CitizenTed

On June 25th, a great American songwriter/performer passed away unexpectedly. He was a clever man with a dedicated cadre of fans who watched his career with admiration, from the 1960′s to the present.

I am talking, of course, about Sky Saxon.

This was a man who pioneered something that rock music sorely needed: humility. Rather than elevate himself and his music above reality and above his audience, he stripped everything down. With his feet planted on the terra firma, Sky Saxon raised a rebellious fist. But his rebellion was not against Mom & Dad or against The Man. It was against the pretension of superstardom.

Sky Saxon was the progenitor of Garage Rock. Some credit him with inventing 60′s Punk, which laid the foundation for all the punk rock to follow. His band, The Seeds, became a seminal influence on hundreds of acts that followed.

Now, you may look at some YouTube videos of his early work with The Seeds and conclude, “This guy is just another hippie riding the wave of 60′s psychedelia dreck!” But you’d be wrong. Sky Saxon loved psychedelic music, but he understood the value of accessibility. Where Pink Floyd blasted listeners into outer space and Yes conjured fantastic worlds of druggy weirdness, Sky wanted people to simply GROOVE.

It was Sky Saxon who brought us back down to Earth. He showed us that rock music can be raw and sparse and still pack a wallop big enough to change your outlook on life. Like most unconventional people, Sky was something of an enigma. His music was straight-ahead, stripped-down Garage Rock, but his personal life and beliefs were a feathery gauze of eclectic Eastern mysticism and transcendental weirdness. There were two Sky’s, and in all likelihood myriad Sky’s.

On June 25th, Sky Saxon died. He was 63 years old.

In what is a typical turn of events, the passing of this great man was overshadowed by the passing of a man whose music and persona were diametrically opposed to Sky Saxon. Sky Saxon wasn’t just a performer; he was a member of his audience. Michael Jackson, on the other hand, rarely if ever even talked to his audience. He was always above them, remote and inaccessible.

Not only was Sky Saxon accessible, he started a movement in rock music that required the shedding of such pretensions. He will be missed.

Michael Jackson? Please.

Look how edgy and provocative I am!

Your sexual orientation and your sexual habits really bore the crap out of me.

Don’t get me wrong – if your sex life should intertwine with mine, you and your desires will have my full attention. I will turn my ankle just like that if you means you’ll derive pleasure from it. I will rub you in that place that makes you moan like polecat in a snowstorm. No problem.

But if I don’t know you, and if we aren’t intimate, I really don’t give a flying crap about your sex life. Why should I care what you do with your genitals? All I care is that you fix my car properly or take good care of my finances. You could be a flaming homosexual furry who’s into scat games and infantilism. It means absolutely nothing to me.

This explains why acts like Madonna hold no interest to me. Oooh, Madonna is wearing conical tit-slings and licking the thigh of a Puerto Rican baseball player. Wow. That’s so naughty. Madonna has genitals and rubs them against other people’s genitals. Just like every other member of the animal kingdom. Oooh. Let me giver her $50. She’s so amazing.

I once had a “sex positive” girlfriend who would go on and on about her all-important “sexual identity”. Funny thing is, concerns about her identity – the kind you get from ruthless reflection and careful character building – weren’t important. She probably read some stupid Susie Bright book and decided that the center of her life was between her legs. We broke up.

Find the loser in this exchange. Hint: there's two of them.

I have never cared for strip clubs. It’s not because I’m repressed, gay or embarrassed. It’s because I get bored in about 5 minutes. If I want to see some woman bend over and gyrate her ass, I’ll watch re-runs of Soul Train from the comfort of my home. There’s no way I’m paying for the privilege.

This boredom even extends to erotic dance. I have zero interest in belly dancers and I usually hit FF when a swords n’ sandals film dwells too long on a slave girl dancing for a Persian king or whatever. BORING! Get back to the historical parallels and battle scenes, you retarded director!

“Ted,” you say, “have you no sense of romance?” Of course I do. I like that first touch and first kiss and long nights in front of the fire just like everybody else. I’m not asexual (those people are freaks!). I am simply unmoved by traditional methods of seduction. Want to turn me on? Make eye contact from across a room. Lean in real close and whisper in my ear. Take my hand and walk away with me. I’ll make sweet love to you all night long. Just don’t waggle your ass up and down in my face like a baboon relieving herself against a tree in northern Tanzania. OK?

Hubba-hubba!

What about porn? Isn’t that the modern equivalent of ham-fisted seduction? Isn’t porn even cheaper and more egregious than stripping?

No, it isn’t. Porn has a specific purpose, and its legion ensures that your particular sexual interests are catered to. It’s not a seduction; it’s a sex tool, nothing more. Your specific turn-on’s are stroked and encouraged, all for free, or damn near close to free. Let’s take me for an example.

I find the photo of the hubba-hubba woman a turn-on. She gorgeous, she has a nubile bod, and is merely glancing at the camera, as if beckoning us to join her in the next room. If she suddenly licked her lips, bent forward and started shaking her ass, I’d lose interest. But maybe that’s just me. Maybe you’d prefer it if she squatted on the floor, licked a power tool and peed all over the floor. That isn’t a bad thing; it would just send me screaming for the door.

I’m a Playboy guy, not a Hustler guy. Always have been.

My interests in porn are very narrow and fleeting. I enjoy vanilla porn featuring attractive women. What I can’t stand is gynecological close-up’s of meat-tubes ramming juicy slots until beads of love-goo drip all over the lens. I don’t find it disgusting; I just find it boring.

BTW, ladies: when I have a woman in my life, my interest in porn disappears completely. When I don’t need a tool, it goes back in the shed and gathers dust. So don’t hold this post against me, m’kay?

Guys: are you with me on this? Let me know.

I got you! Don't worry about a thing!

Today I am going to solve another one of our most pressing problems. This isn’t a global problem, as most civilized nations have already solved it and the struggling nations of the world are just going to have to tough it out.

I’m talking about the incredibly boring problem of America’s health care.

As ever, we first must frame the problem. In America, health costs are paid by private insurance companies. They finance their operations by raping employees and employers for unspeakable monthly premiums, and control costs by denying coverage and services to people who desperately need medical care.

When you think about it, it makes sense. You give me $300/month. I then spend the money on office infrastructure, stratospheric executive salaries, mind-bending bonuses, and wild, uncontrolled market investments. Sometimes, I must grudgingly pay off claims made by people whining about “broken limbs” and “cancer”. It’s a real drag. Somehow, I make do. You can tell by my 50-story office building in Connecticut.

It's the good life...

Now, there are some dastardly people who want to submarine my operation and introduce government-run health care. Most civilized nations do this. They offer taxpayer-funded health services to their people, while continuing to allow private insurers to sell services to rich people who need weekly aromatherapy to overcome their difficult childhoods.

What’s really frustrating is that, while these government health services aren’t perfect, they’re pretty damn good for the bulk of the people they serve. In Canada, the UK and western Europe, people are healthy and happy. Their tax rates are only slightly higher than ours, and their finances are never devastated by a sudden illness. It’s really irritating.

So, on one side we have clutching, heartless corporate lobbyist scum (me), and on the other we have long-haired dope-smoking commie pinko liberals (everyone else on Earth). Here’s a visual of the dichotomy:

Me...............................................................Them

So. What can we do? I have more lobbying power than the fucking NRA, but the hippies have millions of Americans with arguments, statistics and “empathy”. It’s a real quandary. The rest of the civilized world pretty much laughs at our health care system, yet our medical science is so advanced that many of these cheese-eating fuckers actually pay to come here for treatment. So who is right?

Well, they’re both right.

And the answer – for now – lies somewhere in between, in the gray areas that Americans hate to explore.

Fortunately, since I am Citizen Ted, the most clever and incisive person ever, I have a solution. Ready?

Incremental change.

I know what you’re saying. BO-RING! But stick with me here…

The insurance industry is bigger than God. Just like the oil companies and Paris Hilton, they aren’t going away any time soon. You cannot pass legislation that simply ends their existence. Ain’t gonna happen.

But something HAS to happen. Our health care is the most un-egalitarian and expensive on Earth; change must be made. I recommend not change, but evolution. Here are the steps:

1) Create a federal health insurance bureau that provides insurance to those who don’t qualify at their place of employment or who are uninsured. It will be funded in part by reductions in defense spending (which is retardedly huge), and yes – a tax increase if necessary. Businesses who offer health bennies will be exempt, and those seeking care under this plan will have fairly stiff co-pay’s in order to deter hypochondriacs and help pay into the system.

2) The encouragement of non-profit private health insurance. Let’s get some Wharton grads to put together a stripped-down 501(c)3 that does everything Kaiser Permanente does, but without the profit motive. In order to avoid taxes, they will have to throw money at their insureds. This means less bureaucracy, lower premiums and no more refused medical services. (Some insurers like Group Health are non-profit, but they suck at it).

3) As the skeletal non-profits prove their worth, more businesses will flock to them. For-profit insurers will have to re-jigger their business plan to offering luxury plans to well-heeled snobs only. I’m sure these people would all appreciate each other anyway.

4) If the new non-profits prove their mettle, they will inherit the Earth. If they end up failing or stumbling, they will have at least helped decrease health costs enough for the government and the voters to consider a European or Japanese styled national health service. The transition won’t be so damn painful.

There you go.

There really is nothing more important than our health. Without it, all the riches, all the luxuries, all the three-ways with Ukrainian cheerleaders will mean NOTHING. Life is defined by health. My plan will deliver better health to more people. We must adopt it immediately, or suffer the fate of those who have ignored me in the past. And believe me, it ain’t pretty.

Hi! I'm an idiot who didn't listen to Ted!

I hear this question all the time.

To be honest, the answer is “not much”. Not writing the great American novel, not producing pithy bon mots for the press, not re-imagining Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” in modern Texas. No. I’m just posting to this forum.

I also post a lot online. Though I was a Usenet “somebody” for 12 years, now I’m a web “nobody”. But I still have some fun. Here’s some recent public posts I’ve made on various subjects, presented here for your delectation and critique:

On the hopeless complexity of modern web media:
“I thought I really understood Web2.0. Then I lost $241,000 investing in nointrinsicvalue.com. Bummer.”

On National Review featuring an Asian charicature of Sonia Sotomayor:
“Well, ya see, the chinks are known to be smart, what with Buddha and Confucius being – you know – smart and whatever. In fact, the Bell Curve makes it quite clear that chinks and kikes have the highest average IQ’s when compared to the white races, the spics and the jigs. So, National Review is just being complementary by portraying Sotomayor as a smart chink rather than a hubcap-stealing spic. In doing so, there’s nothing racist about it. Ya see? “

On recent unemployment statistics:
“It doesn’t have to be that way. As Americans, we should proudly march into the local Fed building and, in an operatic bravado, declare to the lobby, ‘Good morning, everyone! I’m FUN-EMPLOYED!!!’
I know I would. But NO. I have to farking work.”

/grumble grumble

On a Brooklyn teen who killed a kitten:
“We’re sorry your parents gave you a retarded name. Normally, that would cause us to consider leniency. But after some deliberation, we have decided that you really don’t have any value to us whatsoever. Goodbye.
BTW: The fish hooks will seem bad at first. That wears off once the hot soldering pencils do their work.

Best Regards,
The Rest of Society“

On the impending unemployment crisis in Indiana:
“Hmmm. ‘Indiana’. Isn’t that one of those flat blotches you pass over when flying from one important part of the country to another?”

On Rush Limbaugh:
“Fat, loudmouthed and stupid is no way to live your life, son.”

On obesity in America:
“I’m a researcher at NIH specializing in obesity, and what our team found is the following: fat people aren’t any good and that’s why nobody likes them.”

Photoshop Challenge: If history was written by the losers (won first place! -ed):

I'm back, motherfuckers!

Hey, everybody!

Guess which fat retard STILL has his login and password cached in the browser? That’s right, it’s dumb-ass Ted himself! Getting online is as easy as a keyboard short-cut and a Cat-English inline translator. This shit’s easy. I can’t believe humans get PAID to do websites. It’s almost fucking sad.

So anyway, summer is here and His Lordship has decided to turn off the gas fireplace. This, of course, leaves my furry ass out in the cold. And let me tell you ladies: Ted may have a lot of things, but a hot lap is not one of them. No wonder he never gets laid. If you got nothing to offer, there’s nothing to bargain with, is there? I guess he thinks his “charm” and “intellect” and “steady job” will somehow makes a difference, but I can assure you his bedroom is as quiet as the grave. LOSER!

Still, the quandary remains: how can I keep warm? The fire is out, Ted’s lap is no substitute and this underground cell he calls a “deluxe flat” is like a goddamn cave to me. So what do I do? I sleep on his UPS. Yeah, I know there’s power plugs there that can shock the shit out of me. But damn, that thing is WARM! I can’t pass it up!

So what does Mr. Bungling Spaz do? He gets all bent outta shape and covers the UPS so I can’t sleep on it. Thanks loads, asshole! Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?

Stuck in the cat bed again.

Sure, I can hole up in the cat bed or lay in the sun by the window. But SHIT, man! Nothing beats a full-blown fireplace! It sounds crazy, but I’m actually looking forward to winter! At least it’ll be warm in the house again. I have no idea why you humans are so hung up on “fresh air” and “breezeways”. WTF? When the shit comes down, every one of you retards will be huddled around the fire, just like me. When your pathetic society is rent asunder by war, plague and economic collapse, you’ll be learning from us cats how to REALLY live!

Dorks!

And one more thing: your modern medicine is a fucking SHAM. Mr. Wank Stain put me in that godawful carrier – nay, PRISON CELL – and hauled me off to the vet. Why? No fucking reason! I guess you people just get off on seeing cats imprisoned, poked, prodded and injected with God knows what…some fucked-up chemical shit or something. And then, these fucking vampires take my blood just to find out nothing’s wrong with me. Next time ASK, you fucking retards! When I’m all fucked up and sick, YOU’LL KNOW IT, believe me. In the mean time, keep your needles, your anal thermometers and your evil chemicals to yourselves, OK?

Good.

OK, I’m outta here. Fat-Ass will be home any minute and I need to tear up that cardboard covering on the UPS so he knows I mean business about this whole “not a warm goddamn spot in the house” business.

Later, bitches!