5 AM

It's really the Nothing Hour. No one is awake who wants to be awake. Nothing good happens at 5 AM. No happy surprises happen at 5 AM. 5 AM is the point in insomnia where you are ready to strike yourself with a mallet in order to be unconscious. 5 am is the last bit of sleep before most people have to get up. No one is on Facebook, no one is on Myspace, no one is on LJ. It's so bad that even teenagers have torn themselves from the internet and head off to bed. Everyone but me. I'm here. I'm here, awake, taking care of emergencies, because like I said, no one who is awake now is particularly doing well. Not just me, there are maybe, I'd guess 10% of the population getting the world ready for the rest of you, taking care of things no one else in their right mind would do. 5 AM is when I update Exit Eleven the most. 5 am is when i usually send out my emails, so my sleep deprived brain is usually saying things that shouldn't really be said, but I am too tired to know better. No one likes 5 am, even those who like the sunrise, because the sun usually doesn’t officially come up till around 6. Trust me, I know. In fact, I'll go check right now, hold on...

Actually, it's a cloudy morning, so it looks like there will be no sunrise for anyone. It's actually... 6:12 am now, but I conceived of writing this at 5 am. The mind works slower at this time of day, if you can call it that. It truly is an ungodly hour 5 am, I don't know why they call midnight the witching hour. If I was going to do any evil, guess when I would do it. Who is ready to deal with anything at 5 AM? I guess there are good things that can happen at 5 am but one would have to work really, really hard at it. And I can't think of anything right now... why? Because its 6:15 AM, who can think at such an hour?

You know you heard me on the Radio

I don't know if you guys know, but I do a lot of different things. I write, I'm a screenwriter, I act, oh, and I'm on the radio. The show is called NONPRODUCTIVE and it is aired live Thursdays from 8-10pm on http://www.hearnewbrunswick.com every week. If you miss it, don't worry, you can listen to the whole show on http://www.non-productive.com through their podcasting system. I'm not the Host, I'm really just one of the crew, the hosts are Frank, Sam Little and Lindsey, but I'm there, and we are all funny, so you should check it out. We do sketch comedy, talk, satire and variety. How can you pass that up?

John

Confessions of a Crazy Ex-Boyfriend

My name is John, and I’m a crazy ex boyfriend

(Hi John)

Now it was not easy for me to come to this realization, but events over the last year have made me see that a lot of my actions in the past have definitely been of the "crazy ex-boyfriend" variety. As sobering as this revelation has been, I have taken solace in two things; One, I am in no way the craziest ex-boyfriend out there, not by a longshot. I have heard some incredible insanity lately, from many different sources, and my conclusion is that as a crazy ex boyfriend, I was really pretty tame. And two, I am very confident that my craziness is in remission. I have consulted everyone from Buddhist scholars to Psychotherapists, and I am certain that I have learned from both my own mistakes and the psychoticism I have seen in others. My purpose in writing this article (and if it gets a good response I’ll write more) is to give women (and men for that matter) fair warning when their boyfriend is crazy, is going crazy, or will be crazy when they break up with them. I also am making myself available to give advice and answer questions about whether your significant other is batshit crazy. I suppose I should give you my credentials as a crazy ex boyfriend

One of the main behaviors of a crazy ex boyfriend is a escalating pattern of crazy behavior. That pattern usually escalates because of one thing and one thing only; attention. Crazy guys hate to be ignored, and they cannot stand the idea of their ex girlfriend “getting over them”. For one reason or another, guys like I used to be seem sweet and kind and generous when we get into a relationship, and we get used to the attention we receive from our girlfriends. But that can’t last forever. At some point we will become unsatisfied at one thing or another, and arguments will occur. In the case of my last ex, I was ambivalent about whether I wanted to date her or not, so she went out and got another boyfriend. That was rough, but it was not what sent me off the deep end. She then had the absolute gall to get over me! That’s what sent me into crazy ex mode. I started doing anything I could to get her attention. I did all sorts of romantic things like bring her flowers and send her cards, things I never did when we were actually dating. But she still didn’t come back to me. The more she insisted on not breaking up with her bf, the more desperate I became. Eventually I started fights just to make sure that she still had feelings for me, even if they were negative ones. Now mind you, I never did any of this on purpose; it was just what my crazy mind thought of at the time. I’ve heard of guys doing much worse, and better. My last ditch effort was putting a personal ad in her local newspaper declaring that I still loved her and wanted her back. That s the Light side of crazy. I’ve heard of guys threatening to burn their ex’s stuff, accusing their ex’s of cheating on them during their relationship, telling their ex’s that they never loved them, and just flat out looking for anyway to hurt them in order to elicit a response.

The worst thing you can do to a crazy ex is to ignore them. They always want you to be thinking about them, either good or bad. They want you to think that they will never get over him. They want to believe that they were the best thing to ever happen to you, and every piece 0f evidence that refutes that just feeds into the crazy. If you happen to be reading this and see yourself in it, trust me, you are not the best thing to happen to anyone. There are just too many people in the world for that to be true. Even if it is true up to that point, it is quite likely that some guy will come along who will be better, and most decidedly saner than you, so get over yourself. I had to, and that’s when I took one step towards being in remission. If you have any comments, you know how to leave them, but if you have any questions or need advice about a crazy ex-boyfriend, email me at exit.eleven@gmail.com. Remember, it takes one to know one.

Stupid or Racist?

These are some comments about a Forum post I saw on Adult Swim.com about the Boondocks cartoon show a while back. Now I know you should never get too upset over anything you read on a forum, but every now and then you see something that really burns your biscuits. This is what happened on my particular day...

OK. So I never really listen to the people who don't like Boondocks, because they are usually not Black, and therefore do not get it. Which is not to say that white people do not get it, because these forums are full of white people, and full of people who love Boondocks. What I hate is people who can't discern the purpose of what different characters in a show mean. For instance, on all in the family, Archie Bunker was a racist, but there were a lot of other characters on the show who disagreed with his stance on things. But a stupid person could look at the show and say since he was racist, the show is racist.

Now I personally don't feel that Huey is racist, because I agree with a lot of the things he says. Huey is just full of opinions, as am I. What people who are stupid don't see, is that Huey’s views often make it hard for him to enjoy the nice things in life. Maybe it isn't the stupid people's fault, Caesar hasn't been on the show. He is a good foil for Huey, and does his best to get Huey to Lighten up. People who think that Boondocks is against white people do not know anything about Black culture. The overwhelming theme of Boondocks on television has been that Black people are our own worst enemy, not white people. But stupid people would only see what their stupid, racist minds will allow them to see. I am at the point where I don't think I could be friends with someone who doesn't get Boondocks, because that means that they are not intelligent enough to understand what is going on, and I generally dislike stupid people, unless they are hot girls, but that's my own personal hypocrisy at fault there.

Basically, if you get Boondocks and disagree with a certain character's point of view, I can talk to you. For every opinion that is expressed on that show, you can find a dissenting one. In fact, Riley never agrees with Huey, and teases him mercilessly for his conspiracy theories. So saying that the show is one way or another is quite possibly the stupidest thing one can say. Though racism and stupidity often go hand in hand, because you have to be an idiot on at least some level to be racist, I believe that this particular topic was started by someone who is less racist than just a complete idiot.

White People Be All Like Dis

Comedians have gotten a lot of mileage out of the whole white people do things this way, black people do things this way bit, and for the most part it ever gets old because we all believe it ton be true. I am a personal believer that perception equals reality, and what it is that we see and feel to be true about each other is only as true as we believe it to be. So stereotypes are only as true as they are believed to be, and as true as they are reinforced by their respective members.

I say all that to say black people and white people do things differently than Black people. Especially German people. Germans seem to be the Whitest of White people, the most ethnically Caucasian of the Europeans, the fount from which all honkiness flows. I thought it was just a coincidence that the person I knew who was most devoid of any brown sensibility was German, but then… then came Dirk Nowitzki. One person is a coincidence, two is a trend.

In basketball there is a practice called “popping your jersey”. It’s a simple little taunt done after making an especially important shot where the player takes the edges of his jersey across his chest, usually the part that has his team name or his teams home town on it, and “pops” it out from his chest. Easy right? Well, it is for the 90% African American NBA. but poor German Dirk couldn’t get it quite right. In his first game back after a major injury, he made a game winning shot with 9 seconds left to go. The opposing team (the Utah Jazz) took a time out and the arena exploded as the Dallas Mavericks were home for this game. Dirk had put his team ahead with a three pointer in transition, and to celebrate, he attempted to pop his jersey. Instead of doing what I described above however, he pulled the bottom of his jersey out of his shorts and yanked it down, as if he were trying to stretch out a too-short shirt. It was almost an “awww” moment because you knew what he was trying to do, but in his zeal and his German-ness, he got it completely wrong. He looked like an old woman having a hot flash trying to cool herself off.

It was then that I realized that no matter what, our actions were destined to provide fodder for race comedians for generations to come. As long as group A does what appears to be action B, and Group C does what appears to be action D, then stereotypes will continue to flourish. Does that them true, or does it just make the perception of said stereotypes true? I think the answer is the latter. We can fight it, try not to reinforce our stereotypes, but the fact of the matter is, everyone will subconsciously act the way they are “supposed” to act at least once in their lifetime, and chances are that one time will be in front of 1 million people of other races who will look at you and say “see, they’re all the same”. Just like I looked at Dirk and said “man, he is really, really white.” But there is nothing wrong with that. The problems come from ignorance and hatred of our differences, not from the differences themselves. Finding humor in our differences is not such a bad thing, it is better than, say, lynching each other for them, or say, doing things like not dating Black Guys because you are not Black. That is the wrong way to approach differences.

So yeah, the White/Black/Asian/Spanish people do things differently plot line maybe overplayed in comedy, but it’s still funny. And let us hope it stays funny, so that it does not become something darker and altogether more sinister.

Love: Weakness or Detriment?

People say love is a many splendor thing. I say it's a many splintered thing, as in the pieces of sharp wood that where stuck under the fingers of prisoners of war in Vietnam. Or as in the pieces of fiberglass or plastic that accidentally slip into your skin and are impossible to get out without digging into your skin with a sharp pair of tweezers. Love can be compared to not just splendor or splinters, but thorns, like the thorn bushes you trip and stumble into in the woods, causing you a million stabbing points of intense pain. Really, no one ever wants to be in love, which is why you "fall" in love, just like you "fall" into a trap. You can also think of love as something you step in or on, like a pile of shit, or an old rusty 12 in. screw that goes straight through your foot and shoots out of the top like a budding seed breaking the surface of the Earth.

My point is that being in love is detrimental and a handicap to anyone because of the intense pain associated with it. Anyone in love is at a disadvantage in life, especially if they are in a relationship. In any relationship, the person who is most in love is in the weakest position in any relationship of their life. The person who is less in love has all of the power, and they can command and control the other person because they do not need them to be happy or complete. They can toy with, fiddle with, manipulate and complicate the life of the person who loves them for no other person than they can. Anyone who happens to be in love is at a disadvantage; they are in fact, mentally handicapped. The only time a relationship is equally developmentally disabled is when both parties are equally in love which is why relationships like that are disgusting to see. Basically you are seeing two weak and disabled people engaging and enabling each others weakness. People who have had frontal lobotomies are in better control of their faculties than those who are allegedly “in love”.

In fact, these people are kind of like the retarded. And two people in love are like two retards in love; you stare at them, and in a way you're happy for them because they found each other, but in another way you're laughing because they're still just two retards tarding around together. It’s sweet but kind of fucked up as well. That's exactly how I feel about couples in love. And if you feel that as an insensitive statement, don't; that was actually way more insulting to the developmentally disabled because of me comparing them to normal people in love than anything else. I actually apologize to DD folks for comparing them to idiots in love.

In essence, Love is a fruitless endeavor, an intense weakness in character and judgment, and should be avoided at all costs. The more in love you are with a person, the more they own you, and the more of your soul they can manipulate and toy around with. Why do you think that when you break up with or are broken up with, you feel like you’ve lost a bit of yourself? It is your soul that’s gone, stolen by that evil force of malevolence called love. My research has concluded that you should never love someone more than they love you and least of all, more than you love yourself. That’s the easiest way to keep control of your soul, and never feel that emptiness that love can leave you with. The best way to live is to get people to love you, much like cult leaders do, because then you can get so much power over people that you can get people to kill themselves. Follow this advice, please; unless, you know, piercing yourself with rusty screws is what you’re into, and then have at it.

Commies Aren't Cool

You know I don't normally agree with anything a Conservative person has to say, but commies are indeed, not cool. Communism has killed almost as many people as Christianity has over the centuries, and Communism has only really been prevalent in the last century.

I read up on Che Guevarra, and he was basically the Osama bin Laden of the 60's and 70's. He wanted to foment Civil War wherever he went, in the name of Socialism. He is seen as a hero of the common people, and the class disparity in South America meant that he had many people willing to listen to him. The huge wealth gap in South and Central America today is why Che is still revered there. The problem is that most Civil Wars only end with the slaughter of those who they are ostensibly supposed to be helping - the poor and voiceless - and the people who win are generally as bad as the ones they replace. Much of the wrath of South American Revolutionaries is directed at the U.S., but the U.S. only screwed with South and Central America so much because of the Cold War. If Che and Fidel hadn't aligned themselves with the United States greatest enemy, then we most likely would have left them alone.

And for those who love Che, btw, he has said that he would have launched the nukes Cuba had against the United States. So if it were up to Che, none of us would be here right now. The man himself was less important than what was made of him postmortem. He became a symbol of revolution. The fact is none of his actual revolutions produced anything more than brutal military regimes. The only one that survived was Cuba, and that is due way more to Castro than Che. In fact, Che seemed to fail at his only chance to really be in charge of govt. in Cuba. His methods of violence were antithetical to a peaceful society, and in that way he showed more of a Stalinist nature. which we all know isn't good for anyone.

In the end Che is really more of a tragic figure than a romantic or inspirational one. Right now his image fuels capitalism in the form of Che merchandise, and how much of that money do you think goes to poor people in South America? Che is the Tupac Shakur of social revolutionaries, more important in Death than in Life. What he fought for was worth fighting for; how he went about it was wrong. Even Castro said that Che had aggressive tendencies, and his inability to work with others is what doomed all of his attempted revolutions. That's why the only place he was really successful was in Cuba, where he had Castro to temper his passion and ideas.

Author Christopher Hitchens, who was a socialist and a supporter of the Cuban revolution in the 1960s but has since changed his views, summarized Guevara's legacy thus: "Che's iconic status was assured because he failed. His story was one of defeat and isolation, and that's why it is so seductive. Had he lived, the myth of Che would have long since died." [stolen from wikipedia].

In the end, Capitalism isn't perfect, but there is not one Communist country in the world that is doing well economically, except for China, and China has more problems than you can believe, including intense religious persecution and more Civil Rights abuses than in all 8 years of Dubya's administration. Not a good track record for the Commies, but they kick ass at the Olympics