How We Roll OR Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

Society is at an impasse. The terror alerts are color coded and time clocks need to be punched. All the kids are medicated to the eyeballs, crime is on the rise, and soon there will be no social security left. But there is no need to worry about it.

The greatest generation, our grandparents, cared about doing a great job, about saving the world from evils—real or imagined—and about providing a good life for their children. The baby-boomers, our parent’s generation, cared about little more than themselves and patting themselves on the back for all the good things they talked about doing. So, what is left for our generation to care about? Increasingly the answer to that question is…nothing. That is not to say that there is nothing worth worrying about in the world, just that a lot of people in the 18-30 age group cannot find it in their hearts to care about the world in general. As our grandparents would have told us—had we been listening—anything worth doing is worth doing right. Here are ten steps to afford you better living through apathy:

Step 1: Stop worrying about your career. Careers are a myth of a bygone era. Your grandfather might have worked at the same job his entire life, because he could. Used to be a company would pay a man decently for a job that he would work forty hours a week so that he could support his family. He did not always like his job; he did it because his kids needed to go to school and to eat. However, the Boomers decided that they all wanted middle management jobs so that they could sell the working man out for cheaper overseas labor. The irony being that the Boomers are now refusing to relinquish those jobs to the younger generation. All that is left for us, then, is to find a job we like that pays enough to get by and spend the rest of our time drinking Old Style out of Styrofoam coolers.

Step 2: Forget about finding Mr. or Mrs. Right. According to the Center for Disease Control as of the turn of the century nearly half of all first marriages end in divorce or separation. With those kinds of statistics marriage is little more than a temporary institution. There is no point, really, to concerning yourself with finding the right person, just someone who will be alright for now. That is not to say that you should not take full advantage of the modern amenities to protect yourself from diseases like babies. It is to say that fun is the name of the game so “find someplace warm—preferably moist—insert, thrust, repeat.”

Step 3: Global Warming? Pollution? Record hurricane seasons year after year? No sweat. And certainly nothing to get worked up over. As the boys in the Canadian punk-rock outfit would have it, “The world will go on without us. If we cannot fit ourselves into the scheme, we will be squeezed out. Suffocated, starved, or parched into extinction.” The planet Earth is a giant ball of dirt, water and gas floating in the vacuum of space. There is very little you or I could do to change that. The problem is that it may become uninhabitable for human life. More accurately, someday it will absolutely be inhospitable to human life in the form that we know it, so there is no use running around trying to change the way everyone lives. Evolution has worked thus far, why not let it have a crack at the next several millennia? The dinosaurs had a terrific recycling program* going and a highly touted public transportation system† but then a giant asteroid came and took it all away from them. Oh sure, we might have better technology and can “predict giant asteroids” but out time here on the mortal coil is finite no matter how we look at it so why spend all your time worrying about what could happen? Get a slurpee, rent a movie, and have a blast while you still can.

Step 4: In other parts of the world they are holding revolutions daily. The people are so fed up with some system or another that they are taking to the streets and using their ploughshares until the gutters run red with the blood of their countrymen. Here in America, on the other hand, we have Survivor, the Super Bowl, and Beer Commercials so we need not worry about that sort of hateful tripe. A young acquaintance of mine, Patrick Martindill, was until recently enjoying the good life provided by an excellent exchange rate in Bolivia while teaching English to the local high schoolers. That was all well and good until the very same locals decided that their government was no longer adequate and took up arms. Pat decided that he could not be bothered and simply avoided the world’s problems by moving back in with his mother and getting a job as a shoe salesman in Suburban Washington, D.C. Let the other people of the world worry about the problems that…

…you know what, fuck it. I know you were promised ten steps, but you get the idea. And, as Bill Amos, a 24 year old substitute teacher from Portland, OR—who substitutes because he can not find a real job, said when contacted for information, “Apathy schmapathy, I’m going to sleep…”

*Dinosaurs would eat almost anything and then turn it into useful fertilizer, which fed the trees, to produce oxygen, thus continuing the cycle of life.

†Just ask Fred Flintstone about his daily commute on the Bronto-bus.

-A.R. Leith

Quote: "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit." -L.M. Willis, Inc.

I am Kill All of You...

Look, I don't see very many of you writing a whole lot on your blogs. And whoever this "anonymous" person is, I do not know. The fact is that I am not made of time. I am a very busy college student. I fill my days with taking some sort of science-fiction character analysis. Evidently I am some sort of well-quaffed captain person on Star Trek...most likely. Personally, I think if I were to be any science fiction person at all it would be Barf from Spaceballs. So there. anyway, I'm going to post in a minute an article I wrote for class, so that you all have something to get you through your obviously busy days... Word.

-A.R. Leith

Alright You Fuckers!

Judging from the most recent comments on my last entry there are some questions regarding the actions and events of October 1, 2005. But first I would like to clear up a couple of things.

Number one, the El Rancho Tavern is by no means the, now let me get this right, "dirtiest, stinkiest, most-hole-in-the-wall-bar ever." It is just another bar in Durango with self-important bouncers who pretty much shit their pants if anyone so much as asks them a question. Not to mention the fact that all of their anger took place while someone was trying to appologise to them for something that happened the night before. But I digress. There are bars in this world that far outstripe the Ranch in terms of down right dirtiness. The L&L on Clark, The old Fireside Bar, Timbers, are just a few that come immediately to mind. It would appear, then that the only thing the Ranch is really the best at is banning people for life...oh, and calling the police because they can't handle their shit.

That being said I would like all of you to sit right back and enjoy a tale of four young brothers you know so well...

Basically this is all silly, but I will relate it to you anyway. This Saturday last a group of us decided to go out and tie one on. There is nothing really out of the ordinary where that is concerned. However, because of some of the actions of last Friday night there was going to be a row.

Apparently, a young friend who shall remain nameless tried to leave the above-mentioned bar with a whiskey-coke zipped up in his jacket pocket. The proprieters were understandably angry about this, as is their right. (among the other things the young man did the proceeding night- 1. While running down the middle of the street is pulled over by police. Rather than halting he "pulls over" to the curb before the police can talk to him.) Anyway, so far there should be no problem, right?

So everybody goes to the Ranch, there is no problem at the door, or what have you. Everyone cointinues the merriment and purchases their drink. It is only AFTER everyone has paid their money and is drinking that the bouncer decides that he recognizes my friend from the night before and wants him to leave the bar. Okay, if you are pissed, that is fine, but don't let us all come in and spend our money if you are going to be a dick about letting one of our group in. That is shady. (Not that there is much about the Ranch that ISN'T shady at this point...)

So, whatever. We all finish our beer while he leaves with the bouncer. Once outside our young friend is trying to appologise to a man who is--in some unclear way--associated with the bar. Yadda yadda yadda, the young man can't remember even being at the Ranch the night before, so we start to ask questions about why he is being asked to leave, etc.

One thing leads to another and the bouncer and manager dude(?) strike their tough-guy poses, thus eliciting laughter and derision from the assembled group. Mind you, we are now outside on the public sidewalk...in fact we were actually in front of the establisment next door to the bar. None the less, rather than just letting us be on our own outside the proprieters decide to call the police. Not wanting that we decide to move on our merry way to another bar. Evidently not satisfied with this the manager(?) dude(?) decides it is his civic duty to follow us down the street commenting on how much trouble we are in. Keep in mind that three of the four in the group were not even asked to leave the bar, we left of our free will. But whatever, he begins making fun of us, poking fun at clothes, etc. and we just continue to laugh at him.

I think the peak came when this little guy followed us into ANOTHER BAR. I decided that he had overstepped the bounds of decency and stopped to talk to him. He walked into me and bounced backwards...decides to shove me for that and asks if I'm "getting tough". I gently reminded him that I was standing still when he walked into me AND that we are now three blocks away inside another bar, and he backed off. So johnny tattletale decides he cannot let this go, even though the cops never showed up at the Ranch, so he runs out to main street and flags down a passing police car and "tells on us". Whatever, we laugh it off, the cops laugh it off, and the two employees from the ranch are still douche bags. That's life. Long story short...or shortER, we're not allowed to go back to this bar. And that's fine.

-A.R. Leith

Quote: "There's nothing worse than being in a crowded room and feeling all alone." - The Impossibles.