Monday, April 19, 2010

A day in the life of Joe Conservative

(copied from an anonymous source)

A day in the life of Joe Conservative:

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

He prepares his morning breakfast: bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment checks because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the taxpayer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.

The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved conservatives have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Note: Labels and party affiliations change. What doesn't change are the underlying political philosophies of liberalism and conservatism, and the fact that the liberals usually turned out to be right and the conservatives turned out to be wrong. And so it goes.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

There's a backward ME in TEAM

I've never been much of a team player. There's always somebody out there to repeat the same old crap about there not being an "I" in TEAM. My response is usually that there's a backwards ME in there though. A real team player will point out that there's an "A" there to screw up the backwards ME. Yeah, we all know what "A" stands for and it rhymes with sasshole.

Seems like some aspiring and (supposedly) working screenwriters have an urge to look at writing a screenplay as a team effort. Some of these people even have the audacity to utilize the internet and online communities to write their screenplays. Others are gathering in classes and groups all over the country in the desire to assemble thousands of words into a screenplay of surpassing quality.

Some of these aspiring screenwriters are going to get some really shitty, jealous and uselessly nonconstructive criticism in these groups. They might even have to put up with some dumbass like me who absolutely wastes their time 75% of the time with worthless crap. That waste of time might even extend to worthless blog posts about issues irrelevant to screenwriting that are an absolute waste of time. You folks on internet communities might even just waste so much fucking time that you'll get personally involved in the lives of other screenwriters in your little community. These people are just a waste of time. You'll never meet most of them, so give up on all this community stuff and team player shit.

I've got this damned genetic propensity to rebel with about 75% of my white trash genetics. The other 25% is what keeps pulling me into the time wasting internet community known as Triggerstreet. That's right, 25% of my blood teems with Mennonite/Amish genetics. For all my white trash efforts to be a rebellious little bastard, that damned 25% keeps pulling me back to trying to emulate community stuff like barn raisings and other Mennonite/Amish endeavors.

That 25% genetic curse seems to have pulled me into that community over at Triggerstreet for almost four years. I've wasted a shitload of time over there trying to become a real, consistent, steadily-employed professional screenwriter. I've also wasted my time reading a couple hundred amateur screenplays and have only found a couple that deserve to make it to film. Some of these people are really unappreciative and don't deserve my time on their poorly crafted screenplays. The quantity of time I've wasted on the message boards chatting about crap has been a four year drain on my available time resources. Four years of wasted time.

I'll never get all any of that wasted time back and wouldn't have it any other way. That's right, even my 75% white trash genetics and mentality has begun to appreciate the Triggerstreet community. Wasted time, my ass. There are real people there going through just what I am on a daily basis. We're trying to do something great, the greatness of creating something of surpassing quality. It's tough to try. We get depressed. We get enthused by small successes. We have all of life's little problems that get in the way of creating anything remotely close to a screenplay of surpassing quality. Hell, one of those time wasters over at Triggerstreet squeezed out a little baby girl a few weeks ago and brought a tear to my cynical eye in the depth of the night. Fuck, what a waste of time!

75% of my genetics is that white trash, loner, rebel, tough guy. My dad used to say that I thought I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof. But that was after I choked some douchebag while biting him in the face, and made the douchebag emit a strange gurgling scream noise. Don't worry about any supposed psycho label from that little incident, cuz the guy had it coming plus a bit more than what he received. So it seems that those four years have left me as an unaccomplished internet tough guy who gets all misty-eyed every time some Triggerstreet wench births another future aspiring screenwriter.

If the day comes that I become a professional screenwriter or even that I lose some of the few writing skills and screenwriting knowledge I've attained, I'll be around over at Triggerstreet wasting my precious time. I'll be right over there at Triggerstreet, as long as they'll have me.

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