My Monthly Shit List (June 2017)

I’m rolling out a new feature certain to amuse, shock, and confuse.

Let’s call this — my monthly “Shit List.”

This list will include rankings, from 1 to 10, of the people, places, and things that most piss me off at this moment.  My list is subject to monthly revision based on (in no particular order) — wars, plagues, gambling losses, cocktail consumption, and mainstream media brainwashing.

A drum roll, please.

MY MONTHLY SHIT LIST — JUNE 2017

[1]  President Donald Trump

President Trump is likely to remain atop my monthly “Shit List” for quite a long time — at least until one of two things happens:  (a) He’s impeached, or (b) Adam Sandler releases another embarrassingly unfunny movie and seizes the shameful pinnacle of the #1 spot — whichever comes first.  Trump’s daily carnival of contrived chaos might be comical were it not so consequential.  Based on just five months in office, Trump is likely to go down in history as King Kong in the demise of American democracy.

[2]  Songwriters Who Sing About Maritime Disasters

I’m fed up with folksy three-chord songs about sinking ships and drunken sailors reminiscing about some sad old wreck buried at the bottom of the sea.  I don’t want to hear this!  Life is already depressing enough without listening to some a whiny-ass wanna’ be pirate singing about a rusted relic running into an unexpected storm, sinking to the bottom, now polluting the bay.  Never mind torturing suspected terrorists at GTMO with blasting heavy metal music.  Put on a Gordon Lightfoot album and the terrorist will be squirming like a canary.  “Yes, I admit being a member of Al Queda — now please, don’t make me listen to ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” again!  This is a phobia of mine, every bit as queasy as spiders and killer clowns.  I don’t like songs about maritime disasters.

[3]  Racist Cops

I’m tired of seeing young men of color gunned down without proper cause by law enforcement, followed by our courts’ failure to punish such gross injustices.  This might be the most important issue of our time, one which threatens to destabilize our society.  Racist legal practices must be addressed by the establishment before mass civil unrest erupts (and mark my words — it will).  Consider the multitude of shocking well-documented cases where citizens are treated quite differently based on race (YouTube has many videos, including this ONE).  Comedian-activist Dick Gregory said it best:  “If dogs were being shot down by police in the same numbers as young Black men in this country, angry White people would be storming city hall.”

[4] Omaha High-Low Split Players (at the Orleans Casino — Las Vegas)

The charred souls of bitter, broken-down men largely populate Omaha High-Low Split tables infested with a chronic dreariness.  These crusty, crabby, cantankerous shards of once-productive members of society have become devoid of any pulse of humanity.  If these fossilized Omaha players weren’t wasting away the final vestiges of their miserable lives by spending 65 hours a week hunched over poker tables squeezing out a measly $1.62 an hour plus comps, they’d probably be writing depressing songs about shipwrecks instead.  Low-stakes Omaha players = miserable miserly misanthropes.

[5]   Snooty Waiters

I’m sick of being treated like dirt at fancy restaurants.  The snooty charade usually begins with the forced up-sell on bottled water.  “Tap or sparkling, Sir?”  Then, after listening to the waiter gab on for three full minutes describing the steamed carrots I get looked down at like a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe when I dare ask for the price of the nightly special.  Listen you too-lazy-to-get-a-real-job pest — you interrupt me while I’m speaking to my dinner guests to ask if everything is okay (if things aren’t okay — wouldn’t I let you know?), and then you disappear like magician’s white rabbit when I want to order an extra serving of those carrots you talked me into.  Hey, my bow-tied pal, you’re not an Ivy League professor lecturing on constitutional law.  You’re a waiter.  So, zip the attitude.

[6]  Fanboy Sycophants 

Celebrities don’t know jack shit about much of anything, except perhaps what they’re really good at — like actors (with movies) and athletes (with sports).  But ask them about anything else, and their opinions are just as worthless as yours and mine.  So then, why does everyone go dick fucking gaga when a celebrity posts something on Twitter, often on a complex topic they’ve never taken a second to study?  Please stop it, people.  Save the blind-faith ass-kissing for rare occasions when your hero actually does something truly remarkable or says something original.  Poker fanboy sycophants are among the worst.  Any tweet with a Day One/First Break chip count with 1,600 “likes” is grounds for a long eye roll and an immediate block.

[7]  The San Francisco Giants

These miserable pricks have cost me a fortune during the last few weeks.  There’s a guy I know betting with me (no juice, so it’s legal) who’s has been riding the anti-Giants gravy trainwreck since the start of June (they’re currently 27-51, the worst record in baseball — and have lost 6 games in a row).  A few nights ago, thought I might have a shot at a win.  Shitty Giants were up 6-3 late in the game, then the Braves (the Braves!) scored a touchdown — 7 goddamned runs in the bottom of the whatever to win the game 10-6.  7 runs!  I’m bleeding money on the Giants.  More like hemorrhaging rent money.  Bastards!

[8]  Democratic Party Leadership / Establishment

Is there a more clueless gaggle of ineptitude than the current leadership of the Democratic Party?  Republicans have all but gift-wrapped the entire ballgame to Democrats, but they still somehow can’t win a meaningful election.  Democratic positions on every major issue are more popular with the general electorate (health care, foreign policy, taxation, gun control, etc.).  Democrats also raise plenty of money.  Democrats have the perfect boogeyman to run against in the White House.  Nonetheless, they keep on losing in embarrassing fashion.  Re-electing feeble fossils to leadership posts, running lame, gutless candidates who are often ashamed to stand up for the progressive agenda, overemphasizing divisive issues, and generally behaving like the San Francisco Giants of politics — all reveal it’s way past time to clean house.  And, the Senate.  Move aside, losers.  You blew it.  Time for a new generation of voices and ideas.

[9]  Absentee Homeowners

Las Vegas has become a haven of hell for lazy absentee homeowners, mostly rich fucks living somewhere in California, who slumlord out their second and third “investment homes” while letting the neighborhood turn to total shit.  They try charging California rental prices and then when the properties sit empty for months, squatters move in, tear the place apart, and turn the street into a ghetto.  I know this firsthand because I’ve seen it happen.  The city should enforce much stricter codes on upkeep and seize property when laws are violated.  I think absentee homeowners (a nice word for slumlords) are scum.

[10]  Shitty Summer Movies

Summer movies are shit.  Wizards, superheroes, cartoons, car chases, skull-fucking mindless comedies, talking machines — I don’t care for summer movies catering to 9-year-olds who infest cineplexes like larvae buried in the Everglades.  Since when did adults abdicate our rightful role as guardians of the cinematic arts and allow corn-syrup slurping kids to completely take over Hollywood?  I can’t wait for September — which means the return of decent, thought-provoking French movies with subtitles no one can understand

DISHONORABLE MENTION:

Furniture Manufacturers

Those of you who follow me on Facebook already know this story:

Marieta saw some nice new furniture on the Internet and decided to order a sofa and love seat for the living room. The old stuff was about ten years old, so she said it had to go. It’s direct from the factory in North Carolina and they said it would take three weeks for delivery.

ESports Gamers

I think “esports” is total bullshit.  It’s a joke.

Bunch of punk-ass kids with no social skills living in their parents’ basements jittering on computers all day and night like overdosing dope-fiends. All that’s missing are the black spoons and Bic lighters.

Esports is crap.