Give Me Liberty or Give Me a Job

Seeing as budget axes tend to fly around this time of year, at least in the public sector, my mother was asking me yesterday if I had a resume online.  “Oh, I have something online all right,” I said, and wondered quietly what my future employer would make of Bad Apple’s Rot Report.

Since I love blogging, and I do love it, I tend to tell people about it and be a blog-vangelist, if you will.  Just this week someone said to me, “I want to start a blog, but I’m afraid to open myself up to it.”

Oh yeah, I once felt like that.  But it’s funny how once you start writing your own blog, things that worried you about blogging just slide away, and you realize you are writing things to the whole freaking world you never really thought you would so much as whisper in public.  And it’s not like I have an anonymous blog and that potential employers and my parents could not find it – they most certainly easily could find it, if they bothered.

However, because even one’s friends and boyfriends can’t seem to hardly be bothered to read one’s blog most of the time, and in fact, one’s readers tend to live in entirely other countries, continents, in parts of the world one has never been, well, one gets lulled into a sense of consequence-less pure expression, from which Bad Apple’s most twisted rationales can find enough rope to hang themselves three times over.

Which is how I find myself contemplating Ben Franklin’s musing on all-day beer in the workplace, defending library workers against saintly public images, and promoting the worst marketing ideas the best minds can generate (not to mention my post on Get Your Ass to Work Day, not exactly written for my future boss’s eyes).  I do my best to be a Bad Apple, although generally, feedback says I’m not all that bad, which in my book is simply not bad enough (and at which point, I refer folks to Baby Needs Salt - nothing says capital “B” Bad like a recipe for baby). 

Of course, this all begs the question, just how bad can an apple be?, and for what purpose?, which naturally I ask myself all the time.

Anyway, you only go around this crap shoot once, right?, so I figure you might as well develop one inch (that’s 2.5 centimeters) of psychic real estate that freely expresses what no one else but you can say.  Sure, the world has some crazy motherfreakers, and you can be one of the better ones, if you just take a chance on the interest of strangers and the disinterest of those closest to you.

Let me take this chance to thank all those bloggers, readers, and nerds that make it so easy for me to resolve all these messy issues and just produce this bruised fruit for you, whoever the heck you might be.  I love it when you comment, you know.

Earth to Dr. Phil: On What Planet is Your Library?

Okay, I normally wouldn’t watch Dr. Phil unless I felt almost suicidal, but last night I was at the laundromat and natural curiosity caused me to look at what problem the pretty young lady on his show could possibly be having.  The sound was down, so I had to read the closed caption, and Dr. Phil was like: You have got to change your lifestyle, girl, because you can’t handle drugs and alcohol — but that isn’t to say YOU HAVE TO BECOME A LIBRARIAN.”

Excuse me?  What did Dr. Phil just say about librarians?  That they can’t handle their booze and dope????  Hello, Earth to Dr. Phil, I’m not really sure on what planet where you go to the library, but I assure you that librarians are plenty good at handling recreational mood enhancements, unlike that poor young lightweight on your show.  Give her a few years, and she’ll be handling her booze much more professionally herself.

Now here’s a few things, Dr. Phil, that I’m sure many librarians and library workers would want you to know about them.  They ARE NOT: 

1. Saints 2. Goody-two-shoes and/or 3. Lightweights with their likker and drugz.

Okay, Dr. Phil, I hope you can get that straight in the future.  Library workers don’t appreciate everyone thinking that we are all so damn good all the time.  We aren’t that good, I promise you.  Some of us even turn in our books WEEKS late and have been caught saying “libary” instead of “library.”  Yes, we bad.

Happy Get Your Ass to Work Day

It’s Monday, and people everywhere celebrated Get Your Ass to Work Day by getting up and getting their asses to work. Unlike Bike to Work Day which only occurs once annually, Get Your Ass to Work Day is celebrated nearly every day the world over. That’s how much we like it, even though, yes, a holiday that goes for five days out of seven all year long is bound to have a few drawbacks.

One problem is “reentry burn,” an issue I had this morning. You see, I woke up in a haze after two whole days of not celebrating Get Your Ass to Work Day. The truth is, I almost completely forgot it was Get Your Ass to Work Day! By the time I realized what day it was, I had to race to pull my costume together and gather all my Get Your Ass to Work Day traditional items (lunch, make-up, voodoo doll of boss). As you can imagine, I almost nearly didn’t get my ass to work!

Not that I think every day should be Get Your Ass to Work Day. Oh no, that is not what I’m suggesting, oh, Powers That Be, that determine our holidays and when and how they will be celebrated. Far be it from me to suggest anything to the folks that bring us bomb shows on the fourth, turkey genocide in the fall, Hallmark schlock-idays at sickening intervals, and that crowning atrocity of festering expectation known now as “the Winter Holidays.” Burrr. Compared to these annual soul-drains, even Get Your Ass to Work Day seems fun, which I suppose is the whole point.

So have a happy Get Your Ass to Work Day! I hope you managed to Get Your Ass to Work in a timely and stylish fashion. Do you like your costume today? Will you join the sidewalk parade, then? Did you bring your lunch or are you going out? Try to have a happy holiday now! Don’t forget to visit with your friends and drop a comment at your favorite blogs, you big social butterfly, you.

Hot Potato Girls Spread Cheese Roast Recipe

Summah’s here, time to get your potato on.  That’s right, P.I.M.P. is back in the house!  The Please Ingest More Potatoes campaign is how The Urban Potato Council spreads the spud love. So don’t miss the The Hot Potato Girls as they do the rounds in the hoods — and have they got a Cheese Roast Recipe that will flood your mouth with flavah! 

Yep, nothing says summer like a lard-slathered Baby* Loaf Cheese Roast hot from the oven and just crackling with crispy, barbequed cheese skin — nothing, that is, unless it’s a few of those hot baked potatoes to soak up the, er, flavah.  MmmMMM!   The P.I.M.P. campaign and the Hot Potato Girls are brought to you by the Urban Potato Council, who want to take this moment to say: Please, ingest more potatoes.

Remember, DJ Spud Evil Says: Don’t be messin with dat funky low-carb, no-carb junk, coz the potato is really da most fly vegetable in da house.   

*Please note, no actual babies were used in this recipe.  For my baby recipe, you’ll have to see Baby Needs Salt.

Learn to Write Profeshunal-Like From Sp*m

Forget what spam does to your email, what about what it does to the English language? The creative minds behind these scams and schemes rarely let good grammar slow down their enthusiasm for lucrative communications. That’s why this new class of business writers will benefit from my latest book: Learn to Write Profeshunal-Like for Spammers. It’s also useful for anyone who wants to write more profeshunal-like. Below I’ve placed a small sample of the kind of solid-gold advice the book imparts by responding to actual spam from real-life spammers!

Here’s Bad Apple’s response. The actual spam letter follows:

Ali, Ali, Ali,

What turnip truck do I appear to have just fallen off of? We don’t have turnip trucks that big and that dumb here in Outland, California. We just don’t buy that many turnips here, Ali.

Ali, first of all, we need to work on those spelling errors. How do you expect to be taken seriously when you say you work at the Bank of Afrieca? I know, correct spelling is a fascist ogre invented by stick-up-their-butt perfectionists, but as profeshunals, we have to choose our fascist ogres to carry around, you know. That’s the mark of maturity, my friend.

Also, hope you don’t mind the further constructive feedback, Ali, but come on, asking for my bank account number up front – really, how gauche! You need to hold up on that until I’ve taken the bait, my friend. I need to feel like you care first. Then I’ll be happy to give you even my mother’s bank account number!

Overall, the letter could use some editing down. The part about the next of kin – yawn. Very rambling, Ali. Much better to keep them wanting more. More is less, my good dear pal. Good luck to you. I hope these tips provide the Midas Touch for you to find all the dead-people kin you ever desired. Awful good of you to not want that cash to go to the bank treasury- you really are a selfless lad to go to all the trouble.

Yours,

Bad Apple

The Original Letter:

FROM THE DESK OF MR. ali bello.
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER,
BANK OF AFRICA-(BOA)
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO. CONFIDENTIAL.
Dear Friend ,
I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department of Bank Of Africa.

Chicken Soup for the Cannibal Chicken’s Soul

It’s not easy being a cannibal chicken, eating other chickens all the time.  That’s why our editors have brought together 56 of the most heartwarming cannibal chicken stories you can imagine.   We cover every stage of the chicken cannibal’s life, from the lost innocence of the first taste to the guilty pleasures of snacking on KFC and McNuggets. 

Each uplifting story will remind readers why they became chicken cannibals in the first place, ultimately affirming their difficult diet choice in the face of noisy and smelly opposition.

Readers who bought this, also purchased these titles:

Human Soup for the Chicken Soul

Chicken Soup for the Tuna Fish Soul

Do let us know what titles you would like to see us produce next.

Putrid Foulness: Our Best Hope for Humanity?

Ever noticed how nothing on Earth gets people politically activated faster than a really foul stink? Democracy may have eroded away beyond recognition in the breast of most of us overly-entertained and utterly-distracted citizens of the first world, and we may allow the powers that want-to-be to really screw things up for everyone, just as long as things don’t begin to actually reek.

But watch out world, because once offense occurs on an olfactory level, there’s nothing that can put our Yankee Doodle dandy back in the box, at least not until things return to smell-o-librium.

Now usually, all of the worst smelling things in life are dead, and normally they get well buried away to keep everything running smoothly up here on surface Earth. But ever so often, something goes haywire and a whale washes up on some beach to stink for weeks while the bureaucrats shrug. Or that really smelly rendering plant gets a little too close to the encroaching neighborhoods, and suddenly you have a mini-American revolution all over again – citizens finding their voices on behalf of their noses. It’s enough to bring a tear to this freedom daughter’s eye.

Remember, a foul-scented inspiration is an inspiration nonetheless, and we spoiled modern humans need to find something that will inspire us to progress. After all, there are a lot of terrible things that come in through the eyes and ears that one can ignore, justify, and shirk-off, but a rancid smell of death and decay is not the kind of everyday atrocity that is so effortlessly filtered.

The human race cannot afford to look down our noses at this promising link between popular power and the schnaz – let us instead use our noses to direct the leaders who would lead us by our noses. Adding an olfactory component to politics could only effect growth and change for the better, and to that end, I say bring on the Smell-O-Vision - if only for the sake of the news. If Americans could just smell our foreign policy for once, I know we wouldn’t stand for it one more stinking repulsive minute!

Of Famous Messed-Up Girls

Isn’t it terrible what fame and fortune does to pretty little girls? The poor things are always being shown going in and out of rehab, divorcing some ape, or flashing pink to the paparazzi. Why if those nasty camera people would just let them alone, they could settle into a normal life of early adulthood self-destruction, just like any other messed-up rich people.

I mean really, let s/he who is without sin cast the first stone, and if we are completely honest with ourselves, haven’t we all been there, folks? I want you to dig deep inside and ask yourself: Who in this room hasn’t driven the wrong way down the 134 freeway in the middle of the night?

Here’s another question: Right now, if you were given all the money you could ever want, and the world suddenly adored you so much that it fed itself on the delicate facts of your day-to-day existence, and if your words were always quoted, your deeds documented, and you had someone else to cross all your t’s and dot your i’s, well, then I ask you, what then? What would you do with your one beautiful life?

Don’t we all like to think we would be Gandhi? But pretty princesses from the burbs seldom find themselves burdened with a deep need to change the world in any fundamental way. Again, who of us can blame them, considering this incredible world of extravagant consumption seems to have been created just for them – the rich, the young, the shallow?

The fact these girls squander their youth on dope and drink, meet and marry terrible guys, and expose parts of themselves that most of us would not survive, well, what does that say about the material world? It says that “having everything” doesn’t just not make you happy, it actually fucks you up. And we all know it’s fucking up the planet, too.

So what are we to do about these stupid, destructive little girls running the fucking planet?? That’s the question I really want to ask, as it turns out.