Bocephus McMomfuck treats his "woah-mayn" like a commodity, a good that can be controlled and regulated with little regard to their feelings or wants? The fact that this girl is either taken and not telling me, allowing herself to hang around such a cyclical DNA strand, or a bitch who lives for the thrill of infidelity? No, none of that really bothers me. It's depressing. Not in the sort of way Nine Inch Nail's EP depressed me, or even watching how a worthless book void of any real content like Blue Like Jazz can become so insanely popular. No, it depresses me more along the lines of walking into a nursing home and seeing a varicose, genitalia-less, Alzheimer-y geriatric hum a Scott Joplin tune in the wrong key.

God, I fucking hate Corey Feldman*

*Face it man, you would rather think about that than think about them porking. Sociology books be damned, old people do not have sex.
*This isn't it. Stop being so impatient. You've waited this long for California Democracy**, you can wait for my God-given insight.
**Multiple entendre!
*Fuck you, Joshua Aaron Kennedy. Fuck. You.
*Halo 17. Yes, I Wiki'd it.
*That's my point.

Business in the front, Party in the back

Dear Mr. Jack Daniel Henderson,

In no personal way whatsoever, with no malicious harm intended, and by no practical or legitimate fault of you own, I sincerely wish you would just drop dead already.

It's not because you have a name so much more infinitely better than mine in any possible regard. It beats mine in terms of pertinence and longevity in relation to a nation riddled with an obsession for nostalgia and nostalgicky things, as well as alcoholism. It also beats my name in terms of the distinct possibility that one day there will be a court ruling that will enable you to get a payment from the Jack Daniel distillery to reimburse you for all the free advertising you've been giving to the world and the schoolkids at Smackover High School (While it's not in the works yet, I pray that it is for the sheer comedic value that would come from the nutshot it would be to American corporations). While I will admit that when I first discovered your full name my jaw did drop, a reaction that was only previously elicited when I discovered there was a man in the United States Army named Optimus Prime, this is not the real reason I want you to die.

I don't feel this insatiable urge for you to croak because I have this odd feeling that you don't like Daft Punk, the Arctic Monkeys, or have ever sat on the food of a decrepit 1994 Dodge Intrepid, 3.3 liter v6 watching a barge go through the lock at Toad Suck dam and wonder if any dirty, perverted minds out there would find something so blatantly mechanical and lifeless to be a euphemism for vaginal penetration. An addendum would be that I have a feeling that you think the basic concept behind the show "Knights of Prosperity" is funny, but refuse to actually watch it for some reason (I myself have too much crap so I have my legitimate rationalization for my worthless life, thank you sir.) Also, I am willing to put money on it that you think it was a crying shame that Orson Welles' last role was the voice of Unicron in the original Transformers movie and that you use the cliche "so bad it's good" way too much for your own good.

Please don't get me wrong. I know you have done much good in the world, and I have taken it into account. For instance, you lived during the apex of many of the best rock acts in the history of the entire history of historical past-noteworthy-events. In addition, there is the distinct possibility you're the Duke of New York, A #1. I'm even willing to take into consideration that you slew the Iceman those climbers found in France or Italy or Azerbaijan in the 1990s because he made a pass at your wife, which proves your powers not only reach into the here-and-now but also into the freakin' Bronze Age. Despite these noteworthy accomplishments, I still just want you to die already.

Seriously, already. Just keel over for the love of Christ. I've wanted someone to die more in my life, and out of more friendly reasons at that.

You see, I've heard something about you Mr. Jack Daniel Henderson (May I call you Mr. Jack Daniel Henderson? It loses something if I don't spell it all out. Mr. Jack Henderson. Mr. J. D. Henderson. Mr. Daniel Henderson. Mr. Jack. No, not as awesome as Mr. Jack Daniel Henderson). I've heard it from Jacob Oliver, and I think that once I heard it from my brother Chase "I love Concussions" Green. By now, this epic idea must have been scrawled into the cosmos, much in the same way that Ziggy Stardust's very essence was drawn from the stars. That is a horrible analogy. Let me try again.

By now, this epic idea must have been permanently and visibly impressed, merged, and possbily, subordinated the very fabric of the space-time continuum, the same from which the enigmatic Twinkie came into existence from, and from whence Roger Waters got the phenomenal idea to make an opera about the French Revolution. Indeed, this event which you have planned trumps all end-times including, but not limited to, Ragnarok, the Tribulation and/or Rapture, the Zoroastrian Final Judgement, and the Islamic Qiyamah. So, no pressure or anything, but you have planned a soiree so good it trumps the apocalypse itself. Ya know, just don't choke.

Dude, you want to have a kegger and blast Journey's opus "Wheel In The Sky" at a reception following your funeral. I can't wait for that, and neither can you.

13th Amendment, Redux

I know exactly what it means to be degraded.

First off, don't give me that whole you're-a-white-male-who-is-responsible-for-all-injustice-and-inequality bullshit. Look at me, you think I could do anything along the lines of world-wide white hegemony? I can barely write two theses at once. I can't even ask out a girl I like without getting (visibly) shaky. But to get off this tangential little escapade, let's talk about some good ol' fashioned mass media degradation.

It was about four years ago. I was the lowly weekend DJ at KLBQ 98.7 FM in El Dorado, in the ugly Cold War bunker of a building on the corner of Timberlane and Hillsboro (Which, subsequently, leads me to believe the thick walls that place has will save me when Armageddon befalls us). My boss, the local celebrity Brett Miller, knew I had a hard time with girls. He also knew that most of that wasn't my fault for the following reason:

(Daniel's intelligence) = (collective intelligence of El Dorado x 4)²
(Daniel's compassion) = (collective compassion of El Dorado x 4987987)²²
(Daniel's religious views) = ([religious mindset of El Dorado] - sheepherd mentality + critical thinking + abstract thought)

Dating = Compatibility
Daniel's compatibility (X) = intelligence, compassion, quiet moments, dorkapalooza
South Arkansas compatibility (Y) = muddin', beer-swillin', book-burnin', unabashed serfdom to the Southern Baptist Convention

X≠Y

That's basically it. So Brett, honestly trying to do a good thing for the sake of doing a good thing for what he thought was a good person, decided to try and help me out when it came to Valentine's Day. Basically, he thought he would use the almighty power of radio to try and help me get a date for Valentine's Day. It doesn't stop here.

No, he auctioned me off on the air. Well, originally he was going to auction me off. Then he decided to take whomever sounded like the best caller, so he was basically pawning me off on whatever unlucky soul happened to sound hot/cute/nice/desperate enough to spend what was slowly turning into an ensured Valentine's day from hell. The gift package for either having pity on my Valentines-Day-stag-ass or just being that masochistic to resort to not only going out with me but also doing so ON THE FUCKING RADIO was the following:

• Dinner for two (or $50 worth of food) at Mel's Seafood
• Two tickets to Stars Theater
• Splendid embarrassment for an average listening audience of a few thousand that money can't buy, but mostly because radio is still a free medium

Q99 got one phone call for me. One. We were on-air with this miserable stunt for hours. I still have it burned to CD somewhere around here, I listen to it when I need to remember how bad my life could be. Anyways, one phone call. It wasn't even the girl for Chrissake. It was her damn mom trying to hook her lonely, just-broken-up-with daughter with me 'cause she thought it would be good for her. I am not making this up. The only person to call in to get that Valentine's package from hell/South Jersey wasn't even a girl who wanted free food, it was her MOM doing it for HER.

To this day, I think I can trace all of my insecurities and neuroses back to this. But, that's akin to some alcoholic idiotic whining bitch tracing all her problems back to a deadbeat dad who left the family before she could even form memories. My point to all this? Iggy Pop rocks hard.

So, I meet the girl. Kacey Tomanio, who's father is known for being a hardass at Brookshires and who's entire family is so stuck up the ass of this one nutso church in town, was fairl inextinguishable from other people except that she had these incredibly gorgeous big blue eyes and this little smirk that said "smartass" and "innocently coy" at the same time, somehow. She, on air, emasculated me a tad bit more by confirming that she didn't want to do this but her mother suggested it would be a good idea; however, she did claim that I looked "alright."

You don't want to know the rest of the story. It's total bullshit. She went crazy. Twice. First, she went all I've-had-a-horrible-past-and-I-absolutely-hate-myself-and-so-should-you crazy. Then, she went all I-felt-the-hand-of-God-literally-touch-me-and-push-me-to-the-floor crazy. Then, she broke up with me because Jesus told her to. Last I heard, she had gotten knocked up so she could/would have to marry her ex.

This was basically a big humiliating debacle for me. My friends at high school heard it, and laughed. They laughed again when she actually showed up and said her mom made her come. They laughed again when I choked when it came to asking her out, on-air during rush hour. Brett laughed, although it was with me and after the fact. Same with his wife, although there was a tinge of that sort of social awkwardness you feel when you see a character on your favorite TV show doing something obviously dumb and being completely oblivious to it. I feel all the humiliation and shame and worthlessness crashing down on me again.

Happy Valentine's Day.