Your Dirty Windows

The on-set of FaceBook, MySpace, SpaceBalls, BallBook, MyFaceOnBalls, BallFace, BallSpace, and CuteOverload.org all funnels into the same market of the 'net now known as "Social Media." We decide, choose, and connect how we wanna connect. You can't force somebody to be your friend on the 'net. There's no booze, no coke, no lingering feelings of parental neglect. No immediate pay-off to a relationship. So superficial. So 2009.

I wanna be your on-line friend, so I can stalk you from afar, and you can see how fat I got after Senior Year. Which, if I had to do over again, I would skip WAY more often. The schooling, not the fatness. Wow. My kids are skipping whether they like it or not. I'll force my kids to skip HOME Schooling and go hang at the local alternative high for crap's sake. FOR CRAP'S SAKE, MARC, YER TAKIN' THE PISS! Now, as people carry on posting pictures of their lives, we get a peek into what's important to them. And it varies up the scale of age.

Family and Married People post pics of their kids. If I want somebody to see my kids, I'll hold my kid over the balcony, thank you. But DAMN, my family and friends put out some really cute kids (NIECES PIECES RILEY!). Okay, fine. Now the "internet public is clamoring for more of the Obama's Daughters!" Bigger than Miley Cyrus!?!?! Not at WalMart! Not yet...

Single people post pictures of places they got drunk, taken while they were drunk in those places. Bathing suits on the hotties. Self-pics. Double-fisting (that oughtta get some hits). LOTS of hugs.

Anybody still in high school, emotionally anyway, posts pics they take of theyselves and they friends and they partying in a car, throwin' finger signs and being awesome. What-what? No. No.

So, now that we have a billboard unto the world to tell 'em all what we're about? We have unparalleled access and capability to say "CHECK ME OUT." And while people become their own paparazzi, I'm just not seeing much that's exciting enough to tune back in for. And THAT banality is exactly what is so intriguing!

Please, keep doing what you're doing, and posting the photographic evidence of your life. Someday, we'll look back and remember how great you could have been, until you came down with autophotoluciopia... Blindness caused by taking pictures of yourself because you don't have any actual friends to snap one for you, fart-saver.


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My Blog About My Dad

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While at a baby shower a couple years ago, among other places that burn a hole in your soul... CUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!... I noted what appeared an insane number of inane photographs being snapped. A woman with a digital camera was snapping pics every 5 seconds, from a package being picked up, to the hand-off, to the faces of the mom and her couch-neighbor being explained-to what the package was... LET HER OPEN THE GIFT, DUMMY... basically 5 pics of every gift-opening. Why not just buy a video camera? Friggin' flip-book of banality.

In December, while I was in Vegas, I strolled everywhere on the strip and saw where people took pics. Some of the pics, sure, great opportunity. The Tour d'Eiffel at Paris. A view of New York-New York from across the street, it's massive. The gold Lion on the corner of the MGM Grand.


But in front of the M&M Store? It's 4 floors of retail space dedicated to all things M&M. Like, THE CANDY. I get the opulence and extravagance of Las Vegas. I understand the M&M store is a somewhat-welcome bastion of innocence in the middle of a city that promotes excess and addiction as though they were life support... which they can be... but as a tourist destination, hmmm...

Doug: "So, uh... Gary... I don't know if I told you this. About 2 weeks ago, when I was in Las Vegas?"
Gary: "Dude, if you tell me what I think you're gonna tell me, don't tell me. I don't want this on my conscience."
Doug: "Listen. I went to the M&M Store."
Gary: "Doug, I am calling BULL'S SHIT on that far-out line of storytelling."
Doug: "Wanna make it interesting?"
Gary: "Yeah, dick eyes. $10! You can't prove it!"
Doug pulls out his digital camera

Doug: "BOO-YES, CheeseSkids! GIMME MAAAH MOE-NAAAAY!"
Gary: "Daaang! You do live the high life."

Now, please explain why this picture was on the internet, twice now...
This young man is either
1) Not of legal drinking age
2) Foreign
C) Recovering from brain reconstruction surgery
IV) Not worried about girls, they'll see THIS picture and realize what a sweetie he is and finally give up the lovin'.
FIVE) So tooted up on 'shrooms he thinks he's getting a picture with "the chick from the Greek Wedding movie."

I guess I just can't stand the posed pictures, they're so fake and ugh.

As odd as it sounds, I do wish that I had taken a picture of myself the moments after finding out my dad died. That depth of emotion, that moment my heart bottomed out, THAT was Life. That was an end-point of the spectrum of feelings by which all others would be measured. It would have captured a lot, from sadness to love.

So please, before snapping that next picture, ask yourself... why am I sitting in this van with a rainbow wig and a lightbulb in my butt's hole?


Take Me Home

My Blog About My Dad