R.I.P. Greg

As I sit here watching The Daily Show, I heard Jon Stewart mentioned the death of comedian Greg Giraldo; at first, I assumed he was joking, but since my laptop was next to me, I decided to check online and it turned out to be true. As a fan of all comedy, I know of him and his comedy and personally, I found him to be very funny. He was a veteran of Comedy Central; one thing he was known for was his numerous appearances on Comedy Central Roasts. He was a "lesser known" comedian (and other comedians would mention that in there own routines), but believe me when I say that he was good. He died on September 29 due to an overdose on prescription drugs; he usually joked about his drug addiction in his stand up routine, so I can't say that I didn't see it coming. To me, this is another sign of the world ending; the economy is crap, the Tea Party is getting bigger, the world is running out of helium, and now Giraldo is dead. The comedy world has suffered a great loss, and the world is laughing a little less. Greg Giraldo, you will be missed; Comedy Central's next roast just won't be a roast without you.

Possum kicking! Are you f***ing serious?

All my life, I’ve been surrounded by rednecks, both in my school and family. At a certain point, I tried being more of a redneck, and I somewhat succeeded, but I just didn’t have that redneck mindset (meaning that I actually like using my mind). Other than my Social Anxiety, the fact that basically everyone’s basic activities are hunting, fishing, chewing, drinking, mudding, and whose only political concerns are guns and skin color (sorry Obama) has made it hard for me to fit in. There’s one other rural activity I learned about a while back that can be added to the list, and it’s “Possum kicking”. I thought it was a joke when my friend told me about this idiotic and cruel game, but unfortunately, it is no joke. The way this game is played is that teams are split and people drive around a wooded area (likely drunk) looking for possums so they can run up to them and “kick the crap out of them”. Possums are worth one point, and raccoons are worth two; whoever has the most points wins. Personally, I’ve always hated living where I live and I hope to leave as soon as possible, but hearing about this display of cruelty just makes me more anxious to leave this place in my rear view.

First Week at McDonald’s

As the title suggests, I have just completed my first week at McDonald’s. It felt weird since I haven’t had an actual job in over a year, mainly due to high school and this ‘losing game’ know as the economy. I’ve applied for numerous positions in both Chester and Red Bud, but in the end, Red Bud McDonald’s was the only place to call back. Everyone who works there seems nice, I just hope that it lasts. The only part I didn’t enjoy was having to shave off my chinstrap, but in life, you have to make sacrifices. On my first days of the ‘hands on’ training, I was nervous as hell, but luckily Scott from my Philosophy class was my trainer for the day. What I think is cool is that there’s this other new guy whose from India; his name is Utsuv (pronounced “oots-uv”, I’m fairly certain). First a Nigerian Geography teacher and now an Indian coworker,I have to say that after growing up surrounded by nothing but racist redneck idiots, even a little bit of diversity is just refreshing, but that’s another blog. Overall, I’ve learned a lot from my first week, and even if I had anything negative to say about McDonald’s, I wouldn’t because that wouldn’t be safe for work.

Popeye Picnic

This weekend, the 31^st Annual Popeye Picnic was held in Chester, IL. The picnic is held every second weekend of September, which in this year, was on the 10th, 11th(which felt a bit awkward), and 12^th, ranging from Friday evening to Sunday evening. The picnic is held in honor of Popeye the Sailor Man, who was created in Chester by Elzie Segar. Chester, by the way, is one of two towns in Illinois to be the origin town of a famous cartoon icon, with the other town being Metropolis, which, If you haven’t guessed by now, is responsible for Superman.

Friday night usually goes pretty slow with not as much people around, but that means the rides aren’t as crowded; Saturday morning is alright if you want to see the parade, but speaking from a personal stand point, sleeping in is way better, especially when you’re too old to catch the candy thrown by the paraders. Saturday night is the best time forgoing to the picnic; the band is playing, more familiar people show up, and I witnessed a drunk fight/arrest. Sundays,however, are especially slow.

 I went to an event they have every picnic Saturday called “Cartooning with the Pros”. I’ve been going to it since I was ten, and I brought back a prize each time.

Overall,  it can be a good time for anyone, no matter how drunk or sober.

The Big Davitzski

Today I’ve done something that strikes me as both cool and uninteresting; I went to Dudeism.com and became an ordained dudeist priest.

Dudeism is a religion/philosophy that resulted for the 1998 movie The Big Lebowski. This movie, with the casting of Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Bushemi, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, and Sam Elliot (as a cowboy, what else), is about Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, a typical hippie slacker with an easy going approach to life who gets roped into a crazy scandal after some thugs mistake him for a millionaire (and one of them urinated on his rug, which really “tied the room together”), but despite the insane series of events, he keeps his lazy, harmonious state of mind in tact. The cult following (‘cult’ probably isn’t the best word to use when talking about a religion, but I digress) that resulted from this film was mainly do to the likeability of “The Dude” and his philosophy of kicking back and enjoying life. This philosophy led to the creation of Dudeism. Dudeism is basically a modern combination of Taoism and Buddhism (Buddhism, Dudeism, get it). Dudeists believe that ‘taking it easy’, and not stressing out is the best way to be happy, not to mention doing what you enjoy. For example, The Dude enjoys, white russians, marijuana, listening to music, and bowling; that doesn’t mean you have to, just do whatever makes you happy (unless it’s criminal). To me, this is a good religious and philosophical direction to go in, simply because dudeist won’t nail anyone to a wooden cross, put together an inquisition, or commit genocide via plane crashes because those thing go against the good willed nature of Dudeism. Becoming an ordained dudeist priest is easy, literally anyone can do it, all I had to do was point and click.It really isn’t something to take too seriously, but it shouldn’t be too hard to preach Dudeism, because I just did; and to all you bible thumpers who are probably planning to write nasty comments against my ‘blasphemy’, just listen to this: Many religious figures are considered dudeists due to their philosophical zen, ecspecially Jesus Christ. So in conclusion, being ‘Dude’ doesn’t mean you’re an unambitious, lazy slacker, it just means that you can kick back and enjoy the little things in life, and in a way, isn’t that all any of us wants, dude.

P.S. I decided that “The Big Davitzski” would be my title since believe it or not, that was my families surname back in Poland, but despite being Davitzski and Polish, I can find any evidence of Judaism in my family, go figure.