Friday, April 17, 2009

What the Word Needs Now...

It evoked the smell of fresh bread, being part of a grocery store name.
It is the genus that contains the royal root, dye of royalty and ancient sweet, sugar beet.
It is a high energy electron or positron.
It is a high school honor society.
It is speed relative to the speed of light.
It means that it probably won't friggin' work, but don't blame us for not finishing our damned job, we told you it was a Beta.

When did this idea become acceptable? When did taking the trial phase into mainstream society and washing our hands of the repercussions become the norm? I'm guilty, look at my blogs, none of them are finished, I'm too damned busy to pour 100 hours into making this thing look pretty (but ya like that Batek Effect on the tacky title... dontcha? Dontcha wish your title was fly like me.... Jai Ho, bitches)... have you been to my two galleries, Violet's Kitchen, and my deviantArt page? Most of that stuff is starting to show a little technique, but it's far from polished. Why bother, right? Why complete anything? We get credit for inventing, for the thought, for the intention, for the attempt. Other than a tennis stroke, who needs follow through for anything? Oh, wait, have you seen world tennis rankings? Our best guy is behind some dude from Serbia. Serbia? Have you been to Serbia? Isn't that the country Hillary Clinton falsely claimed she was fired on by snipers? Do I need to say anything more?
I mean really, anyone want to take a beta antibiotic? Would you feel comfortable giving your child "Children's Tylenol Cold and Flu: Beta"? No, of course not, that's why God invented macaque monkeys. What if you jumped on your SouthWest flight, and instead of that stupid joke about putting the air mask on children, and people that act like children, tee hee, tee hee, they said "Welcome to the new Boeing 783.... beta." Wouldn't you start screaming about your meds and the box cutter in your pocket to get off? Or ladies, how about getting on the new pill, less acne! Beta. It's unbelievable. Our expectations are so low these days, we don't even expect our newscasters - journalism majors - to know grammar or usage. These wordsmiths have been opening broadcasts with phrases like, "In these uncertain times, America faces..." Excuse me?
These are not uncertain times!
People are certainly broke! You want to know how broke people are? A couple weeks ago, my ex and I were down on fourth street; for those of you who don't know, downtown Austin (which is almost always referred to as "the place where all the shootings and robberies are, but at least we're not as bad as Dallas") has 6th street which has college bars and clubs, 5th street which has all the 30 somethings bars, and 4th which is a little nicer. Anyhoo, we're down at our favorite place (Hollaback Sanchez, greatest bartender in Austin! Seriously, go to Cedar Street Courtyard and try his magic). On our walk out, I stop at one of the fancy, upscale restaurants and check out the menu, which had an entry like this:

Baguette Aoli
Our homemade baguette is split, toasted, and lovingly
smeared with a handcrafted lemon-garlic aoli,
served with watercress and hand sliced pan frites

People. That's a lettuce and mayonaisse sandwich. Let me repeat, we saw an upscale restaurant selling mayonaisse sandwiches! There's nothing uncertain when the societe haute is lowered to mayo sammies team.
If you really want uncertain times, try living with my ex. We were uncertain about what the hell was going on, what was around the corner, when the other would get pissed off. It was kind of like using a Beta, loving all the features of it while never knowing what'll make it crash. The only certain thing was that I loved her. This one was for you kiddo.

I gotta git,
B.



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