Dairy of a Madman

Many more thoughts to come, but this:

Five Birmingham Police officers were in the parking lot when two 20-year-old men were shot to death Saturday morning outside Banana Joe’s in Southside.

… is more than a little disturbing to me. Because Banana Joe’s (what a terrible, terrible name) is within two blocks of my bar. Because I hear more and more things like this every week. And because what kind of morons have so little disregard for life (and so much need to prove how manly they are) that they will pull guns after a bar fight with five — FIVE — police officers nearby?

I don’t hold the cops responsible, by the way. Not in the least. I do hold the idiot who let the sixteen-year-old into an eighteen-and-up club a little responsible, and the parents (or parental units). But mostly the weight of all this goes on the people who do these things, and the people who glorify such actions.

And I’m slowly turning into an old person. Because in my day, when we were gonna pop some caps in someone’s ass over something stupid, we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to do it.

Upgrading WordPress at 2:30 AM when you’re in the middle of watching GANGS OF NEW YORK.

Guess I’ll never know what happened to Bill the Butcher and poor little Leo DiCaprio now.

Why am I watching this? Why? It’s not unlike a car wreck, where you’re horrified but part of you wants to see how bad it was, or maybe if someone you know is involved. Or porn, in the same ways.

And why are the losers reacting so violently? I can understand disappointment — we’ve all been in competition for something, and it’s a tremendous letdown to not win. It’s not the end of the world, it’s not death, it’s not anything worth crying about. The people that make it through to the very end and then lose? Okay, you’ve worked hard, and it certainly sucks more the closer to the finish line you fall. Been there, too.

Continue reading “American Idolatry”