THE EARTH MOVES UNDER MY FEET...

Most of what I think about is a colossal waste of time... of course, if you've ever seen this website before, you already know that.

I have to assume it has a lot to do with being one of the first wave of the cable TV generation- the first where popular folk heroes weren't Daniel Boone or Johnny Appleseed, but were instead Sgt. Slaughter and The Hamburgler, and instead of idolizing astronauts or the president, we spent time sitting in front of the TV, thinking it would be pretty cool to grow up and be a mutant tortoise who fights ninjas.

So- as an after affect of the brain-sludge I found filling my information-collecting apparatus as a child, I now find that much of my readily accessible knowledge is absolutely and utterly worthless. In fact, most of it was probably originally dreamed up to sell something to somebody... that is, after all, what "pop culture" IS when you get right down to it, isn't it?

As I wander the streets with little aim in particular aside from eventually being at my apartment, I occasionally catch myself thinking about these useless, trivial things.

Meanwhile, on a half-glance at the sidewalk, I have to stop for a second and think of the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of tiny fleeing bugs and creatures I'm inadvertently squashing the life out of as I dopily lope along trying to remember the name of the guy that was on both Bonanza and Battlestar Galactice (it was Lorne Greene. I have his country record!) Refocusing on this for a moment makes me realize how absolutely ridiculous and unfair "life," in all its forms, is. Tiny, harmless bugs go about their short lives with few purposes, but they're damned dedicated to them- collecting and eating food, building intricate dwellings and having sex with other bugs... um... that's kind of it for most of them. Meanwhile, we humans thunder around without a care in the world, undoubtedly destroying countless tiny civilizations on our way to go buy a Jamba Juice because, hell, we thought it sounded good after sitting on the couch watching "Maude" reruns all afternoon.

Humans have all the power in the world. We have the capacity to beat the life out of most of the other creatures on the planet to death. Those we can't pummel, we've been endowed with the ability invent elaborate contraptions to kill them so we can hang their heads in our trophy rooms, devour their bodies, or just because 'fuck 'em. And yet, when finding oneself all wrapped up in the endless layers of bullshit we've created to keep ourselves fat, happy, and entertained, it's easy to forget that, like those little bugs, our main purposes are the same- nourishment, shelter, and procreation.

Suddenly, everything seems like it'll be OK. After all, you should be smiling: You're a human being! You can choose HOW you want to waste your life instead of being a small, nearly unseeable bug smashed to death under the proverbial boot heel of a guy absent mindedly walking down to Ace Hardware to buy a bathtub stopper.

TAKE IT LIKE A MAN-GOAT

I hate being hot.

But I don't mean like regular kinda hot, I mean like flaming, sticky sweaty, pit-soaked hot. That absolutely god-awful feeling of having every last molecule of moisture squoze from your red, irritated body.

But perhaps more than oppressively humid, swamp-ball heat, I have a strong dislike for the people that seem thoroughly unphased by it. It's as though they are lizards, happily baking themselves on a sandstone outcropping, rollerblading around the city in tiny, upsetting stretchy shorts and those god awful muscle shirts that are held on with two thin straps of poly-cotton. As I slowly lope around, as thoroughly soaked with my own juices as if I had just fallen off a ship, or were in the midst of being hickory-pit roasted, sweat pouring directly into my eyes from the exertion of doing little more than just pointing my body in a certain direction and continuing to pilot it that way, these people are out running, doing jumping jacks, or lifting pallets of bricks up over their heads, looking at me with a face that says "You god damn baby. It's just heat! Enjoy this life while you can, you sad giant man." This, of course, stirs up a stew of emotions in my giant god damn man-baby, human-hating self.

So every summer, I trudge around sweating my balls off in a state of unimaginable discomfort, while the attractive people of the world swish and swirl past me, laughing or looking scornful, enjoying their svelt, athletic selves, while I sweat profusely (mainly from my head) imagining the beer I will be drinking as soon as I'm back in the safety of my own air conditioned home (it's worth every penny.)

But... you know what else is hot, comfortable, attractive people? Hell. Hell is hot.

I will do everything in my power to live a better life from here on out. 'Cause I'm willing to bet Heaven is air conditioned all the time, and nobody has to pick up the check.

SECOND STAR TO THE RIGHT AND STRAIGHT ON 'TIL MORNING

This week, in an elaborate world-wide televised spectacle, we as a planet said goodbye to Michael Jackson.

Not only did MJ make some damn fine records 25 years ago (and only the records from 25 years ago), but he was one of the world's most incredibly fascinating crackpots, whose fame and fortune drove him to a Willy Wonka-like level of eccentricity we are likely to never see again. Everyone on the face of the planet could point to a picture of Michael Jackson and tell you who it was. Studies have shown people in far-flung secluded villages in South America and Africa with few ties to the outside world knew who Michael Jackson was. I read a study years ago that said the three most recognizable people in the world were Mickey Mouse, Pope John Paul II, and Michael Jackson. Seriously.

I had "Off the Wall," I had "Thriller," and I had "Bad." If you were alive in the 80's, you had one or all of those records- it was practically dogma that you MUST own them. Being a product of 80's and not having Micheal Jackson records was like being a fundamentalist baptist minister and not owning a Bible. Michael Jackson was super-human, sharing a level of fame amongst the youth population on par with Chewbacca, E.T. and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The difference was that MJ was an actual person, though, growing up playing "Moonwalker" at the pizza parlor and waiting in line for Captain EO at Disneyland, you'd never KNOW he was real.

The 90's swept in, we learned it didn't matter if you were black or white, that MJ wanted to own the Elephant Man's bones for some reason, and we patiently watched myriad gags to the point of extreme staleness about him and his pal Bubbles every place imaginable, from late night talk shows and the Simpsons to Full House and Perfect Strangers. Michael responded: "Leave Me Alone." What a sweet video that was.

Time marched on, us 80's kids hit high school, then college, only catching snapshots of MJ on the news here and there, generally capturing something unspeakably weird- oh, he married Elvis' daughter? That makes sense, I guess. Did he molest a kid? Multiple kids? Probably not, but hey... the guy owns several giraffes; by the time you get to that level of fame and wealth it's gotta be hard to find new kicks. Say! There he is hanging Blanket the baby out a window and waving at French people! Why's he wearing an oxygen mask? Ah well- dude can do whatever he wants. He made "Thriller."

Michael Jackson reached a level of crazy super-fame (and super-fame-related craziness) that we will NEVER see again. Ever. It is nigh impossible, lest Jesus himself should return, that our A.D.D. culture will aim the camera at a person long enough for them to hit the super-human Jackson level of fame. And really, if Jesus did come back, he'd probably be bumped off the news after a day or so once the next season of American Idol starts. Then he'd have to try out on the show to get the world's attention back, in what would undoubtedly be the most watched event ever in the history of mankind: Jesus Christ meets Paula Abdul.

Celebrity in the modern age is accessible to all ("Hey man- did you see that wacky cat guy video on YouTube? Aw, he's awesome!" 2 weeks later "What about a cat guy?") which is in and of itself kind of cool, I suppose, but as everybody's 15 minutes of fame gets whittled down 10 minutes, then 5, then 1 minute and 38 seconds, really looking back on Michael Jackson makes a person wish we could go back to the days when people had to EARN their fame and live with it. And we could watch them live with it, front-yard Ferris wheels, wall-sized paintings of themselves as Peter Pan, crazy kid-themed mansions and all.

Let's fast forward 40 years or so, and say Paris Hilton dies. Will there be this level of global outpouring of sympathy? No way in hell. "Who's 'Justin Timberlake'? Hey- check out this new video I found of a dog eating an entire pie! That dog is AWESOME! He's going to be on the news later!"