Tetris

This is what life has come to.

After playing Tetris for about an hour, getting all sorts of lousy pieces that force - FORCE - me to either take a gap or pile sky high in the middle, you know, those pieces that just make you curse when you see them, well, after getting about 20 of those in a row and staying alive and getting all the way back down to manageable, where I can drop 4 lines at a time, I look over at the score...and it sucks.

This makes no sense. When you get more difficult pieces, you have to use a lot more creativity, and are prevented by the game from doing big drops, and get stacked high and have to move faster. If you are given a far more difficult challenge by the structure of the game itself, you'd think the score would be higher. That goes for pretty much any game you play.

Suddenly playing Tetris for a high score feels no different than life itself. If you have it tough, the garbage piles up and makes it harder on you. If you have no money, you go into debt and lose it even quicker. If you have lots of money, you sit back and watch it make more as you scam millions in tax write-offs, and get paid insane amounts of money to take 3 hour lunches and ride in limos courtesy of your father's business connections that got you the job.

I now hate Tetris.

On Baseball

A lot of baseball purists are going gaga for the old rules as Major League Baseball has been instituting many changes and dealing with steroids.  My take on the quirks I can think of at the moment:

• Replay - I remember seeing Paul Lo Duca go bonkers because he saw that what was called a double was actually a home run according to the Shea Stadium scoreboard replay in 2007.  He refused to go to the batter's box until the umpires conferenced.  They called it a home run.  The opposing manager went bananas.  Since then, there has been a lot of grandstanding and suddenly an explosion in missed home run calls.  Now there's replay.  It's fine as long as we leave it there.  No safe/out at first base, no ball/strike calls.  Leave the calls to the umpires when they're standing right there.
• Single-admission Double-headers - Greed has removed the let's-play-two double-header from baseball.  If there's going to be forced to schedule two games for the same day, owners now shoo out everybody who paid for the first game so that they can charge again for the second.  They did one at Shea Stadium (again with the Mets?) late this year due to scheduling conflicts that didn't give them enough time between games.  I say let 'em slide every once in a while.  Maybe every team could do one a year.  Give a treat to the fans who pay for more games than any other professional sport.
• The Mound - Baseball got "boring" in the late 60's because Bob Gibson (and some other guys, I guess) was so good.  So, they lowered the mound to give hitters the advantage.  We still didn't see somebody hit 50 home runs until 1991.  After that, also in part thanks to drugs and smaller ballparks, guys started smashing the ball at Ruthian rates.  They had to change the way they used pitchers.  Now everyone's a specialist.  Put the mound back up there and watch Ryan Howard's home run totals fall as his strikeouts get him benched.
• Closers - This year, Frankie Rodriguez set the "record" for most "saves" in a season.  He's so specialized that he only comes in for the 9th inning if his team is leading by 3 runs or less so he can help win the game and also get a stat.  It's about time for the Fireman to come back, a reliever like Goose Gossage or Bruce Sutter who came in whenever the going got tough and slammed the door.  Didn't matter what inning if the team needed him.  Didn't matter if he needed to throw 3 innings.  Teams should use their best relievers in the toughest spots, not just for the last three outs of the game.
• Interleague Play - I've now seen a fair number of interleague and non-interleague games live.  People like it, it doesn't hurt much unless you count the fact that the AL proves its supremacy and the Mets (yes, the Mets AGAIN!) are in the lead in the NL East instead of trailing by 4.5 games thanks to their bouts with the fellas from the junior circuit.  I like the interleague play.  Just don't expand it beyond the current 15 games.
• All-Star Homefield - Whichever league wins the All-Star game, gets homefield advantage for the World Series.  People piss and moan because this exhibition shouldn't count toward anything real.  Well, the MLB All-Star game is the only game of its kind that actually plays like a real game, maybe even a little better.  This is because there are players who make the game for their defensive abilities and their pitching, which means that unlike the NBA, NHL, or NFL, people are actually trying to play defense.  Nate McLouth to Russel Martin to gun down the AL catcher trying to score from second in extra innings because there's no one left on the bench to run for him is pretty awesome.  People also pooh-poohed about what an embarrassment it would be if the game went past the 15th and we saw outfielder JD Drew and third baseman David Wright pitching, but I have to disagree on that point.  Both guys were ready to go all out to try to win the game for their league.  I don't see how that's a mockery.
• Ballparks - Somebody figured out that you're not going to get 70,000 fans a game, used a little supply and demand, and created Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, which seats just enough people in an intimate setting so that everybody gets a pretty good seat.  This also meant bringing the outfield fences in, which also encourages more home runs, which sells more tickets, etc.  I don't really like short home runs, but I think the new parks are okay.  Maybe a raised mound and a lack of steroids will help to curb the number of cheap home runs.  I swear, seeing Cristian Guzman go yard as much as he has lately is like watching Charles Barkley hoist so many 3 pointers when the NBA experimented with moving the line closer.

I'm sure there are many more controversies I'm forgetting, but that's fine.  It's part of what makes baseball so great.  The debate over National vs. American League, is it better for a DH or a Pitcher to hit?  Has Bud Selig been a good or a bad commissioner?  Why are Red Sox fans such assholes?  The list goes on and on.  Why did you read this post?

A day in the life

Eyes open.  Too early.  Roll over.  No going back.

Stretch.  Drag.  Blink.  Awkward.

Bathroom.  Sit?  Stand.

Hands on the walls.  One stair step.  Another.

Breakfast.  Decaffeinated.  Vitamins, 16.

Terrible television.  Scores I knew last night.

Nothing.  Computer nothing.  

More stairs.  More nothing.

Gym.  Swim.  Drag.  Curse.

.05% better.  Perhaps.

More nothing.

Friends sometimes.

Rinse, repeat.

A Day in Boston

If you looked for me today, you would have found me...

• Lying in bed, late
• Cutting up half a banana on my cereal because it was no longer green enough to eat whole
• Drinking grape juice my parents brought me last weekend
• Watching a movie as an excuse to loaf more
• Taking a shower around 3:00pm
• Spilling burrito bits on my oft-complemented new shorts while at the Purple Cactus with Gabrielle
• Judging my exit by estimated bus arrival times
• Lying in another bed, trying not to take a second nap
• Not buying a hat because the many around Quincy Market weren't the perfect image I had in my head
• Limping down Atlantic Avenue
• Saying, "Whatever you're getting, only decaf and small" at Dunkin' Donuts
• Sitting near the dock of the bay, wasting time
• Relieving myself in an alley
• Fumbling with balloons that read "Bonnie" and "Clyde" so that they wouldn't smack me in the face while trying to eat my Crabby Balls at Dick's
• Drinking Miller High Life
• Not buying anything at Urban Outfitters
• Sitting on my porch, trying not to nod off
• Chatting with my sister
• Winning 1000 Play money chips with a nut full house online
• Blogging
• Paying tribute to Gabi for being there through most of this
• Falling aslee...

Water on water

I stepped out on my porch this morning, realizing that I would have to deal with the obnoxious mechanical sounds of humanity while trying to read the book Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier.  Not so unusual, not so much of a bother, until I saw the man with the machine in question.  He had been spending the past hour or more spraying a power washer on a driveway.  He's still doing it.

Loud noises for over an hour to spray water.  It rained last night.  Think about this from a 19th Century perspective, or earlier.  Making loud noises to spray water onto water, using a whole system employing thousands of people when the thing was already wet.  The thing in question?  Natural earth that had been covered over with annoying slabs of processed stone.

For those of you that have seen my limp, it turns out to be a disease of civilization.  A lack of touch with creation.  In my quest to return to that touch, reading several 19th Century-based books such as Thirteen Moons, I can see how out of touch our entire society is.  Things like spraying water onto water become comical.  If you begin to analyze each action against its natural equivalent, you can gain a glimpse of how far we've fallen.

Anyway, think about it.  Remember, the big man's always happy to see you.

Darth Vader at the Olympics

Yes, the title is correct.  The story is innocent enough.  One of the world's fastest double amputees will be allowed to compete in the Olympics.  Hooray for disabilities everywhere!  Hooray for everyone!  The world is becoming a friendlier place!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/05/16/pistorius.olympics.ap/index.html

But wait...

What if someone gets three of four limbs sliced off with a light saber and is thrown into a lake of fire, then wears a crazy mask with a techno-mullet and gets James Earl Jones' voice but has superhuman strength?  Can Darth Vader now compete in fencing?

What if Tommy John surgery in baseball actually gave erstwhile finesse pitchers the ability to throw the ball 100+ mph, like in Sparky Lyle's The Year I Owned the Yankees?

What about Robocop in a wrestling match?

Imagine the NBA if marijuana gave players a competitive advantage.

With all this talk about keeping sport pure from blood doping and steroids these past couple of years, how do we account for TIP's (Technologically Improved Players - a Sparky Lyle term) now?  How do we decide what's good for sport and what's an unfair competitive advantage?

The lines may never be drawn well enough.  Some new bleeding heart may enter the fray at every turn, championing the cause of the latest TIP.  Soon, there will be no people competing in their own skin, except at the Ablympics, the new competition made for non-TIP's.

And it won't matter, because it's just a game.  If we want to show our nation's prowess now, we just fly a stealth plane in the middle of the night and drop smart bombs down elevator shafts from 3 miles away, or blast them with lasers from space.

I don't know what I'm getting at here.  I guess I just thought I'd give you the heads up.  If the first woman who encouraged a man to openly share his feelings - in public - knew that one day we'd have emo music, she might have thought differently.

Signing off.  I've said enough.

A thing that I've had to ponder over the last two weeks:

The people are not right.

Let's go all the way back to the beginning and slam through the Bible in under 5 minutes.

Adam and Eve, the only two people on earth, got together and made the wrong decision.  All the people in the world got together and said, "We choose option B."

I'm sure there's more, but for the sake of time we'll cut to a posse of brothers, maybe some of whom were indifferent, maybe some of whom were aghast.  They sold their father's favorite son into slavery.  Good job, fellas.  Way to get your dear old dad to love you more.  Whose idea was that?

God uses all of his force to get a whole nation out of slavery.  All the people get together out in the desert, and what do they do?  Piss and moan.  Build a golden calf.  Fear the battle ahead when the spies come back to tell of the land you're supposed to go to.  Do EVERYTHING we can expect from a mob.  Only two guys from the whole nation got to go into that new land, and this because they had been separated for a while and got to speak to one another with clear heads.  Imagine Caleb and Joshua sitting on the mountainside, watching a sunset.

Once these people are in the new land, God has to continually inspire rulers called "judges" to slap the crap out of them because they keep making idols for themselves.  There's a whole book about it.

The people decide they want the tall and handsome guy, Saul, to be king.  Whoops.

A mob of religious guys get together and trap the town slut so they can stone her.

The political and religious leaders get together and decide to do away with a stinker of a people's leader who is threatening all their preconceived notions of authority.  Q: How can you just get rid of somebody like that?  Somebody who is developing a pretty strong following?  A: Get a mob of people together and give them a choice.  They will invariably pick the wrong prisoner to free.

They will pick the wrong person for office. 

They will follow the wrong religious leader.

They will listen to the worst music and watch the worst movies.

They will be placated.

Their empire will fall.  For this reason.

Proper Spanish

My 50th post on this particular blog stems from a phone conversation I had yesterday afternoon about tattoos. It was suggested that I get a tattoo of something happy, like a flower, on my bum. I reasoned against it.

Let's say, for instance, I go running with the bulls in Spain. This seems like the sort of thing I'd do if ever I get back in shape. Inevitably, I'd probably get gored in the hindquarters and have to go to a doctor to get stitched up. I don't want a flower out there flapping in the breeze for some Spanish doctor I don't know.

He'd be like, "What is this flower on your butt for?" and I'd have no idea what he was talking about, because he'd be speaking proper Spanish.

This is why I would not get a tattoo of a flower on my bum. The end.

Derecho a la iglesia

Let me pose this to you:

Last night was dead at work. I took four calls in 7.5 hours. Then, I was allowed to leave an hour early. I had to wait for Gabi to come get me so we could play a little dominoes as I always do on Tuesday night. Gabi was in town for reasons that shall currently remain anonymous, but they were reasons nonetheless.

I sat for a few minutes at work until I realize I'd be sitting for quite a while. It takes about 25 minutes to drive the 5 miles from home to work in Boston. So, I decided to walk to South Station, where I normally catch the train, waiting there instead. A cabbie or two thought I might be a fare and gave me a honk and a wave and a question. I stepped back from the road.

Another man might also have seen a fare. I'm not sure exactly what he saw. He spoke fewer words of English than I did of Spanish, so amid the fumbling over language he communicated to me that he wanted to find a church, or someplace else he could sleep with his wife and child for the night. Just for tonight, on the way to somewhere else in Massachusetts. A pretty legit story since people around these parts generally don't think of sleeping at a church overnight, also because South Station is where the trains and buses come into Boston from all over.

I pointed him toward the nearest church I knew, no telling what they might do for him there since it's more likely to find a 24-hour consumer shoppe full of goods than it is to find a church with its doors open. Funny how the face of God in society is full of fear at night while the face of money is not.

Lastly, of course, he asked for some dinero por la comida. I had some cash in my wallet, but not much. I gave him 5 of my 8 ones. Even if it turns out he's just some scam artist, I got to practice my fledgling Spanish with a real live native speaker and it worked. For that, I'd pay $5. A lot of you have probably paid more than that in school taxes or tuition, or your parents have, for some b.s. lessons that didn't get you anywhere. If he was telling the truth, then a divine appointment led me to get a ride and leave early and make the decision to stand on that street corner to be a blessing, and for that I'd give everything. I think the $5 was a fair compromise. I would have missed out one way or another if I just ignored the guy.

It's how I do everything. Life is better that way.

Boycott! Protest! Yahtzee!

Hillary Clinton is now calling on George Bush not to show up at the Olympics in China. Barack Obama is "conflicted" about whether we should participate. This relates to Chinese involvement, or lack thereof, in Tibet and Darfur. Cool.

Here's one for you: We should then also boycott ourselves for failing to give the money we said we would to the Millennium Development Goals for third-world countries.

Do you know we once boycotted Rochefort cheese in France because of their policies toward Iraq or some other Middle Eastern country? Let me make this abundantly clear: WE SHOULD NEVER BOYCOTT CHEESE. Heck, we ought to start a new world organization called boycott-of-the-month club, where the only requisite is that members agree to be boycotted by other members.

We even have people who are organizing against Comcast Digital Cable for some sort of unfair practices. Comcast? Really? Power to the people over the idiot box?

Can we please get out of college at some point, dearies?

Food (bananas and candy bars and cigarettes) for thought

Today, I ran my usual grocery tour at around 9:30 in the morning. Just before my bags and I took a rest on the bench, the disheveled guy already sitting there asked me for a cigarette in garbled tongue. Maybe it was his moustache or whatever he'd just eaten that was covered in red sauce that made him hard to understand. I don't think it was the Boston tongue, probably just a hard and garbled life.

After I sat down, I told him "I got nuthin'", my standard response to most of the creeps in these parts. Then, I asked him if he wanted a banana. He responded in the affirmative, so I gave him two. Not a word of thanks.

As he housed the first banana in about 30 seconds flat, I was left to ponder the nature of the gift and had the following streams of thought:

• "Giving a man a fish" is a really good thing, even if you can't teach him to fish or help him create a fishery.
• The gift is not done for the reward of thanks. What is it done for, then?
• Was the gift self-sacrificial? Not in the least. I had bought too many bananas and a couple would go bad before I could eat them anyway. If I had given him $20, I wouldn't have noticed it gone.
• Is it selfish to give my money to Retired Matt Bugaj and his family instead of charity? Isn't he a whole other person from me, just one I happen to like a lot right now?

Then, Eddie asked me my name and told me his as he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. I asked him why he was trying to bum cigarettes if he already had a pack. To get a different taste?

"A different feeling in the head." Sure, I don't smoke, but I was left to ponder different beers, wines, and liquors and their effects as I rode the bus back home. You can learn something new every day if you look for it.

As the bus approached, He began to pull apart a Milky Way candy bar and shove the caramel-dragging pieces into his mouth. Strings of caramel on his coat and in his beard. By that time, the cigarette had already been sucked to completion and discarded on the ground next to the banana peel, the plastic wrapper covered in red sauce, and the garbage can.

A civilized world demands of my sensibility that I am a little put off by the whole encounter, while my savage understanding can see the reasons behind everything he did. Right now I feel a little like Ed Tom in No Country for Old Men (the book not the movie), failing to comprehend but knowing it's me I'm looking at.

"Seek, and ye shall find."

As I stared out my window this morning, drinking black tea and eating a banana, I stumbled upon a conundrum.

The natural world never appears the same exact way twice. Movies do, at face value, but not the real thing. The snow might fall every year, even the same sort of snow, but we never see the same set of flakes fall in the same way. They will always ride the wind differently, always land in new places. The same car might always be parked in front of the house, but there must be something new inside, or new dirt, or something. New patterns, new microscopic hitchhikers...

I have a penchant for watching some movies to the point that I know every scene, every line, without practicing or studying. They become a part of me. If you have ever had a conversation with me, I've probably pulled up some obscure reference that puts a look on your face so quizzical I need to explain where my most recent words had their origin.

My existence, whether in viewing or listening to music or reading, contains in large part in the repetitive consumption of human creations, not in a raw interaction with an ever-changing yet cyclical nature.

I have recently come to believe this to be a mystical connexion to human origins, to the oral tradition that held our history before heiroglyphics or the alphabet, to the practice of memorizing poetry in grammar school that was only abandoned within the past hundred years.

ASIDE: We live in an experimental time. Population growth and technological progress since the industrial revolution have propelled us into such a state of change that anything being accepted as wisdom must be scrutinized against that which was previously conventional, because there may have been a reason for it that we are now overlooking in our zest for the power of our own ideas.

Should I believe that this exact repetitive nature of human consumption is therefore a stain upon our existence, that we should only interact with the natural world in which things are forever changing, if only minutely? No. This requires some pondering to arrive at a couple of mildly stunning conclusions.

The first regards the natural world. Look at its cyclical nature. Look at the shock it brings to the system to see a blood-red moon, yet even this we can measure to be something that happens twice a year around the globe. A month, or "moonth", is roughly approximated to the time it takes to travel from one full moon to the next. Everything is cyclical in nature, and we can hardly find a sign that doesn't point to something we have seen before, or at least to something we can expect based on what we have already experienced. Therefore, this same sort of repetition, whether in the telling of tales or the memorization of poetry or the watching of movies, is in line with the natural experience intended by the Creator.

Likewise, the repetitive nature of human texts is not purely duplicative. Whether it be the Bible or The Big Lebowski or a Mark Rothko painting, we bring new experiences with every viewing, so this exact mimic of what we had previously seen takes on a whole new shape. The more we see the same thing, the more we understand it, and the better we understand ourselves.

So, nature, unlike television or books, is always just a little bit aesthetically different each time we see it, even if we have seen it before. However, books and television are likewise different each time we see them because of what has come through us in the meantime. Yet both remain entirely cyclical. This is just a small exposition of the nature of all things, which is necessarily dual. Everything is repetitive AND changing. We have free-will that is predestined. Blackness, which appears at first glance to be a magnanimous presence, is the absence of all color, while whiteness, which is associated with purity and newness, is the presence of all color.

Just think what a minute of snowfall could do for you.

The Poor in America

There is a high school in America that has just now gotten the internet, but its computers run on Windows 3.1. No student has high-speed internet in the home, in fact, none of them have myspace or facebook accounts, not even at school or the library. The only computer programming classes it offers are in an archaic language that isn't even used anymore. They have no formal cellphone policy, because none of the students has yet had the means to obtain one. Many sports teams have to practice in a basement gymnasium not even big enough to house a regulation basketball court. The main football field is still grass and dirt and does not employ new FieldTurf, even in a very cold climate.

Imagine sending a child from this school into today's workforce and expecting them to compete with high school and college graduates who have been well trained in the latest technology.

This was my high school, from which I graduated in 1997. You say you're liberal because the poor are getting poorer, because the middle class is going away? I argue that the poor are now better off than they've ever been. Name a poor kid today who had as little technological training in their developmental years as I had in an upper-middle-class suburban high school. Even the homeless have myspace. Let it rest. The keys to wealth and happiness do not rest in more funding.

President 2008

I should have gone on the record before Super Tuesday, but since we didn't really learn anything new from it, I don't mind saying this now.

Let it be known that I'm not much for politics. The Presidency is one of the world's biggest popularity contests. The ideas, the issues, the stances are all out there and have been since the beginning. The tide turns on lies and truths that come out later.

This being said, John McCain will be the next President. No matter whether Hillary or Obama wins. The country is usually split about 50/50 Democrat and Republican, with the decision left up to the people riding the fence who might decide to show up and vote whichever way the wind is blowing. McCain has some crossover appeal and a lot of experience that will make him look good in the debates. His two potential opponents have neither in the same quantities.

Hillary should be getting the woman vote, but she can't even get Oprah to back her. How in the world we expect to get a woman President without Oprah's backing, I don't know. I guess Oprah decided she'd stick up for the other political minority she's a part of.

Obama is kind of an asshole. I'm not saying he's not capable. I'm not saying his words don't ring true with a lot of people. But if you listen to the guy, watch his facial expressions, see what happens when he gets riled up in an interview, Mr. Obama gets a little self-righteous. He doesn't have universal appeal. He's good at preaching to the choir, but there's no reason that choir will include Republicans.

No, McCain has it. He's old and old people vote. He's a white male and represents the status quo, which is good enough for a lot of people. He also did some bipartisan work on Campaign Finance Reform, which still needs a hell of a lot of work, but continues to stick him in people's minds as a uniter, not a divider.

Another problem for the two Dems right now? Each other. John McCain and his meager multimillion dollar budget can now ignore Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and the far right wing of the party. He can pursue a centrist message as a universal candidate. Hillary and Obama still have to duke it out. Either they're going to come to a consensus and run on a double-political-minority ticket, which would be novel but suicidal, or else things are going to get ugly while they take off the gloves and try to win the nomination. That would mire them in a bunch of "who's the bigger blue-stater" posturing that would probably keep their victories to the blue states.

HOW THINGS COULD CHANGE:

1) McCain picks a lousy Veep. Get somebody young, dynamic, and more conservative. Attract the hipsters for change and the farts for stagnancy. See if he can do it all in one.

2) McCain runs an ineffective national campaign. Pulls a Rudy, if you will. He can't let the dueling change hounds steal the spotlight during the next month or two. He has to take full advantage of his opportunity instead of sitting back and waiting. Then, it will be too late.

3) Hillary and Obama turn the debate from who's more for change into who's got a better stab at the Sepulchral Manse. Both have claimed to be the candidates for change and are very similar on most points, even though Hillary's change fell out of her pocket only after she started losing ground. One needs to convince us they're ready for Washington. More ready than McCain.

I just don't see it. In America the Shortsighted, the game may already be over. I'm not even sure I'll vote. All depends on if I get my printer hooked up to send the paperwork in. You heard it here first. John McCain will win in 2008.

take

give me age
keep your beauty

give me a wheelchair
so i don't have to hurry

take my eyes
i need to rely


rob me of everything

but not while i still have it

the differences between a 9-to-5 and a 2-10 work week. think about it.

9-5: wake up to a screeching alarm in darkness and curse your existence
2-10: get up whenever you feel like it, greeted by a warm sunshine

9-5: clean yourself up, throw something down, push yourself out the door
2-10: lounge around, make breakfast, read, get things done

9-5: get pushed around on the crowded commute and stand on the train
2-10: pick an isolated seat on the train and spread out

9-5: get slammed with important business as soon as you walk in the door
2-10: walk into the slowest part of the day, kick back, and relax

9-5: it is dark when you leave work
2-10: it is dark when you leave work

9-5: annoying crowds and many cars on your commute
2-10: look for interesting vagabonds on the mild and unpoulated commute

9-5: eat dinner, watch tv, get to bed by midnight so you can do the same damn thing again
2-10: eat dinner, watch tv, go to bed whenever you feel like it

9-5: play dominoes on tuesday night
2-10: play dominoes on tuesday night

9-5: standard pay
2-10: 10% higher pay for working unusual hours

I am so glad my week of 9-5 training is over so I can get back to my lazy night shift that pays better. I haven't seen the sun since Sunday.

Argyle

I outlaw argyle
Already too easy
To identify the dull and boring
Grant me some camoflage please
The hunting should feel like a sport

I outlaw heaven
God knows your bliss is ignorant
Spirituality is not a transaction
You never know your account balance anyway
Sheol is good enough for me
If I do right

I outlaw the open mind
I also outlaw unicorns
Neither one exists
Just ask an open mind
About the other guy

I outlaw poetry
I also outlaw the electric slide
No one looks good doing either

I outlaw winning
Prizes are for losers

I outlaw television
Live your life
No more watching

I outlaw soap
Your soul never gets clean
Even if you obsess

I outlaw free speech
I outlaw blogs
I outlaw facebook
I outlaw all non-digital television waves
I outlaw myself

Give me a horse and a gun and a train to rob
And a bed under the stars