Anti-Blog Brakes

Relationships Need Anti-Blog Brakes



“When your life has hit the skids / wave goodbye to the wife and kids / I’m ready to move in to a perfect world!” ~~ Guttermouth



So I was racing to work, a bit late as usual, and I swerved into the parking lot, which was covered with ice and shit.

Not that it was literally covered with shit, mind you. That was a euphemism for “all the funky brown sludgy crap that a snowfall leaves in a parking lot.”

Regardless, it was all slick and crazy, and I slammed on my brakes. Now, if you don’t already know, I drive a sleek, powerful, genuine (pronounced, “Jen-you-wine”) American muscle car. Yep, my station wagon is equipped with all the modern amenities, like “radio” and “power windows.” Included in this bundle of joy was the “anti-lock brake” feature, which means I no longer have to pump my brakes to stop on slick surfaces. Thanks to the miracle of modern automobile engineering, all I had to do was grip the wheel tightly, slam my foot on the brake pedal and stare in petrified horror as my car jerked toward a brick wall.

But at least it made that comforting grinding noise.

Between the moment when impact seemed inevitable and the moment when I realized the car stopped mere millimeters from the wall, I had the sort of pseudo-life-flashing-before-your-eyes phenomenon that accompanies half-assed near-death experiences.

I use far too many dashes in my writing.

In that instant, my mind hacked up random memories of family, friends, loved ones, and … with a flourish of sinister organ music … ex-girlfriends -- who were once loved ones but are now ignored ones.

And that got me thinking. Relationships, like cars, should be equipped with anti-lock brakes. Because when things get icy, humans should NOT be responsible.

Before you cast this off as a cheesy analogy, consider this: when a relationship goes down hill, things can get slippery. Downhill + slippery = hurt. Just ask my ass.

When a relationship spins out of control, people start frantically pumping the brakes – or, to apply a more accurate pun, the breaks.

They take breaks, break down, break up. They call up, hang up, hook up. They wind up choked up and ground down.

Life hits the skids … and then what? Either things smooth out or everything comes to a crashing halt.

Ah, but if only those of us who construct relationships were as clever as those automobile engineers. We could make a device that would enable us, a moment of panic, to clamp down, seize up and hope that – a few grinding gears aside – the end will come another day.

Peace and love,
Nas-T

Pair of Wooden Blogs

Part One

Ok, so I realized the other day that every job I’ve ever worked, I’ve been sexually discriminated against. Not by my employers (unfortunately for my bank account), but by the customers.

Take the vet’s office I worked in. I was the only male there, and I had a rather scattered schedule (I worked summer, Christmas and spring breaks for three years).

So most people just got to know the women who worked there, and forgot poor ol’ yours-truly.

The following situation occurred on many occasions:

*phone ring*

Trevor: Family Pet Practice, Trevor speaking.

*click*

(beat)

*phone ring*

Trevor: Family Pet Practice, Trevor speaking.

Customer: OH! Oh my. Oh dear.

*click*

(beat)

*phone rang*

Trevor (slightly aggravated): Family Pet Practice!!!!!

Customer: Oh! Is … is this the vet’s office?

Trevor (sigh): Yes. Hence the name, “Family Pet Practice.”

Customer: Oh, well, I thought only women worked there. And then a man answered the phone! Is one of the ladies there?



And so on. The same sort of conversation, only much more sexist, goes on at Family Video. When I started at the Whitehall store, there were two male managers and myself. Everyone else was female, and rather attractive.

SO a typical conversation there would go as follows:

Trevor: Can I help you sir?

Reluctant customer: Are you the only one working?

Trevor: My manager Anthony is here.

Reluctant customer: Yeah, but is that one girl here?

Trevor (frowning): Which girl would that be, sir?

Reluctant customer: You know, THE girl.

Trevor: There are several women who work here, sir.

Reluctant customer: I mean … the one like this (makes outline of thin, built female with his hands)

Trevor: I’m not sure which girl you mean, sir.

Reluctant customer (leaning close): I’m talking about the FINE BITCH. Man, I was hoping she’d be here.

Trevor (grinding teeth): Sorry if I disappoint you, sir.



And that’s how it goes. Just as a person with any color of skin can make racist remarks, sexism manifests itself in both genders, and can affect men OR women.




PART TWO

Now, having said that, I’m not naïve. Women face open sexism FAR more than men do (take the average woman’s salary in this country as an example).

Actually, I’ll give you more concrete examples.

One friend of mine was at a restaurant, casually enjoying her meal, when the waiter said he’d PAY FOR HER FOOD if she went out with him.

Now, my friend is extremely fun, goofy, witty, intelligent, well-informed on current affairs and quite talkative (once you get to know her). She also loves art, music, theater, dining out and liberals (you can see why we get along so well).

Did this waiter know ANY of this? Was his offer the result of witty banter, in which he felt potential chemistry developing between himself and my friend? No. He saw a pretty girl and tried to bribe her.



Now, you might be saying yourself:

“Self, isn’t he being a little overdramatic? Seriously, the guy took a shot. It didn’t work out. That doesn’t make him a sexist pig. Maybe he’s just the guy who takes risks.”



And my answer is, fair enough. Maybe that was the case.

Except, nearly everywhere my friend goes, this same thing happens. Over and over again. Is it really possible that ALL of these men want to develop a relationship with a girl they’ve hardly spoken to?

I’m skeptical …

So let’s move on to my other examples, both of which concern employees at the video store.

We’ve already established a lot of the customers have a physical attraction to them. But things get out of hand.

One girl gets asked out nearly EVERY DAY she works. The last time I worked with her, this creepy old man (late 40s) made an awkward and desperate attempt to casually ask her out.

Fortunately, she was very sweet and politely steered the conversation to a more comfortable ground.

But she has to do this EVERY SINGLE DAY. She can’t just go to work without some guy asking her for date or making a more personal comment. In many cases, these comments cross the “rude” line and become downright vulgar.

Now, this girl takes all of this in stride, which is quite the opposite of another girl.

One day she came to work, hackles raised, grinding her teeth.

I asked what was wrong, and the answer was appalling. She’d stopped at the bank on the way to work to get some cash, and a some men in a car stopped, rolled down their windows, and started screaming flattering comments like, “You have such a nice ass, girl!”

Seriously, a girl can’t even go the fucking BANK – one of the least sexy places I can think of – without being harassed.

“Men are such fucking assholes,” she told me, wrapping up her story.

“Um, we’re not ALL like that,” I said.

“Well the ones who are ruin it for the rest of you.”

And THAT’S my problem.



I can’t speak to the victimization of women in a situation like this. But I can be pissed that there are assholes out there ruining it for the rest of us.

When I DO find myself in conversation with a new girl in public (which happens more often than you might suspect), I NEVER ask her out. I wouldn’t dare. Even if I do have reasons other than that initial physical attraction (it’s there, I’m not immune). But I have to ask myself, how many times has she been asked out today? How many men have made foul comments about her body? Will she walk away and tell her friends/coworkers that I’ve ruined the reputation of my entire gender?

I myself have never really been sexually harassed, and if I were, I would probably be more flattered than anything. But that’s only because I don’t hear every damn day, and neither do any of my guy friends. I can’t know what it’s like to try and deposit a check and have women tell me my ass is tight or my package is bulging or my tits are perky or anything of the sort. I have no idea what it’s like to have some older member of the opposite sex rent a porno and make suggestive comments about watching it with me.

But I observe this behavior, and I think it’s atrocious. Seriously, guys, girls are getting tired of this shit. It’s obscene, it’s unromantic, and frankly, it doesn’t even WORK, so why bother? When in the history of male and female relationships has a man said to a complete stranger, “Nice ass, baby,” and she’s thought, “Damn, that man is a stallion and I want to take him right here.”?

It’s a rhetorical question, but for the morons, the answer is, “Never.”

It hasn’t happened. It won’t happen. Because that behavior is demoralizing and, if you ask any girl I’ve ever spoken too on this subject (again, you’d be surprised at how many this is – I did my research for this blog), it’s a turn-off.

So knock it off.



Oh and by the way, later that day at the video store, some dude made the mistake of calling the girl, “Baby.” And now I don’t think he’ll be able to have children.

Not that a girl would sleep with him anyway.



Peace,
Nas-T

Dropping the F-Blog

Dropping the F-Blog, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Blog

"Hello sixpack of confidence / been so many nights since we first met / glad to see you've brought all your friends / for another night of plastic cup politics" ~~ Less Than Jake

It’s that time of day again: time to blog up another sentiment for all to read and (hopefully) enjoy.

Today’s blog considers the mind of a journalist. That’s right, among my more mundane personalities is “journalist.”

All journalists of any merit share several symptoms, including (but not limited to): a passion for writing, an observant nature and a strong interest in … well, pretty much everything.

Being truly observant often requires a level of detachment from the subject at hand. It’s difficult to be really passionate about something without your feelings clouding your perceptions of an event. For example, let’s say a snake is released into some random college classroom. Someone who LOVES reptiles, and knows the snake is harmless, might observe the resulting pandemonium quite differently than someone who is terrified of anything with scales. Thus, when journalizing, it is best to find a happy-medium – an interest in the subject without silly old emotions getting in the way.

Now, we learned in Journalism 100 that sometimes the “journalism” state of mind can cloud common sense just as well as emotions can. The best documented examples have come from war situations. A photojournalist will take pictures while nearby soldiers are shot down. Rather than putting down the camera to see if his friends are alright, an act that might save a life, the photojournalist simply keeps on taking pictures.

There’s some sort of psychological term for this behavior, but damned if I can remember it at the moment.

So anyway, having never been in a war situation, I can’t imagine responding that way. I’d like to think if my friend was shot, I’d say, “Fuck this silly old camera” and see if there was anything I could do to save my friend.

But the other day, in somewhat less dire circumstances, I found out how easily one can slip into that frame of mind – a detached fascination with the horrible and the obscene …



It all started at Jardy’s party …

*cue harp music, fuzzy edges to vision*



So I’m at the party and it’s getting to the point where the good men are taken and most of the rest are drunkenly attempting to grope the few remaining girls. This is prime time for Trevor, because, as a general rule, I try not to grope anyone who isn’t groping me first. This sort of philosophy is derived from a similar one posed by my friend Adam Holland:

“I always let the girl make the first move. That way I know I can’t lose.”

The situation also harkens a Paul Simon quote: “She looked at me and I guess she thought I was alright / alright in a sort of a limited way for an off night …”

So goes my life.

The party is raging all around, and I’ve had not-awkward conversations with several girls. In fact, I’ve actually managed to keep one girl interested for a period longer than five minutes.

We’re having a pleasant chat when, out of the corner of my eye, I notice an interesting character has entered the party. He storms into the room, walking not-quite-confidently enough to pull of “cool.” His head is shaved, and he’s wearing a black suit, complete with tie that matches his purple button-down shirt. In other words, he’s overdressed.

He tries valiantly to strike up conversations with several people who do their best to avoid him.

But back to my own banter: the girl and I are laughing and I’m quickly running out of subject matter, but I’m saved by Dave , who comes over with a hilariously ironic story (and as we all know, I can’t get enough irony).

Unfortunately, the conversation grows stale anyway, as the stranger encroaches on our personal space.

The newcomer says something in Spanish, to which Dave responds, “I’m sorry, I took French.”

We laugh, but the dude immediately switches to French, and we all stare. Dave manages to wander away, in pursuit of other women.

The girl makes an attempt to be social and converse with this suited stranger. But her French isn’t nearly as good, and I can see she is a) completely unable to continue talking to him and b) growing increasingly uncomfortable.

Now, this is the pinpoint, the moment when things go horribly awry. The more socially conscious part of my brain is saying, “Ok, time to step in and rescue this poor girl.”

I don’t have to say anything particularly witty, just something to excuse the two of us from his presence. Something like, “Hey, wanna get another drink?” or “I think the foosball table is open” or even “I’m sorry, but we need to go stand over there now …”

But I don’t. And why? Because I’m riveted. Here is a man with atrociously less lady-skills than I possess (and that ain’t much). He is clearly striking out, and yet he plows ahead anyway, either oblivious that he is about to crash and burn or ignoring that fact and making a vain effort anyway.

So I watch, helpless to stop, as he babbles away in a creepy French accent, grabs her hand and kisses it. She gives a polite smile and pulls her hand away, but he won’t let go.

Now the alarm bells are sounding. Do something! I have about a million things to say (I usually do), but I say none of them. Because I want more. I want to hear what he says next. I want to hear her reaction, and HIS reaction to HER reaction. He and I are moving swiftly in opposite directions to the same result. To continue conversing with this girl, he needs to shut up, and I need to open my mouth. Yet we both stubbornly insist on staying the course. And to me, all of this is much more compelling than any conversation she and I could have if I remove her from the scene. As in television, as in war, I’m powerless to interrupt the events unfolding before me.

And so she manages to disentangle herself from the stranger, and we move across the room. But things are different now. She needed help and I ignored her. Whether she consciously recognizes this fact is no longer an issue, because in the present, in the now, things are a little awkward, and at a party, late at night, there isn’t room for awkward mistakes.

*end flashback*

So that’s my story. A “journalistic” mindset can indeed overcome the moral high ground. Instead of moving someone to safety, I just watched, entranced, wondering what would happen next. And now I understand others who may have made the same mistake in much worse situations.

Party girl, wherever you are, my most sincere apologies. But that was the response of a journalist, and I’m not sure another would have done it any other way.

Peace,

Nas-T