Goodbye Jesse Helms

Jesse Helms dead at 86

Ironic that a man who spent his life opposing all the values that make America special dies on Independence Day.

I've never lived in North Carolina, and never spent any time there except on an interstate. And the more I read about the life of Jesse Helms, the happier I am about that fact.

This is a guy who opposed a national holiday in tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. He opposed civil rights, school busing and desegregation. He opposed a political appointment for the assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development because the appointee in question was a lesbian. He equated abortion with September 11 and the Holocaust. He said that all gay people who suffered from AIDS deserved it because of their behavior. He was against affirmative action, and almost lost an election to a black man because a campaign ad he filmed was so offensive it ticked off a lot of conservatives.

There's not a whole lot I can add, except for this: Jesse Helms is the poster child for affirmative action. Affirmative action exists not to give unqualified minorities jobs but to protect qualified people from losing out on jobs because of their ethnicity. And if anyone was going to discriminate against a minority, it would have been Jesse Helms.

While talking to a good friend about this earlier today, he mentioned that the only sad thing about this death is that it didn't occur a couple hours earlier, and I can't agree more. That way I wouldn't have to listen to Helms' fellow close-minded politicians talk about how fitting it is that "this great patriot died on our country's birthday."

Old dudes got game.

So, yeah. You look at some old dudes that sing country music, and you think "Those are some ugly friggin' guys. Even the fat, ugly chicks -- the ones your wingman at the bar is like "Dude.. fuck you. Good luck." when you tell him to take one for the team -- won't touch these guys.

But it's not true. Just look. I'm cruising past CMT the other day, and there's a video of a Hank Williams Jr. song called That's How They Do It In Dixie. He's singing about the way hot chicks dress down south, and every single woman in the video is hotter than any woman I've ever seen naked -- in person, at least. Oh yeah, and Gretchen Wilson is in the video as well. Need more proof? Hank was still older than God 20 years ago when he did the All my Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight video. The chicks were all smokin' hot then, too, at least for the 80s. Don't laugh -- you dug the women's mullet.

Then there's Willie Nelson. There are two examples of his ass-attainment abilities here. First off, the dude sang a song called "To All The Girls I've Loved Before." To sing/write/perform/be associated with that song, one of the prerequisites is "You must be a player." So, Willie's in. A few years back, he did a song with a chick named Lee Ann Womack. She's responsible for the horrid song that is "I Hope You Dance," so she loses points. But she's also smokin' hot. And she was ridin' down the flippin' streets of Austin, Texas, on horseback with a dude that looks like his face used to be shoe leather once upon a time. Willie got game.

Merle Haggard also did a video with Gretchen Wilson. Ronnie Milsap just recorded a song called "Local Girls," and the video is Ronnie Milsap wondering around the Caribbean looking (as much as any blind man can) at girls in bikinis. And yes, they're looking back -- not that Ronnie realizes this.

My point? I'm way, way less than half all these guys' age. For most of them, I'm probably less than a third of their age. And yet, these dudes are pulling ass I couldn't get if I owned the TAG body spray company. I guess it's simple.

Old dudes got game. And lots, lots, lots and lots of money.

Speaking of idiots.. at least we're exporting one.

I'm 26 years old now. Have been for a month or so now. And still, I've only just now figured out this basic fact of life, and it's one I have a feeling might aid me greatly for the next 26 years:

Some people just don't get it.

It's a message board, one of millions on the internet. On it, there's a debate between some similarly-employed people, yours truly being one of them. What's the debate about? Who ever really knows on message boards? But someone I've found generally disagreeable at best and an A-list jacka$$ at worst over the past three years decides to post on this topic. One of his statements go as follows: "If we were talking about how good or bad a guy I am, I wouldn't bother, but since people are saying bad things about my company, I feel I need to respond."

Really convenient how the two suddenly don't have anything to do with each other, at least for this guy.

I'm not incredibly self-aware, and I'm not even that smart. But even I know this much: how "good" or "bad" a guy you are when representing your company has everything to do with what people say about your company. In turn, what people say about your company has everything to do with the public opinion of your company. That's the way it is, and there's nothing you can do about it.

When you call people at extremely inappropriate times to yell at them for something, spend a few moments treating them like your poolboy then hang up on them, they're going to think you're a jackass. Since you are the only link they have to your company, they're going to think your company is full of jackasses.

When, more than two years later, you call people to yell at them about something else, which this time you've taken way out of proportion and have no idea about, then call them fifth-grade names before again hanging up the phone, they're going to think you're still a jackass. And your company? Well, they've dealt with you at least 300 times a year over the past three years, and they've still employed you. Most people can tell from just these two incidents that you're an unprofessional, immature jackass who can't control himself much less any number of employees.

In between, you hear former employees of this company and this person in specific, say plenty of bad things about working under you, and that it was all they could do not to read you the riot act when they worked under you.. you get the point.

You can't disconnect the way you act on behalf of your company and the way people think of your company. If you're completely unprofessional, people are going to draw conclusions about the people who still choose to keep you employed. You can't have one without the other.

People just don't get it. Thank God at least one of them is leaving the state. I'm still stranded in Idaho, but at least the cumulative IQ will raise a couple points.

Idiots doth runneth amok...

It's amazing what we, as the human race, can do.

Some dude walked on the moon 36 years ago, and a bunch of other guys have done it since.

Someone created the Internet.

And someone, somewhere, has carnal knowledge of Michelle Branch. See? Friggin' amazing what the human mind can do.

So it lands somewhere between disappointing and downright nauseating to see what happens when you add a little bit of snow into the mix. The average IQ drops about 80 points, and since this is a state that elected Bush with more than 60% of the vote, I'm not sure a lot of these people really had 80 points to mess around with anyway.

Roads designed for 35 miles per hour... people are putting a decimal in between the numbers and taking half an hour to get across an intersection. Other people, on the other side of the spectrum, have decided now is as good a time to die as any and add a zero to end of the number and go from L.A. to New York in 23 minutes... or they would have if minute 13 hadn't included hitting some black ice and going off a cliff at 350 miles an hour.

The worst, though, is the parking. All it takes is one snowstorm to understand why whoever invented the lines that go on parking lots should have more money than Bill Gates and the rest of Microsoft's executive board combined. I swear people meet in lobbies and scheme this crap up... "Since there's snow on the ground, let's see if we can draw a picture with our cars in the parking lot!"

Probbaly not, but you never know. I can't find any other semi-logical explanation for some of the directions these people are parked. There's a car parked in the parking lot? Sweet! Let's see if I can park next to him -- at a flippin' 90 degree angle, with my bumper as close to his driver's side door handle as possible!!

Idiots, one and all. And sadly, I'm kinda thinking it will be the same no matter where I live. Oh well.

I love being a journalist, but...

Ya know, I love my job. I really do. I mean, how cool is it to tell someone "I'm going to work" and then go sit and watch a football/basketball/whatever game for three hours? It's quite possibly the coolest job in the world besides actually playing the sports, which I'm far too unathletic to ever actually do.

But.. even I have limits. As much as I love journalism.. if it ever takes me here, I quit.

I'm not saying I think the death penalty is always bad. 99.9% of the time, I think it's probably an easier way out for the person that committed the crime.. those prison stories had to come from somewhere. My main problem is that... this dude wrote about an execution. And just like I can't write about a game if I wasn't there... that guy couldn't have written about this execution if he wasn't there.

I'm cool with watching white dudes try to play basketball and then writing about it. But if my job description ever includes watching someone die... I think it'll be time to go back to school and pursue a different career path.

This is me... welcome to it.

Well, everybody keeps talking about blogs. And for the longest time, I thought it was just some bored person's new spin on the world "blah." And personally, I'm pretty fond of the world "blah" myself. It just kinda.. sums everything up sometimes.

But I kept hearing about it, then a friend of mine started one up. Then another friend of mine, who doubles as a professor of mine at Idaho State, told me about his blog, and it sounded interesting, so I checked it out. You should too... http://redstatedonkey.blogspot.com .

But anyway... so I decided to conform -- again -- and start a blog. I have no idea what I'll say. I have nothing cool to say like Rob. Nothing at all. No political agendas to push. No questions to be answered, no meaning of life to be found.. nothing. I'm just stranded in Idaho, waiting the necessary 18 months until someone can grant my pardon. And from time to time, I'll tell you funny stories about being stranded in Idaho. Anyway... that's it. Go check out Rob's blog while you wait, cuz it's good stuff. I'm not a hardcore democrat or anything, but I'd like to think if I had a gun put to my head and was forced to register one way or the other.. heck, I know I'd go blue. So go read Rob.

GO!

NOW!!