Oh The Newly Wed

My car sucks when it comes to music. I have a cassette player. Remember those? Needless to say I don’t have any cassettes around so I find myself at the mercy of the radio. Being a man of good taste, I hate pretty much all the music stations of which there isn’t much variety (welcome to Southern Utah!), which leaves National Public Radio or me and my own thoughts. So, depending on the mood of the voices (they’ve had some great story ideas) I generally listen to national public radio.

I don’t brag about it, and this acknowledgment of the fact is only that. I’ve met the people who announce how they listen to national public radio like its some sort of credential before they begin their tirades’—that’s not me. This isn’t a tirade. I have no creditable credentials.

But oh the buzz over the state of California using it’s laws to treat gay couples like equal citizens rather than the second class citizens they are! Meaning, they’re going to let them join into the semi-holy union of marriage. New York wants to be hip too, so they’re playing some fast catch up, so you can expect to hear more about that in the news.

I say the union is semi-holy because for some reason the institution of marriage is pulled taught in a tug of war between church and state even though I think I read somewhere that’s not supposed to happen.

Really, to the government, being married is a tax status that identifies you and another person as an individual unit—it some senses. This is a fucking blog people, do we really need to go over the super fine points?

Generally, the religious interpretation of the union is that you promise your god you love this person standing next to you and you’re going to do your damnedest be nice no matter what life throws at you. Your god being the busy deity she/he is, sends a representative to oversee and acknowledge the union and collect the necessary fee.

Poof! You’re married. Sex is magically ok and you get a new piece of jewelry. Insurance benefits may apply.

I wonder what all the fuss is about? Is marriage really that cool? Maggie Gallagher and Linda J. Waite wrote an entire book about it, called The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially.

According to the authors, I’m not entirely correct in my quick and unromantic description of marriage. They say, “"Getting married doesn't merely certify a preexisting love relationship. Marriage actually changes people's goals and behavior in ways that are profoundly and powerfully life enhancing."”

They go on to say the easiest realms of life to see benefits in are within the subjects of health, wealth and self reported sexual fulfillment (think quality over quantity all you “same box of cereal the rest of your life” people).

They also say married people live longer than non married people. Especially for the men who are more likely to act in ways that seriously endanger their lives, we call them road trips, bar nights, and room mates. They’re also less likely to tell some things to anyone but their wives (so less stays bottled up).

The authors compared married people with cohabitating people to see if the results could be the consequences of living with someone. They claim there’s a difference between the two because there are different expectations and effects that govern the hard to see driving force of the relationship.

Apparently, if one starts to look at marriage academically it has a lot of listed benefits backed up by all sorts of studies. The general consensus is that at the very least married folk appear happier, live longer, have better sex and tend to be better off financially.

Which makes me think, if it’s so good for people, how could a government—who’s main purpose is to look out for a people, actively deny such a benefit from anyone?

Maybe they’re afraid o what’s next on the social calendar for second class citizens--minorities attending college? Are women going to want to vote? Are people going to want to join any religion they want?

I’m telling you guys, it’s just getting harder and harder to be a white dude.

Have a GREAT Weekend

I woke up knowing something was off. It was in the light.

I wake up about the same time every morning. I have to have to burn some serious midnight oil and get deep into the a.m. hours to throw that wake up time off. The time does change, but it does so slowly. I don’t want to meet the person who hates daylight savings more than I.

The morning shadows were thicker than they should be. There was no wind roaring and no rain battering the windows. It was just cloudy enough to suggest it.

Driving to work, the cloud cover quickly thickened to a stormy blue-grey and rain began ending it’s fall on my windshield. If this were a Simpsons episode, there’d be an evil man flashing an overbite, hands steepled saying, “Eeeeexcellent.”

Sometimes the gloom brings me down. This storm brought no such despair. I smiled as the drizzle set in.

Here it is, almost a three day weekend with everyone trying to get ready to squeeze every possible minute of enjoyment from the allotted time and here comes the rain, wind on the tails of a cold front!

I’ll be stuck at home while Mrs. Bastard works. Laughing and playing my DS and savoring the misery while I can. And probably working on my drinking.

I know, I know, when you think it through, the bad weather is a burden on us humans as a whole. The hardcore people are still going to go out there and brave the rain and cold winds and will be bragging it up for most of the following four day work week.

And then the next week they’ll be at the office nursing their colds, sinus infections and god only knows what other else has been breeding between episodes of not finishing off antibiotics and by the second week of June my incubation will come to full fruition and it’ll be me cursing life.

But this weekend—it’ll be me warm, drunk and laughing. They say to pick your battles which is really just another way of saying pick your victories. It’s a win for the Bastard and I’m taking it.

The Uninteresting Tale of an Unexpected Sabbatical

The computer I write at is tucked away in the corner of my bedroom. It’s actually a docked laptop, but it gets the job done. I’ve been nowhere near the damn thing for the last week. And like a relationship slowly sinking into the waters of ruin, it was for a lot of little reasons.

Many little boring reasons that stacked up on me and wore me down! The energy to blog just wasn’t there.

Usually, I write a lot. And while this blog is both important and gratifying, the behind the scenes fiction I work on tends to come first. However, if it makes you readers feel any better, I haven’t been writing anything. And for me that’s a little weird.

But, I suppose I needed it. Like weeks of not getting enough sleep and finally being overtaken by exhaustion, one crashes at a decent hour and enjoying a twelve hour nap, the break felt needed and imposed. I wish life hadn’t come up to initiate it. I mean, don’t you like going to bed when you chose to?

They tell me people who exercise regularly should take two weeks off from their routine twice a year to let their bodies rest up. Maybe thing of it as something like that.

So yes my friends, all is well. And yes, the Bastard lives, and so does the blog.

Sick Bastard

I never get sick on weekdays when I could spend the day on the couch being miserable but entertained by my thoughts of everyone else working.

This weekend it was food poisoning from a local joint. I woke up Saturday after turning in before 11pm on a Friday with a gut full of air. I felt like I'd been inflated with some sort of noxious gas.

My burps were sour and farts were not to be trusted. I couldn't stand upright without a stomach cramp. I was still feeling ill when Monday came all too fast. Responsibility demanded I head to work, and really the worse was over. But I was tired, I didn't get much sleep, and I still wasn't trusting solid food.

So, there you have it. I can't really say I'm sorry for not getting a post up yesterday, but don't worry. I'm here to stay--until they buy me out.

But! I do have some good news. I have been actively creating bastard-type content with the hopes of getting an actual website up and going. You may have noticed going to bastardsmouth.com redirects you here. Someday--soon, I'm hoping, it'll be a nice, bastard friendly website.

I don't have an ETA for the site to go live, but I do have a programmer I'm blackmailing to do my bidding! I don't plan on creating everything myself either, so if you have content of any kind you think might appeal to us bastards, get a hold of me.

You guys can help, if you're so inclined. Keep telling your friends about Bastardsmouth.com and if you have a content request--email me!

bastardsmouth@gmail.com

I like interviewing people, reviewing albums or even other blogs. Really, I'm like the fat girl who's lost a lot of wait here--easy.

But until then, I'll keep up the posting and content creating! Long live bastards (and easy women who stumble into parenthood! Love you mom! We'll meet someday dad, you know, if you're alive!)

I’m Father of the Year! (But only by comparison)

If you haven’t heard about Josef Fritzl as I’m assuming most of us have, here’s the quick, (skip it if you already know) lowdown. It’s fucking bizarre and getting weirder with each day.

Josef Fritzl, 73, built a sound proofed living area with an electronically sealed door 24 years ago to properly seal away his kidnapped daughter Elisabeth who was around 18. He told his wife she had run away indefinitely. A letter in her handwriting validated the lie.

Over the course of 24 years seven children were born. Three of the fruits of incest are raised upstairs as notes written in Elisabeth’s handwriting arrive with the infants who grow up thinking their unwanting parents abandoned. One pregnancy yielded twins but only one of them survived. Fritzl says he disposed of the tiny body in a furnace.

Seven kids later the oldest daughter Kerstin lapses into a coma. Elisabeth’s days of pleading pay off and Fritzl decides to play his Kid on the Doorstep card. This note says she is unable and unwilling to care for her daughter.

At the hospital the doctors can’t rouse Kerstin. They are fed the same story about Elisabeth’s disappearance. The hospital contacts the news and a message goes out asking for Elisabeth to PLEASE contact the hospital as they need more information to help her.

Elisabeth had a TV in her chamber (see, Fritzl wasn’t a TOTAL monster—she could watch TV!) and saw the message. She convinced her capture/rapist/father if he let her out she would answer their questions and stick to the story about the cult—which makes me mad as I hope to start my own cult soon and I do NOT appreciate Fritzl furthering their defaming. I’ll let you guys know when you can apply.

As soon as she was alone, she confessed it all to the police.

End of low down.

If a writer friend had pitched this as a story of fiction to me I think I would have replied with something like, “C’mon, what the fucking fuck, that’s a little too far fetched!”

News like this is such a slap in the face it’s almost too much to wrap one’s mind around. There’s almost too much to consider. I’ve tried to though.

Imagine growing up in cellar room. Everyday, the same electrically powered lights to see you through the day. You’ve been born into a prison for committing a crime of fate. You’re a living byproduct of the choices of a cold, ugly man. You’ve never seen the sun. You’ve never run further than the length of a hallway. You eat what he brings you.

Imagine at eighteen your father who has already abused you lures you into the cellar, drugs and binds you. Imagine you’re pregnant and are going to give birth in your prison, assisted only by the man who captured you. As your father ages he tells you if anything happens to him, poisonous gas will fill the chamber.

Imagine trying pleading for the life of your oldest daughter who you’ve raised in the chamber for the last nineteen years goes into a coma and it takes days to convince him to take her to the hospital but only after you’ve penned a note saying your are unable and unwilling to take care of Kerstin. The same bittersweet note you’ve written to free three of your surviving children.

I mentioned the case gets stranger with each passing day. Apparently Fritzl rented out a room to a man for twelve years—all he knew about the cellar Fritzl disappeared into is that if he or anyone renting a room, it was grounds for immediate eviction.

There’s been no comment from Mrs. Fritzl yet. One hopes an intense naïveness and overly trusting nature clouded her vision and she couldn’t really see what was going on. I’m trying to fight my own cynical nature until she comments and explains what happened.

Which I think is what most of us are thinking—how could something like this happen?