Cantankerous Chicanery

Many smarks right now in the know are complaining about WWE’s recent switch to a PG rating. As a result, they claim, the product is catering to children and has, as a result, become watered-down.

In a sense, I see their point. But in another vein, I have to somewhat disagree. I’ve run into a few little kids who sport John Cena shirts and they express their admiration for wrestling. It’s almost heartwarming to see a whole new generation rise up and become interested in a sport that I love so wholeheartedly.

Have we become that cynical as adults and teenagers that we can’t look past our own selfish desires to see Batista crucified and MVP pushed to the moon? Do we truly expect so much out of the performers that we want ***** matches on a nigtly basis? Is it really fathomable or even realistic to expect them to blade and fall off ladders and wrestle techincal masterpieces just because we prefer a slightly different style than what we’re currently getting?

Don’t you remember when you were a kid? Terms like “workrate”, “push”, and “backstage politics” didn’t mean anything to you. All you knew was that when Hulk Hogan or the Ultimate Warrior came on the screen, your eyes lit up.

You liked the guys with the biggest muscles and who appeared strongest. You cheered the nice, valiant heroes and booed the evil, cheating scoundrels. At its heart, that’s what wrestling is all about. Even garbage wrestling promotions like ECW utilized this formula, however they may have switched around the format.

I feel, as we get older, wrestling loses its magic. We grow older, we get more used to the Machiavellian ways of the world, and we can never jump back to that naieve sort of unaware bliss. (Although it’s my theory that this is true of everything.) As a result, we demand more gritty realism to the product. We no longer mark out; we study a match for its blown spots or cry foul when they ignore continuity or bitch when Triple H goes over yet another promising talent.

And who’s to say the product is being watered down? If anything, this PG era could be a blessing in disguise. The storylines are now somewhat more focused, the lines between aces and heels are clearly drawn, and the wrestlers themselves don’t have to constantl blade or get put through tables all the time. It also puts an end to those god-awful bra & panties matches, which, even as a prepubscent youngster, I never truly cared for.

So sit back, enjoy the product, and say goodbye to Austin’s two finger salute and beer-swilling antics. Keep in mind I grew up in that timeframe, when Mick Foley shoved Mr. socko down everyone’s throat and DX gave out crotch chops willy-nilly. Most of the so-called “insider” references flew over my head, and oftentiems I was oblivious to the blurring of reality and kayfabe. All I knew was I got excited when Ken Shamrock would snap and I bought up Kane and Al Snow figures by the dozen.

At the end of the day, Vince McMahon is a businessman, and he will chase after whatever he thinks is the biggest money market. Right now, the safe bet is parents with a disposable income to keep their kids quiet. If that’s what it takes, bye bye Rock shoving things up people’s asses, hello Cena making poop jokes.

And why are we, the veteran wrasslin’ fans, so guarding and protective over our hidden gem? Let’s share it with a new, upcoming fanbase and bask in the fact that someone out there actually bothers to watch this crap as well with us.

Wrestling fans are, by and large, historians. We here on the Internet love to discuss days gone by, to reminsice about the past, to compare x to y, to say how the curent product sucks and how it wasn’t as good as {insert era here}.

One period of time wrestling fans love to travel back to was the late 1990s boom, colliqually referred to as the “Attitude era”. This was when a good majority of the population tuned in to get a gander at what ol’ Vinnie Mac was running.

I have it on good authority from regular folks and non-wrestling fans that they enjoyed watching during the heyday of The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, DX, and Ministry-era Undertaker. These were the years when The Angry Cynic, as a tiny but brewing malcontent, got into wrasslin’ as we know it.

For those unaware, the Attitude Era was basically wrestling’s response to the alternative rock movement: it was characterized by vulgar language, scantily-clad women, obscene and controversial storylines. On a deeper level, it focused on shorter matches, more backstage skits, numerous face and heel turns, and often seemingly illogical swerves and incoherent storylines.

But, as I ponder these matters, and search in my heart for why I exactly revere this incarnation that Russo was writing, I have to play the devil’s advocate and ask myself: Was it really that great? We constantly talk about how awesome it was, but did it really have all the quality and substance that we demand in a typical broadcast?

Keep in mind, the true reason the ratings were so high was because of the lurid subject matter they dealt with in that day. You had blood for the first time on a Monday night show, people nearly stripping, and wrestlers betraying each other left and right, with very little rhyme or reason.

Did that really make it a compelling product, or was the public simply fascinated with it because it appealed to our more stupid urges? It’s the trash TV/Jerry Springer syndrome: people will always be drawn out of curisoity to view something if it violates most of our held moral assumptions, if only for a brief second.

Once the initial shock of breaking most taboos wore off, people tuned out. There wasnothing of substance in the matches or characters to keep them hooked in. They had exhausted every possible disgusting turn they could. Once the rock n’ roll mindset wore off, they switched up their direction and had to fall back on what brough them to the game: wrestling.

As I mentioned up above, the matches were shorter and the in-ring promos and circus-like atmosphere were longer. The average match on RAW then would last 3 or 4 minutes, tops. There was no time to build to an exciting conclusion and demonstrate match psychology. Vince Russo has long been known as a guy who could really care less about the actual wrestling, instead preferrin to focus on the pagneatry of the specacle and showcase lowbrow humor.

Here’s a match from the peak of the Attitude Era from Wrestlemania. Note the wild, unfocused brawling and the bullshit DQ ending. And remember, this is Wrestlemania, the Grandaddy of ‘Em Al, the Grandest Stage of Them All, supposedly a showcase for the WWE (well, WWF at that time) and a PPV that people plopped down hard-earned money for.

And now, let’s get into the (arguably) most absurd part of the Attitude Era: the storylines. If one looked past the T&A, the insane hardcore matches, and the mic work from Triple H and Vince McMahon, and really looked into the storylines, one could conceivably have their head explode.

Let’s let look at the insanity that was the Corporate Ministry, shall we? Supposedly Underaker started becoming evil to torment Vince McMahon, even though a few months back he may (or may not have) been in cahoots with him to win the title from Stone Cold.

So he forms this satantic cult where he recruits people by abducting them and beating them. After some time, he stalks and torments Vince McMahon, who is still a heel on account of going after Austin and leading the Corporation. Then they reveal they were all in cahoots to screw over Austin.

But wait, Shane kicks Vince out the group, and so they merge to form the Corporate Ministry, which negates the two groups fighting for months. Somewhere along the line, Ken Shamrock from getting abducted by UT, but gets kicked out, which turns him face.

Or you’d have crap where HHH reunited with Chyna but then turned on X-Pac later that night to be a bad guy and join the Corporation. Nevermind a year later he’d end up feuding with Vince and reforming DX, only to merge later with them to form the McMahon-Helmsley faction. I’m suprised SCSA kept his popularity all this time, although it could argued he was always essentially an anti-hero/tweener. SHADES OF GREY!~

Look, I’m not trying to hate on what was a very profitable and popular time in WWE’s history. Some of the matches were reat in that sort of wild, ECW donnybrook sort of way.

What I am suggesting is maybe we were looking through it with rose-colored glasses. I honestly think the Attitude Era was similar to The Beatles and Nirvana: it just happened to come along at the right time.

We came off the heels of the cheesy, black-and-white, do-gooders vs. sniveling villain era of the 80s. We were tired of having Hulk Hogan crammed down our throats. The fans had grown up, become cynical teenagers, were used to Pearl Jam singing out their adolescent pains, and became tainted when they happened to stumble across the punk rock madness that was ECW one fateful night on public access television.

After being exposed to the genius of Paul Heyman, we demanded something more in our national product. And so they responded. But along the way, it could be contended that the match qualities themselves took a dip, that while the wool was pulled over our eyes, we did’t pay attention to how ridculous the storylines could truly be at times (Mark Henry and a transvestite? Beaver Cleavage? Kennel in a Cell? Are you f’n kidding me?). That’s all.

I write this with still much love from my heart for that time period. But it’s time to take an objective, neutral stance, seperate ourselves from how caugh up we were in it at the time, and really analyze it.

It could be said that the fact that emo is a defining style of this generation is quite fitting. From Wikipedia, “emo, which is short for emotional hardcore, is a genre of music best described as arising out of the hardcore punk genre, which seeks to evoke more emotional and confessional lyrics.”

Too often in today’s world people feel. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with going by emotion—indeed, it’s what makes us uniquely human—but too often people are overly emotional. I’ve seen the people around me have children, get addicted to drugs, get into fights, or work a crappy job because of irrational whims, decisions they often can’t even explain.

People claim something just “feels right”. Or that they go with their gut. How often does that really work out? We saw Bush, another example of this trend, go with his intutition and lead us into war and recession, instead of acting logically and really thinking thigs out. We’ve obviously send that effect and where it leads us.

When your adrenaline kicks in and the “fight or flight” bioloical mechanism takes over, you’re not thinking things through. You don’t consider the consequences of your actions (which I consider a lost at in this time and age). You just react in the moment, which is an egregious error if there ever was one.

One alarming trend I’ve noticed in today’s teenagers is their willingness to settle down at earlier and earlier ages. I’ve seen some of my peers talk about getting married and moving in….at ages 20, 19, and even as young as 18! What the hell, seriously? In between living in their fantasy world of playing house, are they considering the epic strains of marrigae? Or how they’ll pay the bills? Or how they’ll get a college education in the middle of all this?

You know what I really consider the root cause of all this? Our general society at large. We live in such a fast-paced, technological culture taht promises instant gratification at our fingertips in a matter of seconds. We eat fast food and we twiter our every actions. Why not extend this hyperactive, reactionary attitude to the larger areas of life, like finance and monogamy?

But, really, it’s been a deeper problem that lays with humanity. We go to war over perceived wrongdoings, in the name of pride, and end up slaugtering on e another and causing destruction in the heat of the moment. You have the infamous crimes of passion where one lover slays another in the middle of an agument. Suicide is the ultimate unforgieable sin of letting the intoxication of lust cloud your judgement.

So, I ask you, dear reader, to stop feeling, and start thinking. When you let your feelings get in the way, it blinds you to the ultimate objective truth of things. Take some time and actually mentally process things. Too often in life we simply exist and don’t attempt to perceive things or make sense of them or consider what’s trult best for us, in the long run and in the bigger picture. I inpart on you these words of wisdom. Take them and use them wisely.

First off, a word about Michael Jackson, if I may: Screw him. seriously. The guy was such an overrated musician. Yeah, he put out some decent songs, but it wasn’t like when Martin Luther King or JFK died. Essentially, he made some watered-down pop music with cheesy beats so white people could dance to some safe music.

That’s a controversial opinion, and I’ve gotten into some arguments over it. But I stand by it. I don’t care how popular he is. Might doesn’t always make right, and the masses aren’t always correct.

What I hate is everyone coming out the woodwork and kissing his ass just because he’s dead. The same people praising him and calling him a genius and leaving a legacy were the same people making fun of him and calling him a pedophile a year ago. Tell me, who was bumping Thriller a month ago?

Personally, I don’t think he’s a pedophile. I think he was a bit eccenriuc and the world judged him for simplybeing different. He seemed to be perpetually stuck in a childhood because his father never really let him have one.

I knew the minute I heard he died that nobody would shut up about him and I’d see his music videos all over TV. Christ, it’s not like 9/11 happened. I didn’t know the guy perosnally, so honestly (and I hate to sound cynical) I’m not really personally affected by his death and I could care less. Instead I’ll just go about my usual business.

Remembering where you are when some celebirty died is ne of the saddest things ever. As Geore Carlin once said (now there’s an idol that needs to be eulogized), it’s an attempt for suburbanites to put meaning into their life. I’m tired of this culture of celbirty worship.

And poor Farah Fawcett, eh? Even in death, she still lanuishes in obscurity. Poor woman. Where’s all the commerations for her? She was an inspiration to 17-year-olds everywhere “discovering” themselves for the first time in the 70s.

Anyway, this kinda ties into a topic that’s been brewing in my head for a while: what I like to call the era of mediocrity. In this particular age we live in, we seem to be satisfied with the lowest common denominator. We strive for blandness and are scared by anything exciting.

Look around you: the top wrestler right now is John Cena, a vanilla babyface who is a simple do-gooder and has kids blindly cheering for him for no discernible reason other than everyone else is doing it. The music we listen to is simply regurgitated hip-hop and R&B, with the same lyrics ad naseum about how rich so-and-so is and simply instructing us to dance (if taht’s what they’re attemptig to do….it’s kinda hard to make out what they’re saying).

What’s offered up at the movies are endless re-makes, re-imaginings, and re-shittings of movies that were once original and groundbreaking. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was disturbing, horrifying, but most importantly, a great and fresh movie. The bid-budget, big-studiop version that came out a few years ago was a popcorn muncher, with a slick style and big-name Hollywood actors. The only thing missing was a script. All fluff, no substance.

Rock n’ roll is pretty much dead. Remember the days of Pink Floyd and The Doors? What about Nirvana and Alice In Chains? All of these groups were innovative, visionaries, with a unique approach to both the guitars and their lyrics. Now we Nickelback, although they should be called Dollarback, because that’s what I demand after seeing one of their shows.

The postgrunge bands of today are simpl churning out the same tired riffs we’ve heard for about 10 years, with songs either about how awwwwful it is to break up or how wild and craaazy their partying rockstar life is. They take all of the features of previus music and put in a blender to produce the most inoffensive, derivative, generic music this side of an office elevator.

At least the 80s were superficial to the point of excess, with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge attitude about it. The 90s undoubtedly produced the amazing Seattle Sound. What do we have to offer? I’m almost embarassed to say I’m growing up in the 2000s. We look to the past for inspiration but come up with nothing. There is literally no interesting music, literature, film, or at going on.

In the mainstream, at least. But then again, popular culture has never been a recess for intellectual stimulation, has it? I’ve gone to the underground, though lately even that’s become stagnant. You either have metalcore bands all doing the same “scream, fast, then melodic breakdown” style patterned after Killswitch Engage/As I Lay Dying or indie bands doing some awful pop about an obscure subject with beards and skinny jeans.

It’s almost like we won’t allow any new voices to break through and be heard. Perhaps we’ve arrived at point in our cultural history where we’ve xhausted all possible emotions and attitudes to be commonly expressed, and now the well is dry. We’ve been through the legendary excesses of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and now we just want a break.

I do have to say, however, that we’ve almost lapsed into a sociteal coma. It’s like we’re in a paralysis of the zeitgeist.

MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter seem to be the defining hallmarks of this generation that have popped up. We have left behind fashion and fads altogether and are losing ourselves in technology. But this has become such self-indulgent navel-gazing to where it doesn’t even comment on our collective mindfrane. Instead it serves as a glorious worshipping of the self.

In this postnodern age of ours, specifically this decade, it seems the most miniscule details of life are the object of worship. Do you think anyone really even cares that you had spagheti for dinner last night? Or that you gave a thumbs down to UFC on Facebook? Have we become that boring as a world? Really?

Remember those tea parties from earlier this year? (That’s how fast-paced our society is that I have to ask you to “remember” an event from a few months ago, but I digress.)

You had many conservative factions applauding the public’s right to assemble and protest their grievances. Then you had many left-wing commentators, the Daily Show in particular, mocking them and their perceived wealth and rectionary stance to Obama’s current administration.

As for me? I’m left with mixed feelings about this incident. And yes, this is a few months too late, but keep in mind I’m working through my backlog of topics right now. But, on one hand, I did vote for Obama and ultimately agree with his wideing of the goverment’s power to help us all.

Yet I can’t help with sympathize with the masses’ concerns. My Marxist leanings cause me to understand the average Joe (and Jane….not tryin’ to get all chauvinistic up in here), ironically enough. Perhaps they are picking up a scapegoat, someone who is trying to help them, oddly enough.

This whole dilemna is enough to send anyone’s head into a tailspin. As Jon Stewart so astutely noted, “The Democrats have become the man, and now the Republicans are the hippies.” How do you rebel when liberal causes are the norm? Support small businesses and unchecked profit, I guess.

What I am here to do is state I ultimately get these people’s frustrations. The economy is in the toilet and times are getting tough. People get scared and lash out. It’s what humans do. It’s not always pretty and it’s not always right, but as primal and savage beasts, it’s our “fight or flight” mode. If you go back through history, for all of our intellectual pounding of the chest, we’re a pretty reactionar species.

The common man has been forgotten and trampled on in these modern times. In lieu of romanticist odes commerating a humble steel mill worker’s exploits, we now have tabloids tracking celebirties every single self-destructive habits.

Gone are the days of George Washington and Honest Abe; now we have George Bush and Bill Clinton in their place. The honest policy makers who looked out for our good and fought for what was right in this country have been pushed aside for snide and slick con artists who are only out to make a name for themselves and establish power.

What of the countryside, the rural areas with their quiet atmosphere, calm homes, and sense of family community? Now we have alienating urban dwellings, with dilapidated buildings and cracked streets. We don’t walk next door to a neighbor’s house to tell him something. Now we just either call him on the phone or send him an e-mail (or worse yet, Twitter it….ugh.)

So even though I think they’re going after the wrong target, I ultimately can empathize with the common man’s frustrations. I have to ask, though, why are you going after a seemingly benvolent president who seems to have our best interest at heart? Where’s all that frustration reserved for the corporations that pulled the wool over our eyes and made off with our savings in the first place? How’s about pointing the finger at irresponsible greed-mongers and media outlets that give us the full scoop on all the corruption going on? Above all, where’s the general mood of outrage for a system that’s just totally faulty at the core?

And for all the liberals complaining about their golden sheep Obama being attacked, remember you did the same ting with Dubya.

In a way, I couldn’t imagine watching a professional wrestling broadcast without a commentary team. When I first came into wrestling, circa ‘98, I got used to the stylings of Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. They had such an interesting chemistry: Jim Ross was the straight play-by-play man, with football references and idisyncrasistic catchphrases galore. Jerry Lawler was the snide color commentator, offering wiity insults to the faces and salivating over the females (which is an annoying trait that grated on my nerves, even as an adult).

I think one aspect that is often overlooked in wrestling is commentary. It can honestly make or break a match. As great as a match is, what will really sell you on the drama is how the announcers handle it. They can add analysis to a match by describing a wrestler’s strategy or explaining the motivation of one’s gimmick.

What really helps is when a former wrestler joins the commentary team. This really adds depth and realism to a show, as they can accurately describe the pain of a certain hold or move, seing as they’ve felt it before. Taz and Matt Stryker are shining examples of this. The viewer inherently trusts them more, seeing as they’ve competed in the squared circle once before. They also offer the rare glimpse of personality, as Matt Stryker still retains some intellectual heel tendencies and Tazz still let his street-smart attitude reflect his style.

It goes without saying awfl commentary can truly grate on one’s nerves and almost make a fan want to change the channel. Mike Adamle was a recent infamous example of this, as his minute-round botchings of simple names and moves was enough to make me want to hurl something at the television. Michael cole must have naked pictures of someone in the higher office, because it astounds me he’s lasted as long as he has with the amazingly awful quality of his work (more on him in a later post).

It seems, in these later days, WWE has lost touch with the art of commentary. In place of titans like Gordon Solie or Gorilla Monsoon, we now have bland metrosexuals who spout the company line. They come in with Communicaton college degrees and (most likely) no knowledge of the product. They spout inane lines and repeat ad naseum the same frickin’ cliches over and over. They blindly root for the good guys and call the bad guys evil at every turn. This is likely a result of Vince wanting to cross over into the mainstream, in the worst way.

Well, that’s all for today at CC. Catch you tommorrow as I explain why I really just couldn’t hate the tea parties from a few months ago. Adios!

A recent trip around the Internet tells me Dutch Mantell is on the TNA booking team. This was an interesting discovery for me. Before hen, I really had no idea he was even employed by TNA, let alone writing their shows.

Let this be a lesson to all the smarks out there. We constantly point the finger of blame at Vince Russo every time we see yet another illogical storyline or absurd heel turn take place. So keep in mind Dutch Mantell should shoulder some of the blame as well.

And indeed, what of TNA? A promotion I love seems to slowly unravel itself week after week on their shows. It’s been said before, but it shall be restated in this blog: For every step forward they take back, they take two steps back.

I am not here to spew more negativity or random hatred: what I want to express is a sense of frustration as a fan who not only enjoys wrestling, but truly loves their product as well.

They strike me as a precoious big kid; they mean well but often trip over their big, clumsy, two feet. It’s like they have the right idea with their storylines, and one can obviously tell what direction they’re going in. They obviously want to give Eric Young a chance and they want to push A.J. Styles.

In the end, however, it’s always the Jeff Jarretts and Kurt Angles that inevitably end up getting the spotlight. So what do they need to do? Perhaps Russo and Mantell should talk it out and chart a clearly defined course they want the promotion to go in for the next 6 months or so. Lay it all out perfectly and precisely.

That being said, I just wanted to spotlight Dutch Mantell’s role in the course of events. Russo gets all of the venom, as usual, but don’t forget he’s got a helping hand back there.

Put away the community newspaper and check this out. This is a review of every play ever made, ever.

• You get to the place where it’s at, which happens to be an old abandoned warehouse that you’re not sure if they’ve legally rented or not. A few people hang outside smoking cigarettes. They have on tattered clothes and ruffled hair, and again you’re unaware if they’re part of the cast and that’s just how they’re normally dressed.
• You buy your ticket, which is printed on the back of a laminated insurance card. Once you take a seat some odd 50s pop music is playing, ostensibly to set the tone and mood of the performance. You think someone just left the radio on.
• A woman dressed in a knapsack walks out and breathes into the microphone for twenty minutes. Some in the audience chuckle as this is supposed to be funny. Others scratch their goatee (people in the audience always have goatees) as if in meaningful thought. You’re sure what to do or even what the hell is going on, so you laugh at all the serious parts and happen to ponder upon the more humorous lines. Everyone in the audience looks at you and immediately recognizes what an ignorant, uncultured philistine you are.
• After an hour of this another character wonders onstage. He is dressed in only underwear and chains. They trade diaologue that casts her as the dominant figure and he as a sort of underling/dog figure. They ask meaningless yes/no questions for a while as you try to play off checking text messages on your phone.
• Intermission finally comes up. You buy stale milkduds and lukewarm lemondade from some chick with blue hair. You stand in the lobby and listen to someone say either what a good actor so-and-so is or how interesting the plot developments are. You wonder when the hell you’ll get to go home.
• Act II is up! Once everyone files back in, a guy with thick, bouncy hair bangs on an acoustic guitar and reads a poem talking about how empty he feels after the “first war”, whatever that is. The life of the actual play seems to have acquired more energy this second go-round, or maybe the slow doldrums of insanity are setting in on you. Either way, the senselessness has acquired an odd taste of quirky appeal by now.
• Audience particpiation time! The actor on stage yells at the audience. Some people yell back, partly out of a desire to participate in the art, partly out of frustration, mostly out of pure boredom. A few select audience members are confused and thought this was a motivational speaking seminar, and thus rightly react out of disappointed rage. They reall need better GPS systems.
• Towards the climax and denounement, the play loses a lot of steam. The action gets “resolved” in a rather unsure manner, as one character either is shot/disappears/says something cryptic and that’ss it. If it’s a fancy production they a curtain call. If not, the actors just walk off the stage and pray to God the paying attendes catch on after a while that it’s ended. You get the feeling the playwright was either too fucked up on drugs to come up with a good conclusion, or the actors flat-out forgot their lines. Everyone’s too embarassed to say, however, so they just claim they appreciate its daring, avant-garde attitude.
• You have cme away from this play not with a profound paradigm shift concering your view of the human condition, but rather a “wtf” quality and a desire to never see pretentious bullcrap again. Congratulations! You’ve had your first (and probably) last taste of high culture and theater.

Well, that’s all for me. After insulting drama (which could be considered kicking a dog while it’s down), I’m on my way to a MMA cage fight. Enjoy yourselves, kiddies, and remember, don’t drink and drive. Get your drinking done first at home and then go out for a cruise on the town.

It is my unwavering and unquivering belief that health care should be socialized. I arrived at this conclusion after viewing Michael Moore’s Sicko. Before viewing his documentary, I thought of him as little more than a self-promoting rabble-rouser for otherwise good causes.

This view was destroyed when he assualted me with case study after case study. I learned to look beyond the hype and see what he was getting at with his (admitted) propaganda: that our system is severly hemorhagging and it needs to be fixed.

I came into this movie having already figured that, given that even though we’re suposedly #1 the super-best naton ever, those close enough to do so hop the border over to Canada to fix themselves up, or the general ill reputation afforded to hospitals in the first place.

But man, you really don’t realize how tragic some of these instances are when it comes to people who have health care—or even people who do have insurance and who get screwed over anyway in the name of profit.

When I say “socialize it”, Republicans will have a heart attack. People usually get this idea of everyone lining up in commie uniforms outside their local emergency room, in sinle-file line, because the thesis that all Americans should be afforded the inalienable right to not die or get sicknesses cured is just preposterous.

Look at the etomology of the word; social-ize. Social, as in everyone. Social, as in no one ets denied, regardless of income. Social, as in caring and qualified doctors will help you and not slash a needed surgery so the CEOs at the top can put stacks in their wallets.

Like education, health care is a basic human necessity. It’s not a luxury like a car or a watch and thus shouldn’t be scutinized on the basis of monetary gain like it’s a stock free for taking on the Wall Street market. If you privatize health care, everybody loses.

Because when HMOs and companies get a hold of it, the name of the game doesn’t become “let’s help cancer patients” or “we’re going to cure peole and prolong their health because as medical experts we truly give a damn“. It becomes what any other profit-driven entreprise is about…….cutting costs to esnure a return for the shareholders and people who run the business.

You can spin this any way you want, but check out this philosophy: Only those who have enough money should be able to have their basic health worked on. There it is, in the naked flesh. I will concede that there are some areas in which the free market principle can be applied: food (arguably, and even then I have a slight bone of contention to pick with that), TVs, toys, clothes even.

These are superfulous consumer goods that we can truly survive without (well, okay, food is kinda important). But you’re not truly suggesting that even the very factors of existance are up for a price, are you? Have we truly gotten that greedy and me-me-me-driven as a country?

Also, where do you think all this confusion and intimidating, Kafkaesque burlesque show of a system comes from? That’s what happens when you place something in the hands of a monolithic corporation. Bureucracy will ensue and here will be multiple levels of and chains of command, few of them agreeing with one another and making sense.

If we place this in the hands of our government (who we freely elected and are there to help us and aren’t going to raid our house at 3am in the morning and shoot our wife and dog if we trust them with a few huge areas/corerstones of life……calm down there, McRonPaul), there might be an actual *gasp* organized, friendly, efficient, and successful manner in which we get easily accesible and safe health care!

Before you bitch about how socialiZing health care will lead to the end of the USA as we know it, check out how Canada and Great Britain compare to us in terms of the impoverished and dying and how their doctors stack up to yours, and then report back to me.

As I said before, even if you do have insurance, that doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. You really think these privately-held companies care about you and your bum leg or broken ankle? Hell no, all they see are dollar signs.

First of all, before you come wandering in here and complain about a post, take notice of not only the name of this site, but READ THE DESCRIPTION OF THIS BLOG BEFORE YOU GET ANGRY. Sheesh.

And a shout-out to my boy Dr. faustroll, who will soon be leaving Toda.com for undisclosed reasons. You can catch him over at http://drfaustrollwritesthewrongs.com (imaginative URL, I know). Nice to see Today.com doesn’t let that pesky 1st amendment deal get in the way of good conten…

 What’s that? I’m sorry, readers, I’m being told to head into that gas chamber over there to the left. Hmm, wonder what’s in there.

Just kidding! I love Today.com so much! They’re an awesome hosting site oh crap please don’t cancel my account now guys I’m so sorry

I recently had the chance to read Stories Care Forgot, which is a collection of zines published circa pre and post-Katrina. It chornicles the adventures of various gutterpunks as they linger from dwelling to dweeling, loitering in any spot, eyeing up a abandoned house to squat in for the night.

As a local, I am quite frankly a bit sick and tired of seeing these wanna-be homeless kids come and pollte my city. New Orleans is an interesting haven for the free-minded and libertine, but they are just making this city look bad.

 Running into a few of them and conversin with them, I find they’re usually from nowhere boring cities like Kansas or Oklahoma where wearing a dreadlocked mohawk and not bathing for weeks on end is the only way to escape such humdrum suburban boredom.

A lot of these teenagers are just playing make-believe instead of being responsible and going out to get a job. Own up to your life, motherfuckers, and get your shit together. they think they’re sticking it to the Man, because as is plainly obvious, a kid in thrift store cargo pants sleeping on the street will surely bring down the corporate strangehold in this country. Thanks, pal!

It’s annoying to travel through the French Quarter and seeing them sluped over in a corner, begging for change, all the while trying to oad me with some smarky/sarcastic/atempt at being witty remark, thinking they’re clever rebels, when in fact they’re just fufilling a stereotype. Trying to guilt-trip into giving ou my hard-earned money, are you? I’m scrounging to get by and falling on hard times myself, why don’t you get off your ass and do something productve to fix this world you bitch so endlessly about?

They’re exactly like all the jocks and “conformisyts” they claim to rail against: all they truly care about is getting drunk and loaded. And they don’t even have the decency and independent drive to go out and get a job to buy their weed lke the rest of us!

A lot of them beg for money without even doig anything interesting. If they do try to show off their talents, it’s usall some awful song on a trashy acoustic guitar so horrendous Wesley Willis would take a big, fat dump on it.

They come over from their states and come and pollute our city. They’re just immayure brats who got spoiled by mommy and daddy and don’t want to grow up. Some of them are so irresponbsible they have children and raise them….right there on the street! That’s just disgusting and unforgivable to me. Enjoy your heroin, morons.

What’s funny to me is this book was marketed as the voices of New Orleans and yet a lot of the zinesters were out-of-tonwers who only stayed here a few months to a year and acted like it was their haven. Screw you and your fantasy of living this rock n’ roll punk lifestyle of sex, alcohol, and living in abandoned property. What about the blacks in the 9th ward who are actually poor and living on the poverty line? Why would you idolize and try to live such a hard and obviously undesriable lifestyle? They fell through the cracks of a failed system; you chose to do this because you’re a selfish navel gazer and want attention. What is wrong with you people?