Welcome to the World, Gunther Golan

VERSE 1

After nine months of tummies being swollen

Welcome to the world, Gunther Golan

Can’t find your momma? Neither can I

Like a broken resolution, kiss her goodbye

Even I don’t know how you came to me

Must have been a night of drunken misery

But I can’t stand the taste of Budweiser

Another drug kept me from being the wiser

VERSE 2

Sorry for the disappointment, my little guy

Don’t have the patience or money to raise you right

Only resource I have is a life full of baggage

Potential turned to shit like eating too much cabbage

I could get a nice job flipping other people’s burgers

But that won’t offset all my fantasies of murder

Even if I had a million dollars in my bank

The screams still grated, the diapers still stank

VERSE 3

I can’t afford a car to drive you to school

So they give you D’s and C’s and label you a fool

Only option for you is to join the military

Where survivor’s guilt is their burden to carry

Another piece of meat for the sausage grinder

Another statistic in the government binder

This could have been avoided with a simple abortion

But instead the system plotted all this extortion

VERSE 4

After all the trauma and the baby mamma drama

All I had to show was a check from Obama

That was years ago, time flies like a vulture

Makes meals of us all, it’s American culture

We all had dreams at one point or another

Maybe you dreamed of having your own brother

But your legacy ends here, Mr. Gunther Golan

An endless stream of shit like cancer in the colon

FINAL LINE

But I’d give anything to bring you back…

Hardcore Hershel

HARDCORE HERSHEL

Get off my lawn or I’ll bury your keister

Explode your noggin like the eggs of Easter

One shell from my shotgun is all it takes

Go and get a job, you millennial snake!

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

Calm your ass down, Mr. Hardcore Hershel

You’re sounding like an NRA commercial

I’m just walking along and enjoying the view

Stop being afraid of everything that’s new

HARDCORE HERSHEL

This gun’s been in my family since a million BC

I’ll be damned if it’s taken away by Washington DC

I’ll be damned if you come here looking for a handout

Original Go Fund Me was being a working class standout

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

Pump those damn brakes, Mr. Badass Billy

Too much Fox News is making you sound silly

I’ll be on my way if you take your aim off me

If you do, nobody will think of you as a softy

HARDCORE HERSHEL

I forgot what the hell I was jibber-jabbering about

Something about your generation doing dumb shit for clout

Eating Tide Pods and putting Gorilla Glue in your hair

I’d never do those things because I’ve got a brain to spare

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

Take it nice and easy, Mr. Army Man Arthur

There’s no reason to make your heart work harder

Not all of us are like that, perhaps none of us are

Your brain is being washed by Boomer Bill Maher

HARDCORE HERSHEL

I fought in every war that this country has waged

I’ve earned my right to bask in my elderly age

Knowing that you kids will inherit this world

Makes me want to double over and unleash some hurl

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

Slow the fuck down, Mr. Bullet Bubba-Bob

You can’t live forever whether you like it or not

Just raise the minimum wage and forget my age

Let someone else have the spotlight on the stage

HARDCORE HERSHEL

You’ll have to pry this gun from my cold dead hands

You’ll have to spray my red blood across the land

When was the last time you fought a war in the sands?

I’m the king of the hill and you don’t stand a chance

SOFTCORE SEBASTIAN

I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t want any trouble

And for you that goes double, Mr. Barney Rubble

BOOM!

HARDCORE HERSHEL

The world is mine! The world is all mine, you whippersnapper!

HEART ATTACK NOISES

FINAL LINE

And this, boys and girls, is why we can’t have nice things. The end!

Physical Fitness

***PHYSICAL FITNESS***

This coming January, my family and I are going to renew our memberships at the YMCA and exercise there on a regular basis. It’s that time again. It’s time for me to get my big ass back in shape. I’ve seen pictures of myself in the past where I look fantastic and then compare them to how I currently look in the mirror. It’s not a good feeling. What makes me feel better about my weight loss quests is that I’ve been a skinny man before and I can sure as hell do it again. But here’s where it gets tricky: weight loss has always been a back and forth battle for me. I’d make a plan, I’d stick to it, and I’d lose a lot of weight. Then I deviate from the plan just slightly and my weight spirals out of control once again. It’s a cycle I’m eventually going to have to break, but it can’t be done without people supporting me, which means no offers for fast food or ice cream and a staunch commitment to exercise every day despite tiredness.

The other part of this equation is my rebellious attitude towards the weight loss quest. I keep thinking that I have to do these ultra-hard exercises like Cross Fit or hour-long running or else I’m not going to lose any weight. I know for sure that’s not necessarily true, but I keep having scenarios play out in my head exactly like that. I’m not athletically minded by any stretch of the imagination. If I do any super-tough exercises, I’ll tire out within ten seconds tops. I don’t have it in me to ignore my tiredness, so I quit right away. I don’t want to be an athlete who plays sports. I just want to be healthy. Athletes have to do torturous things to their bodies just to maintain their energy. As an autism patient with increased sensitivity to stimuli, I feel the pain of intense exercise tenfold what a normal person feels.

To my way of thinking, physical fitness should come in the form of a handout. I know that’s not entirely realistic, but working that hard to achieve a smaller belly doesn’t appeal to me. But I also know that weight loss gimmicks like fat burning pills and surgery have dangerous side effects that overshadow any tiredness I feel from an intense workout. Here’s the truth: there are no handouts when it comes to physical fitness. If there were, America wouldn’t be the obese country that it is today.

While my plan for physical fitness isn’t in the form of shortcuts nor is it the ninth circle of hell, I do intend to find middle ground between the two. Thus, we have water walking, something I’ve done in the past with a lot of success. I get in the lap pool, run one way, and high-knee march the other. Fighting against water resistance is hard work and will get me the cardio I need. What makes it doable is the warmth of the water and how soothing it is to my joints. Because of this, I don’t actually feel the aches and pains of exercising until after I get out of the pool, which is when I’ve been walking for a whole hour. As the months go by and I start to weigh less, it’ll become two hours. And then three.

I was hesitant about this plan at first because I was rebelling against the idea that my heavy body was compromising my health. Every time I was told that I could have a heart attack or that harder exercises and a kale diet were the answer, I felt like I was being insulted. Insulting me doesn’t motivate me to work harder. It makes me resent the one doing the insulting. When my feelings and individuality are both considered, however, then that’s when exercising and dieting become more natural to me.

In January, the road to physical fitness begins once again. And once I’m on that road, I want to stay on it indefinitely. One slight detour could result in the world’s biggest fiery crash. That means no more ice cream, no more convenience store food, and the only fast food I’m going to agree to eat is from Subway. I’m all onboard with a plan like this. All I need is for people to come through for me and support me in this plan one-hundred-percent. I want to wear smaller clothes. I want to fit into whatever chair I’m sitting on. I want to do basic things without being winded right away. I want to live to be a hundred and look back on life with no regrets. I’m ready. Is everyone else?

　

***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

DANTE: My mom told me a story one time that when I was three, my potty lid was closed. So instead of opening it, I shit my pants.

RANDAL: Lovely story.

DANTE: Look, the point is, I’m not the kind of person who disrupts things just so I can shit comfortably.

-Clerks-

"A Street Cat Named Bob" by James Bowen

BOOK TITLE: A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life
AUTHOR: James Bowen
YEAR: 2012
GENRE: Nonfiction
SUBGENRE: Cat Memoir
GRADE: Pass


James Bowen has been down on his luck in London, England for a whole decade. He was estranged from his family in Australia and used heroin to cope with his raw emotions. He lived on the streets in cardboard boxes until he was finally able to qualify for public housing. Ever since making an effort to get clean, he became a street musician begging for handouts, which came few and for between and often came with aggressive attitudes toward the poor.

Mr. Bowen’s luck started to change when he found a ginger tomcat he named Bob curled up in his apartment building. He nursed the kitty back to health with the intention of sending the little guy back on the streets. When Bob started following him to work, however, Mr. Bowen attracted more money and more friendly attention. It was a long process, but with a cute cuddly feline in his life, James slowly began to put his life back together.

The biggest upsides to this book are the tale of redemption and the cuteness of Bob that goes along with it. It’s amazing what a simple thing like love can do for a person’s life. James Bowen is an animal lover by nature, so taking the little orange sweetheart into his life was easy. It’s what these two did for each other afterwards that makes their relationship special to the reader. I found myself wanting James Bowen to get clean and have a stable income despite all of the nasty things he’d done with his life prior to this point. If nothing else, this book teaches a valuable lesson in being too quick to judge a person by his past. Bob isn’t judgmental in the least bit. Animal cuties rarely are.

The writing style is exactly what I’d expect from someone who’s writing his first memoir: fast-paced, simple, and clean. It’s a no-nonsense style that gets the reader from place to place while still allowing the reader to peer into James Bowen’s innermost thoughts. Those thoughts can be anything from the fear of losing Bob to the flashbacks of withdrawing from heroin, all of which can be emotionally heart wrenching. I have to admit, though, there were parts where I zoned out as I was reading it. Maybe it’s not the flashiest book ever written, but it’s one I can get through and enjoy the journey along the way.

I’ve often heard the phrase that a story doesn’t end at the final page, but at where the author chooses to stop. The story does stop at a happy place in James and Bob’s lives, but I’m not telling you how it happens; you’ll have to buy the book and read for yourself. I will say this, though: the ending feels a little open-ended, meaning I still fear for the author and his cat’s safety while they’re out on the street doing their thing. In hindsight, the fear is probably a good thing since that makes the two main characters sympathetic and heroic to the reader.

If you like stories about redemption, cute and cuddly animals, and the power of altruistic love, be sure to pick up a copy of “A Street Cat Named Bob” by James Bowen. It’s a rough ride all throughout the book since people on the streets are oftentimes mean and aggressive towards James and Bob, but the cuteness factor and the sense of triumph is there nonetheless. It would probably be worth it to fly all the way out to England on an airplane just to meet the little orange sweetie pie and his wonderful caretaker. But since air travel is a pain in the rear-end (as James Bowen will attest to in the latter half of the book), you can always follow this victorious pair on Twitter and Face Book. They’d love to hear from you!

Psychophobia

VERSE 1
“You haven’t helped out society as of late”
I’d rather give nothing than a firestorm of hate
You blame the disabled for all of your problems
You blame the tax code for draining your wallet
You’re as bigoted as the evil men in white hoods
Talk about society? You’re no fucking good
Look into the mirror when you cast your stones
In your house of glass and your throne of bones


CHORUS
White hoods, green suits, black battle boots
Your retard jokes suck and they’re far from cute
Psychophobia is as real as it fucking gets
Yet you’re the one who is fucked up in the head


VERSE 2
A big paycheck goes to the kid with autism
Your hatred and anger creates the wrong schism
Medical visits for the man with schizophrenia
A new liberalism for the new millennium
Comfort and love for the chick with depression
This is when you show your worst aggression
The tea bag is a symbol of ableist ignorance
Paying income tax turns mice into militants


CHORUS
White hoods, green suits, black battle boots
Your retard jokes suck and they’re far from cute
Psychophobia is as real as it fucking gets
Yet you’re the one who is fucked up in the head


VERSE 3
Bullies and criminals come in all shapes and sizes
Injecting their venom into the hearts of the wisest
Keeping people down while you still climb higher
Aiming your pistol and then squeezing to fire
You know nothing about what the fuck it’s like
To be eaten alive by the demons inside
I’ll take my handouts and swallow my pills
While you continue to bitch about the bills


EXTENDED CHORUS
White hoods, green suits, black battle boots
Your retard jokes suck and they’re far from cute
Psychophobia is as real as it fucking gets
Yet you’re the one who is fucked up in the head
Let’s fit your ass for a warm straightjacket
Keep you in the darkness of a cell that’s padded
All that “free shit” sounds pretty damn good, right?
Think about that and have yourself a good night