Stalkers, they’re not just for girls.

First of all, I would like to tell my stalker, whom I know – and who has been stalking me for about a decade now, that while I cannot stop the motherfucker from viewing my blog and sending me annoying e-mails, I have zero interest in being friends with him, and he’s wasting his time.

Dear Barbara,

I was not online very much yesterday, because I was at Funspot, the largest video arcade in the world (at least that is what their advertising claims). It is in New Hampshire. I've enclosed a photo. I didn't take many photos. It was too dark. Funspot was fun, but I had a miserable time at the hotel -- wasn't able to sleep and had a miserable time getting back, due to sleep deprivation. I should have stayed another night at another hotel and, hopefully gotten some sleep. It was a big mistake that I will not repeat.

Congratulations on the job offer in the UK. (I guess -- you don't seem that thrilled about it -- where will your husband be? Your husband seems like a giant from your facebook photos.) Lost a hundred dollars playing poker online in the course of about twenty minutes. I am never convinced that the cards are random online. I'm going back up to New Hampshire this weekend – this time to play live poker, if I am properly rested.

IH did not respond to my blackmail letter. They're not going to respond. I sent a letter to the head of University of Cambridge and to the CEO of CELTA ESOL. I doubt if they will get back to me. I'm not going to send you everything; it's too much -- but these items that I'm attaching were included in my blackmail letter to IH. I have dirt on all the staff. Extensive, embarrassing errors. These people have no right to run an English teaching school. And Cambridge ESOL expects me to complain in a complaint form that they wrote that is filled with errors. I FUCKING THINK NOT! My life and future ended the day they failed me. They will win and I will lose. But I have nothing but time to embarrass their joke of an institution, and that is what I will at least attempt to do. Could you believe I used to fear Neil. Take a close look at the bendy file index that he wrote. Not only can he not form grammatical sentences, he has no concept of how to define words; and this bastard used to bitch and moan about my not grading my language. He's an impostor. They all are.

The dream

I have tried to drink my problems away as I did before I left. But now I can’t. I am miserable when I drink and miserable when I don’t drink. There is no escape now.

Hungary to me now is a distant dream and, having fully woken up to my miserable and hopeless life in the United States, I cannot imagine a Hungary. There is no world out there beyond my four walls of shit and the places that my shitbox takes me to.

Don’t get me wrong. There are worse lives, far worse. My life is not bad. The problem is that it is a non-life. I sit here and I watch all that unrealized potential go to hell. All I wanted in life was to screw women and create babies. It wasn’t much to ask. Good Christ, how did I get myself into this situation?

I’ll keep trying, like I always do. There is nothing more that I can do.

Burn flag, burn!

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No more hope, but plenty of scorched earth

Pequot Museum parking lot.

You beat me world -- in Hungary.

Hungary was not to blame.

Budapest was merely the location of the battlefield.

Blinded by arrogance, the victors don’t yet realize whom they are dealing with.

While I mount my scorched earth offensive in Europe against idiots, I take money away from idiots at poker tables. Idiots never feel that they have to study their subject. That is their weakness, and I am exploiting it.

I no longer have a future. Hungary was my last stand. It doesn’t bother me too much; I’m too involved in the day to day operations of making bastards pay.

Just another day in paradise

Dear Barbara,

I play No-limit Hold'em -- and yes, it is similar to Russian Roulette. If you're not careful you can easily lose vast sums of money before you even know what hit you, and then your life is over. I have never lost vast sums of money playing poker, but I imagine it's a lot like failing your last CELTA lesson. One minute you have a life, and then the next minute you've failed and all your dreams disintegrate right before your eyes like burning paper. You are still alive and breathing, but you are effectively dead. After I write this e-mail I'm going to go book another date to go to the casino. They usually let me stay at their hotel for free during the winter, but they're all booked up and I will have to pay $70 to stay for the night. I really hate paying for the hotel when I'm at the casino, but I'll do it because I'm bored and miserable. Who knows, maybe I'll win enough to cover my expenses. I don't get to the casino that much anymore. Maybe four times a year. It's a long drive. I hate driving back at night. I don't see well at night. I hate the dark country roads near the casino. Everyone tailgates me because I drive the speed limit. In Budapest you have casinos everywhere, but they don't offer live poker with other players; they want you to bet against the house in games of chance, which is like throwing your money away; I find this sort of thing very insidious.

I'm beginning to get used to the United States again; I'm not saying I like it, but I'm getting used to it. It's nice to be able to communicate in my own language. Hungary is a wine country. The wine is good in Hungary, but I am a beer drinker -- The United States is a beer country, and I am a product of its culture. The beer in Hungary is not very good. Before I arrived in Hungary I thought I was going to be in beer heaven because I would be able to drink a wide selection of the imports from beer countries like the Czech Republic and Germany. The German imports in Hungary absolutely sucked, and I could find much better Czech beers in the U.S. than I could in Hungary. I could find good cheep beer domestic beer in the U.S. In Hungary I couldn't even find a six pack of beer. In the U.S. you can buy beer buy the six pack, the 24 pack case -- even the 30 pack case. In the U.S. we cater to the alcoholic. We make it easy and cheap to drink your life away. It is it is an alcoholic's paradise. Hungarians may live in a capitalism system, but they really have no clue how it works. I hope to God that Hungary never figures out capitalism, for if they do, they will become assholes like us.

Restaurants in the United States serve much fresher food than they do Hungary. One of my biggest complaints about Hungary was that the food  in restaurants was not fresh and was way too salty. Restaurant food in the U.S. is so expensive that I've only eaten out once since I've arrived. In Hungary I always ate out. When I got back to the U.S. I was dying for a good cappuccino, but you cannot find good cappuccino in U.S. The cappuccino in the U.S. sucks. The best cappuccino in the U.S. is worse than the worst cappuccino in Hungary. But, weirdly, after a while the desire for a good cappuccino subsides and you don't even think about it -- you don't even order cappuccinos. You just get used to the way things are. The U.S. is a miserable, crap country, vacant of culture and soul, but the longer you stay here, the less you realize it. You just become numb and passive after a while, like other Americans.

Have you seen Erika's son in person? I saw his photos on facebook. He looks like such a cutie. I envy Erika. My niece is terrifically cute too. She's two years old. She sent me a drawing. It is horrible. I'm not sure what to do with it.

I'm attaching a photo. Please tell me what it means. I suspect it is a political ad and the person who wrote the comments on it in pen was making an anti-semitic remark. Am I right?

I'm going to try to call you this weekend. You can tell me about your financial struggles then. I need to ask you about The Hungarian Society of Massachusetts.  http://www.bostonhungarians.org I miss Hungarians; I miss their beautiful and kind faces; I need to find someone who will make me some transylvanian goulash;  I'm dying for this. (They don't have Hungarian restaurants here.) I'd do anything for some transylvanian goulash; I'd do anything for a good Hungarian woman too, but I'm unemployed, so I don't even let that thought cross my mind.

The woman from Szeged

Dear LA Woman,

BTW, I've starting blogging again. Yes, this is after I told all my readers, except for you, to fuck themselves. I've published two e-mails to this Hungarian woman, Erika. She was in my class, really sweet and hot, and somewhere in her early thirties. I of course tried to get to know her better. In a move somewhat ruthlessly criticized by Hedi as being unmanly, I asked Erika to help me to buy some food in a Hungarian restaurant. I chose to indirectly ask her out for lunch. This is just the way I prefer to operate, especially if I have to deal with the person if they reject me. Erika just gave me this strange look and didn't answer the question. I was not sure she understand what I was asking, but I said nothing more. For the next for weeks I sort of gave her the cold shoulder. Any woman who was too good for me, well, she could just fuck herself! I learned later, from Erika that she had a husband and a kid. I was a little surprised because, unlike the other women in the class, who were all married with children, she never talked about her family. It didn't occur to me to look for a wedding ring. I don't have a lot of experience with asking out women whom I do not meet online. Then, one day I was going out with my other Hungarian friend from the course, Barbara, and Barbara was friends with Erika, and Barbara asked if she could take Erika along. So we went out and had something to eat. Barbara asked me how my trip to Szeged was. (Szeged is a city in Hungary about 120 miles south of Budapest, on the Serbian border.) I told them that I had cancelled my trip to Szeged because Aniko, the woman whom I had met through OkayCupid, had decided to abort our relationship. (I'm not sure if "relationship" is the right word, for we had never formally declared it as such.) Well, Erika became very interested in me after that. There was something about my having this relationship with this woman from Szeged that I think fascinated her. I think that my wanting to have relationships with mysterious Hungarian women somehow made me okay. I said in my OkayCupid ad that while I did not have a drop of Hungarian blood, I wanted to be as Hungarian as I could be; it was the truth.

I think I will publish this post in my blog too. Take care.

I hope you're okay.

Dickie

Back in the United States, and no longer in Kansas

View of the Danube from Gellért Hill in Buda, Hungary on a rainy, foggy day. The right side of the river is Pest.

Hi Erika,

I got a cultural shock when I arrived in Hungary, and I got a cultural shock coming back to the United States. When boarding the plane in London, people were speaking in somewhat ugly, Germanic sounding language. I was familiar with this language -- I knew the words, as it was English, but I heard it for the first time as a foreign language. Something seemed very wrong because people were not speaking the beautiful Hungarian that, while I understood hardly any of, I was comfortable with. And the people boarding the plane were so ugly. I had never seen so many ugly people before in one place. In Hungary, hardly anyone is ugly. Hungarians are incredibly beautiful people. I was not used to looking at people who were not beautiful. It was shocking. (There are of course exceptions like Eszter. Don't believe the crap I said in front of Zozo about Eszter being beautiful. Eszter does not look very Hungarian to me; she looks Germanic.)

When I got to Boston, Customs really, really fucked with me. They of course had nothing on me, but they interrogated me, asked horribly personal questions, and looked through every inch of my luggage -- even the dust they inspected. Finally, after clearing Customs, exhausted and really pissed off, having two suitcases, one in each hand, I ran to the bus that would take me to a train, that would take me to my apartment. The rear doors of the bus were open, so I hopped on with all my luggage, and the bus driver closed the door while I was half way in. I managed to squirm in, dazed and confused by why anyone would do something like that. A passenger said to me, "You have to pay." I had to pay? Then I finally realized that I was no longer in Budapest. In Boston, like every place in the U.S., you pay the bus driver up front. They open the rear doors in order to let people out.

I was in a big department store in the U.S. called BJ's. A woman was getting annoyed and frustrated with her son, because her son wanted to wander around. That is what children do; it is in their nature. Very rarely do parents get annoyed with their children like that in Hungary. People love the hell out their children in Hungary. Americans do not understand children. Children in the U.S. are often treated much in the way you might treat luggage. You lug your luggage around, and it is a hassle. In BJ's when I wanted to get around people in crowded aisles, I would have to resist the urge to say "bocsánat." Something seemed horribly wrong to be living in universe where you don't say "bocsánatot kérek" to get people out of your way.

Yesterday, when I was driving on the hi-way at night, I thought about the view from Gellért Hill and all the places and people and things I missed about my Buda. It was of course not "my" Buda, but it was the only place I had ever know that felt like home. I cried.

This is probably my last post, assholes

My life has taken on a new trajectory. In a few months I will be living many thousands of miles away.

I now have to protect my privacy for professional reasons. I will be disabling or deleting this blog within a month or so. I may start a new blog, where I will be more vigilant about protecting my privacy.

The enemies that I’ve made as a result of this blog will be very happy about this move, as it means that my posts will not continue to embarrass them. I am still not sure what to do about Wediko. I am considering shaking the motherfuckers down for their domain name – I can certainly use the money; I also might just continue to embarrass them. I haven’t decided yet.

It’s highly dubious if I have many regular readers, if any. I would like to say that I hate all of you, with exception to L.A. Woman, for whom I love. (But it is not a romantic love, don’t worry.)

At a certain point I had prevented people from commenting because of all the trolls and assholes posting their brain farts on my blog. About a year later, I turned the commenting back on, but restricted it to blogspot members only. There hasn’t been one comment since. This, to me, says a lot about the human race -- what fucking shits you all are, in that you can only squeeze out your reeking brain farts when you can do so easily and anonymously.

I think you are all fucking scum. And I have one word of caution for you men not living in the U.S: You’re days of pussy may be coming to an end, for your woman may be fucked by me, and I intend to dish out the best fucks that your woman has ever had.

Tables are turning motherfuckers; time that I got mine. And I’m not only after your woman, and in a much better position to take your woman -- I’m also going to take your job, because I’m probably a lot smarter than you are, I work a lot harder, and I don’t take shit for granted. And when I’ve taken your job, I ‘m not going to feel guilty. And I’m going to hope that you end up hanging yourself over your sudden loss of pussy and revenue. You will feel lonely. It will rot your soul -- your entire being. Most of you assholes, who think you are so fucking superior to me, would probably not last a day in my shoes. I hope you get the chance to see the world as I do. I hope it is your woman and your job that I take. I hope, dear reader, that I fuck you real good, for you probably have it coming.

Have a shitty life, scumbags.

Kevorkian dead. Good riddance, scumbag

Kevorkian snuffed someone I knew – she was not terminally ill. Don’t believe everything you hear about Kevorkian, even if it happens to come from so-called humanitarians and liberals and progressives. He was fucking cocksucker.

The Kevorkian freak showing off his “suicide machine” in 1991.

Dr. Death in his later years

We need assholes like you in the service

I watched The Patriots, 1994, directed by Eric Rochant, starring Yvan Attal, and I thought – where has this movie been all my life? With exception to Three days of the Condor, it is the best spy movie ever made. It is about the Mossad. There is this great line in the movie where the protagonist was asked why he was chosen for an assignment. The protagonist did not know. The protagonist was told that it was because “we need assholes like you in the service.” The protagonist, you would think, would say something or at least have some affect – but, like a true asshole, I guess, he did not seem to mind being called an asshole – or he might have just been playing it cool. It was a tremendous acting performance. The characters in this movie will make your skin crawl.

At first I thought it was an Israeli movie, but it is a French director; it figures – only the French could make a movie this devoid of sentimentality.

Life in slow motion

I was supposed to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, but ended up playing online poker until well after the bastard birds started tweeting. Shouldn’t I be trying to get my ass into gear? Shouldn’t I be prepping for the fascist EFL fucks in Belarus who will be interviewing me and busting my balls for no good reason other than the thrill of displaying dominance? I just don’t seem to care. I don’t care about my graying and depleting hair, nor my limp dick. What is the point? If by miracle I land some shit gig in Southeast Asia, what fertile woman is realistically going to want to fuck me? And, say they do want to fuck me, how am I supposed to get this limp cock inside of them so that I may seed them with my brood? I don’t even seem to care about my existential dilemma. I just want to play poker – poker is way better escape than drinking – I haven’t drunk all month and have lost 12 pounds because there is never time to eat when you’re playing poker. I’m not winning, but for the first time, I’m breaking even. I can play poker for real money until the end of time now for free. I play poker because I don’t care. I used to drink because I didn’t care. I don’t even feel suicidal anymore because I simply don’t fucking care. In the past I would say, look at the horror of my life being flushed down the fucking toilet; but, really, what life was there ever to get flushed? What future where I am not neck deep in shit do I have?

Donald Trump, you are a moron and asshole

Donald Trump, who wants to run on the Republican ticket for president, is a fucking moron. Below are grammatical errors he made in about two minutes of conversation on CNN on March 29, 2011.

TRUMP: If it wasn’t for us, OPEC wouldn’t exist.
WHAT'S WRONG: Improper use of the Second Conditional.
SHOULD BE: If it weren't for us, OPEC wouldn’t exist.

TRUMP: I also say that NATO is us.
WHAT'S WRONG: Linking verb complement needs subjective case.
SHOULD BE: I also say that we are NATO.

TRUMP: When NATO goes in, this is us going in.
WHAT'S WRONG: Linking verb complement needs subjective case.
SHOULD BE: When NATO goes in, we are the ones going in.

TRUMP: I just looked at polls today that showed me doing very well.
WHAT'S WRONG: Case of pronoun “me” is wrong. Needs to be subjective case.
SHOULD BE: I just looked at polls today that showed that I’m doing very well.

This asshole, who averages about one grammatical error every thirty seconds, wants to be president. I saw Trump in another interview today bitching and moaning about Obama not providing proper evidence of citizenship. It was the purist shit I have ever heard. He impressed upon the interviewer how he had gone to the best schools. How good can these schools have been when a 95 IQ asshole like me who graduated from Northeastern University, which is a school for mental retards, can speak better English than the mighty Trump? It’s a myth that one has to be smart to make money or be successful. All one needs is a rich daddy. If we did not all have our heads up our collective assholes, we’d take back from these motherfuckers all their undeserved shit. I say we take Trump’s private housing and turn it into public housing for the poor. We deserve it. We speak better English. We’re not on national news blabbing away like banal fucking idiots.

I couldn’t believe how gay that dog was

I had a date today at Jam’n N Java in Arlington, MA. Yes, I know that I said I was going to quit dating. I don’t really want to discuss the date beyond saying that I was grateful she extended her hand to me after the date so that I could avoid the awful awkward hug that I didn’t want to give her.

Jam’n N Java had incredibly shitty service and shitty coffee. They overfilled my cup so I couldn’t get any cream in it. There’s a pretty good chance they charged me for the ceramic coffee mug that I requested. Since the girl ran off after she gave me the coffee, I couldn’t request a receipt. She gave me a Canadian penny in my change. I put the Canadian penny in her tip jar. That was her tip. A Canadian penny was way more tip than she deserved. She wasn’t worth a rusty washer that you find on the sidewalk. The coffee made me nauseas, but then again all dark roasts makes me nauseas. This is New England, home of Donkun’ Donuts. Natives (I’m not a native, but have been living here forever) don’t like their coffee bitter, but the yuppie coffee shops are fascist and only serve dark roasts, and if you are not yuppie enough to enjoy it, you can fuck yourself. It’s funny that one of the people who worked there knew my date by name – my date was obviously a regular.

There was a bike path that actually cut right through Jam’n N Java. Unlike the Google snapshot of this bike path below, there were a million bike riders swarming in and out of this bike path. It was like a yuppie hornets nest. They and all their bicycles made me really nervous.

What is also not present in the snapshot is the big blue sign that said “America’s Revolutionary Bike Path.” Now, I could be wrong, but I thought that the big decisive battles of the revolution were fought in Lexington and Concord, not Arlington, but who knows, maybe this path went through these towns, or maybe it was just a stupid sign. I am way too lazy to find out.

As I waited for my date, there was this guy walking around with this really tiny and really furry dog. It was the gayest dog I’ve ever seen. It must have taken countless generations of gay dog breeders to create an animal that looked this gay. While the guy with the dog was well-dressed, he didn’t look gay – he just seemed to be a heterosexual with a curiously gay dog – maybe he didn’t realize how gay his dog was – but then he gave me “the look.” I have gotten this look before, but never from a man, if you exclude the time ten years ago when I ventured into a Castro bar to take a crap.

Harassment and intimidation of Romani citizens by anti-Roma vigilante groups present in Roma neighborhoods

I was horrified to learn about what these fucking neo-Nazis are doing to these poor gypsies in Hungary.

http://www.errc.org/cms/upload/file/hungary-gy%C3%B6ngy%C3%B6spata-letter-march-2011.pdf

I would gladly suck your penis or vulva for money

A few months ago, I came upon some article online that said that a Las Vegas brothel was looking for male prostitutes, and that this was the first time that a Las Vegas brothel had ever sought male prostitutes.

I went to the brothel’s website. If my memory is serving me correctly, they said that they were looking for men 30 – 40. They wanted head-shots and full body shots. They warned that if you sent nude shots that this would disqualify you. They did not specify whether you would be prostituting yourself for men or women – nor did I care.

At first I was like, “Woo-hoo!” maybe I can become a whore and finally make a decent wage. All I would have to do is suck some cock. I have never sucked a cock, but I’m sure that the worst, most gnarliest cock can’t be nearly as bad as the worst minimum wage day labor job I’ve ever had. Sucking cock for good money cannot be remotely as humiliating as working a minimum wage job for cocksuckers.

Then reality set in. I was no longer 40. I was 45. I was fucking old. But then I though, I still look good, I’ll send them the photos anyway. But then I thought, no, I don’t look handsome anymore. I’ve lost too much hair, gained too much weight. I’m not going to bother.

I read an essay in an Ethical Humanist newsletter, written by a man, asserting that prostitution was really rape. This is the most absurd argument I’ve ever heard. If the prostitute is forced, against her or his will to have sex, than that is rape. But if a person consents to sell her or his body for sex, to say that is rape is to completely ignore the violence of rape. If you’re going to call the man who buys a prostitute a rapist, then by that inane logic, you should call McDonald’s and Walmart and day labor outfits rapist institutions, for they exploit people’s bodies just as Johns do. Whether the exploiter wants you to grasp his penis or his mop is really irrelevant. Exploitation is exploitation. The feminists get so ideological and crazy that it really starts to turn me off. In fact, it becomes downright revolting. I believe in an egalitarian society. I don’t however like to define myself as a feminist because the label makes me very uncomfortable -- because I know that there are extremist wackos in this camp. And no, I have never paid for a prostitute. The reason why is because I have always looked at it as humiliating and demeaning. Being a prostitute I’m sure is demeaning too, but I doubt if it is nearly demeaning as working for assholes for wages that could barely get you by, living in your car.

The read-between-the-lines rejections are so demeaning

I wrote this nurse on OkayCupid – she was curvy, had some serious breasts, dreamy wide hips, nice legs, and a really tight belly in the one photo where she was not a little plump. (I like ‘em plump – no big deal … breasts and booty are a good thing, not a bad thing – unless of course you’re not into women.)

As you can see below, I didn’t have much to say when I wrote her. She was an incredible longshot as she was gainfully employed, good-looking, relatively young at 37, and seemed to give the impression that she was awfully cool.

My friend is a Nurse Practitioner. When I recently got my CPR and AED certifications I left a message on her voice mail proclaiming that she was not the only one around here who can save lives -- that I too was a medical professional! I was of course exaggerating.

-Dickie

Usually when a woman writes you back, she’s interested. Once in a blue moon she politely tells you she is not interested, and I always hate when she does that. It’s better not to respond. This woman gave me the worst rejection imaginable – the read-between-the-lines rejection.

Thanks for the message! It's good to have skills. Especially ones that save lives.
-A

These types of rejections make my skin crawl. And let me add that with exception to my friend, LA woman, whom I am referring to in my e-mail to this nurse on OkayCupid, I hate nurses. My feeling about them is that, for the most part, they’re a bunch of fascists and control freaks. I mean, what the fuck? – look at that duplicitous, fuck-you rejection – look at the controlling way they treat you in hospitals. They complain about doctors, but a doctor you can at least deal with – when a nurse, for example, doesn’t want you to get out of your bed after surgery to take a piss and, after you have asked her when you will be able to piss and she just ignores you, and you decide to ignore her authority and attempt to get out of bed anyway to take your piss, what she will do is pump you full of drugs and render you unconscious. I can give more anecdotal examples of what type of fit-for-the-Third-Reich behaviors these people engage in. I’m sure you could too. Nurses are no Florence Nightingales. Florence Nightingale herself was probably a fascist and just in it for the power.

Fuck I hate nurses and okaycupid and these bullshit subtle-ass, insulting rejections. I am disabling my okaycupid profile. All I’m doing is embarrassing myself on that site. The unemployed have absolutely no business being on a dating site for any reason, whether that be for dating, sex, friends, activity partners or whatever. The unemployed should accept their bottom-feeder status, buy a suitcase (thirty pack) of Budweiser (preferably from tax free New Hampshire where they don’t even need to redeem the empties) and bitch and moan on blogspot. (I’m not prepared to accept this status, at least not permanently, but I do need to stop embarrassing myself on OkayCupid.

Letter written by a depressed alcohol abuser, with a big fucking existential crisis.

Dickie! Actually, the reason why I'm leaving OKC behind me is... I've met someone great and we're bf-gf. He's the sweetest guy on earth, too. [UNDISCLOSED BF NAME.] He's tall, adorable, works in nonprofit and is a film critic for fun. I can scarcely believe my good luck, after 2.5 years of being unattached. It's still pretty new, but it's going pretty well. Would I sound like a jerk if I say hang in there, Dickie, and it will happen for you, too? Because it will, just gather up your faith and keep hoping and wishing and acting like the lucky soul you are. Enjoy your corn chips, but don't you give up!
What are you doing for fun lately?
-L


Hi L,

I'm afraid that I have become so cynical that it never occurred to me that someone might want to leave OKC because she or he has found someone.

But, good for you. I hope you get some good love.

I am not seriously looking on OKC, and will probably disable my profile again. My priority is to get out of this asshole country so that I can put a roof over my head. It is quite beyond belief the obstacles I have faced and continue to face to make this nightmarish dream of teaching English in some other God-awful country come true. Patriotic assholes love to say "love it or leave it!" Well, I fucking would if I could! Their simplistic view of the world and problem-solving belies their position and diminishes my view of them as intelligent beings.

Christ, L, the most fun I have these days is drinking copious amounts of Budweiser, and this, as you may or may not know, is not that fun. I should stop being so blatantly honest with people, but I'm just like, ahhh, fuck it, who cares?

-Dickie

Spirit of Aquai

I was so disappointed when the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut changed their website to make their job offerings more accessible, because I had planned to blog about it. Before, they made people who wanted to look at their job listings go through a seven step process. You would have to click a button that said “Can you continue the Spirit of Aquai Continue” after each step. What was funny is that they never explained who or what Aquai is;

Thanks to the Internet Archive’s WaybackMachine I was able to find a copy of the old version of Mohegan Sun’s site so that I could write about it.

My second favorite step is step 4, “Grooming Standards,” where they asked you to agree to “bathe” and “brush teeth daily” and “use an effective deodorant.” (And, remember, this is just to look at their job listings.)

Now, I can understand why the Mohegans might want to insult the white man, as I’m sure the white man has fucked them over pretty well, but my family came off the the damn boat at Ellis Island. My family was way too busy being fucked over by gentile white men to fuck over a Mohegan. There is no reason to insult me like this personally; my family never did anything to fuck over a Native American. (It is arguable that my being here is an invasion of their turf; however, I have been trying desperately to get out of this asshole country for my whole life and have not been able to afford to do so, so, again, I am not responsible for fucking Native Americans – I cannot help that I was born here.) Furthermore, the Mohegan tribe has profited off of me by taking 10% of my poker winnings and from collecting the many two dollar blinds I have posted in order to immediately get into poker ring games. They were not just insulting a potential employee, they were insulting a customer whom they have made money from. It’s just not cool.

My favorite step is step 6, “Your On-Boarding Journey Begins…”

They said in this step:

“If selected, the map below represents what your on-boarding journey will be. It outlines the steps you will travel through, from the time an offer is presented, to your 90 day follow-up orientation.”

They showed you the map below:

Notice in this map how you start in Northwest Connecticut and must make a long, arduous, non-linear journey to Southeast Connecticut.

Do you see what this is? This is an allusion to the Trail of Tears. They are symbolically telling us that they want to make us pay, just as we made them and their Native American brothers and sisters pay.

In step 2, “Core Values,” the first core value they listed was “Blowing Away the Customer.” I don’t think this is a good value to strive for. As a customer, I never want to be blown away. It makes me nervous when people are too enthusiastic about pleasing me. I just want to get what I paid for and have people act courteously and professionally, that’s all. I’m pretty sure that this is what most people want.

After you had agreed to all seven steps, they gave you a few crappy job listings and did not post salaries or benefits. In the current version of their website you no longer have to go through the seven step process in order to get to the job listings, but they still don’t list pay or benefits. There is no mention of the Spirit of Aquai either. I guess that didn’t go over very well.

I don’t recommend working at Mohegan Sun or its neighboring casino, Foxwoods, because, although they have finally instituted no-smoking sections, you’re still inhaling a lot of the second hand smoke from the smoking sections, which are not properly sealed off. You’re just getting less smoke. I would put my money on both places being toxic from second-hand smoke, and you don’t want to spend thousands of hours of your life in places like these. Maybe they are good employers. Who knows? But whatever they pay is not worth the physical suffering and monetary costs of emphysema and lung cancer.

I never play against the house, so can’t really judge Mohegan Sun as a casino, other than it being smoky and tremendously tacky, as the building is designed to look like a giant wigwam. If you’re interested in poker, Mohegan Sun actually has a superb poker room with very professional dealers. The problem there is finding a full-ring table. I think the reason why this is is because they operate too many tables at once. If you are like me and you hate playing short-handed games, you are better off playing poker at crappy, zooy Foxwoods, with its abominable dealers, tasteless large-breasted waitresses with breasts hanging out all over the place (while you don’t see any nipple, there is more breast to be seen from these women, then three completely naked breasted women combined – it’s simply garish), and gimmicky, waste-of-hard-earned-money Bad Beat Jackpot (which also encourages idiot players to be river rats in hopes of hitting that asinine Bad Beat Jackpot, which nobody ever really wins because you probably have a better chance of being struck by lightning.) At least you’re pretty guaranteed to get good action at Foxwoods.

The dreaded i93 and how I became a supporter of the Republican cause

My shrink – my cognitive behavioral guy, wants me to take things slower with my highway driving phobia – but he is not the one hemorrhaging his life savings on $3.50 gallon gas. I need this money for my lofty retirement in the trailer park of my nightmares. I need to try newer and harder targets. I don’t have time to keep hitting the same targets to reduce anxiety, which is really very minimally effective. My shrink tries to impress upon me that while driving on the highway I am safe – that I am creating the fear. But this is pure bullshit. It’s very unsafe. I drive a fucking 2000 Toyata Corrolla. It handles like shit. It is made for durability, not driving. A strong gust of wind will make that car wobble at 55 m.p.h. It’s disconcerting. Very. You have to either be a better driver than I  (and perhaps I am a shitty driver) or a fool to drive that thing much over 65 m.p.h. And then there are the fucking maniacs – especially the truck drivers who get two feet behind you, literally, to bully you into getting into the slow lane, but you can’t because you can’t even see out of your rear view mirror because they are so close that all you see is truck! I am afraid that if I ever meet one of these sociopathic, aggressive motherfuckers face-to-face, that someone is going to get very hurt, and I am going to end up very in prison.

The Connecticut drive was far less scary than I thought. i385, which runs down the state from Massachusetts is a wussy interstate with only two lanes. A joke. Yes, you must drive on a major highway -- the MassPike to get to i385, but it’s only 35 miles, and considerably less scary than i95.

Taking i95 to Providence provided a lot of fodder for driving terror, with its Route 128/i95 bottleneck and, as soon as I hit Pawtucket, Rhode Island (you, know, Pawtucket Ale – “Family Guy”) it got zooy, and increasingly zooier as I hit downtown Providence. The plan was to turn around farther down in the Providence suburb of Cranston, but my feeling was, fuck this, I’ve gone far enough, let me get the fuck out of this madhouse before I wig.

This weekend I attempted i93 North. There was the i95/i93 intersection, where the lanes go from four to three that always freaks me out, but this time, instead of staying on i95 I went on i93. While the trip to New Hampshire was 20 miles less than the Providence trip, this drive was scarier because it entailed going from one interstate to the other.

I managed to keep it together for the last 5 or ten miles of the trip. When I got off at the exit at Salem, NH, that’s when I really started getting nervous. This was New Hampshire – there was not supposed to be many people in this state, but there was a huge traffic jam on the road taking me to Walmart. I had plotted Walmart into the GPS as a piss stop before I went back. There was so much traffic. That’s when I started to get that get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here feeling. I kept going though. It took me ten minutes to drive one and half miles to Walmart.

I don’t shop at Walmart. To do so is to donate to the Republican cause. But this was tax free New Hampshire. I needed some cheap beer. I was too freaked out to go fishing around for liquor stores. Walmart was selling 30 can cases of Budweiser for $17.00. It was insanely cheap. And, since this was the “Live Free or Die” state – its motto is written right on its license plate, I didn’t even need to return the empties. It was an alcoholic’s paradise. (Beer isn’t even allowed to be sold in Massachusetts outside of liquor stores because the liquor store lobby successfully persuaded the moron voters to preserve their monopoly in a ballot initiative.) The only reason why I didn’t buy ten cases of beer instead of only one was because I knew that I would drink myself into oblivion. Then I saw a case of Dasani water for only $4.00. Holy fuck I had to have that. I bought two. One more than I needed or probably will be able to drink in my remaining time in Boston. And then I saw these teeny Dannon Greek yogurts for only a dollar and put it in my wagon, and then I saw a whole shitload of cheap Gatorade, and I said to myself, fuck my boycott of Walmart, let someone who actually has money boycott Walmart. I need the savings. Fuck this. I wanted to buy a bathing suit. I wanted to stuff my car with as much tax-free crap from China that as I could get my greedy little mitts on, but the need to get the fuck out of that state before I completely freaked out was more powerful.

It took me a long time to get back on the highway due to all the traffic. Salem, NH is really a shopping Mecca. All the big stores are there, including Macy’s. This is all probably to cater to people in Massachusetts who don’t want to pay their 6.25 sales tax. Who can blame them? Massachusetts once had a ballot initiative to go from a flat income tax to a graduated income tax. Had the moron voters voted for it, we probably could’ve gotten rid of the regressive sales tax, which hemorrhages a lot of our money to New Hampshire and the Internet and lived off the fat of the multitude of rich assholes in Massachusetts – the same rich assholes who have our asses kicked from nine to five each week, if we are lucky enough to have a job. But, this is the U.S. – we do things backwards, even in Massachusetts, one of its most progressive states (technically a Commonwealth.)

Coming back is always ten times easier. I deliberately took a harder route coming back: i93 to 495 to 3 to i95. Four major highways in a row. It was easy coming back, but the shit had been sufficiently scared out of me going there. I needed to do some heavy drinking with my New Hampshire beer when I got back, though I did it at night, after more driving. The thought occurred to me that I should clean the empty beer bottles, but then I thought – why? – you don’t need to store them because they don’t need to be redeemed, because where I bought them, in New Hampshire, you “Live Free or Die.” So I just threw them out. What freedom! What a state!

The next target will be the i93 going into Boston from the South – the SouthEast expressway, a really scary highway. Ten miles of this is a lot harder than 40 miles on the interstate to New Hampshire. If I do not need to be scraped off the SouthEast expressway, there will not be much else to do after that, and I will probably push for graduation from therapy soon after, probably against the protests of my therapist. Fuck him. Had I listed to him I’d have spent half my life savings on gas and gone a fraction of the distance.

The MBTA gets back to me

Commentary about this e-mail sent to me by the MBTA is below. Keep reading…

MBTA Reference # 02720524

March 17, 2011

Dear Dickie Richards,

Thank you for contacting the MBTA. We appreciate your business and value your feedback. 

We appreciate you taking the time to write and sincerely apologize for the Operator’s dangerous actions while driving Bus Route 60.

With the information you provided, the Operator was identified, interviewed, and reinstructed on safe driving.  Any further infractions may result in more severe disciplinary action.  The MBTA has a progressive disciplinary policy, up to and including termination.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Should you have additional questions or concerns regarding this issue, please contact the MBTA’s Customer Communications Department at 617-222-3200 or 800-392-6100, Monday through Friday, 6:30 AM to 8:00 PM and Saturday and Sunday from 7:30 AM to 6:00 PM or visit our website at www.mbta.com.

Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Flora

Customer Communications Department

This email/electronic message, including any attached files, is being sent by the MBTA. It is solely intended for the recipient(s) and may contain information that is proprietary, confidential, legally privileged, and/or exempt from disclosure pursuant to state and federal law. If you have received this message in error or are not the intended recipient(s), please notify the sender immediately by reply, and delete all copies of this email/electronic message and any attached files from your computer. If you are the intended recipient(s), you may use the information contained in this email/electronic message and any attached files only as authorized by the MBTA. Any unauthorized use, dissemination, or disclosure of this email/electronic message and/or its attached files is strictly prohibited.
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.

This was sent a month and a half after I reported the incident. Here is my bitching and moaning about their not responding to me the first time.

First of all, there is a serious grammatical error in the MBTA’s response. The MBTA says:

We appreciate you taking the time to write

This is wrong because you need to use possessive pronouns in front of gerunds. So it should be:

We appreciate your taking the time to write

You could argue that President Obama makes this very same error, so what’s the big deal? Obama’s job is to bomb babies and children in Asia and Africa, take away people’s subsidized heating oil, fuck federal employees, and raise the taxes of the poor while keeping taxation of the rich unsustainably low. Obama should know proper English to set a good example, but, as an executive officer, he is really not in the field of customer service.

Because the MBTA failed to provide me with any evidence that they reprimanded this individual, there is absolutely no reason to believe that they actually did. I think that what I am receiving from them is a load of sugar-coated crap, but even if they did reprimand this individual, it would not have done anything to correct the undesired behavior. The driver does not remember what happened a month and a half ago. In order for punishment to be effective, it must be unambiguously and immediately paired with the undesired behavior. You learn this in any introductory psychology course in behaviorism. We’ve known this fact for about 70 years. It is not revolutionary or earth-shaking.

Furthermore, the MBTA completely failed to address my demand for the videotape of the incident. This is not a private bus company; this is a public bus company being paid for by your state and federal tax dollars. Any videotape that was made of the incident should be public domain. I have a right to it, and I would’ve put it on YouTube had they met my demand, so that the entire world could see the psychotic assholes at work on the MBTA. You have a right to see this! It’s your tax dollars at work on your public property!

They left me no e-mail address to respond to. What I think is funny is all the legal mumbo-jumbo at the bottom of their correspondence. I love how they say:

Any unauthorized use, dissemination, or disclosure of this email/electronic message and/or its attached files is strictly prohibited.

They are a public agency. By definition, any record that they create should be freely made available to anyone. What they sent me is PUBLIC DOMAIN -- it is not their fucking intellectual property. What the MBTA doesn’t understand is that this is not North Korea. We, supposedly, live in a free and open democracy, where the public has a right to know what its government is paying for.

All I can say is that the MBTA sucks elongated and discharging gonad.