Activism

This is an e-mail I sent last night at about 2 a.m.

Subject: A request in regard to "Harden My Heart"
From: KL5.olig@gmail.com
To: WVBO@Cumulus.com

Hi 103.9 FM,

For the most part, I enjoy the selection of music played by your station while I'm driving or at work. I'm 29 and perhaps outside of your key demographic, but I strongly prefer oldies and classic rock to maintstream country, pop, and so forth. I like most of the music played by your station and absolutely love to bask in the sound waves of the Beatles, CCR, and Van Morrison--and thanks for providing that.

This e-mail won't be entirely grateful, however. Even though I realize that, all things considered, it's not really a big deal, please-please-please stop playing "Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash so much. From a subjective standpoint, "Harden My Heart" is a terrible song, a mess of melodramatic pouting, and a trite butchering of rock and roll. "Harden My Heart" is painful to listen to; it sounds joyless, sappy, and stale--and those are poor qualities for a tune to have.

Now, from an objective, less biased and contemptuous perspective, Quarterflash has proven to be a largely forgettable band and a borderline one-hit wonder. To say the least, their relevance in rock-music is dwarfed by the likes of other female-fronted groups or artists such as Blondie, the Pretenders, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, and Fleetwood Mac, to name but a few--all of whom certainly merit more airplay than Quarterflash.

To reiterate, I would enjoy tuning in to 103.9 so much more if you didn't overplay the hell out of an awful and mawkish hit by a band very, very few people care about anymore. Please-please-please tone down your fine station's fondness for "Harden My Heart." Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Nick Olig

Dog Island

I'll get to the topic of this town's recent dispute over the ownership of dangerous dogs, but before that, I have to confess a bad habit of mine as well as a crime I commit on rare occasions. Sometimes I walk home from work, and I typically smoke a cigarette as I do so. The cherry is gone by the time I reach the middle of the same block, but I hold on to the stub until I reach the house on the corner. At that point, a deranged terrier in the fenced-in backyard spots me and yaps its ineffectual fury. The yapping continues as I walk beyond its vantage point. I toss my stub on the front porch and smile. I pass a dingy fence with a sign promoting that greedy creep Scott Walker and my smile broadens. I turn the corner. The pint-sized beast won't shut up. My smile vanishes as I scowl through the meshing of the metallic fence that divides us. The dog scowls back.

“You belong on Dog Island, bitch,” I tell the terrier. The pooch takes offense to this. Two blocks away, when I open the front-door to my house, I can still hear that dog's psychotic and shrill bark.

I'm not a dog-lover, obviously. (Plus I'm allergic to cats, so I don't bother with them, either.) My disinterest in dogs was probably inherited from my dad. He never saw the sense in welcoming a non-human mouth to feed, another life-form to rack up medical bills, and one more eventual death in the family. For my dad and me, having to fret over the well-being of certain people is quite enough trouble. Pets aren't worth the hassle to us. After work, we prefer to drink our beer in peace without distractions from a needy pet who woofs at the Big Dipper every time he needs to go outside and pee. We absolutely hate it when our faces are licked by a creature who also uses his tongue to clean the space between his own neuter scar and—ahem--tail. And finally, the act of stroking the fur of an animal—however cute or affectionate—seems grossly overrated to my dad and me.

That stated, I don't hate dogs, either; I just can't at all relate to them, and more importantly, I don't expect them to understand much about human constructs like morality and society. Dogs are wired to instincts that are more stubbornly primal than ours. Dogs are not innately programmed to enjoy parades and birthday parties; in their natural state, they'd much rather maul a pheasant's throat or dig a hole in the ground for hours just for the hell of it.

In much the same way that dogs are out in front of humans on walks around the neighborhood, people have to lead dogs into domestication—even when the dogs, like their owners, feel tired, confused, and cranky. More so than any specific breed with a bad reputation, negligent or abusive owners are the source of most dog- attacks. Owners must routinely drill obedience and decency into their dogs; otherwise, the consequences can be almost as disastrous as giving a hand-grenade to a baby and telling him not to pull out the pin.

Pitbulls and rottweilers should not be banned due to irresponsible people, and furthermore, there is a more ideal and compassionate alternative to putting dogs to death because they are harmful or simply unwanted. The feral beast who gave Billy a pretty serious "owie" doesn't deserve to be killed, and neither does the poor orphaned pooch whose time under the roof of the Humane Society has run out, nor that yapping terrier who causes a public disturbance every time a skinny Feingold-voter walks past. There is a better way to deal with those problematic mutts, and here it is: Dog Island.

Let me break it down. People should select an uninhabited island that nobody wants in the first place and then round up and ship all the shady dogs to that place. To humans, Dog Island functions as a prison, similar to Alcatraz, but the dogs will embrace it as a return to pure wilderness and instinct.

The famed Dog Boat would sail to Dog Island with all the dogs leaning their heads out of the port-holes excitedly. Located somewhere off the coast of the Atlantic (or the Pacific, I'm good either way), Dog Island would boast plenty of prey, dense foliage, drinkable water, and whichever climate caters best to canines. (Mediterranean, maybe? Humid subtropical? That's not for me to determine. Hey--I'm not a scientist.)

Once freed on Dog Island, anything goes for the likes of Rusty, Fifi, and Crippler. Now, the laws of nature can be unfair and cruel, and survival of the fittest favors the sort of bloodthirsty dobermans that Michael Vick traumatized, I'm sad to admit, but it's vital to keep in mind that Dog Island would at least grant those mangy misfits a chance at survival. I can't say the same, however, about shooting a lethal injection into Rusty's bloodstream.

To recap, it's senseless to ban a breed of dog just because their owners are too dumb, lazy, and/ or hateful to even take care of themselves. Secondly, unclaimed dogs from the pound shouldn't have to be put down just because no one volunteered to take them in. Finally, I'd like to add that a syringe full of pentobarbital* ultimately has the same effect as lobbing bacon in the air and setting the unwitting dog up for an alley-oop kill-shot.

So please, write letters to our state's governor and demand that he lend his support of Dog Island to Congress. The way I see it, we're going to be saving an awful lot of money by lowering our standards of public education, folks, and some of that left-over cash could go far in the funding of the Dog Island project.




* I had to Google-search “animal euthanasia” in order to find out what the hell this is.

NASCAR Is the Poor Rube's Mariokart

The latest running of the Daytona 500 was pushed back from Sunday afternoon to Monday night due to inclement weather, and in a roundabout way, this delay could have benefited NASCAR. Prime-time showings typically draw more casual viewers, especially for major events such as Daytona. What's more, during the calender's post-Super Bowl, pre-March Madness lull, sports fans get desperate for a fix of action—and even though NASCAR is not their first or second choice, some were willing to take it for a test spin.

SportsCenter addicts with mixed feelings about NASCAR were waylaid by a comical letdown when they gave Daytona a chance on the night of February 27th. Unabashed haters of NASCAR fared much better by not bothering to give that lame excuse for a sport any credence.*

The actual running of the 2012 Daytona 500 was delayed for more than two hours because driver Juan Pablo Montoya careened off the track and struck a truck containing 200 gallons of jet fuel.

To reiterate, the contest to determine who can drive around in a circle 500 times the fastest was put to a prolonged halt by a raging blaze of jet fuel.

Now, rain delays in baseball are common, and sometimes, in early April, games have been postponed due to snowfall. Power outages have, on occasion, slowed the pace of late-night football games. And once in a great while, backboards shattered by violent dunks cease play in basketball. These things happen.

But I'm really struggling to wrap my brain around the newfound phrase, “Jet-Fuel Fire Delay.”

On a night that could have yielded an appreciable boost of interest in NASCAR, those dopey cousin-fuckers exposed their sport for what it truly is: A redneck shit-show.

Leading up to the Daytona 500, I didn't tune in for the following reasons.

1.It's not a sport if it entails able-bodied participants to sit on their asses the entire time.

2. It's not a sport if the athletic ability of the driver is dwarfed by the prowess of the machine he (or Danica Patrick) controls.

3. Those yokels just drive around in a circle for hours. Take a cue from Mariokart and pave a figure-8 or two, will ya?

4. Those yokels have squandered enough gasoline to re-fill the remains of roughly half-a-billion T-Rexes.

5. Far too many NASCAR lovers proudly wave Confederate flags. Over 150 years ago, the south lost the Civil War, and their defeat was one of the greatest happenings in American history. The Confederate flag pays tribute to losers who fought for an inhumane cause.

Upon completion of the redneck shit-show in question, I was blessed with another reason to dismiss NASCAR.

6.Jet Fuel Fire Delay?! Sweet Jesus, those four words don't belong in the same phrase—aside from a snafu at an airport, perhaps, but definitely not at a sporting event. By botching a key opportunity and laying an inferno of noxious turds on the track, NASCAR made “Jet Fuel Fire Delay” a part of the sports lexicon. NASCAR is a farce, and farce isn't even funny, which means NASCAR is worse than both pro-wrestling and Funny Car Racing.

Here is a rough transcript of the words of a high-ranking NASCAR official leading up to the Daytona 500.

“Aw, hell, Mother Nature done pissed on our high-octane shindig. But you know what? It's a blessing in disguise—just like a knob-gobbler with dentures--heh, heh, heh! Fellers, this rain delay happened on Sunday so that the great sport of NASCAR could prove itself on the big stage. We're takin' over prime-time! Hoooo-weee!”

The NASCAR officials pause to shoot pistols in the air to celebrate. Moonshine is chugged. Nearby cousins are groped and tongue-kissed.

“It's gonna be like our version of Monday Night Football—minus all them athletes and black hooligans. Now, before we bare witness to NASCAR's shining moment, let's all bow our heads in prayer to the ghost of Jefferson Davis, and if there's any time left over, maybe baby Jesus, too.”

Later, after Montoya's blunder behind the wheel, the following was heard from the luxury boxes at Daytona.

“Noooooooo! This can't be happening. Damn you, jet-fuel!”

Here the NASCAR official shakes a raging fist at the incendiary jet-fuel below.

And later still...

“A two-hour delay? During prime-time?! You gotta be shaftin' me in the corn-hole. Ain't them cars s'posed to be powered by car-fuel and not jet-fuel? Why in tarnation we got so much jet-fuel beside the track in the first place? Oh...the HUMANITY!”

During the protracted clean-up efforts, loads of Tide detergent were doused on the track, but the stain on NASCAR won't come clean. It's an awfully shitty stain.

One of the primary reasons why NASCAR isn't even fit to fill the void between the Super Bowl and March Madness is the organization's propensity to shoot itself in the shit-kickers. Real sports flourish, in part, because they leave the possibility of a jet fuel fire delay out of the equation.


*Until now, of course.