Top 10 ETID lyrics

10. I use big words quite often in substitution for semantically equivalent words.

9. This is a rock and roll takeover.  Living each day one night at a time.

8. When in Rome we shall do as the Romans, when in Hell we do shots at the bar. Last call, kill it.

7. Bite your tongue. Who taught you those words? Blaspheme! When you are under my roof, don’t ever say “rock and roll”, don’t ever say “rock and roll”.

6. To relieve us of guilt but not of our sin, we’ve sacrificed discourse at the feet of your clever turn-of-phrase. Now you owe it to us, we demand to be taken aback…

5. ’Til death do we rock? We’re so full of shit. ’Til death do we rock! You keep buying it.

4. I don’t need what I’ve got half as much as everyone covets it.

3.  We never loved ourselves so well, as when we lusted after another. We hummed along to electric guitars and the standard “whoa oh oh oh’s”. And we drank each other under the covers.

2. I know the strippers real name.

1. Hey there girls, I’m a cunt.

Lazy Rivers

I recently had the privilege of enjoying the sublimity of one of America’s finest water park institutions… the lazy river. Following my humble and also extremely sage advice will maximize the potential pleasure that 21st century hydro-recreational engineering has to offer.

First and foremost, take an hour to apply 70+ SPF waterproof sunblock. Twice. Because once you enter this placid elysian paradise, you dare not leave until closing time when the bitter, underpaid teen lifeguards begin twitter-spacing at you, with their rabble-rousing hipster-hop mumbo jumbo. (And by the time that they start talking about how some woman named Weezy is somewhere off the hooks, you’re going to want to leave anyway).

After you have applied enough sunblock to become a reflective device, head to the lazy river, located somewhere in the center of the busiest part of the water park. Because nothing says tranquil lazing like being surrounded on all sides by chargrilled 9 year olds and their drunk tattooed parents.

As you approach the river, be sure to enter where the giant pile of rafts are located. Otherwise, you’ll have to float around once without a raft. And trust me, you don’t want to be “that guy” without a raft on a lazy river. It screams, “I’m here to smell your children.”

Next, get on the raft. Make sure you do it in the most humiliating way possible and in front of the hottest lifeguard. Falling through the center at least twice is proper etiquette, followed by accidentally swallowing some thankfully over-chlorinated water.

And now you’re off! You are officially being lazy and it’s acceptable! Congrats! But, there are obstacles in between you and your pacific enjoyment that you must overcome. First, you can get awkwardly stuck floating in the middle of a 12 person family. Then, you can scrape your toe on the wall. Then, can you fall through the center of the raft again.  It takes you a ride halfway around the damn thing to get back in. Then, the 11 year old from that giant Catholic rabbit family decides to tip you over for no reason. He called it cow tipping and I told that little fucker that weight is genetic, but then he drags me into those obnoxious waterfalls randomly placed on the side of the lazy river I swear to christ specifically so these little shits can fuck with people, but I don’t mind because it drowns out the sound of my rage-filled tears hitting the thankfully over-chlorinated water…..

And then you’re once around! Repeat the fun as so desired! It’s that simple! A fun game to play along the way: I spy! Example: I spy with my little eye, an 11 year old motherfucker who’s going to get some dippin’ dots shoved up his ass if he doesn’t stop yelling up to his brother who’s on top of a slide across the park. Example 2: I spy with my little eye, something fun. Give up? It’s lazy rivers!

At That Hour

At That Hour

At that hour when all things have repose, 
O lonely watcher of the skies, 
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs 
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose 
The pale gates of sunrise? 

When all things repose, do you alone 
Awake to hear the sweet harps play 
To Love before him on his way, 
And the night wind answering in antiphon 
Till night is overgone? 

Play on, invisible harps, unto Love, 
Whose way in heaven is aglow 
At that hour when soft lights come and go, 
Soft sweet music in the air above 
And in the earth below. 

James Joyce 

Sorry to get political, but...

I dislike social conservatives in politics.  Not for what they believe or why they believe it, but for the disingenuous way they manipulate the issues to con good hearted people into voting for them.   Anti-abortion politicians proclaim their absolutist stance against abortion for votes.  If they truly cared about “baby killing” (as they so apocalyptically frame the issue), they would do everything in their power to reduce the number of abortions in this country.  They don’t.  Instead, they want the issue.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about in law school it has been societal incentives.  In a legal context, the question is “how will people alter their behavior if we decide this legal issue one way or the other?”  If what you want is for people to have less abortions, then you should create an economic and moral culture that incentivizes having the child. 

Economically, providing pre and post-natal care for mothers in need would provide more incentive to have the child.  But, as mostly republicans, social conservatives disdain the government financially helping in any way with regards to healthcare (and education as well).  They have chosen to value small government over their showmanship concern with abortion.  

Morally, social conservatives treat single or unmarried mothers with paternalistic disapproval.  Changing this holier than thou attitude to a more embracing and inclusive culture would provide incentive to have the child.  But, socially conservative politicians maintain their moral superiority so as to be on the side of the issue that will get them the most votes with their constituents.  They want to look moral instead of providing real solutions.  They want the issue, not solutions to the issue.

For some reason, we as a people value clear stances on issues rather than nuanced solutions to difficult problems.  We value posturing over evolving practical approaches to these problems.  This is the reason I think that the left has done a bad job of explaining what they stand for.  Nuance is boring and we need to be stimulated.  Marshall McLuhan showed us that, in modern life, the message is the meaning.  Social conservatives have shown how this works in a political context.  It’s just too bad that our short attention spans don’t allow us to get past the pretext and into the realm of real solutions.

Tilting at Windmills

sometimes you feel like you’re fighting a losing battle, and there’s some honor and dignity in that.  but sometimes you feel like the idiot who has mistaken windmills for giants.

——-

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”

“What giants?” asked Sancho Panza.

“Those you see over there,” replied his master, “with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.”

“Take care, sir,” cried Sancho. “Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone.”