i work for one of the many cubicle farms in uptown charlotte. i endure the many mass emails about position changes in the corporate heirarchy, when the fridges are going to be cleaned out, and times when there are going to being inane policy changes. we also get periodic emails from the company that leases us space in this tower of power. one that has made more than one go round on the email splattering is a warning to building occupants about smoking in front of the building.
i have received this email at least four time since i started working here over a year ago. as has every other employee of the company. its unprofessional to walk up to a company and see a dozen people or so leaning against the corporate signage sucking away on cancer stick after cancer stick. and mind you, right around the corner from the entrance of our building is a designated smoking area.
but yet, every time i mosey on outside and walk across the street to refuel on my more than likely testicle shrinking energy drinks, i have to first wade through a smog of cigarette smoke.
then after that, i have to walk through the “smoking section” outside the BofA mall. the one where people totally ignore the engraved plaques that tell them where they are permitted to smoke.
now, i am not one of those people that just sits back and gripes about the constant smoke at establishments. it goes hand in hand with going out on the town for a night. you just know that you are going to have to hit up your clothes with febreze the next day. and if i am out and about, i am usually hammered, so it doesn’t bother me. but in the sober broad day light, i don’t need to smell like an ashtray. i think as retribution i might start farting in smoking co-workers cubicles…

in this day and age, we are a very distrusting society. almost to the point of paranoia if you ask me. i always lock the doors to the house. i mean, if i am even out in my front or backyard mowing (those of you that have visited la casa delYerg know this doesn’t happen frequently) i lock the front door. i shred all my mail. even the junk mail. alright, maybe not the stuff that just says resident, but i know that a crafty thief might even be able to extract personal information from me there. i don’t leave the MINI unlocked or the windows down if i know i am going to be away from it for more than 30 seconds. very distrusting.
yet every time i am at a grocery store, fast food restaurant, or wherever, i trust that the person working the register gave me the correct change. i never question it. i mean, i check the bills, but never the change. and not to insult the intelligence of those diligent workers at such establishments, but they are necessarily places where someone is checking their qualifications. you don’t usually submit a resume at mickey d’s. for the most part, the basic math competency is just assumed.
this scares me a little. have you seen the recent scholastic aptitude numbers in the united states? we aren’t exactly burning up the charts, if you know what i mean. and those that produced those numbers are more than likely the ones kicking back your change from your number four with cheese. handling your money. i think i might start taking a gander before i just shovel those coins into my pocket. just a thought.

… the bottle schploded in the back seat.
the temperature in the CLT was about 98 degrees today. and not the kind with the lachey brothers either. that made the real feel temperature about 104 degrees. you can only imagine what that would make the temperature inside of a vehicle. the type of temperatures where you defiitely don’t want to leave a baby or a dog or a elderly person in the car.
so…
friday night i played poker with a few friends. not wanting to go crazy out of my way, i stopped for a twelve of the COB at the local convenience store. the same store that a 10 year old threatened to knife my boy, pooky, for looking at him funny a year or so ago. i had never been in there in the over two years that i have been living here, so this was a little of an adventure for me. it had all the things a growing boy looks for in a store that has the bulletproof glass with a four inch tray to slide the cash under. your lottery tickets. your pork rinds. your malt liquors.
in that, something caught my eye…
mad dog 20/20 banana red. oh, the banana red. it harkened me to the days in college. dump out about half of a two liter bottle of 7up and then fill it with a bottle of the MD twenty twen twen banana red for my own version of a ghetto wine spritzer… a wino spritzer if you will?
all nostalgic, i threw down the three fifty for that majestic square wine bottle. they gave me the mandatory paper bag to put it in and i mozied on over to rome’s to play some poker, leaving my ghetto goodness in the pocket on the back of my seat.
fast forward to today…
APPARENTLY, there are storage temperature restrictions to mad dog… that is right. when i got to my car the after work today and hit that magic little button to roll down the windows and open the sunroof, there was this interesting aroma. ah, the smell of warm banana red. if only the geniuses that make those little pine tree air freshners could make them in banana red mad dog 20/20. luckily for me, the interior of the MINI was saved by the absorption capacity of my favorite beer logo jacket. motherbitchshit.
lesson learned: ghetto drinks will hurt you, one way or another.

okay, i am not sure what kind of market is out there, but i am willing to start entertaining offers for the first photographic evidence of theYerg’s first born. i am not going to be like one of you silly saps that just simply posts the pictures on my myspace or facebook page so that people can comment on how adorable it is or how happy you are for me and the future missus. not this guy. i am following in the footsteps of all my fellow celebrities (by the time my first spawn hits the world, my star should be on the walk of fame in front of the chinese theater. okay, maybe just in front of a chinese restaurant…).
but i figure with inflation and whatnot, i will easily be able to dwarf the $20 million dollars that brangelina is getting for their twins. wait, for $20 million, are they actually selling the kids or just pictures of them? i mean come on people. i know these people are famous, but they are still just baby pictures!
you cannot tell me that all babies don’t look alike. okay, race aside, all babies look alike. and don’t give me that whole “it has your eyes and her nose” crap. not straight out of the womb. hell, you have to dress them in a certain color clothes just to be able to tell what sex the kid is! heaven forbid you dress the kid in yellow or something and make people guess.
and don’t even get me started on the naming issue. knox and vivenne? sure, that is fine with me. name the kid toejam for all i care. just don’t inundate my yahoo homepage with articles by baby naming experts. first of all, are you kidding me? nowhere do i remember my guidance counselor asking me if i had a pension for naming people. i would have jumped at the chance to go to college to name people’s kids! be at a party when some chick asks me my major… “baby naming. that is right, i am going to pull down the big bucks when i graduate.” i have been a master at giving people nicknames, i would kill to get in on the ground level of someone’s life for a chance to give them the one for life. baby naming expert… get a clue.
secondly, don’t sit there and tell me that the kids’ life is going to turn out a certain way just because of their name. people, these two average $20 million a picture. the kids aren’t going to have any problems. if they are smart, neither will their kids’ kids.
i am still amazed though that some magazine is willing to pay that much for pictures of babies. that means that some of you absolutely insane freaking people out there are willing to shell out the coin for this magazine just to see the baby pictures. why? i mean, are you ever going to meet that kid? are you going to walk up to him ten years from now and say, “oh, i still have your baby pictures from when you were in people magazine. we are so proud of the way you turned out.” maybe frame the picture with captions and all and frame it on your mantle? do i think brad is a good entertainer and that angelina is hot? yes. do i feel the need to hawk over their every move and worship at the tabloid alter? hells no. get a life people.

cruefest 2008. my god, just saying that gives me goose bumps. or maybe chills is a more accurate description of the feeling i get. either way, a crew of our own went out to verizon wireless this past weekend to see what the crue had to offer.
as we pulled into the parking lot, a young lady (i am going to try to be as polite as possible) walked past us with knee high boots, a black skirt that appeared to be made out of an ace bandage it was so short, and a black tank top that barely contained her.. ummm… brains. the WOOOO! that she got from passersby might have made it worth all the money the four guys she was walking with may or may not have dropped for her company.
as we filtered into the amphitheater, we all felt over dressed. not clothes that were too nice, but the fact that we still kept ours on. SOOO many different application of the rebel flag. whether it be a silhouette of an eagle tattoo or a bikini top, it was the most popular accessory of the evening. and then there were the skimpy pleather outfits that most women had absolutely NO business wearing whatsoever.
the mullets… oh the mullets. my favorite was the guy who was holding on so tight. he had his business section buzzed ever so evenly as if done with an electric turkey knife. and then the party section was some of the most beautifully permed locks you have ever seen on a man. but the whole thing was truly party since it was bleached blond… ahhhhh….
the people watching left you with a real sense of self. i mean, after hanging in that crowd for the evening, i honestly thought i might have a shot at curing cancer with the ingredients that i might find in my kitchen if just given a day or two to research some oncology. i am really happy with my contribution to society.
but i digress…
they played music there! pretty good music actually. we unfortunately missed sixx AM and trapt, but walked in right during the middle of papa roach’s set. it wasn’t bad. it had all the kids bobbing their heads in rhythm. just MAY have been a tad bit disturbing seeing a father son duo in the crowd singing buckcherry’s crazy bitch to each other. the kid must have on been about eleven…
then there was motley crue…
while they are not the most geriatric band still on the road these days, these guys are no longer spring chickens. hell, people were curious as to how mick mars was going to stand let alone play. and i will admit that i wasn’t the biggest crue fan back in the day. i went to the concert more or less on a whim. but these guys freaking rocked!
from start to finish, it was an awesome show. first headliner in a long time where i wasn’t chomping at the bit to get out the door to beat the traffic. as far as visuals, they went old school and new school. lots of pyrotechnics. and the big screens were flashing crazy shit. the collage of porn mixed with clips of GW bush was insane. almost surreal.
also surreal, the guy that was taking up a stall in the men’s room with his surprisingly attractive girl. on that list of things to do before you die, that guy can check off, oral sex from a hot chick in a bathroom were most people are hitting the urinals and at least forty guys know it is happening. and i can check off going to another kickass rock show…

- so, its my friday off. and i figured i would finally put an end to my brother calling me an idiot and a loser and go see iron man. yes, jas, you were right. it was an awesome freaking movie. i really like robert downey jr. as an actor. this wasn’t always the case. when did it turn? when did the seemingly rehab regular go from the annoying sidekick in back to school to the actor he is today? i am going to go out on a limb and say that was when he walked around an empty mansion and lip synced for elton john in the “i want love” video. seriously. everything he did after that was gold. kiss kiss bang bang was an excellent flick. val kilmer may have made the movie, but not without downey jr.
but i digress. loved iron man. i love how they let the suit evolve from the cave and then through testing and into the kickass final product. favorite parts of the movie: when he just gets done nailing the chick from vanity fair (when did their journalists become the end all be all of investigative reporting? am i missing something?) and his excuse for being late was that he was “doing a piece for vanity fair.” i love that the stan lee cameos are getting more and more fun. being mistaken for hugh hefner at the charity event was priceless. speaking of cameos, did anyone else pick up on the first terrorist ass that he kicks in the cave? that is right. tom morello, guitarist for rage against the machine. and i was thoroughly impressed with the job that jon favreau did with the whole film. solid directing. he has come a long way since swingers.

- this week, the comedic world lost a great. the passing of george carlin was tragic and surprising. people die. that is the rules. but here is what bugged me about it. i was reading one of those memorial blogs on a website that talked about what carlin had done in the way of paving the way for comedians to come that use what they call “blue” or somewhat offensive language. it being a blog, people had the opportunity to comment and the majority did so by giving their makeshift online condolences in agreement with carlin status in comedic history.
but then there was one guy. there is always one guy. he didn’t agree with the writer’s take and took the opportunity to take shots at carlin’s style, his impact on culture, the content of his sets, whatever. seriously?
this being a blog and an opportunity for me to pretty much use this medium for me to vomit whatever ideas that i might have through the keyboard and onto the screen, i can appreciate the right that someone has to speak their mind. but have we come so far as an oblivious culture that nothing is sacred anymore? i mean, taking what could in essence be called a posthumous tribute to a public figure and demeaning that person by voicing your displeasure with their craft? by the way, as i type this, HBO just ran a tribute commercial for carlin. but back to my point. should the social norms that we all practice in real life not carry over to the virtual world? i mean, there is no way in hell that i would go to an acquaintance’s grandmother’s funeral and say, “you know what, you guys were talking about how good her homemade apple pie was. i had it once and i thought it was dry and that it sucked.” i think that the internet and its anonymity that it gives “users” has allowed them to take away the accountibility that goes along with an opinion. yet if some public figure state some sort of opinion on something that might actually be relevant to society, we crucify them for being insensitive. matter of fact, someone might be offended that i used the word crucify there. oh well. but guess what? i understand that i am accountible for it.

- and lastly, i have a dating tip for you all. actually more along the lines of a life tip. we are all adults here right? right? so let us please use grown up language. if you feel the need to use the restroom, go. if you feel the need to tell me that is where you are going, please do NOT feel the need to use words like tinkle or teetee or piddle or potty or an y other colloquialism that your mother told you was cute when you went to the bathroom as a four year old. seriously people. the restroom, the women’s room, the men’s room, or the lavatory facility if you want to go super formal. but for the love of all that is holy, not the little boy’s or little girl’s room. if i am on a date and a woman excuses herself to the little girl’s room, i am going to be curious as to whether she needs a boost to wash her hands…

yeah… sing it axel…
so, i am on the fence about whether or not i want to get something to nosh on for breakfast this morning. i had a piece of banana bread that i got from the smoothie joint yesterday already at my desk, and i could deal with water until lunch. but then b-hill and ricka talked me into venturing across the street for something else. fine by me, i got my mouth all ready for a toasted honey wheat bagel with a strawberry schmear from einstein brothers BAGELS. yes, i put BAGELS in capital letters for a reason. the line wasn’t that bad for 0730 at all. four or five people waiting for food and only one guy in line ahead of me. so i grab nantucket nectar big cran juice and wait to order my delicious bagel behind the guy in front of me. now, let us keep in mind, dear friends, that there is quite a legible and large board that is hung right on the wall behind the registers… that… has… words on it! but what could they be?! it looks as though they are words that describe the food that they sell there! sacre bleu! it cannot be! but. but. but that would make it easy to order the food that they sell there. why ever would they do this?! oh, i think i have it figured out…
maybe it is so that i would not have to endure questions that the guy in front of me was going to ask! do you sell bagels by the dozen? but of course! do you have flavors of bagels that i can intermingle? but of course! but how will i know what these flavors are? well sir, i can tell you or you can read them off the labels that are on the baskets holding them. can i buy some of your delicious spread in, say, a resealable container to accompany these dozen bagels? my god, yes! my god, this must be my first time in a BAGEL shop. thank you so much for being patient and answering my absolutely stupid questions that are scrawled out in such an organized and legible fashion on that ginormous board that is hanging not four feet from your head! freaking putz.
not feeling as though my already limited patience was going to be able to handle his ignorance, i put back the juice and walked across the hall for a smoothie. the wonderful lady there had it blended and i was out of there before that putz even made it the ten additional feet to the register. i would have brained him with a bottle cranberry juice if i had to wait for him…
and listen, i know i don’t live in the best of neighborhoods. and since there might be the outside chance that someone might steal or i might lose my wallet, i appreciate someone trying to protect my finances. but i really gotta tell you. if you are going to make me come into your store to verify that i didn’t steal my credit card, you are only going to piss me off. i mean, doesn’t that defeat the entire purpose of having those convenient little pay at the pump card readers there? nevermind the fact that now i have to roll up my windows to the car and lock the whole thing down, for fear that someone is going to snag my bag or ipod or phone out of the front seat, just so that i can walk in and tell you that i am the guy on the card. but wait! now i have to wait behind the mother buying milk and the ragged looking gentleman getting a forty as well! this convenience store is so convenient! thank you. again, my lack of patience got the best of me and i told the guy to cancel the transaction so that i could go to a real convenience store. i know. i really need to work on that. ooo… i need you… just a little patience… yeah… thanks, axel.

guys, please realize the protocol as far as which urinal or toilet you are to use when a bathroom is occupied or unoccupied. i was in the bathroom today, alone. pulled up to the very first urinal. that left, to my right, one urinal and two stalls. dude walks in a picks the urinal right next to me. stage fright. now i have to play it off and come back in five minutes. if people just knew what the hell they were supposed to do, i wouldn’t have these problems.
so here is a link for you. take the test. know what the rules are…

well, maybe just a portion of it. this past saturday i got the call around one in the afternoon. yes, i was still in bed and totally enjoying not moving. but alexis rang and asked if i would be down for a bike ride and meet the awesome soccer chicks for some grub and beers at dixie’s. why the hell not?
now, let’s please keep in mind that i have not been on a bicycle in probably eight or nine years. so i was a little more than wary when i got to alexis’ house and he put me on one of his road bikes, a la lance armstrong. he took off his “good wheel” so that i wouldn’t bitch it up. so i took it for a quick spin around the block and it was just like riding a bike. well, because it WAS riding a bike. the hardest part was getting my shoes into those little stirrup thingies once i got going.
the saying “just like riding a bike,” in my mind, pretty much means that no matter how long it has been between the last and next time that you do something, you don’t lose anything from you ability to do it. alexis actually flat out asked me at one point if i knew how to ride a bike. unless they changed something, i pretty much had it covered.
and i gotta tell ya, cruising around the neighborhoods and such took me back to the summers when i lived on my bike. i would find my bike laying in the front yard where i dumped it just before dark the night before. i remember one of my first bikes was a goodwill purchase. it was red with the banana seat and ape hangers on it. not as cool as it would be today. so we took that five dollar bike, spray painted it blue, changed the seat and bars, and did our best to make it look as BMX as possible. would have killed for some mushroom grips.
but on those summer visits to dad’s the bikes were the first thing in the truck. riding up to the pool, down to kahle’s or jean’s for penny candy, or maybe down to the park with our baseball gloves over the grip. all the neighborhood kids. living on vine street, we were naturally “the vine street vandals.”
man, that was nice on saturday. lex and i met up with candace, will, and kate around two thirty uptown. they were all riding cruisers. dixie’s was having some sort of ladies only deal (a. who the hell wants to cut out over half the drinking population on a saturday afternoon? and b. what the hell were they doing in there?), so we cruised over to the pub at gateway village. what a cool ride going through the uptown traffic. felt like one of those crazy bike messengers. alright, maybe not.
we all got our grub (sans bacon) and polished off a few buckets of ice cold domestics before cruising down to candace’s place for some backyard fun. “soccer tennis” was on tap next. a sixteen by sixteen concrete patio slab with a line down the middle. two on two. you get one bounce to kick the ball back over the line. hilarity ensues. so does a fair amount of smack talk. kate and i paired up to form team ghetto bait (aptly named for one of the most disgusting displays by a hood rat that crawled out of the sewer thinking he had a shot with the hot chicks at a patio bar by describing his genitalia. a sad commentary on our society.). we were holding our own until a nasty stubbed toe took kate out of the game. it reminded me of the whole monty python “its just a flesh wound” skit. poor girl is dripping blood on the patio and just asking for a square of TP or something. cracked me up.
after that, i made my first attempt at skateboarding. i tried it as a kid, but i come up extremely short in the balance and coordination categories. the girls had one of those longboards which was pretty easy to maneuver.
the day grew long and the instinct to get home before the street lights came on set in. so alexis and i hopped on our bikes and pedaled the four miles or so back to the hood. i could have been 10 riding with jas back from greider park. i could have been 12 riding back from baseball practice with max. but i was 32 with a nice peace of mind.
of course i ordered a bike online sunday…

… thou doth protesteth too much.
so, yesterday afternoon outside the BofA building downtown there was a group of protesters that were upset, i believe, with the BofA acquisition of a company that didn’t have the greenest of histories. as a matter of fact the company was involved with mountain top mining for coal. ouch. not pretty.
there was about a dozen of these protesters with there well crafted, obviously visited kinkos for the larger posters, banners and posters which displayed their discontent. there was one guy i think that probably came in at the last minute with his poster board and sharpie. he must have been trying to hook up with one of the protesters. i am half tempted to just lump them into a pachouli stinking granola eating tree huggers, but that wouldn’t be fair. some of them looked like they partook of more than just granola…
here was (one of) the part(s) that irritated me… these people were screaming at people just walking out of the building for their lunch break. innocent cube dwellers like myself. dude comes out of his hole to get some fresh air on a nice day. wants to just readjust his eyes beyond his computer screen. he walks out the door and… “you are the cause of global warming!” what the fuck?!
this comes back to one of the major problems with people who protest. they don’t research. maybe one of the pack does. he feeds them all the quaint little slogans and gives them pamphlets to hand out. the rest of the people are just people that he smokes pot with.
and i am all for being heard. i think that these freedoms are what makes this country great. the right to assemble peacefully. it even sounds nice. makes you feel like your government has your back.
here is the thing though. there really aren’t any governments anymore. yeah, those fat pudgy bastards in washington can sit there and make laws all the live long day, but what does it really amount to? not much without some sort of corporate backing. because, let’s be honest, corporations are what rule the world anymore.
think i am wrong? wait for the summer olympics.
all the assaulting of poor people who went through some sort of rigor or trauma or had a special achievement so that they could be one of the torchbearers for the olympics isn’t doing a thing. again, like the poor guy walking out of his office, your statement is misdirected. you want to put a stop to the olympics because of the social injustices in china? talk to coca-cola. talk to mcdonald’s. talk to chevrolet. those are the ones that have the clout. not your senator. and certainly not some poor lady or guy that felt honored to carry a torch that has been a symbol of peace and sportsmanship longer than you have been sucking air.
oh, and by the way, what did you do before assaulting that torchbearer? i mean, you have had eight years or so to prepare your protest and the best you could come up with is, “i think i will knock the torch out of the hands of somebody when they run close to me. yeah, that will stop what is going on in china.”
another hot button for me lately is the people protesting the building of coal fired power plants. yes, there are alternative power generating sources out there. you can power your calculator with a solar panel. now lets think of the size of a solar panel that is going to generate enough power to fulfill the needs of a city the size of maybe charlotte, NC. and you there with the picket sign, do you have solar panels on your house? do you have a windmill in your backyard to generate electricity? no? hmmm…
if you read a little more, you would find out that what these power companies are doing is actually putting in units that are at least ten times cleaner than the ones that are currently powering your home thanks to the standards that are being set for carbon capture. we could go nuclear. but you would protest that too huh? because with all the smart people on this case, none of them have fingered out that whole crazy nuclear thing since three mile island huh? seriously people.
oh, and by the way, these greedy power companies are just trying to keep you from dealing with same style rolling blackouts that california went through. (side note: i am all for cutting down on emission with hybrid cars. but do you know where your electric cars are going to be powered? that is right, off the power grid provided by your local power plant.)
and then there is the absolutely ridiculous. the guy here in charlotte that doesn’t want the city to build a baseball stadium for the triple A team because he thinks it is short sighted and we could get a major league team. this guy has the legal system involved which means his stupidity is costing me tax dollars.
let us take a snap shot of charlotte sports over the last ten years. you have a minor league baseball team that plays in rock hill, SC… the CHARLOTTE knights. must be a reason they play down there. hmm. then you had the charlotte hornets. they are in new orleans. the charlotte sting? folded. the charlotte bobcats? continually struggling and i am not quite sure, but they are not really setting attendance records. the carolina panthers? by midseason, you can you can usually get tickets for two dollars and a jawbreaker. the charlotte checkers? okay little hockey club.
and so you want to bring a major league baseball team to THIS town. dude, shut up and let the knights have their stadium so that i can drive less than forty five minutes to have a beer and a dog at a ballgame.
people, i have nothing wrong with fighting for a cause. but please realize your audience. i am not heartless and i am both social and environmental conscious. but i have never seen a whale in real life. i have seen polar bears at the zoo, on discovery channel, and animated in coke commercials. show me how it impacts my life. show me something that i can feel either empathetic or sympathetic for. cancer research, domestic violence, education, helping disabled veterans, assisting physically or mentally challenged people, AIDS research, all causes i have gotten behind in the past and will do so again. know your stuff before you take up my time…