Rants

Alright, painfully-white-guy-at-Subway, I know that you probably have no idea what it is like to work at Subway because you were an over-privileged sack of shit in high school. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not fun. It’s the antithesis of fun. You’re putting meat on bread all day. Then school let’s out and since you work at the Subway located next to one of the most central transit centers in Brooklyn, you deal with a bunch of obnoxious fucking kids who are giggling and screaming instead of ordering and eating.

You wanna take a stab at what the three underpaid, under-appreciated women working at Subway today don’t need? You, you fucker, and neither do I. So please don’t stroll up to the counter in your bright red fleece and cargo pants and start shooting the shit with them. I know you probably think that using the Ladies of Subway as a captive audience for the third time in your entire life in which you attempt to flirt with a girl is good thinking, but just stop it. People want to eat, and no one wants to hear your bullshit.

“9-Grain wheat? I didn’t even know there was more than one kind of grain!!”

and I hope you choke on the other 8.

“Why yes, I will have it toasted. But only so long as you’re careful!”

Oh, your chivalry knows no bounds, Sir White! Surely this lovely lass will swoon any second now and you may vault over the sandwich counter to catch her before she hits the ground. Your sexual superiority over the 13-year-old customers and myself will be absolutely rock solid after such a feat.

“Let’s do just a smidge of olives. Just a smidgeon. A dash, if you will.”

Aaaaand fail. “smidgeon”? Really? If you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot with a word like that, try not to cut it off afterward by defining what the word smidgeon means. Jesus christ. You look like a guy in a fucking powertool commercial, you’re wearing a fleece, and you’re delaying my order. Wipe that grin of your face and get down to business. Lupita over there doesn’t want anything to do with you. She’s smiling because she DOESN’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO SAY.

Yes, I am using the chair next to me and no, no one else is joining me. You know why I’m using my chair? Because that’s where my jacket is. I realize it’s the last chair in the entire establishment and that’s precisely why I put my jacket on it. I don’t want you to sit here because it will end in a felony. Get your sandwich to go and get the hell out of the store.

Also, to the (other) white guy in the actual subway, fuck you too. When I am standing in front of the doors waiting for them to open so I can get on the train, this is not a signal for you to occupy the one foot of space between me and the door. That’s the yellow line, it means caution, and it’s serious business. Nice job getting the last seat on the train though, you’re a real winner. I’d assume you worked in the financial sector except for your general appearance and severe lack of hygiene. Eat shit.

Love,

Neil

I view facebook as the last safe haven of my social networks. Having turned my twitter account into a cesspool, discovered that my myspace account was picked apart by a 15-year-old girl and all my pictures (and friends’ pictures) used in some sort of bizarre internet shrine, I have vowed to keep my facebook account sterile. I regularly delete friends that I don’t immediately recognize, or if I can’t remember why we’re friends in the first place.

That said, I get a pretty steady stream of friend requests. This is not to brag, but to simply inform you of my situation. Usually there are about 5-10 requests per day. Cool, I guess, but not really. I’m not a celebrity and though I make no secret of my identity, I don’t think I should really bear the burden of fame. Perhaps you’re thinking that we could be actual friends if I got to know you or something through the internet which I guess is possible, but I will not be going down that road. At least not on Facebook.

Typically when someone looks me up on FB, there are telltale signs. Do we have mutual friends? No. Is your profile picture actually a picture of my brother? Yes. Is it a picture of him as a child? fucking creepy. Is it actually a picture of you but your hair is jet black and you have the exact same haircut as my brother? Wow. And you’re a woman? ok, that one’s fair since it’s basically Sharon Osbourne’s cut dyed black.

Here’s the kicker though: the fan pages. When you click on someone’s profile you can see what fan pages they’re members of. And that’s where the crazy can’t hide. Yes, I’m talking to you, girl-with-48-separate-taylor-lautner-fan-pages. In fact, most of you are Twilight fans to some degree and you should know that the only legitimate way to like Twilight is ironically. And liking it ironically does not include obsessively joining every single facebook group dedicated to its cast.

My thought process, therefore, goes like this: hmmm, a random girl from the internet wants to be my friend. 95% chance of being Lambert fan and 5% chance of being a porn account. Let’s check the profile, shall we? Ahh! I see 3 Taylor Lautners, a Twilight, and an Adam Lambert. Ignore.

I know that this address comes off as very pompous. If that will assist you in deciding not to be my friend on FB, then let it be known that I am very pompous. Anything I can do to save myself from the soul-crushing task of coming face-to-face with the reality that the same people who tell me they enjoy my writing are the same people who like Twilight, then I’m all for it. I’m beginning to suspect that my not wanting to write negativeneil anymore is partly based on this common thread.

That said, get up on Twitter. That shit is hilarious and I will happily make fun of you all day.

Today on my way to work I noticed a Wacky Arm-Flailing Inflatable Tube Man down the way. I call these things WAFIT Men for short. You know, those completely excessive distractions that all manner of shitty, low-rent businesses install on their storefronts hoping to attract the occasional customer wooed by bright colors? I’m certain that you can measure your quality of life by the Wafits-per-square-mile metric. More than 5 and you might as well burn your house down: it was worthless anyway.

So there he was, flailing gleefully in the morning breeze when, suddenly, he went completely rigid. Observing the surrounding area, I noted that trees were still swaying, leaves skittered along the street, and the acrid smell of jet fuel from the San Jose Airport was still wafting into my car. The breeze was still blowing yet Mr. Wafit was suddenly unaffected. He stood perfectly vertical, his arms perpendicular to his body and wearing a smile plastered to his face which seemed a hasty attempt to hide some sudden existential fear. He looked like a perverse cartoon rendition of the Vetruvian Man. I know exactly what he was thinking, too:

“Oh god, my 401k.”

I hope none of you expect to amass any sort of wealth over the next 5 to 8 years. I hope that you realize amassing any wealth in the next 10 years will be nothing less than divine providence. If your soul hasn’t been crushed under the weight of what the future world we are about to inherit looks like, allow me to help you:

20 years from now the nations of the world are fighting wars over basic necessities like clean drinking water and rice. I’ve aqcuired an assortment of respiratory disorders by inhaling the fumes which now masquerade as air. Working 70 hours a week for shit pay grants me the privilege to pay for my hyper-inflated health care costs as any patriotic American would happily do (Socialist universal healthcare coverage? Never!). I imagine that at some point, future-me is going to be struck by an acute desire to put it all on pause and go for a swim in the ocean…

But I can’t because the entire Ocean is a toxic pool of slime. That’s the moment folks: the coral are all littering the ocean like ash following a volcano and the sharks are too fucking sick to even pose a threat. That’s the moment it finally hits me that the Baby Boomers shat all over the entire world.  My government will be bankrupt after having spent $5 trillion on a war that accomplished nothing and paying off a half dozen banks as thanks for mercilessly raping the U.S. financial markets.

Where will you be? Face down in a gutter, whoring yourself, thinking of new ways to die? I’ll tell you what my last desperate act will be. My last gasping attempt to shut off my senses and pretend the world is going to get better? I’m going to adopt some African kids. I’m going to pluck them from their war-torn homes and deposit them in sunny California to contemplate their futures. As the gangs roam the streets in search of food and gasoline and America crumbles around me into a Mad Max dystopia, I’ll turn to them and say, “It’s better than Africa, isn’t it? Welcome to the land of the free, where you get to choose how to die! Good luck.” Then I’ll take my overdose of sleeping pills, wash them down with some bourbon and be done. I won’t leave a will. Sorry, kids, but you have to learn to pull yourself up by your bootstraps like our nation’s megacorporations never had to. 

In short, we are fucked. Did you hear about the $165 million that AIG is paying out in bonuses for its executives? I’d be surprised if you hadn’t, since that’s all my TV has been talking about for 3 days because it makes for great TV. “Damn you Mr. Liddy, CEO of AIG, for giving away .01% of our taxpayer funds to your cronies!”

Where’s the other 99.9% of the tens of billions of dollars we gave you? Why does no one talk about that? Because no one knows where it went. Seriously, this comparative drop in the bucket is the only concrete evidence that the billions we just wasted are being put to ANY use, not to mention a bad one. That’s all we have left, bitching about a small sliver of the money we just got hoodwinked out of. When all is said and done, we’ll probably feel mighty good about ourselves for dragging AIG in front of congress to get a good talking to. 

“We really taught them a lesson,” we’ll think, before turning the corner in our Escalades. Ooh, look! One of those simply adorable Wacky Arm-Flailing Inflatable Tube Men! Let’s buy some roller skates!

And the U.S. Economy keeps flailing and sputtering to its inevitable end. Revolution never comes. 

The End.