a musing julius…

americans are perhaps the most fascinating culture when it comes to their constant trivializing of the famous people. here’s a list of trivialized people.

• genghis khan, who he is: the man conquered the asian continent, from siberia to india, poland to saudi arabia and across to the eastern tip of china, his sphere of power was unmatched by all those who attempted to follow in his footsteps.
• genghis khan, what he’s become: “hi, welcome to mongolian barbeque. how many? 4? smoking or non?”
• casimir pulaski, who he is: a revolutionary war hero, who taught americans how to fight on horse (read: cavalry), and the a hero of the revolutionary war as recognized by george washington himself. he reported directly to the commander-in-cheif. general pulaski memorial day is celebrated on october 11th, but other states celebrate in march. he has numerous statues in the united states, notably in d.c., detroit and chicago.
• casimir pulaski, what he’s become: a street in some cities.

okay, so those are 2 examples. i don’t have any more. maybe you have an idea.

i wanted to rant about some things today. bear with me.

1. the tankdress: tank tops that are too long to be tank tops, and too short to be dresses. usually worn with shoes (underwear optional)
2. political speeches: the most recent egregious speech i heard: kathleen sebelius starting the democratic response to the state of the union by saying, “i’m not going to offer a partisan response today, but an american response.” and then proceeded to riddle off her paty’s agenda providing a more partisan response than the actual state of the union
3. kwame kilpatrick: the mayor of detroit perjured himself in court, cheated on his wife, and swindled the city of detroit out of countless thousands of dollars. now he’s going to go to church and provide an explanation (a la bill clinton) and not resign from office.
4. the church and politics: quickest way to get your constituents to believe your apology: head to church. your story holds more weight if you tell it from the pulpit instead the front of your gated community.
5. that panera cashier: i don’t know what her issue is, but every time i place my order at panera with this woman, “hi, can i get a you-pick-two with broccoli cheddar and frontega chicken please.”  she’ll repeat, “oh, okay, so a you-pick-two, with, tomato right? no. broccoli cheddar. and you wanted the smokehouse turkey? no. frontega chicken. ok, anything to drink?” seriously, just LISTEN to what i’m saying.

anything else bothering anyone? i’m happy to listen.

there’s only one thing that america likes more than an underdog: a huge and completely colossal failure. for that reason…american idol is the greatest show on television…the wonderful portion where they show people that think they sounds like mariah carey, or frank sinatra, or some other great singer.

don’t know what it is…but when people think they’re the shit, and they’re not, it’s funny right? i know 100% that if i tried out for american idol, i’d be one of the failures they show on tv. i can’t hit a note to save my life. i couldn’t hit a note if i kept my mouth shut and played a cd in the background. there’s probably a 100 different things which i cannot do well, but still do them (like dance.) the difference here is, i cannot claim to do those 100 things well.

maybe it’s because everyone’s parents told them they could do anything they want. just dream it, and you can become it. sorry, kid. chances are, well…no. you can’t.

sorry, i’ll never become a center in the nba. i will never become an astronaut despite my dreams at a younger age. i’ll never become the ceo of ford, boeing or any fortune 500 company. as my buddy steve says: “i’ll never fight off a t-rex with a bronze spear”

truer words have never been spoken.

i want to send a big shout out to the idiot that invented the phrase, “it is what it is…” this is stupidity at its finest.

my personal opinion is that americans are awkward in social situations. they struggle to converse with other people intelligently about a subject which goes beyond the weather. we default to “hey, how’s it going? cold/nice/hot outside, huh?” and the response is almost always “doing good. yeah great day to sit inside/go for a walk/sit inside.” aside from the obvious grammatical error with a response of “doing good”, we never truly open up to individuals in passing conversation. no one ever responds with “not doing so great, but thanks for asking.” 

i default to a typical, “hey how’s it going?” and before they’re even done saying, “doing good” i’ll instantly say, “that’s great, i’m doing well” just assuming they’ll ask me how i was doing. sometimes, i’ll ask them AGAIN how they’re doing. just for fun. thats when those people are happy they live 4 floors below me…so they can get off the elevator almost immediately.

but never in my life has a phrase been so ridiculous as, “it is what it is…”(which is almost always recited with a large sigh at the end) thank you, oh inventor of this stupid phrase. before you we struggled to explain it to ourselves, we didn’t have an answer for it. but no, thanks to you, we do.

it.