Honey Boo Boo

Are you like me? Do you hate the phrase "white trash?" Ugh, it makes me cringe every time I hear someone utter it. We are obviously never going to achieve racial harmony until all the races stop demeaning one another. Plus, the implications in the word about class need to hit the scrap heap of history. True, the recent Honey Boo Boo scandal makes me pessimistic about the future of the human race, but maybe not for the reasons you think.

There is nothing about foolish choices that has to do with class. See: John Grisham. See: George W. Bush. See: Michael Jackson. Foolish choices happen because we're human, all of us. I can put myself in Mama June's shoes, I can see why she perhaps thought she had no other option open to her other than the vile man from her past. I can be horrified by her choice to resume dating him, but I can't pretend to be her superior in terms of morality, as I've made some pretty epically dumb moves in my day. (Including my recent wise decision to get involved with a "straight" man with a girlfriend, which I'm praying doesn't cause Jesus himself to throw me into the lake of fire). I can't so much sympathize with the Mama Junes of the world as empathize with them, you know?

I wonder why I know the names "Honey Boo Boo" and "Mama June" in the first place? I am a 41-year-old man who only watches perhaps a half-hour of television a day. (But a crucial half-hour! right at the twilight between laying in bed and having the Trazadone kick in). When I told my therapist recently that my psyche is being rocked by the sheer volume of television shows out there and available for my consumption, she suggested I blog about it. I hate it that she's discovered my blog! :( What's on here is automatic writing, stream of consciousness thinking in a zone of safety and whimsy, and certainly nothing that analyzation would limn.

Today when I go to the CVS to make my sometimes-alarmingly urgent self-beautification purchases, I gaze upon the magazines displayed near the counter and wonder at the "celebrities" depicted on the covers of US Weekly, People, and their ilk. "Kris rocked by paternity scandal." "Kate locked in bitter alimony struggle." Who are these f**king people? And is America really that familiar with them that they can now be identified by first name only? Where are all these networks found on the dial? Who knows the channel numbers for HGTV, Lifetime, VH-1, TLC, etc.? I believe the only reality tv I've ever watched was the first couple of seasons of "The Real World" and the entire run of "Breaking Up With Shannon Doherty."

Tonight I am really excited to stay home and clean my apartment, and it's a Friday night (live it up, Gregory). I'd lost my laundry card, and thus I am wearing my black tank top (this is as "white trash" as my look gets). That's what I was reduced to this week, wearing things I never wear, out of necessity. Tonight I found it, and have already laundered my rock tees, my sexy briefs, my deceptive polos. I can only speculate on what Mama June is wearing, but I'm sure that whatever it is, it is very little.

Clip a loaf

A bird shat on me today. Are you one of those people who think that's good luck? I'm not.

I can remember with great clarity the occasions in my life where I bird has hit me with an ass apple. The first time, I was working as a temporary Census worker. God, it must have been 1990. I was crestfallen when it happened; I thought life was a bit of a charnal pit already - I was a fat kid with a part-time job, living at home again with my sadistic parents, on summer break from college. And then to top it all off, I had to make my rounds to the homes of strangers in Queens, covered in excreta.

The second time it happened, I was wandering in Midtown during a patch of, ahem, under-employment. I think I had just seen David Dinkins walking in the street, and, while that did thrill me, it probably offered me no succor, as he was unemployed himself at the time. What could a sighting of David Dinkins do for me?! I remember feeling overwhelmed and forming this thought: What has God wrought? Literally. I was thinking in complete sentences back then, as if I was writing my thoughts down in a little book. And then a bird hit me with its sphincter spear.

Today, I was walking from CVS with a bag full of pills when I felt what I at first thought was a blast from a bb gun. I put my hand to my head and drew it back filled with stool. But what did it mean? I know that birds are God's emissaries on Earth, so what was God trying to tell me? I'm actually in a good place in my life right now. My meds are working. I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from my job. I just purchased a li'l Netbook, and now will be tap-tap-tapping away at my unpublishable novel. I'm not seeing anyone, and so have a little extra money in my pocket.

This is a picture of me in the bathroom at work after I had washed my head off. I'm wearing some Barney's shirt, which I recently shortened the sleeves of. A little speck of the bird's toilet orphan is on my shoulder, but you'd never see it unless you looked for it.

I remember a scene from Orwell's Animal Farm in which a flock of birds "mutes" on some farmers. My English teacher at the time told us that "mute" in this context meant to "clip a loaf," as it were. I can say in all sincerity that I have had a very Orwellian day today.