You're Making Me Hate You (15 page)

We pay hundreds of dollars for clothes that have already been worn to shreds. We throw thousands more at lotteries the world over trying to guess those lucky five numbers and the Powerball, just so we can
say
we’re going to keep our regular jobs, but we never do. Worst of all, we blow millions on whatever we’re convinced is the Next Big Thing: Furbies, Cabbage Patch Kids, juicers, Thighmasters, Atkins diets, clothes that go out of style and tech that goes out of date … cheap knock-offs at high-end costs, and that’s just the tip of the price-berg. We chase trends like dogs and frat boys chase tails. We pitch whole paychecks into the abyss of “Gotta Fuckin’ Have It,” without even so much as a second glance because that’s our nature. You can get mad at me all you want—shit is shit, and paint is paint. All I can do is offer the evidence. This is what we
do
. Animals are slaves to their
needs
; humans are slaves to their
wants
.

Chocolate diamonds: they’re not chocolate and nobody likes them.

Stupid …

Think back to fifteen years ago. Smartphones weren’t even a twitch in the zeitgeist’s Levis in 1999. If you wanted to call home, you had to use a pay phone or use a phone at someone’s house. So people like me spent a bunch of cash on prepaid phone cards and garbage like “1–800-COLLECT.” Cell phones were still in their trials; they’d evolved from the monstrous models of the
eighties, sure, but they were still primitive. They were either bricks with pip-pip antennae or Nextels that made your stereo crackle like there was a nuclear bomb hidden in the house, so much so that you knew when a call was coming in thirty seconds before the fucker rang. Nobody knew what a text message was, and if you wanted to surf the net, you needed a big computer. Tablets were something out of science fiction. Hell, even laptops were fairly early in the going at this point.

Then
The Matrix
happened, and everybody had to have one of those switchblade-like phones that Neo used. Hundreds of dollars later, the flip phone got better, and we had to have
that
. Another shit ton of cash later, and we had to have the Blackberry. Then the first of the iPhones hit the market and it was GAME FuckING OVER. Today any smartphone is just a different version of the iPhone. And being a sort of psycho Nostradamus, I can predict that some sort of device is going to come along and make the iPhone look like a toaster oven that only makes toast. Hey, I’m just as guilty of being a greedy fucker when it comes to blowing some coin on the latest and greatest dick teasers. But do we
need
it? And how much money are we prepared to
spend
on it?

We are a species stuck in a perpetual cycle of keeping up with the Joneses. We don’t go next door to visit the neighbors anymore—we go to get a load of what they have a load of, honestly. It’s the global addiction, exhibit A for why, as long as people have a choice, Communism will never last. As long as there are TVs and commercials, you’re going to have the Great Craving. You threw out your VCRs for DVD players. You threw
those
out for Blu-rays. Ultraviolets gave it a go before they were slaughtered by smart TVs. All along that country road the bodies piled up: Betamax, laser discs, mini-discs, HD DVDs, and every kind of
fucking gaming console you can think of. That’s just
one
example of what this virus makes us do. It’s incredible.

Then there’s the hilarious bit in the middle here: the trash we spend our money on that, quite frankly, we would have gotten better value if we’d bent over and used the cash to wipe our asses, things like the urban parachute. In all my years of being judged for judging beings, I have yet to find something that was shilled so flagrantly, especially in the wake of the events that brought it to my attention. It wasn’t bad enough that my country was shaken to its core at the time; the weasels came out of the woodwork to make a buck off the crestfallen, like the cart bearers who charged money for collecting the dead during the plague. That at least had some practicality. You’ll find very little of that here.

After 9/11 I was sitting in my old apartment, watching the aftermath of the tragedy with numbed incredulity. I was worried about what was going to happen next. I was concerned about some of my friends who had been traveling that day—some of whom ended up stuck in Canada for weeks in Salvation Army camps and had no way of getting word to us. I was devastated for my country and full of rage for the people who’d attacked us. The only positive by-product was that it was bringing us all together. We were galvanized in a way that hadn’t really happened since World War II. We were getting back on the horse and preparing to retaliate, and even though some of the ways we were to do so I didn’t agree with, I was at least consoled by the fact that we weren’t going to let this defeat us.

Then the commercials started appearing.

At first it was just gross pigs trying to capitalize on the state of the nation and its wounded patriotism: “freedom coins” and “flag packs” and “September 11 Commemorative Plates.” It
seemed like anyone who had a license to sell symbols of America were getting into action to fleece the demoralized masses. It was disgusting in my eyes, but I tried to ignore it; after all, I was preparing to go out on
The Pledge
of Allegiance
tour, and even though it had been named months before the attacks, people certainly thought we were trying to do the same—using 9/11 to promote our shows. So I tried to shirk the ill will as best I could. Just as I was getting over the rancor and telling myself it was simply the way some people dealt with adversity, I started seeing ads for the urban parachute.

It sounds exactly like what you think it is: a backpack with a crappy parachute in it. No one who has ever gone skydiving would ever use this thing. Anyone who has ever considered BASE jumping wouldn’t even give it a second thought. But nipping at the toes of the terrible footage we saw on CNN and BBC News, of people falling or jumping from the burning towers, the producers of the urban parachute were pimping these things as a way to escape terrorist attacks. I was so stunned with anger that I shut the TV off. But it all came rushing back when I saw a news piece in which the sales of the urban parachute had absolutely skyrocketed. These people had used fear to get rich with a product that ostensibly might have difficulty holding schoolbooks and note pads. I was embarrassed to be a person. I was embarrassed for my country.

That’s a very severe example of how the befuddled masses clean out their bank accounts. But funnier versions can be found in the kitchen. Things like the Bacon Bowl maker, the Tortilla Bowl maker, the Slap Chop, and the Stuffed Burger maker are fucking ridiculous. Yeah sure, they work just fine, and for the first week all you make are taco salads and diced pickle relish, but when that shit runs its course, they take up space in your
cupboards until you stick them in the annual garage sale for a fraction of the cost you paid for them, right next to the Harlequin Romance novels and those flared corduroys you can never seem to get rid of. The heart of the matter is that as long as you can specialize, you can make a little bread off of it, especially if it’s a bread maker.

QVC and the Home Shopping Network know far too well that when people get bored, they’ll spend money to keep themselves occupied. Flipping through the channels, I watched QVC sell an
entire
set of swords and knives, all “for decoration purposes only” apparently, for an inordinate amount of money, and if that “buyer clicker” was any indication of reality, they were selling those sets by the
hundreds
. I never in all my years thought that I would be surfing cable and stumble upon an auction for a medieval arsenal in the middle of the afternoon. If King Arthur had Sky TV, he could’ve replenished his whole army with one toll-free phone call, although he might have had to wait four to six weeks for delivery because shipping is free but overnight delivery costs extra. Does
anyone
you know need a bunch of fucking swords and knives?
Huh
? Anyone? I’m sure most of the people who bought this shit were doomsday preppers because when the zombies come and you run out of ammo, a sword will take a fucker’s head right off if you swing hard enough. You won’t even have to sharpen it: if some creep tries to come into your bunker, “Merlin” the stainless-steel broad sword will make sure they leave without a hand.

Oh, I’m on a madness bender today. Critical mass doesn’t begin to cover where my fucking head is right now. Could it be the twelve cups of coffee? Well, technically, I usually put two K-Cups in each mug, so I’m pushing
twenty-four
at the moment—appropriate because I’m starting to feel like Jack Bauer in the
grips of a season finale. I’m unhinged and unfettered: no time for dalliances, Dr. Jones. Seriously, all jokes aside, I might look into having myself declassified from being “human” because it’s getting embarrassing. I can’t allow myself to be lumped in with a genus or species that commits these many acts of idiocy—I’ve got a rep to protect … sure, it’s pretty soiled itself, but hey! I’m trying, goddamnit!

As I’ve said earlier in the book, I run on the boardwalk in Venice, California, a lot. I see a lot of shit that’s fairly endearing, like families coming down to the beach to see the ocean and older couples walking the bike paths together to stay fit. I know, right? I say “Awwww …” too! It’s fucking adorable—the older couples even wear matching outfits. I love seeing that. It gives me hope that maybe love is essential to our longevity as a whole. Then again, when you hear what I’m about to describe, the key to survival may just become keeping key funding away from dildos who can’t be bothered to do anything productive except suck air and shit. I’m getting away from my point; let me do my best to stay on target here for a second.

When I run on the beach, I see a lot of different people down there: other joggers, families walking their dogs or pushing their babies in carriages, friends heading down to Muscle Beach to pump up in public, and so forth. I also have to dodge a lot of people renting giant bicycles nicknamed “beach cruisers”—big ol’ monsters that look like throwbacks from the 1950s. Just watching these people ride the fuckers, I can tell it takes some real quad and leg strength to keep them upright, let alone rolling on the concrete. I can’t help but wonder, however, why they don’t just walk and check shit out—the path runs right by the Santa Monica Pier, and it takes two seconds to turn and run up the steps, down the boards, and to the sea. But regardless of what I think of these beach cruisers, at
least
they’re getting
some exercise. They’re exerting energy and burning some calories off their fat asses.

It’s the people on the Segways that give me fucking gas.

There are whole gangs of people going on little tourist-y tours of the boardwalk who just can’t fathom the thought of actually
walking
on their own. So there are services that take people on guided tours (I don’t know why they’re “guided”—you can see the fucking ocean from four blocks away), and they’re all riding Segways. They spent money on a trip, they paid good coin for hotel rooms, rental cars, and various souvenirs and such … and then they go and blow their cash renting a motorized walker. A Segway is nothing more than a podium on wheels. Here’s the real kicker: NO ONE LOOKS COOL ON A SEGWAY. I don’t give a rat’s cherry kiss who you are; Brad Pitt, straight from the set of
Fight Club
looking fit as fuck and ready to strike, would look like an asshole on a Segway. It’s even worse when they’re all wearing helmets. Yes, I know the creator of the Segway accidentally drove himself off a cliff, but these fuckers are literally at sea level, surrounded by sand on one side. You still look like a dick, and you should feel like a dick for spending money on it.

I wonder if anyone told them, “Hey, man … you know walking is
free
, right?”

They cruise by on their rented Segways, taking up more of the path than they should, smiling and pointing and not paying
any
attention to what the fuck they’re doing. I saw a whole gang of them dressed in their out-of-town camouflage (pastels and shorts above the knee), and they nearly ran
over
a woman pushing her toddler in a baby stroller. Then they didn’t even stop to check whether she was okay because they didn’t know it had happened—that’s how oblivious they were. They just kept smiling and pointing like an incompetent army trying to invade Easter Island on a chocolate egg hunt. Bigger pricks might exist,
but as they go, in my parlance, I have yet to dodge them on a wave of rolling contraptions.

The shit is everywhere: Kobe beef costs hundreds of dollars, people pay thousands to eat flakes of gold with their food, and if you’ve got the millions to back it up, you can even eat an endangered animal if you know the right restaurants. High fashion is a player’s market: spread a rumor that a burlap sack is “tres bon,” and you’ll see racks of them on Beverly Drive. It’s like the world can’t wait to waste money on something people
say
is worth it. All the conspiracy nuts in America are convinced that there is no gold backing up our currency, but none of them can take a second to swing their cantankerous, stubborn observations at what we’re spending our “worthless” money on in the interim. Knowing a few of these maniacs personally, I can tell that if they ever did get involved, it would be an Internet sensation: Gucci bags on the grassy knoll, shark meat being sold in the Beverly Hills Hotel kitchen, and pricy, irritatingly sarcastic T-shirts floating on the waters of the Bermuda Triangle.

This is an issue I’ve been keeping track of for quite some time. I remember when I was a kid, every heavy-metal kid who rode a skateboard wanted a Metallica “Pushead” deck. And I do mean
everyone
. We’d talk about them before school when we’d smoke cigarettes in the parking lot. We’d discuss them at lunch when we smoked behind the gym. We’d dream about them as we rode home on our cheap knock-off boards … while we smoked, yes. I’ve been smoking a long time. Quit focusing on that for a second and get back on this side of the fence. Are you there? No? Jesus fucking bastard Christ, FINE! I’ll quit fucking smoking! Yes, I
know
it’s relevant to this chapter because I waste money on cartons of the damn things! We’ll talk about that
later
! Okay? Man … hold on, let me catch my breath …