The nice thing about being violently sick for about a week is that your abs will look great.

And the nice thing about the economy being shit is that it's hard for you or anyone else to tell if you're bad at life or if the economy is just shit.

And the good thing about having friends who are getting married, having kids and becoming totally unrelatable is that you can take comfort that in 18 years their kid is just one more person you can have sex with that they can't. Like their mom or their sister. Also, they'd be cheating on their spouse. Bet now they feel dumb for going off and growing up.

The great thing about dating a vegetarian is that whatever they order is usually cheaper than whatever you order. Enjoy your fries.

The nice thing with living with your relatives is if they die, you've got that squatters rights thing going for you when it comes time to look at the will.

And the good thing about writing a shitty blog entry is fuckit, I'm stoned.

Optimism.

So I got re-upped on my SG membership by an anonymous benefactor who has yet to step forward and claim their good deed.
It's blowing my mind because who do I know would do such a nice thing without claiming the full glory of their benevolence? Is this a trap? I bet you anything this is a trap.
It's because I like to secretly incorporate my internet passwords and credit card numbers in my SG blog entries, isn't it? Oop. Watch out for them. They're sprinkled all over the place. R4gnarok.

So then. Blog. Fuuuuck.

I'm not much of a blogger anymore. (Can I imagine that someone gave me my gift because they loved my whimsical writing?) Since the last post in my ill-begotten exodus to Long Beach I've had a lot of experience with life kicking the shit out of me. Pummeled the last of my dwindling hubris. I no longer think of blogging as a touch typing exercise that's useful in showing off whatever witticism I think I've thought up. Now I don't write unless I really think I have something to write about. And since I give all of my ideas about a 1/4th of their original retail value, I usually end up writing about Apple.

Because even if I'm not cocky, I'm still Apple smug.
I remember back in 93 when people didn't know who Steve Jobs even was. Now everyone knows he's Jesus. How much fun is that? Imagine if you were follower of Jesus (this feels weird to type in consideration of my deeply held ((unless I'm really up shit-creek)) Atheism) back in the day and you thought you had this insider knowledge that just made you so badass. At least none of the apostles lived to see Catholicism get a real following. Bet they thought had found some real tuned-in dude with some expansive, ground breaking ideas and it gets big, gets corporate, turns into everything they hate.

And that's the story of how Apple turned into the RIAA.

But I digress.
I've been given this membership with no idea why. I don't know if it's because someone wants company on the site, or if someone I know has become an SG and they wanna know if I'll figure it out (I have an ex who made a looming threat to do that), or because someone liked my writing or if The Fates were sitting around doing paperwork and one of them flipped a page, double checking their numbers:
FATE 1: Oh shit. Look at this. Our figures are off. We totally fucked Atom too hard this year.
FATE 2: Who?
FATE 1: Look. This guy. Remember? We did the Long Beach thing, then the Texas thing, then the car thing, then the---
FATE 2: Oh yeah. Right. I remember. How much are we over?
FATE 1: (Scanning over the paperwork again. Breathes out a whistle) A LOT.
FATE 2: Get him an SG membership. That'll even it out. But do the paperwork. I don't want come across him again and end up doing him another favor.
FATE 1: That's brilliant! Because--
FATE 2: --If we do anonymously he'll think that someone out there loves him. Yeah, you act like we've never sent anyone chocolates in the last several thousand years.
FATE 1: No, I know--It's just, I like the modern touch.
FATE 2: You roll with the times. It's 2009, baby. Set it on fire.

--Fin--

But on the off-chance it's for someone like my spastic writing, I'll write.

Haven't blogged on Sg for a little while because, you know, what's the point?
I feel like an old scenester when I think about SG. You know, back in the day, it really used to be about the COMMUNITY. Or maybe it's just Long Beach. Maybe the locals are evasive online as they are in the walking world.

But that it not this.
This is a story of my possibly misguided pride in being a savage artist of sorts.
I called wacom, the people who make the drawing tablets, to find out if it was possible to change out the nubs on the tips of the pens for my tablet, because I was tired of buying new pens ($35 dollars) when I wore through the nub. I saw that they sold the nubs, but no amount of twisting in my teeth or with tools revealed any opening to these expensive components.

So I say all that to my customer service rep, who was cracking me up. I told him, I was tired of buying pens every year and a half just because the nub was worn down.

"Every year and a half?"
"Yep."
"You're kidding me?"
"Sometimes faster, if I'm doing a lot of graphic work that year."
"Are you some kind of eight foot tall monster?"
"Uhm, no. Would there be a discount if I was?"
"Our most exhaustive users take double that to wear them down. Do you eat the ends."
"No. I eat real pens. Never digital ones."
"You must draw with some kind of savagery I've never seen if you're burning through them that fast."

I guess I am. I guess I'm a savage artist. But maybe I'm just heavy handed, because I usually pound a keyboard into being inoperable every several years too.

So. Gotta buy a new pen. But it came with a free twisted compliment.

Dear Long Beach,

Sorry about last night, but I'm told I had a great time.

Yours in regained sobriety,
-Atom

So- bizzare thing:

I woke up this morning and threw my shit on and hopped in the car to begin my bitch of trek out to the valley (from long beach, 2 hours each way) and I was about 40 minutes in when it occurred to me:

Hey, I've not even thought about a cigarette yet.

I figured I might as well. Have all this time to kill...
But it tasted like poison. Insecticide and for some reason I imagined crushed bug legs. I took an extra drag just to check it out. Battery acid. I stubbed it out and chugged water to try and wipe the taste off my tongue.

So I get to work 20 minutes early and I don't have keys yet, so I'm just hanging out in the parking lot, sketching out some ideas. Makes for a good time to take another crack at that cigarette. Don't get a lot of chances when I'm in there. Terrible. The second I brought it to my lips, even before it was blessed with flame.
But I struggled through it on principle.

At lunch, I didn't even bother.

On the ride home I tried again. Not as though I wanted one, but I was weirded out.
Dinner from a drive through and half a drag from a cigarette. I had managed to smoke all of one.
I figured; it's gotta be the pack. Right? Poison pacK?

Get home and throw my bags down, grab my compadre and pull him outside for an experiment. I take one of his cigarettes and give him one of mine. I say nothing about the experiment.
Mine gives him no reactions, while his taste just as horrible to me as mine did.

What the fuck? Am I randomly cured? Did I just wake up disgusted? How the hell does that happen. No one even asked me if I wanted to quit.

Weird, no?

I just got my best million dollar idea yet.
FAAAAHHHHKKK.

It's not necessarily what I want to be known for.
I just wrote a little play about the near future. It goes like this:

Adam is walking down the street, tripping over himself because he's messing with his phone and not paying attention.

Suddenly, he's caught by his forearm by randon stranger passing the other direction.

Random person: Oh my god, you're the guy who makes________?! I love my__________!

Me: Fantastic. Good to hear. Yeah, that was my idea and now it's my day job. Woo-ha. Responsibility. Weeee. Glad you like your___________.

There's so many other things that couldn't possibly make any money that I'd rather be doing.

Of all the things you can make, money is one of the least interesting.
Everyone's going to love this. This thing is fucking fool proof.
Shit. Shit. Shit.

The idea of being trapped into any job, even a good one, scares me.

The Tax Man gets a new pair of clothes
It's a little game I play when I'm in the car on my long drive to work listening to NPR, it's called; "If I Were President..."

And like most things I start, I usually end up getting way too involved. I'll take an issue and think about it for days. During lunch I'll grab a coke and start researching the options, just so I have a more informed stance in my little headgame that I rarely mention to anyone else.

One of the most obnoxious things a person can say out loud is; "If I were president..." and then with sweeping gestures make an armchair assessment of complicated issues and decree some asinine, simple solution. So I just don't say it out loud much.

But on the way to work I caught a little blip of an interview with Mike Huckabee, which, though he's a conservative, fundamentalist republican (and those are three very important tags working against him in my book) I find him likable. Despite all that. Whatever voodoo he's managed to hone seems to work on me when I'm listening. (I'm easily swayed temporarily)
Fuck. I can't even remember most of what I find tolerable in him. I think it's mostly the sense of balanced perspective that he seems to give off. Not like FOX balanced, but like, the real deal.

His thing that he was talking about this morning was the elimination of income tax altogether, in favor of "fairtax" which is spin title for it's true definition; consumption tax. Mike wants to do away with the IRS.

Shit. So do I. I owe them something like 4,000 dollars and all I want is for them to go away. Me and Mike are on the same page here.
Sort of. It's his uber progressive idea. He only brings it out every now and then. For the most part, he totes making Bush's tax cut program permanent, and eliminating "marriage penalty" The Fairtax is more like his pet project.

The argument is that with the endless shelters and complicated tax codes set up, the rich get it easy while the poor, without their team of accountants, bear the brunt of the burden. I completely agree with this, and in one of my many sessions of my little NPR game, I've been trying to think of a way to "straighten that mess out." The fairtax concept existed before Huckabee, but I never really paid much attention to it. It seemed too simple.

His pitch gets even more la-la landish when saying that every month everyone would be given a check on purchases up to the poverty line, meaning that people at or below the poverty line won't be taxed at all. Okay. That's weird. How would that work? Would they track all of your purchases? Are you going to have to be sending in your receipts somewhere? Isn't that another level of dangerous data gathering? How do they figure that?
AAAAAAAAnnnnnnd, the tax apparently only applies to new goods, so used goods items don't get taxed (?) All my thrift stores in the house say "Ho."

So how the hell is the government going to get any money? Even at it's massive increased rate of sales tax (approx. 34% by some accounts 23% by others) It still doesn't seem like the government is going to rope in enough. And you know that Richie Rich and Fatcat Fraternity will still find a way to work around that. Specialized bulk buying groups with membership requirements which allows for them to get the item at a steeply discounted rate, and to share the cost of the consumption tax. Think a Costco club membership with elected item purchases, not for profit and not for your poor ass. The poor could do that too, but only theoretically. Or, with their team of accountants without shit to do, they could set to work finding the loopholes that make a "damaged item" useless for sale, to be written off and "unloaded" at straight cost value to "damaged goods" reseller that would probably fall under used items. And once again, not for you. You don't get the Lexus with the invisible dings. And I don't even have that sharp of a criminal mind. But I bet the black market of stolen goods that would undoubtedly escalate does.

Bu the rich don't even have to do that. It's a fact that most of the poorer populace spends 100% of their income. No room for savings. Shit, I do that a week and a half into every paycheck. I rarely make to the next pay period with a little extra change in my pocket. The upper middle class spends saves about 20% and the rich, being so damn rich, could well get away with spending lavishly and still spend only 10% of their yearly income. So the poor get taxed completely on all of their earnings, the middleclass, 80% of their earnings and so on and so on.

But I guess there's a counter argument to that. If I made a little more that wasn't automatically withdrawn from the government, I might be able to save it. There's the reimbursement check (how the fuck does that work again?) from the government up to the poverty line spending (what?) and then there's my option to buy used goods. I theoretically COULD save. Especially if I decided not to buy shit.

But therein lies another problem. While the current earnings tax discourages working and saving, consumption tax surely discourages spending. Which is financially responsible, but economically dangerous, don't you think?

Which brings me back to my original question of how this could work at all.
I so so so wanna clap my hands and believe.
Oh, might add the my favorite guy, Gravel, also supports this.
Just now realized that.

I'm gonna go watch some youtube videos and keep trying to figure this out.
Because when you're all by yourself in a new city, this is how you spend your friday nights.
I might get real crazy and go see a movie too.
Woop woop.

My compadre has this kid. Little red-headed freckle faced girl. Five or something.

He was just talking to her and out of nowhere, she just says "Abbra Kadrabra! Hearts come out. I'm going to kill the lego mouse!"

What a bizzare child. I love that kid.

When we told her that we were coming out to LA to do a horror movie, she volunteered her own script:

"I'm a slug. I have a knife. I killed myself for Christmas."
Please understand that this is a happy, bubbly child. Always smiling and laughing.

She's just a dark poet.

So I did something dumb.

Took my compadre to the strip club that's literally across the street from my little office because I wanted to do something on a saturday and it was the closest bar to us.

Bought him several secret room lap dances as I made my way through my beers and his, refusing the advances of the strippers that chanced by. I never had a lap dance. It's an industry. It's a job. Why would I care any more than they do? To me, it was just an evening of expensive drinks and even more expensive entertaining for him.

Now I'm x amount in the hole for his stupid happy grin and that much less towards procuring a real apartment as opposed to the sleeping bag I'm enjoying at the kindly benefactors house I'm abusing.

And even his stupid grin wasn't worth the cost incurred. Several drinks later and his truth-in-wine revealed that he's ready to move back to the midwest and leave me out here alone. Though, honestly I don't think that's such a bad idea for him. He's encountered nothing but a string of bad luck since he's crossed the state lines. Me? I'm doing okay. Decent job. Little bit of wallet funds. Opportunities abound. Not so with him. I wouldn't blame him.

So maybe that was my send off for him.
Maybe that was my expensive goodbye.
Maybe it wasn't dumb. But as my accountant, I disagree.

I always come back. Time to poke around and see what's changed...