21st Century Digital Boy

I swiped this title from Bad Religion. I really like this band, and I've often commented on how much they sound like Pennywise. I don't know if they're still together or if they broke up and members of that band are in Pennywise. But that's not why I'm writing this. On February 19th 2009, our television systems will switch from analog to digital transmissions. I LIKE technology, I think it's ultra-kool! Many adults, are not in acceptance to change, and whine about it, but it's going to happen whether we like it or not, so it doesn't pay to get angry about it. The thing that totally bugs the hell out of me, is that our politicians don't make any plans for the ecological removal of old technology.

For years I've heard how batteries were the scourge of the landfill. They contain heavy metals, acids and make a nice toxic brew when they decompose. In the late 1980's or the early 1990's New York had some sort of ordinance that any vendor that sold batteries, was supposed to take the dead ones to be recycled. This was at the height of the Walkman/Discman era, when every schmoe had a personal music system that ran on energy cells. I would see people replacing them and tossing the old ones down the storm drains. Yeah, that's a "green" solution to the problem! On several occaisions I tried to turn in dead batteries, and most vendors got around it by saying that I had to have proof that I bought them at their store. Who does that? Many new electronics come with batteries included. When I bought my TV, the remote had Toshiba batteries in it. Naturally, they didn't last forever and I had to put in some Duracells. Now, where does one go to return Toshiba batteries? I've never seen them in any stores. Now I just put them in the trash because I have no clue as to how to responsibly dispose of these power systems.

So pretty soon, the United States will be awash with old analog TVs. I saw an item on a local news show about a homeless guy in Southern California, who would find old electronic gizmos in the trash, and he'd recycle them because many used precious metals on the circuit boards. He did this to sustain himself, but then he discovered that the computer ships were worth more than the metals. He started a business selling them to China and he's no longer homeless and the subject of a modern Rags To Riches story. The problem is, when I try to find places to take my old electronica, there aren't any on Long Island. People aren't 100% against recycling, it's just that we're so overloaded that every task has to be EASY. If all communities had a week every month where recyclers of electronics came around and picked up trashed computers, televisions, radios, stereos, etc., they'd do it! But These things take up space, and too often we need that space to make room for the new era of entertainment. If the recyclers only came twice a year, nobody would bother to keep the old Maganvox aside until they did, instead it'd end up in the landfill, the one thing we're trying to avoid. Putting aside the electronic junk for a few weeks is doable, and I personally would like to see that happen, if nobody else is willing, maybe I'll have to take it upon myself to start this trend. Maybe I'll become the next Rags To Riches story....nahhhh...life never works out that way!

Last Night I Wrote A Letter

As always, I start my bitching with a title of a song that has particular significance to me or my situation. Sometimes I really struggle to find something apropos. This time it's the complete opposite, I have a bunch and am wondering which is the best choice. My first instinct was "Mr. Postman" by The Beatles. I Llike the song and I like the Beatles, but I'm more inclined to go for the obscure. Next was the 1960's classic by The Boxtops, "The Letter", but then I remmeber the godawful version that Joe Cocker did, and nixed that one. I then recalled a band called, Starz, one of my faves from the early 1980's. It fits as well as the others and it gives me a chance to expose a lesser known rock entity to anyone who reads this drivel. So let's get to what's bothering me today....


As a loner, I enjoy getting mail, it gives me the illusion that I somehow fit into this universe. Since I don't have friends or acquaintences who regularly write me , I order lots of stuff so I get packages, the "Every Day Is Christmas" syndrome. I suffer from it badly. I have an amigo who lives in Georgia, and when I closed down the business I was running, I had a ton of binoculars left over. I decided to mail a couple of pair to my buddy and his wife. I also enclosed a program from the 2008 Belmont Stakes and a couple of Triple Crown baseball caps. I boxed them up and took them to my post office and mailed them out. Like everything else, shipping has gone up, but it was still within my price range and I let it go at that.

Weeks went by and I hadn't heard from my friend. He frequently is out-of-town for long periods, so I e-mailed him and asked if he'd gotten the package. The answer was NO. I took my receipt and went to the Post Office and asked if there was any recourse to find out where the package went? The answer was NO. In order to do that, one has to pay extra to have tracking, or a return receipt, or any other number of methods to keep tabs on the mail. But since the Post office's job is to deliver mail, a part of the job should be, to make sure it gets where it's destined to go. If I had a kid come to my door and ask if I'd like to have my lawn mowed for twenty dollars a week, I might think, "That's a good deal, with the price of gas and the time it takes" So I might take the offer, then if the kid added,
"And for an extra twenty dollars, I'll ensure that the job gets done" I would think twice.

If I'm paying somebody to do a job, then I expect that the job will be done, it's like a contract. The U.S. Postal Service is taking MY package, and I'm paying them to get it from Point A to Point B, it becomes their responsibility to do that. I shouldn't have to pay extra to make sure that they do.

I have sent tons of useless items to people all over, and they generally seem to get where they're intended. The time I send something valuable and irreplaceable, that's when the Postal Service loses it? I'm not sure I'm buying that line. If you live in Georgia and spot your local postman checking out the scenery with a pair of Selsi Binoculars while wearing a maroon Triple Crown hat, I'd be leery of relying on him to deliver your packages!!!

LOW

As always, I try to find a rock 'n' roll song title to use to start my blogs. This isn't always easy, so some times it's really a stretch to get the title and my complaints to coincide. The first song that came to mind when I was composing this blog in my head was, " Low Rider" by Eric Burdon and War. The only thing is...I despise that song, I don't even consider it rock and roll. The next one was "Lowdown" by Boz Skaggs. Although it's not as grating as "Lowrider", it is a song that will never appear in my music collection, in any way, shape or form. Wracking my brain for something more appropriate, it came to me in a flash. The whole "Keep It Simple, Stupid" ethic arose and the song "Low" by Cracker fit perfectly. Cracker is a band that came out in the Grunge era, so I associate them with The Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Bush, and that ilk. But I'm not writing about Cracker, I'm writing about....PANTS.

I have mentioned on numerous occasions that I am unusually thin for a person my age. Being thin is a mixed blessing. I am turned off by fatties. I know it's not politcally correct, but it's also not attractive or healthy to be hauling around a ton of excess blubber on your body. Yet I find it rarer and rarer to see thin gals walking around. A demi-tee, cut off just below the breasts is a good look for Daisy Dukes, but it doesn't have much appeal if it's accompanied by a roll of flesh the size of a pool float just above the waistline. But being that this is a Capitalist Society, manufacturers see that people are growing widthwise as well as heightwise, and they're making clothes to cater to that crowd. My dilemma is: that I can no longer find clothes designed to fit me comfortably, since I seem to be the only adult male with a 28 inch waist. I've got Levis corduroys from when I was in high school, that still fit me. I certainly can't wear them to any event where looking decent is a concern, but it's nice to know that I haven't porked-up the way the rest of the country has. Much of this is due to the Capitalists trying to be up on the latest trends in fashion, and that is dictated by...(gasp)...adolescents. That's right, our bratty teenaged offspring are who decides what gets mass produced and what doesn't. It will always be, that kids will go out of their way to look differently than their parents, for the simple reason...parent's are majorly uncool. Form and function have little bearing on the trends in teens' garb. They want to look radical, so a bunch of egg-headed parents, see what's being worn and then set up the process of mass marketing this look, so all high schools and colleges are festooned with thousands and thousands of individuals trying to look different by buying the stuff their hip friends wear. Talk about a viscious circle! But face it, do you know of any teenagers who are so innovative that they'd take the time to make their own clothes? RIGHT.

Getting back to my problem, I was skimming the internet trying to find somebody that manufactures pants cut for thin people and I discoverd that Levi Strauss now makes a new number code for their jeans series. I recall how badly the 505 with the button fly flopped. But in any case I ordered a pair and waited for them to arrive wondering if this was the answer to my dilemma. The jeans do indeed fit, but they don't fit well. The problem being...that they are the style popularly known as "low rise". Low rise jeans look great on females, they have wider hips and nicer butts than males...or they used to, now it's a toss-up. And because females are anatomically different from males, the low slung jeans aren't a problem for them, because when "mother nature" calls, they simply have to lower the jeans to go about their business. Males, on the other hand have been known to just "whip it out" and go where ever they happen to be when their bladders get to the point of exploding.

Since low rise jeans don't go up as high on the torso, they have less material between the crotch and the waistband. That translates to mean a shorter zipper. And that means when it's time to "leak the lizard" that it's harder to fish it out of the layers of underwear through the smaller opening. Hypothetically speaking, try to imagine this: you're having a barbecue and have the grille fired up and the guests are starting to arrive. You grab the package of a dozen hot dogs from the fridge and try to open the sealed plastic wrapper. You can't tear it, so you try biting off a piece to start a rip, and that fails. You search frantically for scissors but cannot locate any. In a final act of desperation, you grab the pen out of your back pocket and poke a hole into the seemingly impregnable plastic barrier. You eventually get an opening the size of your finger in the packet and you then try and worm the hot dogs out of it. The hole isn't expanding and your fingers are tearing the hot dogs to flecks of micro-sized, meaty dandruff. That's what it's like trying to urinate while wearing low-risers.

I'm sure there are some people out there who'll say, "Why don't you just undo the top of the jeans and lower them?". My response is, for one, that I wear my cell phone clipped to my belt and the weight of it is enough to cause it to slide off and fall to the floor, and I certainly don't want my phone swimming on the urine soaked floor of a public mens' room. And secondly, I find it very freakish to walk into a public lav to see guys standing at the urinals with their pants around their calves and their hairy, fat asses greeting me as I walk in. You see these people who do this are the types that wear sweat pants, not because they're avid sports fantics or in the middle of an intense work-out, they're middle aged blobs who can't be bothered to find clothes that fit them correctly. Stretch waist bands are a godsend for the lazy, couch potatoes our nation has evolved into. I don't enjoy that sight, so I don't want to present that scenario to anyone else!
Besides, I don't have a nice ass, it's flat and skinny, like a purple neon sign that says, " Sorry girls, nothing good for you here!"