Y’all must think you’re pretty slick. Seriously, pulling something out of Reagan’s playbook: paying faux homage to King (in Reagan’s case in the form of a national holiday) while doing everything you can “behind the scenes” to promote the disparagement harassment and discrimination against African-Americans. Oh, do I have some words for you! But first let me say this to all you minority inmates in debtors prison (which like real prison is made up of a disproportionate number of us) first we’ve got to look up from staring at our own problems long enough to notice things like this and second  we may not have gotten jobs or meaningful contacts out of our fancy degrees but at least we pissed off uneducated white trash like Beck and Palin. Sure they are millionaires and we owe six figures but their jealousy and envy can at least get you through the day.

Ok now for Beck and Palin. Look, Reagan got away with what he did because 1) he was President 2) he was a charismatic actor and 3) that was 30 years ago before the Daily Show.  Glen Beck is so stupid he thought Al Sharpton marched with Dr. King…I mean can he even count to 47? Sarah Palin is on record mocking the very IDEA of being a community organizer… What do you think Dr. King WAS?! The unofficial Prince of Negroes? And these aren’t things those idiots did or said ten years ago, this is all since 2008.

Also Beck and Palin are racist, almost comically so.  Beck is one of the leading architects of the “Obama is a Muslim” movement which casts the thinnest veil over racism I have ever seen. Palin supports Dr. Laura who dropped 17 n-bombs in a tirade against inter-racial marriage.

I could write about this forever but rather than do that let me go back to and stress one of my original points which is that Beck and Palin hate all African-Americans yes, but particularly the educated ones. I can take personal satisfaction in that my existence irritates them even if idiots like them who run the world have seen to it that my education is of absolutely no practical or economic value.

I’ll leave you with this. We’re like soldiers in D Day invading the shores of elite education. Everytime the machine guns focus on one of us and guns us down we are giving a chance for another to slip through. And that other just might be an Obama. And believe me, President Barack H. Obama is THE worst nightmare of Beck and Palin even though each has made millions denouncing him. Why? Because at the end of the day they really do think minorities are racially inferior. And why not? When you don’t have accomplishments to feel good about you have to rely on genetics.  Obama is living proof to the contrary. He literally beat both of them to become President.

You all know the line paraphrased from Mississippi burning: if ya ain’t better than a Negro, who are you better than?

The last epiphany I had was when I decided to create this blog, and it was nothing, I mean NOTHING compared to the earth-shaking revelation I experienced in a movie theater just a few short minutes ago.  As a man of few means, I normally catch movies right at the tail end when they are about to leave the theater (when hopefully tickets are reduced) and hence I saw the movie “Kickass.” And I was blown away.

First, all I can say is thank you.  I haven’t felt like that in a movie theater since before I can remember. 

What follows are just a few random statements that come to mind, kept short to prevent rambling.

-The movie is the best thought experiment addressing the plausibility of super heroes.

-The movie is funnier than Super Bad and Wedding Crashers combined.

-The movie has better choreography than the Transporter and Romeo Must Die.

-The movie is an unapologetic look at the Hero’s Journey.

-The movie is an expert on its audience.

-The movie uses effects better than the Matrix.

-The movie is more tragic than Romeo and Juliet.

-The movie is completely unpredictable from the first scene to the last.

-This movie integrates real comic book art better than Sin City, Kill Bill or anything put out by Marvel or DC.

-This movie can, should and could serve as an all encompassing text on the following: western philosophy, the comic book genre and the nature of man himself.

-This movie is a brilliant coming of age story.

-The movie is a perfect parody of itself, of superhero movies generally and cannot be parodied by any movie other than itself.

-This movie is the best reason to have movies.

-This movie is the ONLY reason to continue having movies since they are making a movie based on the comic strip “Marmaduke.”

Marmaduke.  Lord help us all.  Anyway, thank you for reading the first edition of “Thank You Note” not to be confused with other writers who occasionally thank a fellow blogger warrior like Elie Mystal or idiots who worship car brands (though I think in a rare moment of censorship I removed Triforce’s ode to BMW).  Running the blog has to have some perks.  I do the shticks we repeat.

Now to swipe my mom’s credit card out of her purse and order myself some Kickass merchandise.  I need a t-shirt that says “Show’s Over Motherfuckers.”

The last epiphany I had was when I decided to create this blog, and it was nothing, I mean NOTHING compared to the earth-shaking revelation I experienced in a movie theater just a few short minutes ago.  As a man of few means, I normally catch movies right at the tail end when they are about to leave the theater (when hopefully tickets are reduced) and hence I saw the movie “Kickass.” And I was blown away.

First, all I can say is thank you.  I haven’t felt like that in a movie theater since before I can remember. 

What follows are just a few random statements that come to mind, kept short to prevent rambling.  I could write a book about each of the following statements.

-The movie is the best thought experiment addressing the plausibility of super heroes.

-The movie is funnier than Super Bad and Wedding Crashers combined.

-The movie has better choreography than the Transporter and Romeo Must Die.

-The movie is an unapologetic look at the Hero’s Journey.

-The movie is an expert on its audience.

-The movie uses effects better than the Matrix.

-The movie is more tragic than Romeo and Juliet.

-The movie is completely unpredictable from the first scene to the last.

-This movie integrates real comic book art better than Sin City, Kill Bill or anything put out by Marvel or DC.

-This movie can, should and could serve as an all encompassing text on the following: western philosophy, the comic book genre and the nature of man himself.

-This movie is a brilliant coming of age story.

-The movie is a perfect parody of itself, of superhero movies generally and cannot be parodied by any movie other than itself.

-This movie is the best reason to have movies.

-This movie is the ONLY reason to continue having movies since they are making a movie based on the comic strip “Marmaduke.”

Marmaduke.  Lord help us all.  Anyway, thank you for reading the first edition of “Thank You Note” not to be confused with other writers who occasionally thank a fellow blogger warrior like Elie Mystal or idiots who worship car brands (though I think in a rare moment of censorship I removed Triforce’s ode to BMW).  Running the blog has to have some perks.  I do the shticks we repeat.

Now to swipe my mom’s credit card out of her purse and order myself some Kickass merchandise.  I need a t-shirt that says “Show’s Over Motherfuckers.”

We’re all in solitary confinement here in debtor’s prison.  Shame is the wall that separates us from our fellow similarly afflicted brethren.  Our reward for suffering in silence is to hear our own stories reiterated to us like we didn’t live through it. 

We get the news on a Tuesday afternoon with meetings on our calendars put their by people who knew we were out the door.  We hold our heads as high as possible while security escorts us out.  We go back to our apartments.  After a sleepless night we rise and dress as if we are going to work, lest our roommates suspect.

Eventually we muster the courage to tell our friends and family.  Cliches fall on deaf ears.  Our roommates shrug, continue their gambling and drinking and remind us in no uncertain terms that rent is due on the first employed or otherwise.  Our confidence is not kept.  Everyone knows.  We move out in the middle of the night.  A roommate offers an insulting price for a priceless possession, reminding us of a disputed $50 debt.  We fade away.  Time passes.

Then one day in a different city, in a different job in a different life we get a call.  It’s the roommate.  Now his office is empty.  Now he can’t make rent.  Now he must sell his material possessions.  Yet he tells the story like its new.

He talks about his family.  We had families.  But we stay silent.

He talks about his girlfriend.  We had significant others.  But we stay silent.

He gropes like a blind man for someone to blame.  We were angry too.  But we stay silent…

Even when somehow the venom is directed at us, years later, hundreds of miles away.

Therein lays the greatest insult.  It’s not that they couldn’t see your pain.  It’s that they saw it and didn’t care.  They distinguished between themselves and us.  We must have done something.  We weren’t good enough or smart enough.  We couldn’t hack it.  What happened to us could never happen to them.

Forgive your roommate, classmate or acquaintance.  Not because they don’t know what they are doing.  They know, they just can’t help it.  It’s the only way they can sleep at night.  Think of where you were a day, a week, a month after it happened and give them time.

I won’t say it’s not personal, because it is.  Unfortunately this is a journey we each take alone.  It’s like the difference between a sleeping man and the newly deceased.  You have to see for yourself.

This is a reflection on the events that transpired on a sunny day in April on the campus of Virginia Tech

Candles at night on the Quad. A bonfire would indicate a sports victory. A sunny day perhaps a graduation. Perhaps it is Christmas-but students go home at Christmas time and the remnants of dusk are long gone by 7 pm near the Winter Solstice. No. This is unmistakably mourning.

What is mourning? In the secular sense it is the process of returning to normal. We are programed for this. How else can we survive a month where the dubious anniversaries of Oklahoma City and Columbine collide with the fresh tragedy of the West Virginia coal mines? Let’s not forget the tragedy in our own lines known but to us and a few others and let’s not forget the tragedy of our invisible neighbors who we pass on the other side of the road. In a secular sense to move on, not as if didn’t happen, but as if such things DO happen, is the goal. And if that is the goal not only have we succeeded but we have triumphed.

But we reject this- the fallen are more than just memories, shadows and dust. Life is more than chaos given order through competition to survive. Otherwise killers always win. A true killer needs but two kills to win – only one kill can be scored against him. Premature blackness in the face of eternity is a small price to pay for the very real suffering caused.

So what is to be done? Who is to blame when the killer’s corpse lies with the slain? I blame the killer of miracles. For what if the weapons had jammed? Or rather what if the slain had literally cast of death – all surviving with only scars to mark where the bullets pierced them? What then? The killer of miracles goes right back to his daily routine. As if nothing happened.

I think we need more miracle finders. People who don’t need dramatic galvanization of good or evil in order to put aside comfortable routine and spend their lives devoted to work with the potential to echo through eternity. Find one. Follow them. A miracle awaits where you least expect it.

Or don’t. Just wait for that next student loan statement.

Well it looks like my run-of-the-mill post didn’t make the announcements. Whatever. Maybe Alpha Man is right when he says Benito caters to the more “entertaining” writers.  What will he ever do without Triforce? Anyway, Another by-product of tax season is that if you keep your ear to the ground you can find out what the heavy hitters are making. After all who doesn’t xerox their W2 at work? Turns out I am the third highest paid paralegal… and that makes me particularly expendable.

Here’s why. I make what I make because a certain partner, Eric, watches out for me knowing the office doesn’t run without me and in his niave mind I am still one phone call away from being back in law school where he no doubt thinks I belong. But partners have been jumping ship and the days when a partner brought his associates, much less his paralegals with him have long since past. Read on, it gets worse.

Whenever you are at the top you make enemies. I never thought of myself as on the top particularly since the take home of my last post was that I need to make more money. But to the working class individuals who becoming a lawyer is just as likely as becoming a pitcher for the Phils me and my comfortable salary look like easy street. Of course they don’t live in Center City. But that’s my choice. And it has consequences. One of them is the current campaign among the staff to get me fired- after all there are secretaries twice my age who make half as much. If Eric finds greener pastures I am sure to be put out to pasture.

Obviously I can’t go back to lawschool now. Let’s not amputate your right leg because you stubbed a toe on your left foot. So that leaves me here asking myself what I want to do. I don’t have an answer for that but I do know what kind of environment I want to work in…the question is whether it exists anymore…or if in fact it ever did.

If it wasn’t for KF Li’s obnoxious posts, two wars and the fact that there is actually a wait list for the lowest possible work in the military I would definitely consider it.  Why? Because in the military you have people who’s JOB IT IS to see that you succeed.  The larger mission is more important than the individual spoils.  And nobody is expendable.  I’ve heard lonely refrain of taps played over the graves of soldiers who never fired a weapon save for training, who never directly saved a life or captured a hill. ”All” they did was serve humbly, honorably and with a comradery that I think has been leached out of our spirit through an over-exposure to technology.

I think…I think that is why so many veterans are homeless.  How could you get along in this world coming from a world where doing your job was an end in itself and people who never knew you, had never been in the same state as you, had a different education, looked nothing like you, might have wealth you couldn’t comprehend or might not have two nickels to rub together…would pause, stop, and salute upon hearing the bittersweet notes that commemorated your passing? And take something from that, no matter how small, and hold it for the rest of their lives?

Once again I apologize for hogging the microphone so to speak but things happen when they happen and I had to write about this. So I was having dinner with a friend of Simons Girlfriend I met while we were dating (it ended amicably). Like the social misfit I am I remarked that I didn’t care for his roommate and that was the reason I never reached out sooner. Turns out the roommate, let’s call him Murat, had a recent death in the family. I felt like an ass. Further, it turns out that the relative was his mother and that Murat, a corporate lawyer, was her primary caretaker during her prolonged illness. Then I really felt like an ass.

Now there was nothing I could say so I said nothing.  The conversation didn’t end there however.

Now this guy wasn’t the type to let something go so he kept talking. Most of it was the standard stuff…oh he was so brave, oh it’s been so hard, etc. I felt a little better instead of worse. This was my punishment and I was taking it. Then he got into WAY too much information in terms of the particular duties he had to perform. I felt embarassed for his mom and hoped nobody ever learned of my last days third hand over nachos.

THEN…wait for it. He said that Murat wished he would have gotten laid off during the illness so he had more time to take care of his mom.

Hold Up.

First the disclaimers. Maybe Murat never actually said that and my friend was just trying to make me feel worse or further exaggerate Murat’s goodness. But let’s assume Murat’s primadona bitchass DID say as much. Two words. Fuck him.

Why? Because thousands of kids in debtors prison care for sick parents with no job, insurance, or money. Obviously Murat was not providing 24 hour a day care in his office downtown. He was either working remotely or not at all. That means his remark was I wish I didn’t keep getting those direct deposits in my bank account to the tune of 180k a year so I could instead worry about how I am going to pay for all of this.

Ever tried searching for a job or interviewing while a parent is dying? Yeah that will get you hired. What a self-righteous piece of worm shit. I have seen people get laid off when a parent, child or spouse gets sick. After declaring bankruptcy they get to relive their loved ones death during each interview when asked about the gap on their resume.

Here I could bring up some of my own experiences but you know what? It’s none of your FUCKING business. Somewhere along the line I learned that a man only tells his problems to a bottle of whiskey.

Anyway, I am sure it would have been much easier to pay for the funeral in Turkey if he had been laid off. Idiot. I checked his facebook. He was recently in the studio audience of the Tonight Show. This conjured vague memories of posts about caring for his mom. I recalled thinking only a lawyer would post about caring for a sick parent on facebook of all places to promote themselves or garner sympathy.

The greatest fear of many of a certain generation is that they live long enough to be a burden on their children. This is particularly true if their children have families or other obligations, debts, etc. Older people use facebook too. How many will remember Murat’s posts when the time comes to make difficult decisions?

In closing many nursing homes and hospice care nurses are AMAZING and I am sure even an average one is better than a self-absorbed lawyer with no medical training.  Fuck you and goodnight.

Our Father in whose likeness we seek glory

Watch over us in our hour of inspiration

Grant us an opportunity to bare witness

For I am Thomas – I believe because I have seen

I have seen us in the house of our enemies

Great was our need of points

Great was our want for time

Yet you annointed our heads with oil

And placed our enemies at our feet

Let my voice rise in praise to you

For as I grow old and lose people

This always remains

May I feel the fervor and the passion

For the rest of my days

And pass it on to every descendent

That learns my name

Let me Remember

That Should I live my full six score

And should we lose all the games

From this day to that

That I will have witnessed

More victories than I or anyone deserved

Lord I pray you grant vision

To our beloved saints departed

Please highlight the victories

And hide the defeats

On their way home

For once they bask in the ultimate victory

Earthly things will be of no concern

Lord I pray you bless

The 2009 faithful and all the others

Who never saw glory in this life

And closed their eyes believing

For thine is the tournament

The pageantry and the love

From alpha to omega

Amen.

I Am Animated.  I do not change but for the conscious stroke of the Master’s Pen.

I am the Government. I am the same when I incur debt and when I pay it. Time simply increases those who know my name. I can die but I do not accept death as natural. I have no concept of life expectancy.

I am digitized. My essence is preserved in signals that reach beyond the moon. I go on past the Earthly Armaggeddon foretold by the Mayans, Romans and Greeks. I owe nothing to the stars. They do not have my AES password.

The End