So it goes.
Some lucky and privileged few of you may see the irony in the title—you probably know who this pertains to and/or have read Slaughterhouse-five. While the rest of you only know that you’ve maybe, probably heard that phrase somewhere, sometime. The phrase comes from the recently deceased, writer/novelist/humanist/awesome human being, Kurt Vonnegut.
Alas, this post is not about the influence one has had on another (me), but of the innate ability that many of us have to find humor in tragedy. I awoke this morning to the ever annoying, but always drawing babble of Good Day L.A.—the yapping will make your ears bleed, but it gets you the fuck out of bed—which was, strangely, reporting news, and not some celebrity scandal or half-assed attempt at the weather report. Nope. Not this time. Good Day LA had cried wolf on too many occasions so I decided to not bother with their reporting.
To continue, I sat up with one blood-shot eye realizing how busy I’ve not only been, but have truly enjoyed being for the past two months. I had managed to do the impossible: watched no more than two hours of television a night, used the internet for email and to feed my baby(this site). To put it grossly, I had separated myself from the real world (of pop-culture). But I got up from bed this morning to a show that I rarely pay attention to, and decide to surf the web to find out that the awesome Vonnegut died a few days ago, Virginia Tech was hit by a crazed gunman this morning, and the daily newsletter that I unsubscribed to three weeks ago, which I never subscribed to, to begin with, was still flooding me with their crap.
Sigh. Depressing, I know. If there are any starving African kids out there, you’re fucking lucky. At least you all know your fates: lay dying with a fermenting stomach, or be adopted by a self-righteous celebrity. In any case, sadly, nobody will truly ever care about you. No, not even UNICEF. Maybe God is trying to tell me to stay the fuck off the computer and keep from watching crappy television. I don’t know. What I do know for sure, though, is how angering it can be knowing that no matter how hard you work to try and better yourself, somewhere out there, there is some lazy, self-loathing, pathetic soul playing Counter-Strike thinking to themselves how cool it would be to shoot everyone they hate. I can’t think of an anymore feeble attempt at trying to transcend your problems. Anybody can go out and kill everyone that’s making their life “miserable” and take their own life while they’re at it. Not very impressive, chimp-shit. Yeah, life sucks, but you don’t fucking quite. The day you do that, you put yourself out of your own misery. There is no gun-smoke glory.
Excuse me. I’m sorry for sounding so angry, but why the fuck do I keep getting this damn health newsletter? LoLeRrZz!
For providing me, and many others, with such eloquent insight into the intricacies of life, thank you, Kurt.
“If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
