Samples of Stupidity

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 9; Verse 6

"Leave behind your foolishness and begin to live;

learn how to be wise."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

Dear God,

Are you fucking kidding me?  

I know all creatures are beautiful in your eyes, or equal, or something to that effect, but, really-- am I on the same playing field as the guy who created this ad?  I am composed of the same atoms and carbon-based material?  Did he eat graham crackers and water (milk is for goyim, even four-year-olds know that) in pre-school, just like I did?  Did he wear little Osh-Kosh overalls and did he cling and clutch to his mommy, well into his mid-twenties, like I did?  Does the bit of skin in between his eyebrows need regular maintenance in order to belie his Middle Eastern roots and keep him off the Homeland Security's terrorism watch list?  Is he blogging away the angst he should have outgrown over a decade-and-a-half ago while his children resist the seductive song of the sandman's sultry siren in the next room?  

Tell me, truly, ex-Special Agent Starling....

I realize, of course, that there is an air of superiority in the tone of this blog post.  I won't deny it, but I won't make it any more superior by saying "I shan't deny it," because, let's face it, that would be too much.  I suppose that feeling superior to anyone, (even if it's a guy chained to a musty desk in some dank basement creating ads for "natural ways to boost testosterone") must mean that my medication is working to some degree, which is good, because it's fucking expensive enough-- and that's with insurance.  

When I cried (almost literally) poor to my psychiatrist, he left the room-- I presumed, to return with a firearm to Old Yeller me up good-- but instead he came back with a cascading armful of Viibryd samples.  

"If my math is right," he said, and I prayed that it was, because mine never is unless it involved Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and the answer is always "6"), "this will set you straight for about ten weeks.  Just come back when you run out-- you don't even have to see me."

"Is this guy legal?" I thought to myself, albeit fleetingly, as I hungrily grabbed all the samples from him, dropping one on the floor.

I asked him if this was an ethical thing to do.  He looked at me.  I tried to dance around the fact that I'm white and employed, unlike many of the people I have often observed in his West Philly waiting room.  He smiled at me.

"That's cute, but you're not depriving these people of anything.  I have enough samples of this to keep you good for at least a few years and, let's face it, the shitty medical assistance that most of these people get gives them better prescription coverage than you have.  Sick, right?"

It was, I had to agree.

There's a lot of things in this world that are wrong and silly, sick or bizarre.  I don't need to tell you that.  You're in the shit, you live it.  You have eyes, you eat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.  You know.  You're like me, and you're like that guy who designed the stupid testosterone ad with the hot blonde chick in the babydoll dress and she wears the boots and everything is going fine and the Basset is whining and the babies are still chirping and Pandora doesn't give a shit that I don't want to hear that Bach right now but like my mother says "everything will turn out okay in the end.  

And we all know what that means. 

It's all good, though-- just try this weird trick and take your performance to the next level. 

Bloody Wisdom

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 20, Verse 30

"Punishment that hurts chases evil from the heart."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

Tonight, I made a really good pizza.  Unfortunately, in the process, I almost grated my middle finger off.

I'm not being a baby.  It's a brand new grater, so it's extra sharp, and the cut is big and deep.  Three Band-Aids.  And it's soaked through.  

It's kind of hard to blog with an injury like this.  The bandaged finger keeps fucking everything up, and I keep trying to switch what my middle finger would do on the keyboard to my ring finger, but this runs contrary to what legendary pantyhose queen and emetophobe Mrs. Dougherty taught us in 6th grade typing class.

"F... J... SPACE!  F.... J.... SPACE!"

Really, kids-- that was a class.  And I'm old enough to have taken it on a typewriter-- albeit an electric one.  

So, due to the fact that I'm erasing every third I write and re-typing it, this isn't going to be a terribly long entry.  In fact, I think I've already done two this week, even if they were both about my father.  I was thinking to myself, as I was bleeding all over the bathroom sink, about my eldest sister.  I don't know if she still believes this shit, or if she ever really did, but she used to tell me that she thought, when bad things happened to people, that it was really God speaking through the dog-shit under the sole of your shoe, or the icy step that resulted in your shattered vertebrae.  Or the extra sharp cheese grater effortlessly skinning you alive while your two-year-old twins play happily over there at the table.  

And so I was thinking about that, and I was thinking about how much more attractive and seductive religion would be if it really was like that.  If death and mayhem and brain-dead mothers on ventilators and bastards getting whipped cream pies in their mush actually had some sort of logic to it, and not this kind of "we mere mortals cannot possibly know His reasoning" because that's kind of bullshit, isn't it?  We know.  We can know.  We can know that, when a nun gets run over crossing the Roosevelt Boulevard by some drunken Fishtown scumbag in a 1983 Firebird that that's kind of fucked.  

Unless, of course, she used to delight in beating the piss out of scared little gingers because their handwriting slanted a bit too sharply to the left, signaling that, obviously, they were combined with Satan.  Then I guess it makes sense.  Then I guess maybe I could stand behind that.  

Maybe this little accident tonight with the cheese grater is payback for how I used to imitate my elementary school principal in the playground during impromptu performances for my peers.  Maybe it's because I've never been to Israel or because I don't call my parents or because I think people who "can't eat gluten" are full of shit.  

GOD I CAN'T ST%ANSD ALL TEHSE TUPOS!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, that's what it's like without correcting every seven seconds.  

Fuck it.  IO'm doine.      

Silent Listener

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 15, Verse 3

"The Lord is watching everywhere and keeps His eye on both the evil and the good."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

Our house used to be owned by a Catholic family.  They were hardcore, at least in the sense that there were crucifixes (cheap, chintzy ones, mind) everywhere, and they buried a mini statuette of Saint Whatever under the dirt in the flower bed to help their house sell quicker.  When we came to see the house for the first time, we noticed a plaque hung over the dining room doorway that read, "Jesus is the silent listener at every conversation".  And I thought,

"Pervert."

As funny as it is, at least, in my mind, to imagine a holographic Jesus silently castigating a faithful family of seven as they slander and defame their way through a Thursday night dinner, this is, of course, why man created religion in the first place, right?  Look, you can believe it was the other way around if you want, and I respect that, but this is my blog and, as we know, my wisdom is chipped, so: deal.  I believe we created religion because we got a little scared of each other, and of ourselves-- we got scared of our impulses and our predilections and our predatory instincts and our propensities and our obscenities and we said, "Whoa.  We've got to find some way to put the brakes on this.  We need to find something to motivate us to behave."

Stick.  Carrot.  Whatever.

So, we created the silent listener at every conversation.  Because we know ourselves, we know our truest, darkest nature, and we knew we had to do something about it.

Because we're bad.

Because I'm bad.

And, if I'm bad-- you're probably bad, too.

But let's be bad together.  I love being bad with you.

I love being bad.  

I was bad at the inservice I went to today.  I was bad mostly in thought, but I was bad in word-- in malicious, nasty side conversations with my seat mate.  I was bad with my eyes, hungrily taking in the pleasant physical attributes of some of the younger female attendees' bodies, seated vulnerably in the row in front of me.  There were other sinners among us, I won't pretend I was the only one-- the rampant texters, the narcissists who just HAD to assault us with their profound revelations constantly, those who nodded off periodically.  The ones who were late coming back from lunch, and the ones who pretended to give a damn.  So we were a roomful of louts and ne'er-do-well's, fakers and phonies, this's and that's, so on's and so forth's, but I want to be the worst one.  

Because I love being bad.  Mean.  Cruel.  Spiteful.  Cutting.  

Some people don't know this about me.  They just don't know.  They think I'm a nice boy, smart, clean and gentle.  But I am precisely the kind of person for whom God was invented: someone who needs a little help walking the straight and narrow, because straying is just too delicious.  To see the terrible glint in the eye of someone I've just made laugh with some awful remark is intoxicating.  I see it in my mother's eyes-- she was my first addiction, my friends, my coworkers.  I need a policeman.  I need a lawyer.  I need a P.R. rep.  I need Jesus, sitting right behind me, breathing softly down my neck.  I need to be accountable.

Because, generally speaking, I'm not.  

I get away with things, and part of this blog is to let you know all the things that I get away with.  To shake you.  To make you understand.  So that you'll confront me.  Call me out on it.  Expose me.  Accuse me.  Turn on me.

Maybe that's what I want.  

I don't know that I could recover from it, though, if you did.

I was listening on the radio today to some sound bytes of people talking about the Defense of Marriage Act and how marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman and how "I'm against gay marriage because I'm against gay couples" and all of this vile, ugly, nasty prejudice and hate is, of course, heavily cloaked in this self-righteous, base religious dogma and I was thinking to myself, "Wow-- is Jesus the silent listener at this dumb fuck's conversation, too?"  And, if he is, I wish to hell he'd speak up and slap these people in the head.  I just can't fathom how these people don't see their bigotry for what it is: just plain old bad behavior.  They're behaving badly.  It's wrong to oppress people.  It's bad.

And, I guess they like being bad.    

It's funny-- I don't believe in God or Jesus or hocus pocus anymore than I believe that the sun'll come out tomorrow, but I do believe in scaring yourself into behaving.  I believe there is value in that.  I think that, whatever you have to do to make that happen, whether it's force yourself to believe in the improbability of God or the hereafter, or recognize the importance of social conformity and behavioral norms, or whether it's to get laid or get a little bit up the ladder or to get a seat next to the red head on the train-- whatever: do it.  Scare yourself.  Because when we lose that, when we go through life believing that there is no silent listener at the table, I shake to think what we would say and do.  

And by "we" I, of course, mean "me".  

You I trust.  

It's not you, honey.  It's me.  

Festina Lente

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 29, Verse 13

"Rich and poor are alike in this: each depends on God for light."

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

I heard on the radio today some stuffed shirt talking about how, typically, young men tend to get radicalized nowadays somewhere in their early twenties, and that extremist radicalization occurs at this point not just because young men are susceptible to fanatical idealism, but because this is when young men are starting to grapple with whom they are, they're struggling with their place in the world and the meaning of it all, and they've gotten angry and frustrated by inequality and failures.

Always ahead of the game, I got radicalized at fourteen. 

These days, twenty-something men get radicalized, according to this guy on NPR, over the internet.  In 1994, there wasn't all that much internet to speak of.  I got radicalized under the hot lights of my middle school's theatre.  I needed no anti-capitalist literature or bomb-making diagrams/instructions.  At my fingertips, I held perhaps the most powerful tool I could have possibly come into contact with at that extremely sensitive and formative time in my life: the script and score of "The Pajama Game".

While the idea of 100 (seriously, there were 100 of us) pre-and-barely pubescent children running around onstage singing about how "seven-and-a-half cents doesn't buy a *HECK* of-a-lot" might just be funny enough on its own, I was cast as the comedic lead to end a bit more humor to the already extant comedy of the situation.  Vernon Hines is his name and, as his introductory song reveals, he's a "Time Study Man".  An efficiency expert.  Vernon's job at the Sleep Tite Pajama Factory in Cedar Rapids, Iowa was to make sure that work moved along at a reliable, consistent, brisk clip.  

Hurry up.

Hurry up.

When you're racing with the clock, and you're racing with the clock.

And the second hand doesn't understand that your fingers ache and your back may break

It's a losing race when you're racing with the, racing racing racing with the clock!

Vernon Hines is ever-present.  His well-worn clipboard clutched tightly against his chest like a baby's bankie, his pocket watch hardly ever resting inside his vest pocket.  In Act II, Hines interrupts a meeting to complain that the elevator is stuck, which, obviously, is throwing off productivity at the pajama factory.  Which Hines can't have.  During the scene, Hines is convinced to remove his trousers and model a pair of pajamas, which he grudgingly does at first, and then finds he enjoys the attention.  The comic highlight of our middle school production of the show was a wordless bit of panto where my, um, pants are removed onstage to reveal boxer shorts featuring two enormous pocket watches on them.  After I model the pajamas, which slide down to the ground, I hastily put on my pants, backwards, not realizing, and try to zip up the fly, which is behind me.  I then remove the pants again, put them on correctly, zip the fly only to catch my cuff in the zipper (which, by now, is also slowing down productivity).  I try in vain to remove the cuff from the zipper and get tossed off stage by the woman playing my character's fiancee.  And she throws my shoes at me while I'm off stage.  It was the first time I had ever done a scene and received applause on an exit, and it was drug-like.

Obviously, I'm still talking about it, and it was almost twenty years ago.

But aside from that being the moment I decided to bite into acting and not think about removing my teeth, it was also the moment that I found religion.  And it wasn't a quaint, peaceful relationship either.  It was fanatical.  Radical.  When I got cast in "The Pajama Game", I went with my father to a jewelry store.  I used $300 of my Bar Mitzvah money from the year before to buy a gold-filled antique Elgin pocket watch, which I wore, strung across my vest, in the show.  I wore it in lots of shows thereafter, too.  There were other pocket watches to come, and wristwatches, too.  There's an Ogee clock on our mantle from somewhere around the 1880s downstairs.  

Tick tock, tick tock, tempus fugit.

Tick tock, tick tock, time goes by.

Aside from the accouterments, which are almost always expensive, there was a very clear and very strange relationship with the abstraction of time.  I began, almost instantly after the close of the show, to become obsessed with it.  Controlled by it.  I walked down to the bus stop a half-an-hour early in 9th grade.  Once I could start driving, the time I would show up to school was, um, not normal.  Let's just say I sometimes beat the janitor.  And everybody else.  

And I liked that.

Instead of wasting my free time after school and rehearsals on homework, I did it the morning it was due, sitting on the floor in the hallway outside my locked homeroom.  When I was too early to access the building at all, I scribbled my history or English work on my 5-Star notebook in my car.  

And, nearly twenty years later, it hasn't gotten any better.  I wake up at 4:37 in the morning.  I'm out of the house by 5:15.  I'm at work by 5:40.  I come down to the chartroom by 5:52.  The night-shift nurses know.  They probably think to themselves, "Jesus-- this is one sick bastard."

And they're psych nurses.  They know.  And, you know what?  They're right.  I am.  I can't help it.

I mean, I can.  But I choose not to.

I choose this.  I don't know why.  Anxiety?  Fear?  Identity?  Had Vernon Hines become who I was, or wanted to be, or am today?  Can I really blame a musical from 1955 for the mess I am today?

Maybe.

I don't know.  I do know that I don't believe in God, and I don't believe in Judaism, but I do believe in time.  And I suppose that's just as well, because time is just as man-made as the 1967 Seiko 5 Automatic on my left wrist, or the Festina 17-jewel dark-blue dial Automatic that's on its way to my doorstep from Oviedo, Spain and it's just as man-made as God and Judaism, too.  I hope one day that my fanatical devotion to the 12 and the 1 and the 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 and 12 again becomes more taciturn as I grow older.  Maybe one day I'll realize that it isn't so important when I show up for things, that people won't judge me if every task isn't done just so, that everything won't come crashing to a fiery end if I show up on time as opposed to forty-five minutes early or, God forbid, on time, or Christ help us: late.  

Right.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I don't have time to think about that right now.  I have to empty the dishwasher.

One thing, though, before I go.  I did have time, while writing this, to reminisce a little bit about that production of "The Pajama Game".  Remembering that moment onstage, with my pants off in front of my parents and yours and around 500 other people howling in laughter at my Gumby legs and my clowning and my pretending to be older even than I am now-- that might have been the happiest I've ever been.  Thanks for helping me remember.  That was nice.   

Wrong, Sir, Wrong!

"What's wrong with the world?"

That's how it begins.  I mean, who wouldn't want to read on, right?

I suppose you'd like to know what's this all about, what is he doing here, what does he want from us, and why should we stop by here to visit?  Well, these are all good questions, and I want to be up front with you right from the start that I don't have very many answers.  At least, the answers that I do have aren't very good.

After two tries at anonymous blogging, I've decided to out myself.  To go public.  All natural.  Less sodium.  Full retard.  Why?  I don't know, because I'm stupid, I guess.  Because anonymity was too easy, too safe, too... fun?  Well, I'm a married man with twins, and Christ knows I shouldn't be having too much fun.  Or sodium.

Anyway, I was sitting at home one night this week picking my feet in Poughkeepsie when I had to pee.  "Bodily functions are so annoying," my wife frequently opines, and she's right.  They get in the way.  They're tiresome and routine, more so for some than others, and they interrupt moments of brilliance.  I know, I know, you're going to say that your bowel movements have inspired moments of genius, right?  You realized you just had to propose to so-and-so in mid stream, or you had that idea for invisible, razor-flavored chewing gum while you were straining for glory.  Well, you're just silly, that's what you are.

And I'm silly, too-- cuz it happened to me.  There I was, standing before the toilet when I looked up at our shelf that contains several literary offerings.  There's "What's Your Poo Telling You?" which is more reference guide than light reading, and there's a book I stole from Muhlenberg College's health center back in 2002 before I graduated called "Making Responsible Decisions About Sex", there's "Instant! Maori" and I've looked at that several times and I don't know what the fuck that's all about or how it got into our house much less our bathroom.

And then there's that other book.

Before my wife and I had kids, we used to do silly stuff together.  I don't mean stuff with Saran-Wrap and dental floss-- I mean quixotic adventures, stuff that every young couple does when they're all lost in schmoopiness and they have no clue about the cost of a tank of gas.  One day we decided to take a field trip to the Herr's Snack Factory in Nottingham, Pennsylvania, a mere 47.2 miles away from where we lived at the time.  We were the only adults on the tour not attached to any children, but that was not an experience totally unfamiliar to us.  We tagged along with the random, tow-headed, mulleted kiddies.  We saw the big machines and the ladies in hairnets and surgical-style booties, we tasted chips that probably came off the factory floor and we were unceremoniously dumped off at the gift shop where we were expected to plunk down five times the price of our admission ticket on shit we can buy at WaWa on the way home.

But the best thing that you could possibly take home with you from the Herr's Snack Factory wasn't on sale at the gift shop at all-- it was free.

Fucking.  Free.

While my (not-quite-yet) wife visited the ladies room-- see?  bathrooms feature prominently in life, I'm telling you-- I wandered around the large waiting area between the restrooms and the gift shop and there, on a bench of sorts were strewn hundreds of little pale blue books that featured the Herr's logo on the bottom of the front cover, and the words

Chips of Wisdom

in the middle.

I picked one up and leafed through it.  Scanning the pages, I saw a lot of stuff about Proverbs, quarrelsome women, and prostitutes.  An eyebrow warily raised, I put it in my pocket.

A few minutes into the drive home, I pulled the book out of my pocket and tossed it over to the passenger seat.

"Here," I said to my short haired, bespectacled companion, "this should keep us entertained along Route 1."

And it did.  We laughed.  We wept.  We learned that we shouldn't visit our neighbor too often, or we might outstay our welcome.

Well, neighbor-- you'll never be able to outstay your welcome here.  You can visit as often as you like, and I encourage you to bring your friends.  You can even bring your Friends.  I hope you Like my new blog.  I hope you learn a thing or two about neighbors and prostitutes.  For instance, did you know that, "a prostitute is a dangerous trap; those cursed of God are caught in it"?

Well, apparently, it's true.  I know because I read it in a book I got at a potato chip factory.

Jim Herr, in his introduction to "Chips of Wisdom" states that he frequently referred to the Book of Proverbs when making important decisions in life and in commerce (I guess there aren't too many "quarrelsome women" in the Herr's Snack Foods empire, probably not too many prostitutes either) and he sought to edit and compile some of his Proverbs favorites into this neatly packaged, accessible little book.  Yes, I find some of it funny, and that will be reflected in this blog, but I hope I come across as genuine when I say that the goal behind this blog is not to poke fun at Jim Herr or "Chips of Wisdom" or Proverbs or Christianity or God.  If I poke fun at anyone here, it's going to be at me, because that's sort of what I've been doing ever since I learned how well self-deprecating humor fit my skin.

I want to use the Proverbs, and Jim Herr's quest and desire for wisdom, as springboards for my own personal wrastlin' with faith, existential issues, my religion, my professional and social struggles, to make sense of my family and my life-- and, sure, to have a little fun, too.

But, not too much, remember?  Because I am a devoted husband and a father of two fifteen-month-olds and a soon-to-be-again dog owner, we're going to limit the fun to Monday and Thursday postings, and see how it goes.  I hope you like it here, and I hope you come back for more.  Otherwise, you're WRONG, SIR, WRONG!  You LOSE!  You get NOTHING!

Sorry.  Jim Herr, Willy Wonka, same thing.

"Chips of Wisdom" seeks to answer "What's wrong with the world?".  I suspect you already know, and that's good.  That means you're going to be my friend.  So hold on.

Here we go.