Bookbound

1. Floating Spider Corpses, And Other Things I Wish Weren’t In My Room

2. The Complexities Of Social Interaction When Wearing a T-Shirt With A Photo Of Your Mom On It

3. Things I Can’t Draw, Listed In Pictorial Form

4. The Best Songs Of The (16)80s

1. The Smartest Man Alive: A Biography of My Father 

2. If Only I’d Listened To My Dad

3. Wisdom In The Woods: The Sayings of My Father

4. If We All Work Together We Can Get It Done In Ten Minutes, And Other Words To Live By From My Father  

5. Books Recommended By My Father That I Now Realize Are Awesome And Can’t Understand Why I Resisted Reading So Long Just Because Most Of Them Are About Gulags, The Holocaust, And Other Descents Into Human Darkness In History—Oh Wait. 

6. Words Of Wisdom, Balding Head Of Beauty: The Definitive Biography Of My Dad

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the environment. People yapping about global crises, climate change, mass extinctions, unsustainable population growth, global resource depletion, and on and on and on! It’s all a bunch of baloney. Trust me, I’m from the internet. I know.

Let me guess. You’re still thinking about doing some of your own research, instead of blindly putting your trust in me.  Before you start, let me ask you just one question--what did that ‘critical thinking’ they talked so much about in school ever get you? Are you a multi-millionaire now? No!

Total waste of time, Q.E.D.

So, 13 reasons you shouldn’t care about the environment, conveniently collected for you right here: 1) Climate change, especially if it’s supposed to be caused by humans, is all just a giant conspiracy by the Left. The only people who believe that crap-ola are the UN’s Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, the National Academy of Sciences, the Union of Concerned Scientists,  and everybody other than highly intelligent, completely unbiased political leaders on the right. 2) You weren’t using those glaciers anyway. 3) You know what wouldn’t happen during a nuclear winter? Mosquitoes. Yeah, betcha you don’t hear those tree-hugging hippies talking about that.  Cherry-picking facts, is what that is. 4) So more species are going extinct today than since all the dinosaurs died and became fossil fuel? Simple. Build more zoos. BAM, problem solved. 5) Once all the rainforests are gone, you can totally sell that tree in your yard for like a bazillion dollars. 6) Actually, at the rate we’re clearing land there will be enough not just for strip mining (which, by the way, isn’t so bad—why shouldn’t the earth show off more of its assets? Those environmentalist are a bunch of prudes) but also gigantic sports arenas! Football is life! Plus those people blabbering about losing our open spaces will have to find something else to get self-righteous about. 7) Someone Else will take care of it, just like Someone Else has taken care of things so far. 8) What are we trying to save the world for anyway? So illegal immigrants can come and take over? We already have a president who was born in Kenya—clearly the best country in the world (LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!!) is beyond repair. At this point the End can only improve things. 9)“Unsustainable population growth” –Geez, people, we’ve known how to deal with this for almost 300 years now! It’s all right here--if, by some totally improbable chance we do end up destroying the environment and all our food sources, that “unsustainable population” is going to be looking pret-ty good to you. Delicious, even. 10) Your mother doesn’t like you. That’s not a reason per se, but she called and wanted me to break the news to you anyway. 11) As we all know, the oil companies care so much about the environment—there’s no need for the rest of us to even think about it. They’ve got it all under control. 12) Some people are whining about water shortages, and yet more people are complaining about sea levels rising! A five year old could tell you that doesn’t make any sense! Make up your minds people! Oh, that’s right, you tree-hugging liberals don’t have any! 13) If you really cared about the environment, you’d read a piece like this realize animal agriculture does just as much, if not more damage to the earth and its resources as burning fossil fuels—and then you’d have to think about maybe changing your diet. Is that even possible? No!

So stop thinking about it—stop thinking period actually, we’ve already been over why it’s a bad idea. If you absolutely must do something, go sign a petition to stop people from eating dogs in China. And enjoy that hamburger.

What’s the alternative? Take action? Let me tell you, we did not get to where we are today by taking action. And you know, taking action might require you to change your lifestyle. You might need to do something more drastic than tossing that soda can in the recycling bin. Really, that’s just going overboard. The status quo is what gets you status. It’s right there in the name.

So that’s why you shouldn’t care about the environment.  And especially don’t do anything about it—you could sprain something.

1) It was blocking me from pursuing my New Better Project, which I can now devote my full attention to—and of course finish in a jiffy.

2) The project is terrible, has no merit at all, the fact that I conceived it only proves my pretensions to Creative Pursuits are delusional. Will spend rest of life in woods eating worms. 

3) That was always how I intended it to look/sound/tilt dangerously to the right.

4) “Smashed to pieces” is a completely legitimate commentary on the broken state of free expression in this country.

5) I am merely protesting the obsession Society has for putting things in boxes and labeling them. “Finished,” “Unfinished,” –-who decides these things?

6) Decided project was keeping me tethered to this false world. Joined ashram and will now devote my time to freeing myself of earthly desires.

I often write better in notebooks than on my computer, at least initially.

Something about the way the words are only there, coming out on that piece of paper, makes it easier to let the words go. Because I can always cross it out and turn the page later, if I'm not satisfied with what came out. But it will still be there, physically existing in my little notebook for as long as I have it (or can find it). I can always come back to it, to see what I was up to before, to see the earlier stages of evolution, to see that maybe it didn't need to be crossed out after all--or maybe just that one phrase is worth keeping and using again somewhere else. 

When I'm writing on my computer, there's speed, and cut & paste, and spell check and backspacing. There are all kinds of nifty tools to help me produce the piece of writing I want to. But there is also hesitation, because if I use that backspace button what I delete is much harder to get back. And if I want to go back and look at earlier stages of what I've done I have to save multiple drafts as I go along, and then go back and look through each one separately to see if there's something interesting that might be lost or forgotten, and generally I don't have the patience for that process. Plus any files I save as drafts clutter up my documents folder. The end result is I don't feel as free to make mistakes and cross them out on computers, and so I write more slowly on them, wary of putting down the wrong thing.  

A mountain can be made from a molehill, but only ants could ski down it. 

They who rule with fists of iron should be made aware of the recent progress in plastic and polymer prosthetics.

 The seas of change are turbulent, but just as salty as the regular ones. 

Here are some translations of what your cover letter is really saying.

1) “To Whom It May Concern”

Translation: “I have given up hope of ever getting another job and am only mass emailing this cover letter out of tortured habit.”

2) “I am uniquely qualified for this position.”

Translation: “I am uniquely qualified in that there probably isn’t anyone else out there quite as unqualified as I am”

3) “I am confident I am the best candidate for this job.” 

Translation: “I am confident I am more desperate than the other people applying for this job and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to get it.”

4) “I am highly competent with computers and extremely knowledgeable in Web 2.0 navigation and operating practices.” 

Translation: “I’m much better at sending email than a trained monkey! And I have icanhazcheeseburger bookmarked and regularly post to fml.  Also, I have over 15 friends on Facebook!”

5) “I have extensive experience with the international business sector” 

Translation: “I used to work at a sushi place down the street.”

6) “Well versed”  

Translation: “I have read not just one but several different descriptions of it.”

7) “I’ve attached my resume and I look forward to further discussing my experience and qualifications with you at your earliest convenience.” 

Translation: “I need to explain in person just how my time at Burger King prepared me for this job.”

8) “References gladly provided upon request.”  

Translation: “I have three phone lines and months of voice acting classes for just this situation.”

Sincerely,

1) Tell yourself it’s not the end of the world. While this is obviously not true, those around you will not stop saying it, and you should accustom yourself to hearing it—and ignoring it. You know better.

  2) Distract yourself with something else. Some may imply—or even outright say—that assembling the world’s largest Beanie Babies collection is a pointless and even wasteful task—but I’ve got just one question for them—where’s the science? Hmm? Show me the study that says “Beanie Babies are not the answer to life’s problems.”

Coming up empty? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

  3) Do not just get drunk.  Despite what popular wisdom would have you believe, getting wasted and pouring out your troubles to Andre the bartender will only lead to ruin and harsh rejection. And Andre is not at all as sympathetic as he pretends to be. Also, restraining orders are apparently ridiculously easy to obtain in this country.

Prostitutes are a much better bet. You spend about the same amount of money anyway.

  4) Spend time alone with your disappointment, confronting the feelings stirred up by the emotional upheaval you’ve had. Give yourself the space and freedom to deal with you feelings in your own time.

Then go out and punch someone.

  5) Appreciate the simple things in life. Go out and find the most beautiful garden you can. Stop and smell the roses.

Then come back under the cover of darkness and destroy it.

If you can’t have nice things, no one should.