"He Was Such a Nice Boy"

Every man who is pure of heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf

When the wolfbane blooms

And the autumn moon is bright

-The Wolfman, 1941

Every year I go through my 'friends' list on Facebook and delete people who don't really belong there anymore. Though it is a public network, I keep my security settings on high in order to maintain as personal a space as is possible. By allowing 'friend' access to my page, I'm essentially opening a window for those people to perv on my life at will. It's perhaps understandable, then, that I would want to review and update who is allowed to see that information. The question then begs, how do I set the criteria for deleting acquaintances?

In purges past, it has been a fairly cut-and-dry process. Usually you can see the dead limbs on the friend tree that need pruning and it can be taken care of without emotion or explanation. There are those individuals that come into our lives as a summer breeze, for but a moment, and are gone just as quickly. An acquaintance with whom I've shared neither depth of experience nor span of years is jettisoned into interspace like dross from space station Mir. In contemplating this year's purge, I had no reason to expect any variation. However, events of the past few months indicate that this round may require a more nuanced approach.

That's because election season came into full swing like the turn of a full moon and revealed a smattering of my friends--seemingly reasonable chaps, people I actually like--to be shaggy, lumbering politi-beasts with breath wreaking of the undigested entrails of cable news talking heads. Any other time of the year, you can talk to these shapeshifters about business, sports, news, weather, even religion. They are rational in thought and make some effort towards empathy and reasonability. Then a pale, translucent mist of political ads hit the airwaves, signaling some primordial region of the brain that the time is nigh. Hair sprouts on the back and shoulders, ears elongate, fingernails grow into claws, and where human teeth used to reside are found canine incisors. They sit stooped at their computers chewing up the latest red meat offerings from the blogosphere before turning to their keyboards in a frenzy, pounding out tweets and status updates round the clock.

I'M GOING TO SAVE AMERICA THROUGH FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATES!! THE REPUBLICANS/DEMOCRATS WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS BY DESTROYING/WORSHIPING MEDICARE/SOCIAL SECURITY/GUNS/CHEESE STEAKS, RAPING/SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR BRAINWASHING US ALL INTO BECOMING COMMUNIST/CHRISTIANS/ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS/MILITIA MEMBERS! I HAVE IT ON GOOD AUTHORITY FROM ED SCHULTZ/SEAN HANNITY/RUSH LIMBAUGH/LAWRENCE O'DONNELL THAT THOSE OTHER GUYS ARE DEVIL WORSHIPERS WITH BLACK TAR IN THEIR VEINS WHO FEAST ON THE UNWANTED BABY GIRLS FROM RURAL INDIA AND CHINA AND THAT THEY WANT TO INCREASE/DECREASE TAXES IN ORDER TO FUND THEIR SHEEP ORGIES. NOT ON MY WATCH, SCUMBAGS!! NEVER FORGET!!

Really? I never knew that. I find it all very interesting. Please tell me more about your comically one-sided political views. You're sure to change my mind. Shall I don a bib while you spoon feed me? I'm not sure what proper protocol is for swallowing so much bullshit in one sitting. Please, tell me how you do it.

Anyway, the point is, you're howling up the wrong tree. I don't begrudge anyone a slanted political view. In fact I don't think it's possible to be completely unbiased. However, it almost seems like the people who consider themselves the most tuned-in, the most educated, the most current on the issues--indicated by the volume at which they spout it--are the most blind to the full assessment of a given issue. That's because they've already decided what they're going to think about it by the sources they choose for information. Black can be white and up can be down, so long as it is the person's preferred news outlet that tells it to them.

Enjoy the wolfbane while it blooms, my friends. It's a peculiar season. And if by some chance you find that we are no longer connected on Facebook, just know that you're probably a decent humanoid, but I can't watch you spin off this planet.

My Job Hunt: A Summary So Far

I've always hated searching for jobs. It's the total power disparity between the employer and the applicant that gets me irritated. HR managers write totally narrow, impossible job descriptions and then bitch to the WSJ that there is just a total lack of  qualified candidates out there. They are apparently all looking for that one kid who graduated college in molecular physics at 15, went on to design the first all-electric car battery, spent two years in Budapest as a concert pianist, speaks five languages, and founded seven charities, all before he could legally drink alcohol. Oh, and they want him to not be a total smug asshole. Only a person with such impeccable credentials could possibly be trained to manage our fine selection of Colombian and Brazilian roast coffees.

So you dress your resume and cover letter up to make it look like you're something resembling that non-asshole, only to have some robot set fire to your lovingly crafted documents before any human lays eyes on them because you didn't combine key words in the right sequence.

Everything about making the career change from government affairs to business has gone pretty swimmingly up to this point. I guess this is just a new part of the game I'm having to learn, mostly on my own. I'm experiencing a fair bit of frustration and burnout right now. I know the positions are out there. Just a matter of getting myself in front of actual people who can make actual decisions.

Magnets. How do they work?

Occasionally I like a certain kind of dimwit. They amuse me, usually without intending to. They do this by embracing a confounding blend of overwrought group aesthetic conformance with a total lack of self-awareness. The subjects of today's tale communicate in a vulgar pidgin English. They dress in the modern equivalent of burlap sacks. They exhibit devotion to some sort of pseudo-mythology that could only have been dreamed up in a trailer park. In so doing, they are entitled to membership in this cult of pop culture backwash. One-on-one, there's nothing extraordinarily interesting about them. But when they reach critical mass and begin to exhibit their group behaviors, it can be highly amusing.

At the end of this post, I'll present you with a little gift of the video that led to my writing about this group. I hope you'll be as amused with it as I was. First, let's explore the Dark Carnival and the slack-jawed scions that gave us this mad crazy knowledge in a little more detail. Grab some Faygo and listen up, yo. It's 'bout to get real deep on y'all. Knowledge dropping today comes from Insane Clown Posse, or ICP, as in-the-know juggalos call them.

Have I just lost you? Are you feeling disoriented by that last bit of lingo I threw at you? Well allow me to open your minds to a whole new universe you'll wish didn't really exist.

This dandy pairing of lyrical expectorate is called "Violent J" and "Shaggy 2 Dope", and together they form ICP.

BFF necklaces, bro.

According to Wikipedia, ICP is a rap group out of Detroit that performs a type of rap called "horrorcore". You may remember some of their songs. Carnival of Carnage? Night of the Ax? Murder-Go-Round? We Gives No F***? Bugz on My Nugz? I Stab People?

These ringing a bell for anyone? No? Well don't let the juggalos hear you disrespectin' like that.

'Juggalos' is what you're supposed to call ICP fans. They prefer that to jughead, imbecile, or cretin. Even if you don't recognize any of those songs, you likely have seen the Mark of the Beast Juggalo, the hatchet man, in your everyday life. Anywhere hatchet man is, there too are juggalos.

You can see him in lots of places if you look:

On T-shirts

On Cars

On Necklaces

On Tattoos 

And of course, On Caskets

And if that last picture isn't sad enough for you, here's something to bring a tear of indignation to your eye:  ICP has sold over 6.5 million albums, putting them among America's 1-percenters. Sigh.  

Early on in the band's history, the fat one, Violent J, had a dream about some crazy carnies. The band decided to use the dream to spin some elaborate mythology about evil jokers involving what seems to be some modified version of a Tarot card deck. They call it the Dark Carnival. It would all be kind of adorable if it had come from a couple of 9-year olds like it sounds. But it didn't. It's just regular growed-up imbecility. And the juggalos eat that stuff up, yo. 'Cause that stuff is like, deep. And dark, you know what I'm sayin'?

They had been spinning this mythology since their 1992 debut album, Carnival of Carnage. Each album explained a new card in the deck, or something like that. It all built toward a final card explanation on their 2002 album, The Wraith: Shangri-La. The BIG REVEAL was that the Dark Carnival is nothing more than an allegory for the awesomeness of God, heaven and hell. The album, by the way, included tracks like Murder Rap, Get Ya Wicked On, and Cotton Candy & Popsicles. And fans were like, "Huh? Well, I guess as long as y'all still rap about killin' and sexin' and gettin' drank, I can get down with Posse Jesus."

ICP continue to make music, including the song Miracles. As described by Violent J hisself on their website [completely sic'd]:

"This song points out some of every day's biggest and best miracles and suggests that you take the time to peep some of them out and re-evaluate what your seeing here. Because the truth is right here on this earth, in every day life there is some pretty f***in' fantastic s*** poppin' off...We understand if your not feeling it though. We know it's way different and all that. But if you can open your mind enough to see a miracle out of a lightning bug, than maybe you can open your mind enough to dig this song."  

Without any further ado, let's take a look at the video (language is a bit rough, so make sure the boss or kids aren't walking by).

Magic everywhere in this bitch.