Last night I went to a play, it was The Vagina Monologues. As a man, not to mention a single man, this is probably not the play I would normally go see… in fact I don’t know if I’ve ever gone to a play now that I think of it.

I know what you’re thinking, did I read it in the paper and go… well there’s the show for me to go to. No, I didn’t. In fact it wasn’t heavily publicized, but maybe that’s just because I don’t read the paper. A friend I work with told me she was going to be in a play and asked if I would want to go to it, even though it may not be geared toward men. I told her I would think about it, I mean what if I was the only guy there, what if it was embarrassing, what if… but then again, this show was to benefit an important cause out there, to help victims of domestic and sexual abuse.

This brings me back to my friend that was performing in the play. I knew she had strong feelings going into doing this play, and just from our prior conversations I had gathered that she had possibly suffered some sort of abuse in her past, although I never pressed for any details. So Saturday night I go up to the theatre to watch this play and see her performance. When I get the program for the play, I read through it and it has all of the actor bios in it. When I read through hers I come to the realization that she had been raped. My first thought when I read that was why? Who the hell would do that to her, to anyone for that matter? I felt anger towards whoever this asshole was that had done this to her. Maybe that was a good thing, the play was to benefit abuse and make people aware and I just had a huge eye opener at that point.

I watched the play, her monologue was towards the end, and it was “Reclaiming Cunt”. To see her up there performing in front of people and doing it with finesse and grace after going through something as horrible as rape less than a year ago made me smile. It took the anger out of me.

When the play was over everyone came out and explained why they performed in the play and what they were standing up for. When she came out, not only did I now know that she was raped, I also found out that the person that did it was found not guilty of doing it. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt a knot in your stomach before. It is pain in the pit of your gut, it’s not a bathroom pain or a gas pain or anything, but it hurts like hell. The last time I remember feeling that way was when I was 11 and I saw my dad die at home. It’s the feeling of helplessness, the feeling of “What the fuck?”, and not in the cutesy WTF way, in the What the Fuck is going on in this world way. Not only was she raped, but then she had to sit through a trial to only find out her perpetrator wouldn’t even be held accountable for his actions. I cannot even fathom what kind of emotional turmoil that would cause someone.

The show was over and the cast was in the hallway talking to people that had watched the show. I went out and talked to my friend a little bit, told her I enjoyed the show and her performance in it. She seemed happy to have done the play and was conversing with the other cast mates as they got ready to go out for a cast party. I left shortly after that and went home.

When I got home I couldn’t sleep, I was quite wound up. I was on the internet looking up things online about rape and survivors and what you can do to help. It was a crazy low sleep kind of night. I just want to thank my friend for having the courage to move on with her life, to fight back, to try and make a difference in this fucked up world we live in. Nobody should ever have to go through what she went through.

In other internet related news I am now on Twitter and Facebook... so welcome me to 2007.

http://www.facebook.com/DisgruntledHuman/

On Twitter find me at @disgruntledhumn

They screwed me out of one letter with their stupid policy on length of names... damn you Twitter.

They've been talking the end of the world for.a while now, I would say the Amish having their own reality show is a sure sign of the appocolypse; not that Honey Boo Boo isn't.

Hey on a positive note with these remaining few months before the world doesn't end, I may actually blog more. This iPad is pretty slick, I can take it anywhere. That means I can write a blog while taking a shit if I wanted to... Get that image out of your head now. In fact, if I ever write a bunch of blogs in one day, you may be thinking either he's really inspired or he ate at Taco Bell today.

So far almost a week in I only have one complaint about it, it makes me hate my so called smart phone. If I'm at work and want to look at something on facebook I turn on my phone now and I find myself thinking wow, what a piece of shit you are phone. I often find myself swearing at inanimate objects, it makes me feel like a real man. Sometimes I'll go to peel a banana and it isn't quite ripe enough so the peel splits and you only get that first layer off and I'm like fuck you banana. Maybe I should get my own reality show.

Well the good news is I'm still around but the bad news is I bought myself a 64GB IPad 3 last weekend and haven't put it down yet. Although my time online hasn't dwindled and won't be now, my unwasted time online has gone down even more. If there is a glimmer of hope or silver lining here it is that I wrote this on my iPad.

In 1989 when Paul’s Boutique was released, I was ecstatic. I had memorized Licensed to Ill and was looking forward to new songs from the Beasties. I went out and bought my cassette as soon as it was available. My cassette was red; apparently there were different colors available. I played that thing until one of the reels came loose. I could still play it but I had to make sure the reel lined up with the hole in my cassette player.

A few years later I remember watching Yo! MTV Raps and they debuted “Pass the Mic”. That was an exciting moment knowing that another Beastie Boy album wasn’t too far away. Not only did I have a new Beastie Boy’s tape (yes, still tapes), but I had a driver’s license too and as a 19 year old I had to play that and play it loudly.

Only two years would pass before another album would come out. I bought that cassette on its release day again and jammed that in the car. There’s just something about driving around with Sabotage playing.

There was a 4 year wait before Hello Nasty would be released. 1998 was a totally different time too, the internet was really starting to become commonplace and I bought Hello Nasty on a CD. In fact after buying that on CD I went back and repurchased all of the previous releases on CD as well.

Six years passed before I heard anything new, however now with the internet an everyday use for me, I had no problems finding out when To the 5 Boroughs would be released.

The next album was a little different, all instrumentals but it was still cool and I used it a lot to just relax and sometimes to fall asleep to.

When Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 was coming out last year it was so awesome. I was a 37 year old man now excited for a new CD to come out. I felt like I was in my youth again waiting to get the CD and listen to the whole thing. The only differences between this and when I was 13 was that I was buying a CD and then I ripped it to put on my IPod.

For the past 26 years the Beastie Boys have been a part of my life. No matter what song of theres I listen to nowadays, it always takes me back in time in my mind.

It is a sad day in the music world… RIP Adam Yauch (MCA)

It turns out my site was moving to a new server and I was witnessing some leftovers at the old location. It took about two days after I bitched and then it was back to normal. I’m just glad that it is back again, now I can get back to ignoring it and not making entries.

I never told my “Where Was I” story, because frankly it wasn’t very interesting; and honestly it still isn’t. Back then I worked as the HBC/GM manager at a little shitty store. It was a job I hated very much, although there are certain aspects I did enjoy very much (that is for a different entry sometime in the future). I worked 8am to 5pm most days at this job, Tuesday was no different. I got up at 6:30 am, turned on KSTP to watch the news while I did my morning rituals getting ready for work. I started at 8am back then and I had about a 20 minute drive so I would have to be out of the house at 7:30 to make it. I still had the TV on and Good Morning America was on and they said they would be talking to Michael Jordon when they got back, and that was the point I shut off the TV and headed out the door for my lovely job. I never listened to the radio back then, I had no reason to. I had a sweet 6 deck CD player in my trunk and that was my entertainment while driving. My task for the day once I got to work; set up Halloween.

By the time I got to work at 7:50, the first plane had already hit the first tower, but I wouldn’t even know that for another half hour or so. If you’ve ever worked in a store or with the public you know that information comes into you incomplete and somewhat distorted. It’s like playing the game grapevine back in school. We had no radio in the store, just piped in music so there was no news coverage. Once all the stories started coming in and I soon realized that I was not going to put 100% into my Halloween set that day, I went to the shelf and pulled one of my radios off and went to the backroom. By the time I did that the Pentagon had also been hit. It was an absolutely crazy day there because it really sucks not knowing what is truly going on. I unfortunately couldn’t stay in the back all day and listen to the radio, I had to go out on the floor and try to look like I was attempting to do some work (let’s face it, after 6 years I had gotten pretty good at that).

A large portion of my product was up near the pharmacy and I would hang out behind the counter sometimes, usually just to escape the floor. They had a radio in there, and I was drawn to it much like anyone that day. The towers collapsed while I was in there and we were listening. I remember the looks of disbelief on some people’s faces that worked there and customers. These weren’t young people either; these were people in the late 50’s and early 60’s. These people were alive when Kennedy was killed; they were around for Vietnam… I had a reason to be freaked; I was only 27 and had never experienced anything like that before.

I actually drove 20 miles home for lunch that day so I could see some television coverage because I wanted to get a better grip on what was happening. Watching the news really didn’t help either because no one really knew what was going on. We knew what happened, but didn’t know what was really going on.

I don’t remember much about the remainder of the day at work. I think I spent over 90% of it in the back room. I had a lot of phone calls that day from friends who wanted to discuss the day’s events. The one thing that did stick in my mind was when I came home that night and saw the lines of cars at the gas station. I had only seen that in hurricane coverage on television.

The next morning when I got to the town I worked in, I saw the gas stations had no amounts on their signs. When I got into work I heard from the people that lived in the town that the stations changed their prices multiple times during the day and night and took the numbers down after they went over $5 a gallon… and that is my boring 9/11 story; although I’m sure people with frontline stories would be more than willing to trade stories anyday.

Where's my cut?

Now you know my next project, however, I don’t plan on doing much of that until my days reach more of an average of 70 degrees, not this 90 to 100 bullshit.

I would say that once the deck is finished that I will be online more and post more, but shit... we all know better than that.

There is also the matter of my left wrist injury. I probably shouldn’t’ call it an injury since I can’t pinpoint when I would have hurt it. I just know when I do certain things like write or type that it hurts like hell. Luckily it only hurts from the start of the ring and pinky finger down to the wrist and then shoots up the arm when I twist it wrong. That is very awesome.

I’m sure I could type more shit, but really, what’s been going on around here? Oh that’s right, we shot Osama. I say we because it makes me feel like part of the team, although all I did was sit on the couch relaxing and then partially freaking out when it’s announced the president is going to make a special announcement late on a Sunday… holy shit, bombs are coming, time to get wasted. Of course almost 2 weeks later and we still hear about it every day. I try not to read about it too much though; I can’t take the news sites. Not because of the news itself, but because of all the idiots that comment on the stories. Today while I was supposed to be working I stumbled over to Fox News . There is an article over there all about how the White House invited rapper Common over. Wow is that a shit storm of controversy all of the sudden. However, I didn’t see any mention of when George HW Bush invited Eazy E to the White House back in 1991. You know Eazy E, a member of the group NWA, with the controversial song Fuck the Police? Really… what the fuck FOX?

This was my kitchen addition that I did shortly after I first moved in to my new house in August of 2009.
KITCHEN REMODEL

Here is my bedroom closet that I Redid
BEDROOM CLOSET

Here is my hallway closet that I redid:
HALLWAY CLOSET

And here is what is keeping me away now; because it is still in progress:
KITCHEN ADDITION

Then there are the idiots making products we don’t need. Dawn dish soap with Oil of Olay lotion in it… we don’t need this shit. I don’t want lotion all over my dishes. If your hands dry out because you are washing dishes then either wear gloves or put on some lotion when you’re done. How lazy are we in this country that we can’t open two separate bottles. Hell, if I have to open the cap on my dish soap, I’m surely not going to have the energy to pump lotion into my hands… and forget rubbing it in.

Our attention span is so short, possibly from information overload. I know this was a little over a month ago, but does anyone remember all the dead birds and fish? Yeah, that’s what I figured. Everyone was crying apocalypse and government cover-ups and UFO’s not too long ago, but oh shit, Lindsey Lohan steals something and that is our new attention grabbing item for this month. What a bunch of shit that is. No wonder I hate the news, if it isn’t getting them ratings then it isn’t worth their time. Fucking sellouts.

Speaking of sellouts, when is Facebook going to crash and burn? MySpace is in trouble already, possibly going down, and I feel Facebook will follow. MySpace started as some site to promote your band, and then a bunch of people jumped the wagon and decided they wanted to be on there as well. Then… and this was the beginning of the end; it got commercialized. Suddenly every movie coming out and every new product had a MySpace account and wanted you to join them there. The over commercialization of anything will kill it. Once the big money started coming into MySpace, then it started to really suck ass and people began to bail. Now Facebook is heading down that same path. What started out as some shitty college idea to bang chicks and spy on everyone on campus grew to this giant network of people and now has sold out and is now on its decline… and may I add; good riddance.