Bushido: Way of the Broke Guy

Originally run on 12 April 2010.


Bushido: Way of the Broke Guy
Working Five (+) Years Towards a Degree That Doesn't Get You Anywhere

A lot of things have been going down in my life lately, some good, some bad, some confusing. As a young man more or less locked away in his parents’ attic for twenty hours a day these things haven’t so much made me feel uneasy or jealous as they have highlighted the fact that, other than writing up saucy opinion pieces and watching Blade Runner on a loop, I’m not doing a whole lot with my life.

There’s an old saying, “Youth is wasted on the young,” which was probably first said by some horrible, old cunt, but it raises a good point. I’ve been tossing away months of these golden years doing nothing truly productive. Meanwhile, outside the wire of the Kislingbury compound, my friends are off getting married and being accepted to graduate school at USC, and I cannot get work as a dishwasher. It’s discouraging.

This started, like all disappointments, with applying for a job. Or trying to apply for one. I say “trying,” because the way people receive and reply applications nowadays is akin to flying a spaceship into a black hole or shouting down a garbage chute. It makes you feel stupid and you’ve got no idea if it’s working or not.

There was quite a number of jobs open at the restaurant, everything from the CEO to the disabled guy who hangs out in the bathroom and gives you a towel. I figured, hey, I’m at least as quick-witted as most slow people I know, I am a shoe-in for this job. I was wrong, so very wrong. Despite a follow up to a well named gentleman and seventh-graders command of the English language, I received no reply. I guess I was in that perfect sweet spot between being over-qualified for many jobs and under-qualified for the rest that employment experts call “Having a Bachelor’s in the Arts.”

The restaurant in question is Gyu-Kaku Japanese BBQ and it is going on my Enemies List, right between “God” and “Harrison, George” (two discs of B-sides and a jam session is not a triple album, George!). If it wasn’t for their $1.50 beers at happy hour, I’d firebomb the place. It’d probably get blamed on the shabu shabu grills that all the customers use, as well. The perfect crime.

Like anything in life, though, you’ve got to find something in it that you like, rather than waste your time complaining about what isn’t there. You’re always going to find things you’re lacking and, I don’t know about you, but I’m trying to get through season one of Deadwood and I simply do not have the time for that. So I decided to focus on jobs I am qualified for.

A brief overview of Craiglist’s LA chapter reveals that I’m perfect for quite a number of opportunities, most of which either involve managing blogs for law offices (I guess even the square community likes to post uncredited Terry Richardson photos on a tumblr) or picking up piles of dirt from somewhere near Sunland. There was also a job offer for a “courier,” which I’m fairly certain was just an offer to move weight across the San Gabriel Valley. I can’t say that I didn’t send the guy an e-mail, though.

The rest are mostly gay porn, but not the gay porn you’re thinking of, with the umbrellas and snappy musical numbers, this is the kind of gay porn that involves men having sex with each other. I mean, I guess I’ve done lots of things for money that I don’t like—cleaning, being kind to the elderly, and not stealing from the cash register spring to mind—but, I’m going to be honest with you, screwing a dude does very little for me. I don’t know how the ladies put up with that. On the plus side, it seems they’ll pay for your gas mileage. I put this in the “maybe” pile.

As far as the rest of the future goes, it’s really wide open, which is fairly terrifying. That’s the worst bit of it, the not knowing when things are going to get better, when they’re going to change, but at the same time, that’s also kind of the strange hope in all of this. I know things have to change, and when they do I’ll be there, waiting, because it’s not like I’ve got a job to fill the space.

Matrimony and Baby Making

Originally run on 21 September 2009 for the Opinions page.

Matrimony and Baby Making:
Why People Under 30 Shouldn't Get Married

I’ve noticed a recent, horrifying trend on the Facebooks and rumor-mills surrounding high school acquaintances of mine. I’ve noticed that far too many of them are getting married and having kids. It’s awful. I’m twenty-two and I’d like to consider myself fairly level-headed and I can’t even begin to comprehend marital vows or spawning a brood. I don’t get it any more than I get quantum physics or the mad scrawlings of a homeless man, written with his own filth. In every single case of these people getting married, their decisions seem to have two causes in common: Stupidity or religiosity. Or both.

I’m not here to harangue religion, though, that’s hardly any fun. I’m fairly certain that God doesn’t want any part in these marriages. He created the moon, the sky, and the seas, so why would he want to lower His batting average with marriages that are as certain to end with arbitration as it is certain that Oedipus is going to get ruddy with his mom? Maybe He’s just got a better sense of humor than I do. He did create the platypus. And the manatee. And the Irish. It’s a distinct possibility.

The best example of someone who shouldn’t get married at this age is a fellow I went to high school with. His name was Chaz and he could easily be described as a guy that looked and acted like someone named Chaz. There was never a more perfect Chaz than this one. He had the kind of effulgent demeanor that caused many people to ask him if he was high. He never was, which was almost worse, because if you’re stoned, you can sober up, but there’s no amount of time that can keep you from being a desert of personality.

When we heard that he was expecting, my friends and I laughed it off as an insane rumor, drummed up by a sick mind. There was no way fate was cruel enough to let someone as un-ideal for parenthood like Chaz have a baby, much less the twins he was rumored to be expecting. I wouldn’t be comfortable letting a guy named Chaz hold my baby, much less actually have one. Well, as it turns out, he married the gal he knocked up and they’re on Facebook. The once funny rumor is now a chilling testament to human mistakes online.

I think there’s a few more guys from my high school class with bastards running around, but they’ve at least got the good taste to obscure any progeny they accidentally made. You’ve got to cover that up, brick it up in a wall, and burn the evidence, too. It’s one thing to ruin your life by not knowing proper pull-out procedures, but it’s quite another to dress your mistakes up and take portraits of them at Sears.

Children. Marriage. Ugh. No thanks, I’ve got shit to do this decade. Marriage and having babies can wait. Or it can at least wait until I’ve got my own and I stop caring about what people from my high school do with their lives

On Death

Originally run on 9 September 2009 for the Opinions page.

On Death: Not a Fan
How Loss Teaches Us What We Should Already Know

Death, I’m realizing, is the worst. It tears people up inside, it ruins their days, and it’s a complete mystery. Death, like most important things, can’t be understood until you actually experience it yourself. Even for the living, there’s no amount of prep work or training that can make sense of it. I’ve come to this conclusion, because last Thursday, my uncle died.

I can make a good omelette and I can out-score my parents in a game of Jeopardy, but when it comes to something as basically important as sending my cousins a condolence e-mail, I’m entirely out of my depth. This matters like so few things do. If I can’t write more than a couple of sentences to comfort someone how am I ever going to deal when death strikes closer or harder? The things the matter most in life, I seem to be least equipped for.

The past hasn’t prepared me for this situation, because I’ve never been so close to a death like this one. When my grandparents passed, it didn’t exactly come as a shock. My grandmother on my mom’s side was the first to die, but I was so young it barely even registered. She died in her sleep and, as I learned by hearing it over and over again in the weeks after, “That’s the way to go.”

When her husband died, it wasn’t exactly a horrific shock. He went out as most people only dream of. He was 92, sharp as a tack, he had a girlfriend, he traveled the world, and wasn’t haunted by any dark secrets. He was a good man who was survived by nine children and who knows how many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Even the manner of his death could almost be considered gentle. He didn’t contract some disease that sucked him dry and robbed him of his mind like Alzheimer’s did my dad’s mother. When he died, he pulled his car in front of his house, put it in park, and died. The engine was still running when his neighbors found him. My grandpa on my dad’s side was even less of a shock: He died years before I was even born.

It wasn’t that way this time. We knew he was sick for a long time, but I didn’t know he had been this sick. He was only 63 years old, two years younger than my dad, a far cry from 92. The man who was married to my mom’s twin, who fathered three of my favorite cousins, who we watched Old School with at Thanksgiving is just gone. He’s gone and the most profound thing I can come up with is “You must feel like hell.”

I guess the most disconcerting thing about this is there’s no changing it. If you’re sick, you can get better. If your car breaks down, you fix it. If you’re in debt, you get a job. There’s a solution for all of these things, but not for death. With death, that’s it. There’s no solving this problem and that’s probably the scariest part of it. Not only is someone you love gone forever, but we’re suddenly made aware of our own mortality like no other event can make us. We can’t do anything except remember the good times we had with the departed. Thankfully, in this case are plenty. Of course that lesson, someone else taught me.

The Trouble With Tunnel Vision

Originally run on 13 April 2009. Art by me!

The Trouble With Tunnel Vision:
Donut Seem Strange

I don't know if it's something the air or if it's a change in the electro-magnetic fields or if it's just the heat, but this past week I have seen a lot of cleavage. Now, besides the obvious fact that it has gotten a bit warmer, I imagine that there's could be another motive to wearing a revealing top: To show what the Lord has blessed you with. For better or worse, this is an accepted aspect of human nature. People gawk. Now I don't say this just to write an opinion on boobs (I am pro-breasts) and I don't say this as I warning (but, heads up, men are scum). I say this because it's the perfect example of a a social contract, an unspoken one, one that our society requires to function. It's a delicate peace that if we ignore and peel back the layers nobody wins.

This brings me to donut shops. The 24 hour ones. There's Bartha's on Ximeno, there's the one by the Hole Mole which always seems to be full of perfect specimens of rambling tramps, and there's the one on 2nd Street across from Shorehouse which looks like it's either being built up or torn down. Now, I'm not saying that these are money laundering operations, but they're probably money laundering operations. There's also one two blocks west of where I live, where on a nightly basis a drug deal goes down.

Realistically, I draw 90% of my information on the drug trade from HBO TV shows so I might not be an expert. With that said I am pretty sure that when an Explorer with mirrored windows parks with its engine running at 2am in Long Beach, I am certain that it is for nefarious purposes. But, I ignore it, because it's easier to do that than to tip-off the narcos (my lease ends in two months, what do I care?). Are the drug deals and the donuts connected? Who knows. We should probably get a wire up, though.

Theses things we ignore for the sake of society isn't always titties and donuts, either, sometimes it's our parents. We tell ourselves that, despite them being alive during the 1960's, in no way did they ever learned how to pack a bowl and in no way did they ever engage in a menage a trois with a Finnish guy named Merja. We also tell ourselves that they still don't do this stuff, too.

If we accept these things as part of our canon, this leads to a whole slew of problems. We have to rethink how the very basics of our relationship with society works. It leads to chaos. We would start vomting and never stop, doors would kicked in, there'd be no donuts after a hard night of drinking, and no more plunging v-necks. These probably aren't the best examples of the lynch pins of civilization, but a lot of things like this require us looking the other way. The benefits of willful ignorance probably isn't the best moral to pull away from this story, but as I've been told from behind an empty stein time and time again: Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery. So, maybe it isn't accepting these social contracts, but being aware of them and going from there. I say this with more than a mite of trepidation, though, because if we have low-neck lines taken away from us, that would be too heavy a burden for my soul to bear.

These Golden Years

Originally run on 9 March 2009. Illustration by me!

These Golden Years:
I Would Finally Make My Father Proud. Finally.

Time travel is something of a concern of mine. I’ve discussed this before—December, I think it was. What, I’m repeating myself? I don’t have a single original thought in my head? Fuck you, I’m talking about time! This effects us all! And besides, nobody ever criticized Jesus for talking about fishing all the damn time. So stow your snide comments for three damn minutes. The only feasible scenario that I see would have to be in some kind of Time Cop-type situation where I witness a time-based crime and I’d have to be put into the Time-Witness Protection Program. In this case I think I get to choose when and where I go back in time. Right? Who cares? Point stands.

Many would choose the 1960’s, but these people are cowards and probably mentally infirm. The time I would go with—because I’m not a 17 year-old girl—is New York, 1975. It’s post-coke, pre-AIDS, you’ve got the emerging punk scene on the one hand and coke-addled David Bowie in the other. It’d be great. On weekdays I could watch Woody Allen movies (back when he was good) and on my weekends I could get coked up and kick Andy Warhol in the head. It’d be great. If I’m not busy on that day, I could even save Ian Curtis—John Lennon too. Why not? Eventually I’d have to live through the 80’s, but they really aren’t so bad. Sure you’ve got rat-tails and glam metal, but at least I get to vote for Reagan. Eff yeah.

I mentioned this last time, but my second choice would be to stop Hitler. And afterwards, I’d punch FDR right in his gold-bricking, socialism-loving ass. Right in it. I’d get away with it, because I figure I’ve got plenty of lee-way after solving the whole Lebensraum issue (German for: “We is cunts.” German is a strange language). While punching said president, I’d hold my other hand out, palm first, towards the nearest camera. I would do this so that years later my future dad (past dad?) could look at my picture in the encyclopedia and high five his past son (future son?) across time. Then I could take a photo of him high-fiving the book and take this whole thing to Escher-esque proportions of chicanery. This is what we call the “Elektra Complex.”

Just in case the Time Cops are reading this, these are the following times I will UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES travel to. This is non-negotiable. Let the fucking future criminals freeze me in carbonite or rape my fourth-dimensional sex organs with screwdrivers. I don’t care. Death would be a better alternative to these time zones.

No Civil War. It has long since been established that the Civil War is the lamest of all possible eras. It’s full of nothing but itchy clothing, twirling mustaches, and fervent assholes that think that the n-word is acceptable in polite conversation (but not mixed company, strangely). It’s also the nerdiest war of all time. Nerdier than ‘Nam, nerdier than WWII, and even nerdier than the Revolutionary War (which is pretty goddamn nerdy). Plus, the Civil War tapers right into the epoch of train nerds, and those poor souls are the untouchables of the nerd caste system.

No Napoleonic Europe either, because that’s basically just the Civil War but for British dorks. I’d probably get a whole lot less Dr. Who references, but it would come at the cost of having to look at the dentifrice-free zone that they call mouths-- those crooked, decaying punji pits that erupt out their tuber-white flesh. Ugh.

I don’t know—So, yeah, time travel. Know it, love it, live it. By the way, if anyone knows a safer way to time travel, that’d be grand. I’m not too keen on the idea of being a witness to a time-crime. I get this creepy sensation that it’d drive me insane. God knows the last thing the past needs is more crazy people.

Glass + Cum = Broken Dreams

Originally run on 23 February 2009. Image from Google.

A Rebuttal to "Orgasm Shatter the Glass Ceiling" by Rachel Rufrano, 2/17/09

In my many years of cracking safes and romancing ladies, I have learned a thing or two. One of these facts is that women are much like safes: They’re about three feet tall, weigh a couple hundred pounds, contain precious secrets that must be hidden from the world, and it takes a steady hand to get anything from it (them). What I am saying is that making a woman come is much the same as cracking a safe. I took umbrage with Rachel Rufrano’s article because of its over-simplification of (straight) human sexuality. But also because I’m pretty sure it was making fun of my cock (which doctors tell me is perfectly proportioned for a man of my height). Then again, I whenever I hear people laughing in public I think the same thing, so that might just be my problem.

First off, some women simply cannot have orgasms. Now, I can already hear the cynics clucking their tongues and scoffing “Maybe not with you,” but it’s a physiological fact, damnit! There is no amount of jaw Olympics, pleading or sitting on the drier that can play that card any differently. Yet, somehow, they still manage to get on with their lives and be healthy, contributing members of society. Many of these women also manage to have fulfilling sex lives despite this perceived disability. Believe me, I’ve been turned down by literally dozens of them. Human sexuality is complicated and frightening enough without fixating on one particular event that might not even happen. And another thing, as far as equal rights go, aren’t there more pressing issues to deal with besides climaxing. We can all agree on that one, right?

I think we can all agree that there’s nothing wrong with women pursuing the orgasm. I personally have benefited from taking part in this noble quest, but with that said, if coming is the only thing that defines a worthwhile sexual escapade (sexcapade) then you’re probably going to be mightily disappointed. Take me, for example. I’d love to own a Porsche, but it’s probably never going to happen. Does this keep me up at night? No. Do I go into every car and compare it with this pneumatic piece of German Engineering? No. What I do is appreciate the Honda Accord that the Lord has blessed me with and I try to be thankful for every experience I have with it (Ladies, if any of you would like to be compared to a medium-range Japanese automobile, drop me a line).

What I’m getting at here is that female sexuality terrifies me. Even more so than terrorism. I mean, vaginas—ew. And don’t even get me started about menstruation. Female genitalia are like a sick parody of a Giger painting, all those folds and tubes. Who has the time to figure all that out? Not me! If women figure out that we’re not the gate-keepers of their sexual fulfillment, what else can result but complete and total anarchy? And I won’t stand idly by while Miss Rufrano dismantles the very core of our society.

An Open Letter to the Republican Party

Originally run on 2 February 2009.

Dear Republican Party,

What happened to you, Republican Party? You used to be cool, man—Well, you were never cool, but at least you had something going for you. Smaller government and lower taxes, how can you screw up that formula? Not too long ago, you had the world in your hand—the Supreme Court, both Houses, and the Presidency—Now look at you. You’re the sick man of DC, and it’s high time you got your shit together.

I’m not here to rag on you, though. I was raised with my dad yelling at Clinton for most of my childhood—plus if he ever found out that I was trashing the party, I’d be out of a free meal ticket. The biggest reason that I’m not stooping to kick a man while he’s down is that America needs you guys. A healthy democracy requires a healthy competition. Without a serious competition we end up with Communist China or Soviet Russia or, more innocuously, six of the past eight years. America requires the other party, even if we don’t like them. Especially if we don’t like them, actually.

Your current incarnation is an intellectual and a spiritual dead-zone. On the one hand we’ve got professional scum like Ann Coulter, who wear their arrogance on their sleeve, like it’s a chevron for an elite force of loud-mouthed jerk-offs. Not to say that cockiness can’t be charming in small doses, Bill Mahr made an entire career out of this, but when he isn’t right at least he’s funny. The only service the current generation of conservative pundits supply is infuriation. They’re infuriating because they’re speaking about something that matters—our democracy—and they turn it into this hideous bitchfest that sucks in all forms of thought and rationality into the abyss.

Then there’s the granddaddy of whining Republican pundits: Rush Limbaugh, the creaking gastropod that he is. A man so edgy that he turned on McCain because of the fact that he hated Mexicans less than the other candidates. Campaigning against the best candidate the party has had in 20 years isn’t punk rock, it makes you a fat, petty asshole. Where’s William F. Buckley when you need him?

Oh, yeah. Spinning, no doubt.

The actual political wing of the party isn’t much healthier than the ideological one. Just look at the crop of runner ups in your camp last year. There was Giuliani, a man so inept that he managed to fumble being a hero on 9/11—a move only slightly less dumb that John Kerry being called a pussy for killing VC by a trust-fund baby. Then we have Mitt Romney (a known replicant) who is a believes in a religion that up until 1978 thought that the color of black people’s skin was a curse from God (a known space alien)—not that his religion is any of our business. Then we’ve got Mike Huckabee, who despite being something of a Bible-thumping nightmare, actually managed to be likable, if only because he never had a serious shot at turning the country into a theocracy he wants it to be (“All hail Presi-pope Huckabee III,” we’d all chant). This leaves us with Sarah Palin. Which one of you thought that was a good idea?


Obama beat you jerks for a lot of reasons: Exploiting the internet, being able to mobilize an entire generation of voters (and rake in their cash), and by sending out a message other than “Terrorists/Mexicans/Obama is going to kill you/steal your job/take your guns.” You lost because they were used to not having anyone to run against. You got complacent and sedentary and now here we are.

Honestly, when was the last time conservatism gave America anything to look up to? We need you to do this, not just for your own sake, but for our democracy’s sake. We need you out there making sure that Obama is doing the best job possible, because if we get a president that thinks his job is safe, we end up with Bush.

Four years, Republican Party, that’s all you need to turn yourself around. That’s how long it took for the Democrats to go from championing Yuppy Frankenstein and Droopy Dog to being spearheaded by a shiny, new racially progressive Messiah. That’s how long you have to purge the sycophants and hypocrites from your company and to actually forge something that is worth believing in. You brought this mess upon yourself and you’ve got every opportunity in the world to think your way out of it. Four years, plenty of time.

Yours Truly,
James Kislingbury, ESQ.

PS: Again, Sarah Palin, seriously? I mean, I love my mom too, but I’m not going to vote her into office.