I'm entering a new avatar. This latest phase involves me walking around a lot barefoot in old jeans and a t-shirt and saying "Dude" a lot. I'm listening mostly to classic rock recorded before 1984 and drinking cheap beer from cans and eating basic Lays potato chips.

This is probably the most cool avatar I've entered into. Although very unmotivated, I'm relaxed and just enjoying simple things in everyday life. I've been watching reruns of Magnum, P.I. almost religiously at 8 PM each night, but only because I find doing to so be ridiculous. I'm slowing down my mind for the next avatar. I'm also using a instamatic camera with replaceable flashbulbs to talk photographs of nothing.

Someone has been calling my home almost every night for the past two weeks from London, Ontario, Canada and not leaving a message. If this person is from here and looked up my phone number, well, I never answer my home phone due to my fear of telemarketers so leave a message. Everytime I see the number on caller ID, I get the urge to listen to The Clash's London Calling. Just so you know. Whoever you are, I hope you're sexy.

So, dude, listen, I might be going completely insane or I might be getting my sanity back. I'm like not sure. I'm thinking about giving some of these old cassettes in the closet a listen to since they've been ignored for so long. A lot of compilation tapes I made back in 1985 and 1986. Some of these contain stuff I haven't listened to in more than a decade. Like Adrian Belew's "Big Electric Cat." That like came out of nowhere, dude.

I'm not sure why we like to put ourselves in the position of running around in circles. It occurred to me that we live this stupid cycle that makes no sense. Year after year cycling through these same trumped up holidays. Fathers' Day? Valentines Day? Halloween? Christmas? Fourth of July? Once one is over and done with the cycle heads over to the next on the list. Is this what we live for? What's up with that, dude? Oh, are you going to have your annual Labor Day picnic again this year? Why don't you change it up a little, dude. Every day is a good day to be alive. Stop playing the cycle. Get out of the machine, dude.

Let's burn one and head down to the river. Remember when we used to talk about shit that meant nothing and it meant everything. We'd have a good laugh and we'd be like brothers and sisters dancing in the moonlight. No expectations. No bullshit. Just getting down to the dirt level before we started pretending we could dress in the costumes we wear to work. Life meant something when we were living it. Then we started planning for February White Sales like some sort of robots, doing what we always said we would never do. Down by the river, dude, we made some promises. I'm remembering them.

Dude, remember when we used to listen to the radio? Yeah, it was better back then, but that's not the point. Sometimes we'd throw a record on or slide a cassette into the deck in the car, but we'd listen to the radio. Now we burn CDs to play wherever we go so we only listen to the stuff we feel like listening to at the moment. Talk about clenching your asshole. We're so trained to just do what we like now, on demand. We forgot how to live. Dude, I'm going to listen to the radio for at least an hour every night and I'm not going to bitch about it either.

Look, dudes and chicks, I'm a freak and I am willing to admit it. I'm done playing the game. I'd rather get stupid than get back in the cycle again. I want to get a record player and put some of my old albums on again. Dude, I just got a really good deal on some Old Milwaukee cans, so if you want to primp and pose with your high class imported beer, feel free but I'm going to get my money's worth and wash the dirt down with some good old fashioned beer. Water, barley malt, hops and yeast, that's what they've got here in this can I'm drinking down. Cut loose. Break from the ordinary. Be the ball. I'm the fly on the windshield and I'll keep smacking into it and laughing it off. Thanks for not turning the wipers on, dude. I know you're all like into your new car with all its safety features and warantees and stuff, but I really couldn't give a damn. Loosen up before the rubber band in your mind snaps, dude.

Drug tests to get a job making eight bucks an hour stacking shit in a warehouse? No smoking in public places? What kind of shit is this? This isn't the world I know. This is a world taken over by those judgmental dudes and chicks who sit around at home watching "Must See TV" and the local news. These people have the power because we let them. Someone has to tell them to get over themselves. The other day on the news I saw some high school kid was killed because his compact car was crushed by a semi when he made an unwise lane change on the highway. The car was nearly crushed flat. What did the news talk about? "We are still investigating whether or not he was wearing a seatbelt." Jesus Christ, get over it, people. You're making fools of yourselves.

Back when I was in my early twenties, a wonderful girl named Terry was killed in a car accident one night. You know what, everyone was upset and sad that she died. She was young and it was tragic, but you know what, they let go and accepted it. They didn't spend weeks digging through her life on the news and talking about the ways in which she could have been saved. No one went on rants or crusades about anything. People die and people will continue to die. It is the way of things. Let us bury our dead and shut up about it already.

You know what? It is fun to break the rules. It gets the adrenaline flowing and reminds us we're alive. Dude, there are too many rules, from those we impose on ourselves to those others impose on us. Screw the rules. Respect each other and have a good time. Point? Why does there have to be a point?

We need to start living again instead of being these drones we've become. Ways to prevent death? Ways to be healthier and live longer lives? Ways to stop bad things from happening? Get right with yourself and live your life. Dude, I'm not insensitive, I've got a list of dead friends that at the very least could compete with yours. I've accepted that they are gone and I'm not wasting my life trying to "save other people from the same fate." That isn't the point, dude, I just don't want you getting your defenses up and shit.

Death happens, dude. So does life.

Life. Jump. Right. In.

Sing it like you mean it, dude. I'm nuts. Don't hold me responsible.

Strange week. Labour and the Tories get their arses handed to them in the UK local elections, the Tories say it's a victory for them, while Labour say they won't be changed from their course, saying "oh, it was just cause of the Iraq war", as if it was a totally separate entity that had nothing to do with them. So, public demonstrations against the war did nothing, the electorate effectively displaying a giant "fuck you" sign did nothing - what will it take to wipe the shit-eating grin off Tony's face? We'll see next year, come the general election. Keep smiling, Tone, enjoy it while it lasts.

In other news, a really old, ill man died. This wouldn't make page 27 of a local news rag if the man's name wasn't Ronald Reagan. And predictably as ever, the glowing eulogies start pouring in. Anybody who points out his mistakes and crimes in an attempt to show that he wasn't the son of god is condemned for "making fun" of Alzheimer's, or being "insensitive", don't we have a shred of decency, think of poor Nancy, the woman must have been through hell. And that makes everything he did okay, does it? Fair enough. It doesn't matter if he sent the National guard to fire tear gas at students demonstrating at Berkeley in 1969, invaded Grenada for kicks, ignored the AIDS crisis for years, sent CIA-trained counterrevolutionaries into Nicaragua resulting in many, many deaths and then illegally sent them money made on selling arms to Iran despite denouncing them as a terrorist nation (while at the same time supporting Saddam and ignoring his chemical weapon attacks, the ones Bush II was so upset about recently*), and then lied about it - he had Alzheimer's, and then he died, and Nancy was brave about it, therefore Ron was a wonderful human being. Anyone who even mentions any of that other stuff is making fun of the old, infirm or dead - this man was a SAINT, man, a SAINT, and who the hell are you to bring up every little thing from his past, jesus, everyone makes mistakes, can you look me in the eye and honestly say you've never illegally funded a glorified death squad? No? I didn't fucking think so. Christ, if I had a penny for every death squad I've sent on a killing spree, I'd have a heck of a lot of pennies, word up. Yes, of course. So before you get all dewy-eyed at what a wonderful president he was, look at the facts, and not at your rose tinted view of history.

And finally, shockingly, in one piece of news that actually gives me hope, Michael Moore's new documentary "Fahrenheit 911" gets a fantastically enthusiastic review - from Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122680,00.html. Yes, the world has officially ended. Well done to the reviewer for being objective (and no, he's not a liberal, he didn't like Bowling for Columbine, and has some valid criticisms), who is either clearing out his desk now, or being whipped by Murdoch's stormtroopers. And before all the Moore-bashers ("he lied! he lied about... something...") descend on me, do your research first, and back up what you say. Don't just present me with a link to www.michaelmooreisafatliarhereistheproofipulleditoutofmyarse.com - websites devoted to attacking somebody are hardly a reputable source.



* Why wasn't I protesting when Saddam used those chemical weapons on the Iranians? Because I was 12. I was mainly concerned with watching the A-Team and wanking (not at the same time, except just that one time when B.A. got all wet and angry). I was 12, and at the time, I thought that the TV news and newspapers told the truth.


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