Most of the stuff people piss and moan about is within their control. Constantly pissed or hacked about your job? Quit, find something different, or someplace different and quit. Nothing drags down people who actually like where they work and what they do faster than someone who's a constant griper. God almighty, if you don't like it get the fuck out and save the rest of us your down trodden frickin attitude. Then there are the folks that bitch about things that are out of their control. There are things that I don't like that I, nor anyone else alone, can fix. I don't bitch about them because for now that's how it is. The one thing I do bitch about is politics, and I can't change the boneheads in the City clear to Washington DC, so my labors there are those of Sisyphus. It's my one bitch I allow myself. The rest is just pissing up a rope and grouching about wet shoes. Does not complaining mean I like what's going on in a given situation? No, that doesn't mean that at all. What it does is free up myself to work on changing that situation into something tolerable for myself. I figure that's what everyone should do first, although that's not usually the case with most people. It's easier to bitch about a problem, than to do the inner searching to figure out first if you're the problem to begin with. I don't like doing it, but it's better than laying the blame off on fifty other things only to find out I was the catalyst to begin with. It takes a certain amount of personal responsibility. Frightening as that is, it's something a lot of people pass off.
Aw, you know, it could be worse. While I'm writing this, I'm reading it and finding that it sounds like I'm bitching!! After all, this could be worse, right? It's human nature, I think, to complain about things. I wonder if we do that as a safety valve, so we don't let ourselves be overwhelmed by that which crowds us mentally. As a machine, the human body is a pretty wonderful thing. Animals are usually more efficient in the use of their energy and strength. The difference is how the computer that drives us works. We take for granted that our noggin is full of the same material that took humans from spears and migration with the herds, to the ability to touch other planets. That's pretty heady (wow, no pun intended) material when you get right down to it. Everyone's brain is about the same, it's how they function that makes us who we are. They all build connections differently, and expand on ideas differently. That's what gives us Einstein and Hawking. Same stuff as everyone else, they make connections differently. I'm no where near as bright as Stephen Hawking, but I can still walk and pretty easily communicate. So, it could be worse for me. I wonder, with all his physical difficulty, if Stephen Hawking doesn't think, "It could be worse, I could have average intelligence"? Crazy, huh.
If complaining is an outlet to keep us from blowing a gasket, why is it some of us don't feel the need to complain much at all? Or all the time for that matter? I don't like to grouch because it's a waste of time. It accomplishes nothing, really, other than maybe getting some stress off our chests. I''ll be the first to admit I've bitched about things, but not for long before I tried to do something about them. That's how it should be, I think.
Anyway, enough of that. Geez, thinking about complaining makes me wanna open a vein. Yeow
Back in the day, there was a little beer joint called Yosemite Sam's, in Liberal Kansas. Thirty three years ago it was the happenin spot. Live bands, a few brawls, two shootings. One of which did some serious injury to the owner. I missed that by a couple of days, I was out of town if memory serves me correctly.
All kinds of folks went there. From bikers and drug dealers to the people that would become known as yuppies and preppies. (shudder) All in all it was a fun place to be, lots of laughs with friends. Except for a couple of times.
One of those times I was out with a bud who was home visiting from school. He called, we went out to Sam's to have a few laughs and copious quantities of beer. He got sloppy drunk. Oh geez, a mistake in that place for some folks. I got slipped something in a beer once in there. Found out who did it ten years later, Karma police got that rat bastard. Wasn't so funny when the shit you pulled on people came home to roost, was it?
I digress. So my bud gets sloppy drunk. Once in a while the mens room was the place folks would go run a line of coke up their nose. Ya kinda had to be careful when you opened the door or you'd hit someone in the ass and make them spill their nose candy. Bad news. Soooo, what's my buddy do? Boots the door. Hit one of the local dealers in the ass, knocked a medicine bottle full of cocaine into the sink that had water running in it. Oh shit. I grabbed him by the shirt collar and tucked him in behind me and started backing out. All three of the bad guys are moving in. I've got my bud in my left hand, shoving him backwards toward the front door, all the while the three dudes are hollerin about kicking his ass to death, and me hollerin back they'd have to come through me first, and my buddy yellin "What? What did I do?!?!". Out the door, backing away still, headed south to the far end of the block and another parking area. Yellin back and forth, I'm getting visions of knives, fists, feet and a whole lot of hurt. No cops, no sheriff, nothing is gonna stop this once we hit the dark. Or so I thought. At the end of the street, they just stopped. I didn't quit moving, just the drug dudes did that. I get the door to the car open, shove my buddy in and haul his ass back home. Alls well that ends well. Two weeks later the three drug dealers sort of brace me up at Sam's, telling me how lucky I was they didn't want to fight. Yeah yeah yeah, blah blah blah. I made a big show of "like I was scared", and that was the end of that. I never did figure out why they didn't just rush me and my buddy. Damn strange.
Don't get me wrong, that's not the usual happening at Yosemite Sam's, but an example of the far end of the spectrum. Like the guy from Beaver OK that was always humping for a fight there. He bulged up on a biker friend of mine named Tiny. Pulled the old "I hear you wanna kick my ass" shit. He got as far as "I hear you.." when Tiny hit him in the forehead. I swear it sounded like a ball bat on a water melon. The dude from Beaver put up both fists, then just kinda melted onto the floor. Tiny said "kick my ass?" finishing his line for him. That was the last time I saw that guy in there. Funny
Have a highly uncommon day, all y'all. And remember, what happened in New York on this date. Make is so no one forgets.
Hugs, kisses and pats on the ass for the ladies. Fellers, you're stuck with a firm handshake
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