Ronald Reagan (Ronald McDonald)

This morning I was lying on the couch in rural paradise when I had a very sudden and jarring thought. Normally, I wouldn't share this kind of thing with the world, but lately the general readership seems to have developed a distaste for my past posts (they're a lot more fun to read if you were there, I swear) so instead of going the same route as most people loosely affiliated with this blog and never (fucking ever) post anything of note again, I decided to type up this little nugget of thought. I hope it's to your liking, noble audience.

I think Ronald Reagan and Ronald McDonald are the same person.

Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States/Conservative Messiah
Ronald McDonald, Hamburger Shill/Clown

Now, I know this sounds a little zany, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately (full disclosure: by 'a lot lately' I mean 'during breakfast and a little bit while watching Food Network') and I think there are a few facts that stack up in my favor. Read on if you want the truth.

-McDonald's was founded in San Bernadino, California; Reagan would later become governor of California.
-Ronald McDonald's first appearance in advertising: 1963. Ronald Reagan elected governor of California: 1966.
-McDonald's HQ is located in Oak Brook, Illinois, not far from Reagan's birthplace in Tampico, Illinois.

Photographic evidence: Ronald Reagan was called "The Great Communicator." Ronald McDonald was a clown. Below we see Reagan 'clowning around' while McDonald gets on the mic and does a little communicating of his own.

You can't refute that.

Some people might take offense at this and say, "Wow, man, Ronald Reagan defeated Communism and you're going to do him like this?" To that I'll say, "Wow, man, that's true, but did you ever wonder why? Ronald Reagan was so hell-bent on bringing down the USSR?"

Then I'll give you an answer.

The Soviet Union's Communist system disallowed a lot of things: freedom of the press, freedom of the market, freedom of association and assembly, and the freedom to start McDonald's franchises.

Reagan/McDonald wanted to get into the Soviet Union and sell Big Macs to its 130 million potential customers. Communism hampered that desperate desire. The "brand loyalty" of the Soviet people was to the Hammer & Sickle, not the Golden Arches.
Reagan/McDonald wasn't having this, and with a glasnost here and a perestroika there, the Berlin Wall fell, communism collapsed and the Russian people were free to pledge their fealty to a new global superpower: McDonald's.

I suspect some type of Gorbachev/Grimace connection to this, but that's another discussion for another day.

Former Soviet leader/prominent birthmark owner Mikhail Gorbachev

Purple doorstop Grimace.

Another similarity existing between the two Ronalds is their ability to polarize people. Some people love McD's, some hate it. Some people love Ronald Reagan, some hate him. People have made movies about both of them, claiming that they harm America and it's people, specifically the poor, and that their ideas are somewhat deleterious to children. Below: a quick primer.

These kids love Ronald McDonald.

These guys love Ronald Reagan.
This guy hates Ronald McDonald


These guys hate Ronald Reagan.

Ronald McDonald made these cheap and available and it was bad for people (via drive-thru windows in suburbs).

Ronald Reagan made this cheap and available and it was bad for people (via CIA in Nicaragua).

Crazy, huh?

I think I'm onto something here. I think I'm only a few steps from blowing the lid off a huge crack rocks/Quarter Pounders/cash for guns for capitalism for McFlurrys conspiracy. Hope the CIA doesn't read our blog. I hope disgruntled readers find their appetite for non-alcohol related posts satiated. Pretty sure no one will fact check this. The internet is full of crazy stuff.

Life and Living It.

I have a friend, I have a really great friend, I'm going to call him Shrett. I'm sure there are a ton of ways I could describe the old boy, but if you don't know him it's just a bunch of hollow adjectives and vocab words, because you can't put a lust for life into words. Shrett exists in overdrive, a frantic, kinetic rush through the day. Shrett's standards are king in his world. Shrett will be immortalized in my mind as he was a couple nights ago, shakingly, unflinchingly drunk, slumped against a couple stairs, and when I walked by he looked up at me and snarled, "Do you think you can live fast and still die old?"

Now, on the initial receipt this could be interpreted as the usual cliche James Dean bullshit kids write in each other's yearbooks the day before graduation. Honest mistake, really, it does sound like something Marlon Brando says in a motorcycle film. But give it a shot, it's got a little more gravity to it than that if you give it the chance. This is not James Dean, this is not Hollywood, this is not a movie about motorcycles. This is real life stuff. This is what David Foster Wallace calls the capital-T Truth, this is life before death. And you have to choose how to live it, I guess, because no one can tell you how to do it, and if they even tried it would be all wrong.

Life can only move so fast at a time. You can fly through it, hard as possible, but you can't do that forever. Everything has its breaking point. Limits exist. On the other hand, you can't just sit there. You can't just grind your way through the day, never taking the time to risk flying past something. I realize the levels of pseudo-intellectual pontification bullshit are going through the roof right now, but it's late and I don't really have much else to say. You've got to enjoy life, but you can't lose yourself in it. There are some mornings, when it's still early, where I sit and think if this is really the best way to be living. Couldn't I do so much better? Is it really such a necessity to get drunk as possible, to see as much a possible, to shout as loud as possible? Can we live in all that noise or do we need quiet? Sometimes I tell myself that the quiet will come later, when I've had my fun, when I've burned up my feral and breakneck years. But what if you burn those years up too fast? What if you burn them up so completely that you get caught in the blaze before you can slow down enough to put it out? Is this a risk worth taking; is this danger inherent to our condition? I don't know and I can't pretend to know. We are moving pretty fast, and it seems like there's not much to stop and look at. We might never know. I can feel myself wanting to slow down. I'm not sure if Shrett will ever want to. Sometimes you just have to go and go and go.

And go and go and go.

See You Never.

I woke up at 7:30 this morning and I only knew two things. One, I had to be at work in a little over an hour, and I couldn't be late on my first day. Two, I felt like hell. I jolted awake at the sound of my alarm, somehow thinking that I had overslept, giving me a momentary flush of adrenaline that propelled me through my hangover, enabling me to--somehow--put myself together and get on my way to work. As I went through my paperwork with the HR lady, I pieced the night before together, slowly but surely.
The night started out innocently enough, as they all do. I was invited over to a pal's house for a "few beers" and things just got out of control after that. Out of control, in this instance, meant a jaunt to a few random bars and a strange amble through the rain.
So, we went over to aforementioned house and slugged a few Natty Lights. Then the call came--only girls have this power over my associates--to swing by The Neighbers, a bar so ghetto it's sweet. Things proceeded from there as the siren song of Eat the Worm and their devastatingly tasty/strong margs rang out to our wayward ears. Needless to say, we ended up there, downing a scrumptious 'rita. Someone taunted Beechnut and I, so we made a quick sprint to the Dubliner for an Irish Car Bomb. Yes, I just used "sprint" and "Irish Car Bomb" in the same sentence without also including "vomit" or "trash can." Crazy, huh?
Anyways, we came back to the Worm, drilled a tequila shot, and headed home. We were sidetracked in the always awesome Pioneer Courage Park, where security reprimanded us (a few times) for funning about on the statues. I'm sorry, sir, but we will dance with the metal lady if we please.
Anyways, I returned home way drunker than planned, six hours from having to report at work. Oops. I fell asleep on the couch and got what I could for sleep. Such is life, yes? I woke up this morning head churning, heart burning and headed to work, where my hangover punished me till well after lunch.
Despite the crappiness, I learned something today. Hold on: I didn't learn it, I guess, but was shown the cold manifestation of previously hinted-at fact. We can't live like this forever. Today was my first hand witness at the friction between the life I'm living and real life. If I go out and get blasted the night before a 9 o'clock class, it's no big deal. I zonk out for a few hours and get the notes else where. Go to work still reeling, and I'm screwed. You can't cheat when you're a copy editor. Trust me, I've tried. At the risk of "waxing philosophical" (Harrison sucks) I won't keep talking about being a grown up or whatever, or how old we're getting, or how the wraith of own illusory maturity has somehow ossified overnight. Instead, I will try to part with a ray of hope. I'm going out again tonight, and I'm going to get drunk. If I show up to work hungover everyday, they might just assume that I'm not a "morning person."

Here goes nothing.

See You On the Other Side

Last night I went out to blow off a little mid-finals week steam. I was accompanied by a few cats who had already concluded their examinations, thusly putting them in considerably higher spirits than me. One of these characters, who we'll call Rrroo, was especially jubilant over the culmination of the last academic term of his junior year. Rrroo was a sight to behold. He was grasping beers by their necks, three at a time, waving them around like a pigeon wringer as he navigated the crowded confines of the local watering hole. As closing time approached, it seemed like he had de-evolved a couple of species into a staggering, sputtering, sweating ape-creature. As we walked towards the door, he got a fevered look in his eyes, shouted, "We can't leave till I find some tail!" then turned and ran back into the shoulder-to-shoulder packed crowd. He emerged later, sans "tail", asserting that he had almost successfully chatted up a babe, but she "was dating some guy that played for the Yankees" so we continued our walk home. Rrroo continued to bounce off the walls (the expression fails considering we were outdoors) as we ambled down the street. When we finally got back to the neighborhood, Rrroo collapsed in the grass of his front yard, ignoring all hazards of broken glass, nails, dirty syringes, rolled around and half-muttered half-shouted to himself, "Senior year, senior year, senior year!"

Now, contrast the enraptured Rrroo with another buddy of mine I saw on the shuttle this afternoon. Like Rrroo, he had just taken his last test of the year. He, however, was a senior and the test didn't only mark the end of his year, but of college altogether. He was not happy. He sat slumped in his seat, floored by the weight of what was happenng. Four years had led him to this moment, and here it was. Instead of the glee of completion, he felt the finality of conclusion.

The differences here can be roundly blamed on the most basic strand of the tragedy of the human condition. We are terminal, we exist on a resolute trajectory, one day turns to another, then it's over. Everything we have ever done ends. Nothing lasts.
When we take up the mantle of anything, we are sending it towards its end. While this doesn't seem like a big deal for the little things like mowing the grass or making a pot of coffee, undertaking an endeavor like four years of college requires a huge emotional investment. This explains the exuberance of Rrroo. He had achieved a goal. He had reached a milestone, he had taken another step towards the end. He had earned his roll in the grass. My friend on the shuttle, though, he was done. The milestone's were over, and the destination had been reached.
We love progress, we celebrate it everyday. We fear conclusion. At conclusion, we retreat, we take a step back, we linger. We aren't ready for the next journey, not after we've come this far and put so much into this one.

So, to all the graduating seniors out there, let me say, with almost zero authority, it's okay to be scared, it's okay to be a little bummed out. But don't forget what you had to do to get here, don't forget what you've done, what you've accomplished, the people you've met and the people you're still with.

I'll see you on the other side.

More Books and School-type Stuff

I like zombies and one time I read Pride and Prejudice so a girl would think I was a sensitive, intellectual-type. So, when I heard the Internet hype-machine buzzing about Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies I felt obligated to pick up a copy.
To me, the idea of mashing up Jane Austen's comedy of manners with comic book style living dead violence is hilariously groundbreaking. It's like Victorian England meets World War Z meets The Hood Internet. Fuck, I love living in the 2000s.
As for the book itself, I only have this to say: too much witty banter, not enough heads getting chopped off. The plot of P and P remains relatively whole and intact, with wry, zombie-related snips being snuck in across the pages. After a particularly sassy exchange with Darcy, Elizabeth goes off and shoots some mo'fuckers in the head. Awesome, but not quite awesome enough.
The idea behind this creation is novel at best, a one-time flash in the pan, but a textual mash-up becoming this popular is a literary frontier. Don't expect to see War and Peace and Werewolves or Crime and Punishment and Pirates any time soon, but P&P&Z is definitely taking literature in very cool directions.

We live in a glorious age.