Italics Always Swing To The Right

Most people seem to draw inspiration from their surroundings, from the world, from their friends and acquaintances, but not I. I receive stimuli, but they hardly qualify as inspiration. In fact, going online and reading boneheaded drivel (which has become unavoidable these days on the so-called ‘net’) tends to put me in a bleak mood. Instantly. I try to avoid public forums, Youtube comments, and (most) blogs like the plague, but every once in a while I give in to my constant masochistic urges and, rather than self-flagellate with my homemade cat o’ nine, I browse away. These are the only times when I consider all-out nuclear holocaustic oblivion or indiscriminate genocide against the stupid as a potentially positive development for the human race. Reading the comments of the average ignorant, lazy, selfish, hateful piece of shit internet denizen makes me realize how meaningless opinions have become. As such, I can only conclude that everyone on this shit-hole planet is seventeen years-old. But god forbid if you deny someone their opinion. ‘It’s my OPINION, maaaan!’ Well big deal, asshole. Opinions are about as useful as the logic which informs their naissance (see, I’m like smart or something because I know more than one language and therefor my opinion, unlike yours, matters) and most peoples’ grasp of logic and the art of argument seems to extend no further than that of the average grade-school pupil. But perhaps I’m being too hard on the children. I have faith in the young. Well, I did before 75% of them became riddled with pharmaceuticals because their parents are too fucking lazy (or, in all fairness, overworked) to properly, uh, parent them. But Jesus Christ, let’s defend our wonderful culture until we’re blue in the face or low on ammunition — which ever happens first. I mean, who cares if we’re all hooked on legal drugs… look how cheap flat-screen TVs have become.

I’m successful. Don’t begrudge me my success. I love it. I have nice stuff in my nice house. I have a nice car. I have nice sex toys that I slick up with nice lubricant ordered online through successful businesses which assure me my anonymity, thus maintaining my facade of upstanding Conservative-party-contributing morality.

On my way across town, I cross paths with more than one acquaintance, but I have no time for these people anymore. I avert eye contact, I turn my back to them as I pass; dead to me, every last one of them. Who needs friends? The weak of mind and porous of body. And that’s not me. All I require is alcohol and professional sports — the true drugs of any right thinking conformist; like any good man of the age, I’m a shining example of humanity’s progress towards the evolutionary black hole of success.

I haven’t had a meaningful conversation with anyone other than myself since I was ten years old and I’ve never felt the pangs of love or the eventual heartbreak. I count myself lucky, but luck has nothing to do with it.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling saucy, I imagine my Lexus to be an Aston-Martin Virage. Oh, the fun I have. I sneer at pedestrians, flip them off, mouth ‘fuck you’ against the glass of my climate-controlled bubble and imagine what it would be like to shoot them all in the head with a gold-plated Desert Eagle and watch their brain matter atomize in a flume of glorious red and gray against a backdrop of golden morning sun. These are truly life’s little moments that we should all cherish.

What it comes down to is my simple hatred for mankind. Yet, I’m torn: the things I hate about humanity are the very same things that have allowed me to so easily and readily exploit my fellow bipeds. Sloth, stupidity, selfishness — and those are just the S’s. But I could go on all day about the worthlessness of the average human being and where’s the money in that? Nowhere to be found without an army of politico underlings to do my bidding and where’s the fun in that?

The trick is to accept this simple fact about the species (or, as I prefer, the speces – clever, no?) and move on, avoiding disease and filth as best one can. But learn what you can whilst among the rabble, among the poor. They’re so quaint, aren’t they? With their accents and their Wal-Mart footwear. Some of them weren’t even born here. Crazy world.

But it takes all kinds, and I take from all kinds.

Don’t begrudge me my success. That’d be mighty white of you… fuckface.

All My Best Childhood Memories Involve Solvent Abuse

At the age of twelve I developed a rabid interest in models of the scale variety. It was a simpler time, a time when all one needed to know was that Monogram was good, Revell was shite and Testors wasn’t kidding around with their “use only in well-ventilated areas” warning. Now don’t mistake me for some glue casualty; it was never intentional, I just wasn’t much for reading warning labels. “Try it out and worry about the consequences later” was — like any other young man with hopes of someday sprouting hair on his chest — my modus operandi for most everything encountered on my daily travels. But this glue, man, was a different ball of wax entirely from the likes of putting Lego in the mouth or, say, developing a fake burp routine. It was wild.

I clearly remember the first time I experienced a glue-borne altered state, which is perhaps indicative of why I’m still around to tell the tale thereof: a half-assembled ‘69 Chevelle in front of me on the table, suddenly so close yet so far away. Ears ringing. Suddenly, I have the urge to run around the house screaming, but in a good way, so I indulge myself. Good times.

Unfortunately I made the mistake of mentioning this to my mother, who promptly opened every window in the house and while I found her reaction to be rash (not to mention a total buzzkill), in retrospect, it was befitting of a community already dealing with the fallout of glue-centered recreation.

We lived in an area that required one to traverse a ferry in order to return to the promised land and it so happened that one of the deckhands on said ferry was a bit of a glue enthusiast. He died. His partner in crime wasn’t so lucky and merely ended up with a form of brain damage that has left him wandering the earth looking like a nightmarish circa-1972 Neil Young. At the time everyone blamed it on “acid” or “drugs” or some other bogeyman buzzword, but it was good ole Testors.

Lately, certain people would have you believe glue is a gateway drug to gas, hairspray, and pretty much every other airborne solvent out there. But don’t believe them. Glue is the Cadillac of solvents, the Hummer of huffing, the Chevette of…uh, nevermind.

I lost my train of thought.