Dancing with the 'Tards, Part 1

Brace yourself, America: what I am about to tell you is shocking, the kind of left-field, what-the-hell? revelation that makes Charlie Sheen's meltdown/ascendancy seem logical and predictable as clockwork.  I do not like clubs.  I am quite sure that, from reading this blog, you got the impression I am completely into polishing up my Air Force Ones, popping my collar, putting my oversized aviators on the back on my horse-semen-plastered head, and hitting all the hottest dance-spots in the city, dry-humping sweaty, anonymous skanks and paying $9.00 for alcohol-scented Kool-Aid.  Well, believe it or not, that isn't me.  Not my style.  Shocking, right?

That was a different time in my life.

(*Please note: funny as this image is, I cannot claim credit for it.*)

I actually hate the pretentious, obnoxious, soul-rapingly vapid atmosphere of most nightclubs.  To give you some idea of the depth of my hatred, I wrote an abortive sci-fi short story in which a disguised hitman made his way through such a club, silently killing one person after another, unnoticed, Assassin's Creed-style.  But it totally wasn't a self-indulgent, morbid fantasy.  It's probably a residual effect of my lingering social awkwardness and the resentment it arouses, but my Annoy-O-Meter spikes ten points the second I set foot in such a tool-shed (Take a minute . . . . get it?).  In my headier, more ambitious days, I designed a t-shirt bearing my personal slogan, "Pubs, Not Clubs."  Ok, so it was only "designed" in my head, and I never followed it up, but I still have it trademarked.  In my head.

Still, I have friends who enjoy such diversions, and my borderline alcoholism dictates that I must drink somewhere, with other people if possible, so I find myself venturing into nightclubs of various descriptions more than I care to admit.  As a general rule, I avoid the time-tested, truly horrendous ones that have a sign outside which says, "You must be this douchey to enter."  Nonetheless, you can find many of the same types at any random club, and most of the funniest ones (as long as you can choke down your gag-reflex) are the people who are under the laughable impression that they are dancing.

The most common is, of course, the Bobbing White Guy.  You all know him.  Most of you probably are him, so it's definitely ok to laugh.  This is the painfully Caucasian man who still insists on hitting the dance-floor, if only to maintain proximity to glistening cleavage, but is all too aware that his skills are roughly on-par with those of a poorly-coordinated orangutan with an inner-ear imbalance.  He knows that if he attempts any serious moves he will look like . . . well, 90% of the drunk girls trying to imitate Shakira or Beyonce.  Except stupider.  His solution?  Bob.  Just . . . bob.  To the beat, if at all possible, but honestly it does not much matter, since the amount of movement he is performing barely registers in the human eye.  By rhythmically nodding his head, and just maybe pivoting slightly at the waist, he is proving that he could totally bust a move if he really wanted to.  He just doesn't want to show off, or possibly look gay.  The number one rule is to only use the torso, unless he is allowed minor pelvic thrusts by a semi-willing/wholly-shit-faced weekend whorrior.

Worse, there's the Aryan Bro, a very white man who actually believes he can dance.  Much like a paranoid schizophrenic (or, again, Charlie Sheen), he occupies a world completely of his own making, a fantasy he violently forces on our collective reality, symbolically raping us as he literally rapes the dance-floor.  Nine times out of ten, this is because he thinks he is black on the inside, blessed with the soul of James Brown and the feet of Michael Jackson.

Sound familiar?

Back in the day, we used to call these guys "wiggers," though the line between them and generic douchebags has blurred to the point that I now lump them all together into one hazy category of so-white-they're-almost-transparent.  It is ironic that by trying to be blacker, they only come out looking clearer.  But the Aryan Bro is oblivious to this fact, proceeding to pretend that he knows how to C-step (if you don't know what that is, damn, you are even whiter than me), flailing about and picking at his clothing like a spastic gimp in a full-on LSD-trip.  Surrounded by his "crew" of similarly delusional "boys," he will continue to "represent," "step up," and potentially even "stomp the yard" until he hurts himself or is taken away by the authorities (or actual African Americans take over the floor).

Sadder even than that spectacle is the Black Man Who Cannot Dance.  *GASP!*  Is it more racist that I am making fun of this phenomenon because they are black, or because the stereotype is that all black people should be able to dance?  If that makes you uncomfortable, you may as well skip to the next paragraph, unless you are absolutely certain no people of African lineage are around.  But it is time we as a nation acknowledged a bitter, ugly truth about our race relations: despite our preconceived, WASPy notions, not all black people can dance.  It is not inherent to their genetic makeup any more than succeeding at finances comes with being born Jewish.  As a matter of fact, it actually surprises me that I need to point this out anymore.  I think that's just a testament to how deeply-ingrained the paradigm of black "coolness" is amongst the pigmentally-challenged: most of us just assume that anything a brother does is innately the bar of [insert whatever the newest term for "cool" is here].  Case in point?  Black Man Who Cannot Dance.  Instead, he resorts to the Duck Walk, at one time popularized by Nelly, or the Dougie, more recently.  Contrary to popular opinion, this is not in fact dancing at all.  Look up a video online.  It more resembles a Down Syndrome fit, doesn't it?  Yet, because African Americans are doing it, you can bet that Asians will soon be imitating it, followed six to nine months later by whites.  The very fact that the Dougie has entered my cultural awareness means it perforce must be out of date already.

Then there is Way Too Old To Be Doing This Anymore Dude.  Like all those listed above, this is yet another sub-type of That Guy.  He sticks out like a herpes sore because he so clearly has no fucking idea what he is doing.  Since probably the early '90s, W2O2BDTAD (What, if boy bands from the same era can do it, why can't I?) has roamed the club scene, ostensibly picking up and dropping each new trend in a vain bid to deny his advancing years and lack of success.  He reaffirms his self-worth by hitting on girls ten years his junior, sidling creepily around the floor in a vague mishmash of moves that look like they were gleaned from an obscure Japanese video game.  What makes this doubly hilarious is how epically W2O2BDTAD is usually failing.  If three Jager-bombs, two MGD 64 bottles, and a test-tube of neon mystery liquor can't convince her to fellate you in the bathroom, your meandering, opportunistic "dancing" probably isn't going to melt her.  It's time to retire.  Creepier still are the guys who you are fairly certain haven't been doing this their whole pathetic lives, but have recently taken it up.  Have a normal midlife crisis and buy a goddamned Harley, you perv.

"If you want, you can pretend we're still jailbait, tee-hee!"

That's it for now, but my nightclub rant will continue in Part 2.  That's right, I'm doing a shameless cliffhanger to ensure future audiences.  Deal with it.

Toiletry and suchlike

You know what the most annoying thing in the world is? No, you don't, but I do, and I'm here to tell you what it is: public restrooms. No other place inflicts so many petty irritations in so short a timeframe as a bathroom you have to share with every window-licker and mouth-breather in the world. Are other things a bigger annoyance? Sure. But I rarely have the opportunity to encounter such a rapid succession of irritants.  I am not one of those weirdos who has a prudish hangup about excreting in a public place, but I think I hate it almost as much as those mingers for the following reasons.

First, there's the toilet paper dispenser. Theoretically, this should be a crucial yet simple part of any lavatory's design. I mean, how hard can it be to engineer a device that easily supplies small squares flushable ass-wipe? (I could make another MTV joke here, but why don't you make up your own?). But, somehow, companies have been fucking up the TP dispenser since leaves went out of fashion.  How many times have you found yourself fumbling at some wall-mounted, oversized plastic monstrosity that you know damn well has yards upon yards of toilet paper inside, but is keeping from you like some arrogant, cock-teasing Macintosh product?

Ok, I take it back, Mac apparently can make these things easily-accessible (unlike many of their devices), yet still superfluously ludicrous.  Introducing the new iShit.  Get in line now!

Unless you personally have had to change paper-rolls in the exact same model, you had better forget about figuring out how that bizarre sliding trap-door thing works.  Odds are, it actually takes a key, and possibly presidential authorization, because TP theft is apparently one of the fastest-growing crimes in America.  I have, I shit you not, been bitten by these fucking things before.  That's right: a toilet-paper dispenser hurt me.  While that may not say much about me, I think the bigger issue it raises is, why the hell is that thing spring-loaded to exert more PSI than an ammunition magazine?  Assuming you can actually access the toilet paper, good luck tearing off the proper amount!  The "blade" (a vaguely serrated, sometimes entirely absent, edge of rounded, wavy plastic) is typically positioned in such a way that the optimal cutting angle is only achievable by standing on top of the dispenser.  The result?  You're either tearing off one measly square at a time, or find yourself hold a fistful of paper, half of which is now touching the piss-impregnated floor and thus has to be entirely discarded.  Which of course means flushing it away, and I'm not even going to get into the nightmare of flooding a public toilet.

Toilet paper dispenser or thinly-disguised death-trap?  Probably both.

Then, there are the sinks.  Not all sinks, but certain ones.  Hot water is a luxury I have learned to live without. I don't even need half the pressure the ubermensch-toilet-paper-dispenser-from-hell exerts.  I just want water.  Motion-sensors have seen to it that I rarely get even that much.  Seriously, I don't know if I occupy a slightly different plane of existence than most human beings, but I have an impossibly hard time activating motion-sensors.  I feel like I'm in a Dos Equis ad.  Jeeves asks him for answers.  He knows what the sound of one hand clapping is.  Motion-sensors do not detect him.  He is the Most Interesting Man in the World.  But in a bad way.  No matter how much I wave my hand in front of the sensor, it seems it never goes off.  Then, when I have given up hope and turned away in fuming agitation, the fucking thing switches on for a split-second, I can only assume just to rub it in my face.  And I know I'm not the only one who occasionally catches themselves attempting to trigger an old-fashioned faucet with an actual goddamned manual handle.  That's two accouterments in a bathroom that can make me feel like an idiot.  Oh, and let's not forget the undeniable delight of toilets that are motion-activated.  Wet ass, anyone?

Finally, no irritating experience would be complete without, you guessed it, some moron inflicting his insipidity on the situation.  What ass-backward, kin-fucking school of mental retardacy (yes, I just coined that word) did you attend where proper etiquette did not dictate knocking before you attempt to enter a public restroom?  How can you just walk into the bathroom without the slightest regard?  Even if you are some pervert who is secretly hoping to catch a stranger with their pants down, you stand a fairly good chance of that person being a fugly chud.  I suppose one penis is much like the next.

Maybe they're hoping to walk in on this?

And perhaps even worse are the people who knock, but immediately enter without waiting for a response.  Why the hell did you bother knocking at all?  "Well, I'm here at the door, I knocked with one hand as I grabbed the doorknob with the other, and I didn't receive a warning in the .25 seconds it took to push the door open, so I guess there's either nobody in there or else I'm looking at a stranger's junk!"  Brilliant.  But my favorites have to be the people who do not knock in the first place, find that the door is locked, and then proceed to try to force the door open.  Nothing focuses my sphincter like hearing a doorknob jiggle for five seconds as the Mensa-alumnus on the other side attempts to riddle out why the bathroom door might not open.  I won't even try to speculate on their stream of consciousness, but I have to imagine it goes something like this, "DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH . . . "  When doors refuse to open, they are usually locked.  When doors are locked, it usually means someone on the other side does not want you to enter.  I have read quite a bit of Sherlock Holmes, but I don't think my deductive powers are that much higher than average as a result.  I realize knocking always leads to a somewhat awkward social exchange (Just what are you supposed to say in reply?  "Who's there?"  "What's the password?"), however, it is fairly minor compared to the alternative faux pas, isn't it?

This sign is not nearly complete enough.

Oh, and what's the deal with furniture in bathrooms?  Not really an annoyance, but what's the point?  Is it there for those times when I just feel the urge to hang out in a public bathroom, but don't have to dispose of bodily waste?  What a waste of money.

In short, if you can help it, make like a bear and shit in the woods.

More house-hunting helpers

The search continues, and so too does my guide for the unwary . . .

“Easy Highway Access!” – It's beneath an overpass.

“Large 2-Story in [Notoriously seedy neighborhood]” – We have no hope of renting this place, so we might as well be upfront about it. Seriously, we may as well say, “Ghetto-ass place for rent.”

Any actual image of the place would scare away prospective renters, so we have resorted to cheap computer-generated imagery.

“Available NOW! Move in THIS WEEK!” – Someone needs an alibi.

“Wood cabinets” – As opposed to . . . Styrofoam?

“Close to hospital” – In case you were planning on frequently injuring yourself. Also, fall asleep to the gentle wail of sirens every night.

“Quiet country living” – Cows included.

“Commodious” – Landlord went to college or owns a thesaurus.

“Takin applations” – As opposed to this landlord.

“VERY LARGE SPACIOUS HOUSE, BEAUTIFUL INSIDE!” – CAPS LOCK STUCK ON.

“Safe, friendly neighborhood” – White women feel comfortable jogging here.

“Historic home” – Murderer and/or mad black magician lived here. Restless spirits assumed to still inhabit either way.

“Spectacular home for $435 per month!” – I don't understand the meaning of the word “spectacular.”

“Double-wide minutes from downtown” – Because there are totally trailer parks in the city limits.

“Minutes from” anywhere – We never said how many.

“Handy man special” – Roof not included.

The fish-eye lens: popular amongst incompetent photographers and deceptive slumlords.

Things You Should Know By Age 20 About Eating at a Restaurant

The art of eating out is a lost one (not like that, perv).  For three years I have waited tables at a casual dining restaurant, and my opinion of humanity slips a little further with each shift.  Successfully executing a meal at a restaurant should not be the equivalent of a high-stakes political assassination behind enemy lines.  It's not rocket science.  Hell, it's not even middle-school science.  But, judging by what I have seen, I am something of an Anthony Bourdain, an eating out prodigy (no, not that way), and the general public could benefit from my wisdom and restaurant savvy.

I'm like this dude, only shorter and less Jewish.

So, I figured I would supply a few pointers to help all of you out (and your retarded family) when you are venturing into the bewildering world of casual dining.  These are some of the most irritating no-brainers I encounter at work, extremely basic things you should know as a self-reliant adult.

How you like your steak or hamburger cooked

This one never ceases to amaze me. I'm at a table of middle-aged people and one of them orders a sirloin, then turns to their spouse/significant other and says, "How do I like it cooked?" Really? You have never figured this out? Having heard, presumably, someone tell you this information scores if not hundreds of times over your life, I would think you might start to remember it, even if you can't be troubled to learn the damn temperatures yourself, you lazy piece of shit. On top of this, a good proportion of the population doesn't even know what the cook temperatures are. I had a customer argue with my manager for ten minutes that "medium" means the steak is cooked all the way through. If that's true, what is "well-done"? And "done" is not a temperature, dumbfuck. If you don't understand how grilled meats work, don't order them. 

This shit ain't "medium."

How credit cards work

This sounds pretty ridiculous, but many people don't actually understand how credit cards pay for things. My guests have tried to sign the first receipt I give them, before handing me the card. How do you think I am going to access your account without ever seeing your account number? I am not psychic, and restaurant policy dictates I leave my magic wand in my car. And here's another news flash: you have to leave behind a signed copy with all the relevant numbers on it, preferably with correct math. Signing something is pointless if you take it home with you. If you do so, I am going to assume you are either a shit-thick fuckwit who knows nothing of the monetary system or a cheap, conniving asshole who doesn't want to tip and took the receipt, pretending you “forgot” I need a copy. And you know what? Every other server thinks the same way. You don't have to be John Nash, Jr. to get this right. 

"Now if only I could crack the formula for filling out a credit card receipt . . ."

How to read a menu

I cannot express how much this aggravates me. Restaurants provide these handy, helpful written guides to the food they offer so that you don't have to play 20 questions with your server. We are there to assist you, yes, but we have other people to attend to and about a dozen-odd other duties to perform – we shouldn't have to spend fifteen minutes at your table basically reading the menu to you. This isn't kindergarten. Yes, like every other goddamned restaurant in the world, we offer sides with our meals, and, like every fucking menu ever printed, those sides are listed both with the entrees and at the end of the menu, under the convenient heading of “Sides.” Wild, right? Did you just selectively choose certain words to read, disregarding the dozens of baffling ones around them?  Or are you just the lazy twat I think you are?  I'm going with the latter.

How to tip

Servers do not make minimum wage.  It doesn't matter what state you are in, or what the federal government says.  Those laws do not apply to servers, who make possibly as much as $4.00 per hour.  But most don't.  I make $2.65.  That's it.  And you think it's perfectly acceptable to leave me $3.00 on your $25.00 meal?  Go fuck yourself.  Then go fuck your dog.  Then tell your dog to go fuck . . . something worse.  Anne Coulter, maybe.  Tipping is not a flat rate, nor is it something you should just guess at, unless you are Donald Trump and carry no denomination of currency lower than twenties.  At a bare minimum, you should tip 15% of your original bill.  20% is actually more the norm these days.  So you're dyslexic and computationally-retarded?  No excuse.  That iPad with the GPS, laser-scanner, and nuclear launch capability that you just had to have also boasts a nifty tip calculator.  And if you used a coupon, gift card, or special certificate to reduce your total, it means precisely nothing.  You need to tip on however much the tab was before the discount.  If anything, you ought to tip more, because you're already getting off light.  If you "can't afford" to do that, there are plenty of alternative eateries for people with your budget.

And you'll be relieved the taxing decision of choosing a side, because everything comes with French fries.

How to manage your child

The restaurant is not a daycare center.  To reiterate, the restaurant is not a daycare center.  We are not responsible for watching your shrieking little demon offspring, nor are you excused from doing so just because you are in a "safe" environment.  Because, in fact, a restaurant is an extremely dangerous place for children.  Think about it: there are people rushing around to deliver food as fast as possible, many carrying scorching hot dishes, in a building that often has wet floors, blind corners, and lots of sharp and/or breakable objects.  Just like Tot Spot, right?  Any child under the age of six should never be allowed to leave the table without an adult escort (the eight-year-old at the table does not count), and then it should only be for express, expedient trips to the restroom.  I don't care that you are having a massive, annoying family gathering and want to "chill out" for an extra hour and a half after your meal.  The kids have to stay seated at the table with you, being quiet and respectful, and not climbing the fixtures like acid-tripping lemurs in a construction zone.

Only adorable if they are yours.  And, even then, not for long.

What's that you say?  I can't expect so much of kids?  No fucking shit.  That's why you need to either control them like a real-live adult or, preferably, leave when dinner is done.  Period.  And the salt and pepper shakers are not toys, nor are the sugar packets free snacks (why in holy un-fucking-believable hell would you let your child consume these?).  I cannot count the number of times I have stood at a table and watched parents blithely disregard their child dumping half a shaker of salt out on the table amidst Splenda packets strewn willy-nilly, as if it's just an unavoidable part of having kids at a restaurant.  Some even seem to be under the criminal misapprehension that this is somehow cute.

When I was a child, all of this shit was avoidable, because you either disciplined your bastard offspring so that they knew how to behave, or you didn't bring them to public places any more than necessary.  You want to get out of the house?  Tired of cooking dinner?  Then teach those walking STDs you chose to pop out how to sit down, shut the fuck up, and not make a mess on/around/under the table to rival Hurricane Katrina's aftermath when the Tasmanian Devil is done with it.

Schoolin' You on Schoolin'

All right, this one is an old gripe of mine that I haven't really thought about in a while. College. I have a problem with college. And not just one little part of the experience, like binge drinking, supercilious professors, or rampant STDs. Those are the kinds of bitches other people would have, socially responsible, forward-thinking commentators who are concerned about the state of higher education.

I am not one of those people.

I know what's best for you, because I'm wearing glasses. Glasses, bitch.

No, I'm just a university alumnus (that's the singular of 'alumni,' which is strictly a plural form, by the way) who noticed a few things while he was attending the requisite four, er, five years of schooling necessary to attain a Bachelor's of Science. Between late-night cram sessions and blackouts, I started to note a pattern which disturbed me. What is my problem with the system? Well, it's the system. The institution itself. Here in the United States, and probably other countries as well, more and more people are attending college, to the point it is rapidly becoming the norm where it was once, only a few decades back, the exception. Good, right?

Wrong.

This reflects what I like to (pretentiously) call the democratization of education. Or bastardization, if you want to get down to brass tacks. You ever notice how well democracy works out for countries that are used to authoritarian regimes where the price of voting is usually an appendage and it's considered a good day if you aren't forcibly evicted from your home to make way for a glorious hydroelectric dam? Democracy doesn't often take right away, does it? Sure, people may flock to the polls, but it's not typically the sunshine-and-lollipops, they-lived-liberatedly-ever-after story the American media likes to portray. There's a period of adjustment, sometimes lasting generations, during which the nation in question is just as likely to spiral into a hellish civil war, get its ass invaded by opportunistic neighbors, or elect some unqualified, ludicrous celebrity to lead them.

Ok, so that happened once here, too.

Fine, we have a thing for electing the cast of Predator.  Better than Predator 2.

My point is, when you make something available to everyone, when you decide to unilaterally involve everybody in something important, things are bound to get fucked up.  You are pandering to the masses, which means aiming for the lowest common denominator.  And, let's face it, the masses are pretty damn clueless.  Recent surveys I stumbled on say over 20% of Americans still don't believe Barack Obama is a citizen of the US, while 10% believe they have actually witnessed a real exorcism.  These are the people who are going to college.  Do you see any problem with this?  Statistically speaking, you probably don't, because you stand a fairly good chance of being a moron, whereas I am smart.  It comes down to a basic fact our society knew years ago, but has "forgotten" in the politically-correct, follow-your-dreams zeitgeist of the modern age: not every human being is college material.  Even excluding the medically-diagnosed dipshits and most of Alabama's population (cheap shot, yes, but who cares?), the majority of Americans do not belong at universities.  Period.

Witness the two airheaded bitches who sat behind me in one of my basic history classes.  Without fail, they would prattle and giggle their way through each and every class, admit to doing none of the reading or homework, and then proceed to whine about how hard the course was.  Let me stress, this was one of the easiest classes I ever took in college.  Our professor, who was a solid teacher, literally wrote out the notes for us in the form of bulleted outlines that he posted online.  All of our exams were take-home.  We had to write precisely two papers all semester.  And these dumb cunts had the audacity to (1) not take advantage of how ridiculously easy the professor made it, and (2) complain about not getting an A.  Seriously?  As if simply by virtue of having miraculously gotten into college, they were now entitled to perfect grades without putting forth the slightest effort.  What the fuck?

These people did not belong in the post-secondary academic world, yet there they were.  And do you know why that class was such a goddamned cakewalk?  Because of people like them.  Because the societal expectation is now that most people will pursue higher education, the institutions have been steadily diluting, simplifying, and generally retard-proofing their curricula to make sure everyone stands a chance of getting their coveted degree.  A high school diploma or GED is practically meaningless these days; an Associate's Degree has become the new equivalent, and even that is quickly being displaced as the "standard" by a four-year Bachelor's Degree.  The trouble with this seemingly-laudable phenomenon is that the average person is not necessarily smarter than they were twenty years ago.  Survivor is in its 12th season, for Christ's sake.  College degrees are like currency: the more of them you print, the less they are worth.  And academic inflation is out of control in this country.  The University of Baltimore recently added Zombie Apocalypse Survival 101 to their catalog (misleadingly under the heading "English 333").  My cousin attended a respectable college that offered courses in, I shit you not, the works of Michael Crichton and Batman studies.  Yes, Batman.  As cool as these subjects may be, I think they should be reserved for late-night Wikipedia perusals.  While stoned.  You shouldn't be paying several hundred dollars per credit hour for a nerdgasm.  I can't believe I actually have to point this out.  But that is the despicable state of our education system.

"Hi, I'm Aristotle, founder of the Lyceum, the first formal institution of higher learning in the Western world.  And this shit is not what I had in mind.  Fuck you."

So what's the solution?  I don't know, nobody is paying me to figure it out.  This is what happens when your ginormous country becomes so advanced that its economy relies largely on the service- and information-industry.  As I understand it, some other First World nations have worked out systems that start to direct students toward their careers earlier, offering them specific training well before they start getting delusions of grandeur, thus preemptively avoiding the admittance of well-waxed chimpanzees to Oxford and the Academy.  Crazy, huh?  Am I being an egotistical, condescending, patronizing asshole?  Absolutely.  But only because I know I'm right.