teh Mexigogue

I’ve been debating on an online list expressing my contention that there is no purely altruistic action. I cited apparent altruistic actions of my own (washing a co-worker’s coffee cup while washing my own dishes ) and explained my own selfish motive for doing so (feeling magnanimous in anticipating someone’s unexpected joy in seeing their dish washed). The argument against altruism is not my own invention, it is central to the Ayn Rand novels which I have read and I had previously read this same idea in a book of philosophy essays in 1997 although I can’t remember the name of that particular writer. The point is whenever I see a person claim an altruistic motive I am inclined to go after them.

What is interesting is that Christianity is big on self denial but many people of the so-called altruistic ilk are either agnostic or people who reject the possibility of a god altogether. These are people who reject religion but who (in my opinion) still embrace the “value” of self-abnegation that was injected into our culture by Christianity itself. In short it is my contention that many of these people reject the possibility of God but are still unconsciously aspiring to be Jesus. Living and dying for the sake of others is a terrible value because the idea is counterproductive both for those who practice it and for the intended beneficiaries of said action AND it induces guilt in those who don’t practice it (unless they’re smart enough to realize what a stupid idea it is.)

How is living for others counterproductive? Let’s say I’m engaged to person A but I meet person B and want to marry her instead. If I live for myself I will marry person B. Person A might end up unhappy but there’s a very real possibility that two people (person B and me) could end up happy. BUT if I value my own happiness less than others I might marry person A anyway. I thus guarantee myself a less than optimal solution (I really wanted person B) AND person A gets the short end of the stick as well. Why? Because if she’s not the one I really wanted the marriage is a lie and that’s going to come into play at some point. She will be stuck with a less than happy husband and the end result is I’ll go play pool all the time until she moves out in frustration. So in living for others I’ve just guaranteed the UNHAPPINESS or at least a less-than-optimal result for two people. So in seeking to serve the interest of another I’ve actually torpedoed us both. You get my point?

Perhaps using myself as an example makes a bad point and does the subject injustice. If you want to read a better example go here and you will find something to make you think. Thanks to Phelps for sending me the link.

When I was a little kid we used to love going to Quality Dairy (an inconvenience store chain in mid-Michigan) to get ice cream. QD sold everything else a corner store carries but there’s a central place where they produce their own dairy products so there’s QD milk and stuff but we loved them for their ice cream. The scoops were tremendous compared to the other places.

I said once when I was about eight that I wanted a double scoop. “Get the single scoop” I was warned. “The double scoop is too big for you to eat. You won’t even be able to balance it on the cone.” Against all protests I settled for the single scoop. When I got it I couldn’t believe my eyes. So much ice cream on one cone, I couldn’t imagine what a double looked like.

“What if I drop it?” I asked, not sure I could balance such a mammoth ice cream.

“If you drop it just come back in. We have an unwritten rule, when kids drop their ice cream we’ll make them another one for free.”

Fast forward some years afterward and I was one day working at that very same Quality Dairy. Actually I was based at a different store but the QD on Saginaw and Larch (my old ‘hood) was shorthanded one day so they sent me there. I was having a blast selling liquor, beer, cigarettes, milk, and lottery tickets. Great times all around. Then some kid asks for an ice cream.

The kid is about seven or eight. Except for the fact that he’s white he kind of reminds me of me so many years ago. I go over and, remembing my childhood experience, I make this kid the hugest single scoop ice cream cone the world has ever known. His eyes get all big when I hand it to him. It is quite likely the most valuable thing he’s ever had in his life. “THANKS!” I nod like it’s not a thing but secretly I feel good that I brightened someone’s day. I go back to work doing whatever it was that I was doing.

A couple minutes later the kid is back in. He’s standing in front of the ice cream case with the most distraught look you ever want to see in your life. His face just says tragedy. His hand holds an empty cone. HE’S DROPPED HIS SHIT!

I duck down behind the counter and start LAUGHING MY ASS OFF!! I can’t help it! It’s just TOO PRICELESS!!! HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAA!!! I don’t know why I’m hiding because I KNOW the kid can hear me and that makes me laugh even HARDER!!! He must be wondering what kind of sick bastard laughs at a kid and his cone. I’m laughing, dying, gasping for breath, feeling like I’m going to pass out any minute from too much mirth! In my defense I did eventually get up and make the kid another cone but it took me about five minutes to compose myself. AWWWWW some funny shit!! GOD!

That kid probably murdered people when he grew up.

After posting my one month update picture I had a letdown. I hadn’t exercised for a week and yesterday I couldn’t take it anymore. Hot weather be damned, I drank a lot of water, stretched, and took off running at about 8 p.m. It wasn’t quite high noon but the sun was still in the sky. According to weather.com the conditions in Lansing yesterday at that hour were 87 degrees and 48% humidity with a heat index of 89 degrees. It wasn’t gonna be easy.

The first thing I noticed as I got around the first block was that the hot air is hard to breathe. I commanded myself to my normal pace. Breathing in the heat isn’t nearly as nice as it is when it’s 65. My goal was two miles but I told myself if I absolutely have to punk out today I won’t be happy with one mile but I’ll force myself to be satisfied.

I make it to the one mile point looking for anybody with a green hose. There’s not a day bad enough that it won’t be made worse by heatstroke so I will accept any chance to cool off but alas there are no lawn-waterers in sight. I push forth and pass some firemen who have stopped at the ice cream place on MLK because it’s too hot for them. Pussies! A slight cramp kicks in. I ignore it and plug on.

When I get to one and a half miles I know I’m going to make it. I’ve quit at that point before but that’s because I was absolutely dying. Right now I’m only kind of dying so I know if I stop I’m going to kick myself all the rest of the way home. At this point I’m talking to myself between breaths, psyching myself into finishing this hot ass run. Everything starts to get squiggly and I hear an evil hiss. The Devil jumps on a hickory stump and grabs his fiddle and it sounded something like this: fuck the Devil, I push him to the ground and keep going. I can see the streetlight for my last turn!!

As I approach my last corner there are two older dudes sitting on a porch sweating it out. They look at me red faced, wet, and running in the heat. They give me the look you give someone when they’ve just been hit by a car and you’re expecting to see them die. I don’t die though. I just keep running by. One of them pipes up as I pass them: “You know. . . . I wouldn’t do that. (note, no shit you wouldn’t do that. You probably used to be hot bitches with big titties and you let yourself go and now you turned into crotchety old dudes!)

I round my last corner and I see a guy about my age walking down the street dabbing his forehead with a towel. He can’t take the heat. I pass him too. I make it to the end just passing some bitch smoking a cigarette. Luckily I’m upwind from it.

I got back home to my hot ass house and pour quarts of water on my head as I lean over the front porch. Whatever doesn’t kill me will make me stronger and I don’t aim to die today. There’s something really satisfying in finishing a run when most people are fanning themselves from doing absolutely nothing. Determination and the human spirit can conquer most obstacles, one must only try. Try doesn’t mean get out there and run 10 steps and say fuck it it’s too hot. Try means go out there and push until you die, then when you die you revive yourself and go some more. In most cases the difference between can’t and won’t is a state of mind.

An hour after the run I went to my hot-as-fuck room and lifted weights. Ooh freaking rah.

I have loud neighbors. Godawful loud neighbors. It’s not just sometimes, it’s damn near all the time. I don’t know if this is the same dude who got arrested shortly after moving in and then the cops had to come and send the K-9 unit to kick out his hangers-on, but it’s the same house. Whoever it is there’s always a house full of mothafuckas and there’s traffic coming and going at all hours. Either they’re dope dealers or they are very popular people. I mean popular like P-Diddy.

During the day there’s all kinds of ignorance, loud arguments over money, people calling each other bitches and mufuckas, mess like that. Then the other night I got home from the bar and they were still going at it, BLAH BLAH BLAH and the BOOM BOOM of music blasting, people rolling up with the thunderous bass. I had a half a mind to pull out my squad automatic weapon (SAW) and just start blasting through the walls until either everyone was dead or my message was at least conveyed. Then I remembered, I don’t have a SAW. I looked around the room for a weapon. I have a rock and a Louisevill Slugger. The risk was too great. I can see the headlines now: Mexican Assaults Ignorant Ghetto Thugs with Baseball Bat, Dies in Hail of Gunfire. I went to sleep dreaming of tossing a molotov cocktail through their living room window.

Yesterday this chick named Nikki came over and hung out with me on my porch. We got some forties and I was all set to porch it up classy ghetto style, which is to say drinking forties quietly. To my alarm Nikki starts relating to me an argument she had with her ex. BLAH BLAH BLAH, MOTHERFUCKER THIS, GODDAMIT THAT!! Oh great. Now my house is noisy too. In my defense that’s probably the only noise from my place that was audible in the street ever since Halima still lived there and would periodically yell out “DON’T TOUCH ME!”

So I hate my neighbors and now that I blogged about molotov cocktails I can’t actually throw one. I have to sit there and suffer through it. Or I was thinking I could get with my other neighbors (who I presume hate the newcomers too) and we could stand in front of the offending household with trumpets, cymbals, and a snare drum at the time when THOSE motherfuckers sleep which would be, like, NOON! Yeahhhhhh!

In Southern Florida some teacher named Mr. Garrison was arrested for selling an assault weapon to a known felon. I am shocked. There’s a teacher named Mr. Garrison??? Does he wear leather chaps? Does he want to get rid of all the Mexicans? What does Mr. Hat think?

I think if you’re the principle of a school and a Mr. Garrison applies for a job you have to just say no. That’s where they went wrong in the first place.

I can’t hold this in anymore. I have to say it. I absolutely HATE The Wiggles!!! They are now officially the most wealthy entertainers in Australia based on their 2004 earnings, just edging out Nicole Kidman and Russel Crow. And what have they gotten rich on? They make videos.

I’ve watched these videos. They’re stupid! They are illogical and bizzare. What the fuck do people SEE in these things??? The characters are asinine, the story lines are dumb, the whole thing just blows to high hell! I want my money back!

Ok I’m done. I just had to get that off my chest.

When discussing the possible existence of God, people usually think in terms of a dichotomy: either He is or He isn’t. But I was just thinking, what if there is a third option we are ignoring: What if God DID exist before but doesn’t anymore? What if (and bear with me here, this is complicated). What if He WAS around before and during the time of Jesus He had a deal with Christ saying ok we’ll go through the whole pre crucifiction routine and right before they nail you to the boards I’ll swoop down and save you then end the world and create the world to come.

And then further suppose that right before the whole thing went down God was IMing with Vishnu or something and forgot and after a while was like “Oh shit, that’s right! The crucifiction’s today!” And then he looks down and sees Jesus nailed to the boards and He freaks out and has an aneurism and dies.

And here we are 2,000 years later and the world’s still spinning.

???

insurgent#1: I don’t have the heart for this anymore. This isn’t working, we’re spinning our wheels for no reason, all is lost. I’m going to quit.

insurgent#2: If you quit now you’ll dissapoint all your loyal fans.

insurgent#1: What fans? We’ve been killing our own civilians. The regular Iraqis hate us.

insurgent #2: I’m not talking about the Iraqis. I’m talking about the Americans.

insurgent #1: The Americans??

insurgent #2: We have many fans on the American left. Militarily we have had our asses handed to us. Our conventional war machine has been dismantled, our dictator has been taken down, and our government has been replaced all with a minimum of American losses. George Bush has proven to a be a formidible foe and the American military is mighty. But all the while our fans on the American left have championed our cause, they have disparaged every American victory and exaggerated every one of ours. They call their President a n00b and they tell their administration they are p@wn3d. All because the candidate they preferred was not elected President. They would rather lose the war than to see George Bush succeed.

insurgent #1: (stunned silence) . . . . . .They want to lose?? Are they fucking RETARDS??

insurgent #2: Yes (nodding solemnly), they are.

insurgent #1: How do you know these things?

insurgent #2: I’ve seen their websites.

insurgent #1: This is inexplicable

insurgent #2: Not quite. Remember how the Qur’an says that in the battle of Badr Allah sent down angels to assist the Muslims and they were victorious over an overwhelming force? Well it seems this time that Allah has sent down not Angels but Shayateen (Devils). Only He’s sent them to the other side.

insurgent #1: OMFG! Unbelievable

insurgent #2: Yes, the greatest military machine the world has ever known is going to fail and it’s going to be because of our cheerleaders. A nagging wife can destroy even the will of a champion.

insurgent #1: This news gladdens my heart and strengthens my resolve. Give my regards to our American fans. I’m going to kill some Americans!

The Supreme Court has ruled that government can raze your home against your will if they want to turn the land into a shopping mall. Property rights be damned, you own something only until the government decides they want to take it and then you have to move on. The government is winning the war against the people with rulings like these. Kudos to Judges Sandra Day O’Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas for joining in a dissent against this ruling.

In the case at hand the government bogarted a perfectly good neighborhood for the purpose of building an office complex. The theory is that the tax revenue generated by the business will benefit The People. But when The People in the Republic begin losing private property rights, we are moving quickly to resemble a People’s Republic. Hammers and Sickles to be handed out at the front door.

About five years ago I was hanging out early at The Point After. I was at the pool table but there was nobody to play against. Fiending to play I looked around but nobody even looked interested. I walked up to one guy who was sitting by himself at the bar. “Hey man, you wanna play pool?” I’m feeling a tad bit guilty as I ask this because I figure he’s a pool n00b and I’ll smoke him for my own amusement.

“Yeah, I’ll play some.”

“Cool.”

“I can play this game” the guy says matter of factly. He’s a thirtyish thin Mexican dude who’s kind of light. He might get mistaken for Italian.

“Yeah, I can play this game too” I respond.

What the hell did I go and say that for? This guy plays and he plays and he plays. He’s making shots I’ve never seen before. A blur of games go by and I’m basically a spectator except I’m paying for the games. I’m getting my ass whooped and this guy looks like a pro. Finally I say no mas.

The guy tells me his name is Houston and it turns out he is actually the cousin of the dude who married my ex-wife. Not only that but he’s living in the same house with his cousin and my ex! Whoda thunk that? Small world and he is an all right guy and about the best pool player I’ve ever seen. “You need to play this one cat named Rever” I say. “I would like to see how you do against him.” Then, as if on cue, Rever walks in. The Ponytail of Doom challenges the table, they even make a wager, and I sit back and watch. Where’s the popcorn?

He beats Rever. He beats him again. And again. And again. Finally Rever gets tired of losing money so he stops playing. Houston then starts showing me some trick shots. Usually when a pool hustler starts showing you trick shots they mess up once or twice before making the shot. Not this guy. He’s pulling out all the stops and making the trick shots on his first try. I tell this motherfucker he’s good. He says “I used to play in the national tournaments. At one point I was ranked 14th in the country in the youth bracket.” I kick myself. I can play this game too my ass!

About three years ago my ex wife’s husband and this Houston cat both go to prison on a federal drug dealing charge. They cop pleas and get about five years apiece. I figure I’ll see Houston again when he gets out and maybe he’ll hustle pool. I like to watch a good pool hustle.

Yesterday I’m on the phone with my ex. Offhand she says “Remember Eddie’s cousin Houston?”

“The pool player, yeah I like that guy. What about him?”

“He’s dead.”

“No he’s not dead!” (Vehemence might make it not true)

“Yes he is. He died in prison. Cirrhosis of the liver. They gave him an operation but they took out the wrong thing or something. Just thought I’d let you know he died.”

I throw down the phone and jump down to my knees raising my fists to the sky. “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Ok, I didn’t really do that, but it came as a shock anyway. Fuck.

So tell the Ponytail of Doom he’s never going to make his money back.