FREEDOM'S JUST THEIR OTHER WORD FOR "DON'T ASK ME FOR SHIT".

Long ago, in a punk scene far, far away, I was up on stages singing a song about the citizens of a land known as Reagan Country. It had a chorus stating the following:

New Patriotism
What the fuck is that?
People with their flags in one hand, wallets in the other.

New Patriotism. It’s baaaack.

Greedy ass selfish fuckers who don’t seem to understand the meaning of the words “We the people” are sucking up most of the air in their immediate area lately, producing massive amounts of rhetorical pollution disguised as love of country.

As for the Neo-New Patriots’ current mouthpieces du jour, I don’t question their patriotism. The least patriotic thing for somebody to do is to question the patriotism of a fellow citizen, although the Neo-New Patriots tend to do that on quite a regular basis. I do, however, question the personal definition behind their constant buzzwords of “freedom” and “liberty”.

The definition of “freedom” espoused by these folks has nothing to do with anyone else’s freedom, and all about solely their own. Instead of “Don’t Tread On Me”, perhaps the slogan of their rally flags should simply read “Me, Myself and I”. Their vision of “freedom” and “liberty” are defined by principles such as the “freedom” to keep women from making choices with their own bodies, and the “liberty” to avoid paying taxes once they become rich enough, while everyone else in the lower income brackets cough up the loot to pay the nation’s bills.

In other words, to be free to run the rest of our lives and tell us what we can and cannot do. It’s not really about freedom and liberty. It’s a sick combination of lust for power coupled with a dismissal of personal responsibility for those who attain that power.

As far as I’m concerned, we are only as free as we all agree to be. People in this country have a reasonable right to live free, pursue opportunity, and strive to make this land a better and better place to live in everyday. This involves cooperation, understanding and tolerance, and not just getting together as (somewhat remotely) like-minded individuals to bitch about what triggers our prejudices and insecurities.

While certain folks out there are wasting their time whining about the state of the nation, I’ll be truly appreciating my freedom and liberty as an American by communicating positively to my fellow citizens, and treating them with equality and respect. That’s what it’s all about, and perhaps someday, these empty rhetoric junkies, or at least their descendants, may finally get a clue.

THE ARIZONA IMMIGRATION CRISIS. REALLY. I'M HERE TO HELP.

As anyone who has known me long enough knows about me, I'm always here to help. In that spirit, I'd like to step in and offer an alternative to the current Arizona law that's causing so much division in our country right now.

Simply place a poster of the photo which I have helpfully linked below on a scale which will cover the border fence with Mexico completely from top to bottom, and post multiple images all the way across, from the TJ border all the way east as far as it stretches. I guarantee to anyone who cares that no one, and I mean nobody will want to trek northward once they get a load of this.

Click Here, Pilgrim

And here are a couple of helpful examples of how we can utilize my idea:





UPDATE (6/20/10, 3:30PM PST): Y'know, after some reflection, it really does seem to appear as if I am making a sexist, "lookist" attack against the Governor of Arizona, and I would never want to be perceived as engaging in such behavior, because it would probably have me branded as, well, a Republican or something or other, and I would never want to go out like that.

SO, in the interest of gender equality, I would like to resubmit my simulated rendering in a revised form (below), using the additional image of a second (male) party in order to even things out. Of course, not only is this gentleman well known throughout the Southwest, he is also up to his testicles in the Arizona controversy as well. Personally, I feel that his additional presence will make the border fence ten times as frightening.





There. I fixed it. Now let's get back to arguing about health care.

WWTDD, JANUARY JONES TEAM UP TO PROMOTE NEW MP SONG

Click Here, Pilgrim

GUESS THE DEVIL AIN'T GOT WORK FOR ME, 'CAUSE MY HANDS AIN'T BEEN IDLE.

Lately, I’ve been experiencing a general feeling of (Dare I say it?) domestic security to some degree. At least it’s the highest level I could possibly hope to achieve nowadays. So what the Hell, I’ll take it.

After about four months, I’ve been settling into my latest Midtown lair quite nicely, thank you. Although the new digs are quite a bit older than where I was living previously, the new carpet, paint, linoleum and ceiling fans in every room seem to make up for it. Plus, I've noticed how some seemingly insignificant things make a huge difference, such as being able to walk through your place in a circular layout, having windows on both sides to circulate the air, or even just having a nice high and shady set of steps to sit on and watch the clouds roll by, with treetops filling out the scenery. Guess I’m easily satisfied. Or something.

Other than that, I’ve also been staying busy with music and shit like that, when I’m not overworking brain cells for a paycheck. I have added the following swell tunes to my online streaming music page:

EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE CHECK (which I have also YouTubed)
GET SOME HEIGHT
SEVERANCE
WALK OF SHAME
YESUR1

So head on over to michaelpsycho.com and stream and download to your hearts content. Don’t worry. I’ll make more. And of course, I have updated my lyrics page with each and every one of those swell melodies because I know that you are just itching to sing along.

A WORD ABOUT THE SONG WALK OF SHAME:

Yes, I know. As everybody knows, I’m a notoriously slutty guy, so people are wondering who the song Walk Of Shame is based on.

Well, in the interest of preventing community discord, I will come clean with you dear readers right now.

Walk Of Shame was inspired by… a Folgers Coffee commercial.

No really.



(Ed. note: This video feed was yanked literally hours after I posted it, yet beforehand, has been available for embedding for months. Coincidence? Final straw? Who knows? Anyway, here's the only other video link I found. Peculiar. A corporation being scared to let people see a TV commercial online?)



In the TV ad, a charmingly Aryan father and daughter meet in the kitchen and, as Daddy hands his apparently way-past-teenhood offspring a nice freshly brewed cuppa, he chides her for coming in way late last night. She teasingly replies that it doesn’t matter because she’s “not sixteen anymore” (but apparently adulthood doesn’t stop her from still living with the folks). He reiterates, “Still, it was late.” She replies that he “won’t have to worry about that anymore” and takes her hand out from behind her big’ ol’ honkin’ mug of corporate java to show the pops her newly acquired engagement ring. After a cockle warming embrace, Daddy tells his little girl that “Todd” is a lucky guy and that’s what he told “Todd” when they “talked” last week.

Anyway, here’s how I had imagined the commercial had continued, right after the actual spot came to a close onscreen. My additional script is in italics.

DAD: Todd’s a lucky man.

(DAUGHTER giggles)

DAD: That’s what I told him when we talked last week.

(DAUGHTER gives a bewildered look)

DAD: And then I said, “You’re lucky I don’t put the barrel of this 30 ought six in your mouth right now, and pull the trigger you perverted sumbitch! If you’re gonna be fucking my daughter and dumping her off at 3 in the morning, you best at least buy her a ring! My little girl is NOT taking any more walks of shame into MY home, you hear?”

And anyway, a song was born.

And on a sorta related note, this month of June 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of my only slab of vinyl ever created, Think. Originally I was going to use this particular blog entry to tell the big sorry story about the record’s recording, production, critical reaction and subsequent destruction of most of its original 1000 copy run, but after some reflection, it really doesn’t matter to me. Frankly, I don’t really give a shit about Think anymore, and don’t even own a copy with a cover myself (just a handwritten red label test pressing.) By all means, have fun putting it up on Ebay and/or bidding on it. As for myself, I’m looking at today’s date on the calendar, and not yesterday’s.

THE “TEA PARTY MOVEMENT” IS A FRIEND TO WORKING PEOPLE, JUST LIKE MCDONALD'S IS A FRIEND TO CATTLE.

As a descendant of one of the alleged participants in the actual Boston Tea Party that happened way on back in 1773, I find that whenever I’m taking in news accounts of the modern day pseudo-brownshirt rallies which are trying to borrow upon the name of the original historic event, I can feel the bile rise up in my guts from the aggravation of being forced to witness the sodomizing of the memory and symbolism of one of our nation’s most fabled acts of direct protest action.

I refuse to go along with referring to these ignorant republidupes and their Nuremburg rallies-cum-Sunday picnics as a “Tea Party Movement”. It was at one time amusing to call them by their original self-styled nickname of “teabaggers” since just about everything that they believe is truly nuts in the head, but that joke got dull after a while. Nowadays, I like to call it the TP movement because “TP” is a popular slang term for toilet paper, and most of the people involved in these rallies are assholes.

I also refuse to give any serious comparison between the historic activities of the original Sons of Liberty and this modern day traveling hate speech festival that was initiated and spurned on by a handful of opportunistically frustrated, miserable, insecure and attention starved Caucasian right wingers who, in an earlier age, would quite probably be opening and emptying sugar containers over the heads of black youths attempting to get served at a segregated lunch counter. Truly, on Breed’s Hill back in 1775, these limp dicks would have been the Redcoats angrily bayoneting my ancestor’s corpse into complete lack of recognition and then tossing him into a pauper’s grave solely for purposes of humiliation.

However, this is a different age, and today these same closet fascists make mind-bogglingly lame attempts to patronize civil rights accomplishments of the past, as well as the notable people responsible for said accomplishments, in order to somehow provide some shred of rationale that said past struggles mirror their own current campaign to force America to give in to their self-centered demands. Said demands seem to be mostly concerning less government and the complete repeal of all regulation, for the sole purpose of encouraging rampant uncontrollable capitalism. This selfish me-first platform is considered within the collective mind of the TP movement’s leadership to be equal in significance to the Freedom Marchers and Gandhi’s hunger strikes. To realistically attempt to describe the TP movement as having any sort of ideological parallel to civil rights activism would be like describing Hitler as having been compassionate.

Ah, but listen to the well-paid mouthpieces for this allegedly leaderless and grassroots movement as they try to present an image as a phenomenon organized by and supported by the working people. Goll-ee, it must be true, since a consulting firm named Russo, Marsh, and Associates made $857,122 in 2009 simply by trying to convince people that the TP movement was a proletarian wet dream!

The true working people of this nation, those of us who represent a diverse populace of many racial, spiritual and cultural demographics, need to be sure to dismiss, discredit and undermine this pathetic TP movement, and most importantly, we must be sure to unceasingly proclaim the fact that this wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing of an evil, questionably funded experiment in corporate mass manipulation does not represent American ideals, the interest of the nation’s working people, or anything which would protect and maintain the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of those Americans who not only keep the country in motion, but live its finest ideals as well. Those of us who realize that we are all in this nation together will persevere and outlast this band of dimwit schoolyard bullies of the political arena, just as we always have.

Our backlash does not have to involve organized rallies, or even online social networking. We just need to do it the old fashioned way, and open up the dialogue during the course of our everyday lives. Let them gather and scream and rant and wave their ignorantly constructed signs and freshly-store-bought Gadsden flags in their little pointless rallies as much as they want. Americans like us, from all corners and walks of life will work it out in the end, and time and the will of the people will eventually wear out the TP movement of today, just like it has done for insidious greedy self-centered hatemongers time after time again. That’s one of the many beautiful things about this country and living in it: i.e., more often than not, common sense tends to win the battle sooner or later.

LOVE IT ALL, AND DISMISS WHAT YOU MUST. YES, YOU CAN DO BOTH.

Just love it all.

Yes, I know that concept can be difficult to grasp sometimes, but to truly love it all will provide a personal advantage if one wants to survive in this world.

Existence in its purest form is a positive and creative force and therefore, a source of inspiration and wonder. In the worst of times, to find what I like to call the “inner ambivalence” inside of oneself can be a true lifesaver. Everybody has this inside them, but few, it seems, know how to find and apply the inner ambivalence properly.

When this conflicting feeling is tapped, allowing the basic uncertainty of direction and emotion to go unhampered, the best of the human mental process will tend to overcome the worst. In other words, when there’s no hope to be found, there’s no longer anything to lose, so you might as well enjoy whatever you can.

To have this kind of attitude does not mean that you have to be satisfied and complimentary of everything you experience. Quite the opposite, actually. If you are honest with yourself re: what disgusts you and more importantly, who is responsible for said causes of disgust, then you can take note of who as well as what to avoid. This will greatly contribute to your potential to lead a stable and productive life.

So whatever you do, don’t let anyone or anything drag you down, drain you, or try to control you. Concurrently, be sure to just love it all conditionally. If this aforementioned premise does not seem clear or sensible at first, just think it out for a while. You'll figure out what I mean. If not, life is sure to teach it to you eventually.

CORPORATE INTERESTS: NAIL THEM DOWN BEFORE THEY SCREW YOU.

Education. Health care. Shelter. Food.

People need all four of the abovementioned, in adequate and available levels, in order to function and thrive in today’s society. The availability of all four can define the overall quality of life for an entire nation. More and more every day, all of these are being increasingly controlled, limited and priced to the inconvenience of anyone below the upper middle class.

Just like that old saying about how nature abhors a vacuum, in similar fashion capitalism hates to see anything free. Name practically any old thing, and if it is part of the world and existing in it, the chances are close to even odds that some enterprising pig has at least tried to put a price tag on it. When it’s not an outright sale of goods, it’s some sort of service or other designed to either provide something that could be free or (allegedly) improves upon the quality of what would be otherwise unnecessary to pay for.

In this atmosphere of corporate access to the campaign coffers of politicians, what is needed now more than ever is a grassroots groundswell of demand for regulation designed to protect the majority of this nation who do all of the actual work which results in the profit of the privileged few. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth from the corridors of the affected interests, of course. What simply has to happen, when this inevitable tantrum occurs, is for our elected officials to work up their collective spine and reply something upon the lines of “Shut up.” These objectors need to be treated with the same amount of attention given to those who want looser rules on pollution controls, food safety inspections and product safety: in other words, by paying no heed whatsoever to their concerns.

Cost is always a big talking point, or to put it more adequately, a wrench in the gears for the robber barons and their well paid mouthpieces lobbying the pro-corporate anti-regulatory agenda in the nation’s and states’ governments. As anybody who handles their personal finances wisely has learned, however, when one thing is needed, expenses can usually be shifted from one area to another. That said, seeing as Uncle Sam’s discretionary spending on defense is akin to your blue collar dad taking a drunken romp to the casino and whorehouse every weekend, anyone with half a brain functioning can see that the money can be made available in some part of the annual budget somehow and somewhere.

Unfortunately, the decades old complaint, “We can put a man to the moon, but…” still applies to our society today. I would be so bold as to say to those who have any sort of influence or affect on our way of life in this nation the following:

We can put a man on the moon, AND we can make sure that adequate and affordable education, health care, shelter and food is available to all Americans.

I can say that, we can do that, that’s my belief, and I’m sticking to it. Your turn.

MAYBE I DON’T WANT TO BELONG. MAYBE I DON’T WANT TO GET ALONG.

Y’know, folks, like the rest of you out there, I tend to have my cycles of good times and bad times. Additionally, as far as my own personal life is concerned, I lead a somewhat lonely existence. I just can’t seem to give up and follow the crowd, and see no sense in unthinkingly slogging along from morning to night and feigning some sort of smug satisfaction out of a day-to-day existence, which, upon genuine evaluation, amounts to nothing more than a banal interaction with pointless hedonism and mindless entertainment.

I get ostracized by a considerable number of the populace for refusing to play along with all of this jive. Sure, it brings me down and makes me feel unfairly isolated sometimes.

But whenever that happens, all I need to do is remember that the reason things can be so miserable in my life is due to the fact that Satan is pissed off at me because I refuse to suck his dick, and suddenly, I feel perfectly okay, and realize that I’m on the side of what’s truly good.

And I am aware that most of you out there do swallow his load quite frequently, and even let him buttfuck you real hard with no grease from time to time. But nope, not me. Hell, I wouldn’t even let him buy me a drink. I simply do not swing that way. Alternately, I know that not everyone is falling for the shit. Like me, some people are not impressed with this world of cheesy materialism and fake friendships. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that we of the truly righteous stuff tend to be pretty spread out across the globe from each other.

For those of you who can see where I’m coming from and feel the same anguish and disconnection that I do on an ongoing basis, I just want to say a few things. Firstly, that I love you all very much, and secondly, to keep up the ways of critical thinking and kicking the conformist mentality to the curb. And lastly, I hope that as many of us as possible can meet and recognize each other in the near future and give this world the attitude adjustment it so desperately needs.

Hope to see you soon.

LOVESEAT DUMPERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE AND TAKE OVER

Dear Nice People Who Dumped The Loveseat,

That was very nice of you. I realize that the thing is pretty worn out, but I'm from the world of punk culture, as well as a deranged loner, so it fits my personality perfectly.

For all intents and purposes, it is worn but not torn (sorta like one of my leather jackets that I own and love, and sitting in it feels the same way). It has a large hole beneath (on its floor area), but I don't anticipate to have Martha Stewart or anyone turning it upside down and criticizing its imperfection.

I have performed a thorough examination, as well as a decent fumigation, cleaning, and EPA-approved toxic substance testing, and have determined this piece of well used furniture to now be odor, critter and disease free. Hopefully no crimes which involve nothing above recreational controlled substance abuse have been committed on this loveseat, and besides a rumpled up tissue, I have found nothing in the nature of hypodermic needles, used condoms, etc. within its crevices.

So once again, thank you very much for the discarded furniture which apparently you couldn't even give away on Craigslist, let alone get Sally's Army or Goody's to take as a donation. I appreciate this accidental late birthday present immensely. Now all I need to do is rearrange the stuff in my cramped lil' living room and I'm rockin'.

Grazie,
MP

THE PERSISTENT QUESTION

Today, I realized that I have a persistent question running through my head of late.

The question keeps repeating, "What am I doing here?"

And the answer keeps echoing, "I don't know."

I hate when that happens.

And by the way, wiseass, as far as if I belong here or not, define "belong".

ONLINE PERSONALS. WELL, THAT WAS AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY.

Something that makes me feel wanted in this world is the fact that a lot of people ask me for advice and/or facts about various subjects, in subjects as varied as computers, relationships, showbiz, politics and all kindsa shit. I appreciate when people consult me like that, as it makes me feel not only flattered but also needed, in a sort of Frank Capra movie-like, traditionally hokey kind of way.

Of course, I rely on the honest advice of others as well. Lately, I’ve been starting to feel like my antisocial tendencies have been pulling me overboard. Especially in the area of my relationships with women, or should I say, lack thereof.

I don’t drink so going out to bars is usually not the best Plan A. Coffeehouses are an occasional option for me but I’ve always found it absurd to just walk up to a woman and strike up a conversation anyway. The odds are good that they’re already in some sort of a relationship. Also, a lot of my female friends are always either joking or complaining about how stupid they think guys like that are.

So, encouraged by the advice of a couple of my friends, I took the plunge and did something that I had previously pledged to myself never to do again: I posted online personal ads.

About a decade back, I had placed an ad online and got a reply from someone with whom I had actually ended up dating over a short period of time. Things were fine at first but then became sour pretty quickly. In retrospect, it was a bad idea to get together in the first place. She lived a lot further away than I had “required” in my ad and I decided to accept it. Problem Number One. Problem Number Two was that we simply had nothing in common, and as a result, the chemistry was just never there.

Ah, well, guess I can try one more time, and this time stick to my guns as far as what I wanted in a potential match.

I chose two sites: Yahoo Personals, because I was already set up as a member on Yahoo and it was free to place and look at ads, and eHarmony because it was linked through my cable provider and, as luck would have it, eHarmony was having a promotion where I could place an ad and, in eHarmony-speak, “communicate” with potential matches for free for a short period of time.

On Yahoo, I wrote a profile that laid it on the line as far as my preferences and requirements were concerned. Yes, it was pretty long and read more like an essay, but at least I was trying to be as upfront and honest as possible.



Here is the text of my Yahoo profile:

"I'm not a bad guy, and like people, but really don't do the social thing very well. I pretty much work, mess with recording my own music, read and fight insomnia. It's been advised that I need to get out more often. No, I don't have a therapist.

I like Midtown (where I live) and I'm looking for somebody nice in the neighborhood to hang out with for coffee and to discuss stuff like sociocultural manipulation of the world's population, so if you're into cultural studies, media criticism and the like, you've got someone here who can probably keep up with you.

Nope, I don't drive or own a car, mostly because I don't have to. I live and work in Midtown, and can get everything I need right around here. Ideally you are in the same situation and we can be backward auto-free Luddites together. Otherwise, thanks for reading this far. Bye.

I'm much more comfortable in a larger city, having been born and raised in one. I like to hop the light rail to the Amtrak to SF. You perhaps like to do that as well, if you've lived in Midtown for some time. That's a good example of something we can maybe do together in time.

I'm highly literate and worldly for an uneducated heathen and future dead peasant. I'm probably further to the left than you are, but that minority who go further or majority who aren't Dittoheads or Palin clones are always quite welcome. I don't drink, don't smoke, and don't take part in any 12 step or other program whatsoever. Also not involved in any organized religion, though interested in philosophical, metaphysical and sociopolitical stuff without going all New Agey. Musically, I like anything from punk to Motown to garage to Tom Waits to Ofra Haza to the Clash to yougetthepictureIhope. For movies, if it's playing at the Tower or Crest you might see me in line buying a ticket. I'm figuring that out of the 3 or 4 women who possibly exist on the planet who would be compatible with me, one may possibly live in Midtown. My gut feeling tells me that I am wrong, but I figure that I might as well try just one more time.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about what I expect from you. I like confidence, self-assurance, and a woman with a good, smart sense of humor who isn't afraid of a dose of sarcasm. Do you think that George Carlin was funny? Good, me too. I'm in average-to-pretty-good physical shape and health for my age, so yes, I expect you to be in that zone as well. Hair length, dress, etc. are things that I'm pretty open minded about, especially since I'm bald and casual, but I'm attracted to shapely women regardless of size, style or age. You need to understand that I'm like an English bulldog: I might not look like I'm happy all the time but that doesn't mean I'm in a bad mood. I will be open with my feelings and in return, you will be as well.

I don't have any children, and don't want them. For freak's sakes, I'm 47 years old! Also, if you have children, they are grown up and independent (out of Mom's home with actual jobs), and not thugs. No exceptions.

Oh, and not engaging in a criminal lifestyle at any level is a must. (That includes, of course, trying to scam poor vulnerable geezers like myself through online personals.)

And a special word about Midtown. In Sacramento, the definition of Midtown's borders are sort of a matter of contention, but after 25 years as a resident of Sacramento, I define them as thus: east of 16th Street, south of G Street, north of T Street and west of the freeway overpass by 29th Street. If you are not living in or near that area please don't bother to respond to my ad.

Gimme a click if you're intrigued. Thanks."

My experience with eHarmony was a different world, to say the least. They put you through a grueling interrogation that surpasses the Scientology Personality Test in terms of nosy anal retentiveness. Interestingly, my results were sort of accurate. As an example, the evaluation stated that I have no problem being alone for long periods of time, and see that situation as a creative advantage. True dat. Hmmm, perhaps these test results may be giving me a chance to meet someone compatible after all.

Nah brah.

My stay on eHarmony lasted about one day, probably less than 24 hours. I was admittedly surprised to find seven “matches” in my email the morning after I had signed up. The matches were not even close to anyone I would be compatible with, and most of them seemed to be the types who would cross the street if they saw me walking up in the opposite direction. Plus, of course, they were all out of the ‘hood.

Here was my kiss off letter to eHarmony that was requested by them as “Feedback”:

"This was a horrible experience. My matches have nothing in common with me and most of them have children (I do not have or want them, and am looking for someone without them as well).

Also, your geographic distance is too far for my preference (minimum of 30 miles from my home). Midtown Sacramento is very densely populated, as are the areas directly bordering the neighborhood. I would want to meet someone within five miles of home at best. Women from the 'burbs tend not to share my interests, so they are a waste of my time to communicate with.

In short, I find this site to be completely useless. Perhaps you should concentrate your resources more on expanding your compatibility options and less on psychological games in order to gain and retain customers. Thanks."

The Yahoo experience was much longer but just as futile. True, I was almost brutally honest in my profile. Nevertheless, I was clear and lucid enough to get some sort of reasonable response.

Of course that didn’t happen. The only women who contacted me (that is, if all of them really were women) ran the gamut from Textbook Russian Scams to Downright Fuckin’ Scary. Okay, there was one seemingly remote possibility who looked really pretty, listed herself as “Artistic / Musical / Writer” and gave me a brief hello, but she was in South Carolina and apparently didn’t even read my profile. And even then, she was a Christian who attended services, so perhaps she was a well-written Textbook Russian Scam. Bzzzt. Thanks for playing.

(And on a side note, if you see a personal from a woman that says, among other things, the direct quote “…I always say that I'm looking for someone who will enhance my life, and not take anything away…” you know what you’re dealing with. I must have seen that little adage about sixteen times.)

Today, I deleted my Yahoo Personals profile. No, I will not try Craigslist next. Stupidly, I did respond to an ad there that looked promising and should have known better. No reply, of course. Oh well, sometimes harsh reality needs to be considered and admitted.

That’s it. I’m through.

I’ve got to face facts. I’m destined to be alone for the rest of my life.

There are worse things to be confronted with as a permanent condition. I could have missing limbs, or maybe a long-term painful terminal illness. I could have fucked up real good and been incarcerated to live out my remaining years in a day-to-day lifestyle somewhat resembling that of Edmond Burke.

Or worse yet, I could have ended up in a miserable relationship just because I did not want to be alone. That would be infinite times worse than simply being by myself.

No, I need to man up and face the truth. I’m just not a match for anyone. I’m too antisocial and isolated, and yeah maybe I am just too old (and on top of that, perceived by women as lame) to “deserve” to be with anyone.

I could rationalize, reason, analyze and excuse myself into oblivion, but nothing is going to change the reality of the situation. I can’t change. Not even for sex. A lot of guys can bullshit to maintain a sex life, and a lot of women knowingly just go along with it for various reasons, but I can’t play that game.

Besides, I’ve gone through enough periods of my adult life where I’ve been celibate for years on end (I’m on a pretty good stretch right now). That’s just the way it’s been. I can’t really change anything about that. It’s not because I lack interest in these things, actually it’s quite the opposite. There are not really any other activities that keep my interest as much when the opportunity is there. However, as easily as I could list “sex” in the “Hobbies” section of a questionnaire, really, going without it isn’t so bad.

So why fight it? In a fitting coincidence, as I’m typing this, Saint Jonathan, the Patron Saint of Modern Love, just got on my stereo with some words of wisdom:

Well I won't pretend I like a girl if I really don't
And act like she's great when she makes me feel appalled
All I want is a girl that I care about
Or I want nothing at all.

Well I don't want just a girl to fool around with
Well I don't want just a girl to ball
What I want is a girl that I care about
Or I want nothing at all.

Well I don't want some cocaine sniffing triumph in the bar
Well I don't want a triumph in the car
I don't want to make a rich girl crawl
What I want is a girl that I care about
Or I want no one at all.

Good enough for me.

HI! MY NAME IS IDGAF YAAS! I'M ON FACEBOOK! COME ON OVER AND HANG OUT.

Okay, they got me.

If you know me, or at least have been reading this blog for some time, you know that generally, I have a deep contempt for social networking sites. Personally, I find them to be downright boneheaded and generally wrong on so many levels.

I've managed to avoid much of a presence on MySpace.

I do believe that I now hold the record for most consecutive days with no followers on Twitter.

However, then I got a phone call from my good friend and co-conspirator, who let me know that I simply HAD to get on FUCKin' Facebook. Well, not in so many words. Actually, maybe yeah, now that I think about it, that is how he said it.

Anyway. I tracked down a few of my good friends who go back with me to close to a quarter century ago, and decided, fuck it, I'm going to be somewhat active on Facebook. Not that I prefer it over the other two aforementioned sites. On the contrary. To me, Facebook sucks just as bad. It doesn't load pages very well, the chat functions totally blow (and crash my browser more times than not), and, with no offense to my friends who think otherwise, I got sick of playing the games-that-really-aren't-games (eg "Mafia Wars") after about two days, if that long.

Still, I've settled into a role I like to call "Annoying Leftist Newsfeed Guy", since a lot of the publications that I read online anyway are available on Facebook and easy to link to my page.

Another thing which annoys me about Facebook is how they try to force everybody to use their legal birth name. I don't have any problem with my birth name, and anybody can easily find that online, along with my date of birth and birthplace, on the "Biography" section of my last.fm profile. It's just that, not only do a lot more people whom I'd want to find me know me as Michael Psycho, there's approximately umpteen hundred million Michael Warrens all over the planet, with God knows how many in Sacramento alone.

SO I tried using Michael Psycho. Facebook wasn't having it. Previously, I had complained about not being able to use the name, and got handed this line of horseshit via email:

Hi,

Facebook does not allow people to sign up with certain names that may be fake or associated with fake accounts. While we realize this verification method may prevent some people with legitimate names from initially registering, we feel this policy is currently the best method to prevent against malicious and fake accounts on the site.

We can help you sign up for an account, but we will need additional information. Please reply to this email with a scanned image or digital picture of a government-issued photo ID (e.g., driver's license) in order to confirm the accuracy of your name. Also, make sure you black out any personal information that is not needed to verify your identity (e.g., social security number). Keep in mind that we will permanently delete your ID from our servers once your name has been verified.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but you will be unable to sign up until you provide us with a scanned image of a government-issued ID. Please include all of our previous correspondence in your response so that we can refer to your original inquiry.

Thanks in advance for understanding this security policy,

Ursula
User Operations
Facebook


Ursula, I cordially invite you and the rest of the User Operations team at Facebook to fuck off. You are not the government, and I am not trying to use a credit card to purchase goods and services. If I am otherwise using Facebook in the manner which it is meant to be used, you have no business in Hell to be demanding that I use my birth name.

I was going to give up altogether, when suddenly inspiration struck and I decided to give it another go. I reactivated my account but instead of Michael Psycho, or Michael Warren, I came up with a brand new handle.

That name was... Idgaf Yaas.

Okay. I'll write that one more time.

Idgaf Yaas.

The name is an acronym, and it is intended to be a tribute to the nice folks who rejected "Michael Psycho" as my name on Facebook. It stands for:

I Don't Give A Fuck. You Assholes All Suck.

Facebook accepted the name.

So, dear friends, as of right now, Facebook is the place where you will find it easiest to reach me online. It is my online hangout, my street corner, my stoop. I'm positive that, if you are staring at a computer screen right now, you probably already have a Facebook page. So, especially to the readers of this blog, I invite you to come on by and make a friend request. Don't be shy. Although I like my tight knit lil' circle of seven or eight pals I've got since I joined a couple of weeks ago, you are always welcome. Just to make it easy on you, I've provided a link below. I look forward to seeing you. At least until Facebook kicks me out.

Click Here, Pilgrim
(Yes. I know. The link is dead. Read the update below.)


Update(1/30/10): So much for trying to be more social. This evening, I deactivated the account, so Idgaf Yaas is no longer a threat to the shivering denizens of Facebook any longer.

I simply got tired of the whole shebang. I had been thinking about walking away from this shit for a while now when something very interesting occurred today.

I was walking back from taking the trash to my dumpster when somebody seemingly familiar passed me in the courtyard of my apartment complex. I said hello, this person returned the greeting, and walked on by. There was no indication that either of us really recognized each other as any sort of acquaintance. When I noticed that a card for a local city council candidate was placed on my door, I put two and two together.

This was one of the folks who I didn't know personally, somebody I'd never met in my life, who had added me as a friend on Facebook! Rather then having my feelings hurt, I found the experience to be a rather, ahem, teachable moment. That's when I decided it was about high time to bring this noble personal social experiment to an end.

While it was nice to have tracked down a few folks from the past, ultimately, Facebook activity just seems like a tremendous waste of time. Time is pretty much the most valuable thing I have left nowadays. Also, I've increasingly grown to accept a basic belief that social activity is way overrated.

So to all of the true dear old friends that I ran into on Facebook, thanks for bringing back fond memories and I'm glad to see that we are all surviving and well. As for the rest of you: