#stuffdodgersays

I don't shave.

I rarely shave because I end up looking like someone who can't shave a week later. 

That's ironic because I never cut myself shaving, even when the blade is duller than a Marc Maron joke (zing!). However, I always end up with white heads, the occasional ingrown hair and my face looking like I'm having an outbreak of eczema. 

But I decided to shave tonight, and I'll keep it up through the summer, just to seem if it helps me socially, vis a vis.....you know I mean. I'm getting rather bored of the man cave, so I figure,

"What could it hurt go outside and lay some game to a beauty on a barstool? With a smooth face and a debit card so faded she'll think either "I'm flush with cash" or "I stole a few minutes ago and rubbed off all the important information."

I'm going to try to start structuring my posts, because the long diatribes I put up are kind of boring and your time (as well as mine) is better spent reading about other things. I'm going to cover specific subject matter and hopefully turn this into more than just a timewaster for work and home.

I'll be talking about:

Photography

Design (Graphic Design mostly)

Alcohol

News (Mostly rants)

I'm going to also start posting original content as well. The layout's probably going to change too.

Its a new year, and shit is changing around me as I write this so,

The mother-fucking garbage trucks come through between 1:30-3:30 AM,  and there's a police chopper on a lunch break, hovering over your crib for no reason.

Here goes the rest of winter, since Game of Thrones is on that "until April" bullshit. 

I'm really enjoying the first series, and I'm firmly believing BBC has way better programming than most American TV stations, except FX and the movie channels. 

I like to think I'm a careful person, and I won't put myself in a potentially dangerous situation for anyone who isn't blood. However, because of where I live, I really can't have any fun in the city. There are only two ways to get there, not by car. The commuter train, the only method I use because its better than the other option. The beloved (and bemoaned) New York City subway. The only mode of transportation that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, carting everybody around the city. Its a long ass ride to the city and being drunk/walking home is not a good look.

The problem I'm having is that all of my friends who want me to come to the city, live in the decent parts of Brooklyn, and Jersey to party. They don't get that I live farther away than them and have to deal with more shady elements than they do, centered right at the goddamned el stop. Between the Jamaicans being like 20 deep at all times, and the fact that the whole street shuts down at 10pm, aside from streetlights. Yet, people are out there into the early morning, doing who knows what the fuck. Also, if anything pops off in my neighborhood, its right at the El stop. Being somebody who made the mistake of walking down a bad block before, I'm really not trying to be at the business end of a pistol again.

Had frost on the inside of my car's windshield, took 15 minutes to get rid of.

Traffic on the highway, nothing but rubbernecking

Half day so the school kids are at the church early, again.

Setting up tables around a bunch kids running around.

Going to get pizza at a packed pizza shop full of white kids and their concerned looking-at-me mothers.

 Paranoia about leaving the front doors to the house open (I don' think I did, probably not anyway).

Just a general sense of failure lingering in the air as I get to deal with the aftermath of a shitty snow clearing job yesterday (which had SHIT to do with me).

"Oh, are you coming tomorrow?"

My response:

No, I've gotta (pull some other activity out of my ass that I might be doing the next day. It ain't a full lie and I work at a church, so that's like point blank range for being smote upon).

What I really want to say is :

It seems like every time a celebrity dies and there is a natural reaction from the world, fans passing out condolences, reminiscing and what not, its awesome that people can come together, if only for a bit, to remember a particular individual.

However, there is always a handful of people who feel like they have to remind everyone of the things we SHOULD be upset about. I noticed a few of my high school acquaintances (As in we shared a few words and air over four years), who are complaining about how people are upset about Paul Walker dying and naming other things people should be upset about. 

Namely:

Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines 

The ongoing genocide in Chicago (You know what I mean)

I hate it when people do that, especially when you name pre-existing conditions that have yet to change or are changing currently. Typhoon Haiyan is over, and the relief effort is going strong, the Philippines will come back from that storm, guaranteed. Chicago is a different story but there are people out there helping to alleviate it and progress is being made.

Last time I checked, nobody is trying to figure out how to bring back Paul Walker, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and any other celebrity, who helped to distract us from whatever bullshit was going on in our lives. That's why many people are upset, its the end of a particular distraction we enjoyed.

Paul Walker may not have been Paul Newman acting wise, but that motherfucker made me want to tune my Honda so bad, I almost spent my rent money on an HID lighting kit. So for someone to comment that I should be upset about Chicago or the Philippines, when I read about it everyday as it is, is barking up the wrong tree. The Fast and the Furious is one of my all-time favorite movies, and its sequels are in my favorites list, and I'm confident I'm not the only one.

Yes, I agree more people should care more about the shit that's going on in the world, but you can't expect people to continuously rally for it if there's no personal experience associated with it or personal gain from it. Its a selfish idea but c'mon, is it really that surprising? Losing a favorite actor or character sucks, especially if you were a fan of their work.

Not as much as Haiyan or ChiRAQ (Chicago+Iraq, get it?) 

But it definitely doesn't feel any better. So, to everyone who feels there is any issue that people should be upset about, tonight, or any night we lose an entertainer, more than the death of Paul Walker or any other beloved celebrity, kindly do the following:

Take out your phones and make a donation to said cause or charity.

Feel free to boast about it (Someone gives a fuck, I suppose)