TATTOPITW
there are two types of people in the world – sometimes updated weekdaily

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Metaphors are better than butterflies on a pickup truck full of beets

People who use understandable metaphors

People who say things that make you think they’ve been huffing acetone all weekend

I love metaphors.  I love them like a fat kid loves cake (thanks, Fitty, for that one).  Metaphors are the food that nourishes the soul of conversation.  They’re as precious as diamonds but can fail worse than Clay Aiken’s heterosexuality.  They can wrap bad news in Charmin and make the most boring concepts leap to life.  Ok, you get it.  Metaphor central.

But something’s been bothering me lately.  I think the metaphor is too in-style.  People use them excessively, improperly, and in place of simple statements.  At best, people are taking about 100 words to say what could be said in 4 words (”It feels like a steaming lava sauna outside” vs. “It’s hot”), and at worst, it completely undermines an otherwise intelligent statement (”Using these colors on your web site is like eating leftover pizza with the tin foil still on.”).  If you’re a bad metaphor architect, I implore you to realize that just saying something isn’t a bad thing.  Just tell me it’s cold out, not that Chewbacca’s nipples could cut glass.  Tell me you’re busy, not that you’re being, “mortared from all directions”.  Tell me this is a summary, not a 10,000 foot view, a heads-up-display, a global view, a big picture, a wide-angle, a zoom-out, a landscape or anything else photographic.

In tracing the roots of this wave of metaphor popularity, our good friend, Dr. Phil, came to mind.  This guy has come up with some of the greatest televised verbal nonsense in history.

“Tryin’ to lose weight when you’re going through a divorce is like tryin’ to teach a duck to speak Spanish in a Canadian hospital.  I mean c’mon, people!”

I think that Dr. Phil really popularized the nonsense metaphor in the last 5 years, or so, and is responsible for a lot of people mis-wordsmithing their way through life.  I can’t say that this is always a bad thing, though, because the awkwardness that happens when someone realizes they just said a whole bunch of nonsense is just wonderful.  As I’ve said before, I have a real taste for watching people deal with the reality of their own awkwardness, so while I’d like people to start making more sense, it’s okay by me to watch the struggle every now and then.

Metaphors are a powerful and important tool today.  They’ve existed for thousands of years and have been the signature of every great thinker ever published.  Almost every great quote ever recorded is a metaphor, and I don’t see that stopping any time soon, although I do think that almost every stupid quote recorded these days is also a metaphor.  I guess, metaphorically, metaphors are a double-edged sword.

Well, I’ve got to wrap this one up like a Chinese girl’s foot.  I hope your day is better than a badger on a see saw.

Your Second Life might be working, but your first is a failure

People who are slick and suave in real life situations

People who are slick and suave in online situations (See: Dateline NBC)

One thing that all of this tweeting and facebook-ing and IM-ing and chatting and other ing’s has taught me is that people who are huge, huge, indescribably huge tools in real life are often total surfer motorcycle bar-fight ninja astronaut BADASSES online.

I used to work with a guy who was like this.  In real life, he looks like he’s only minutes away from saying, “Well, it’s been nice working with you, but I have to return to the Shire next month,” but online, he is one of the coolest people you’ve ever talked to.  I came to discover this because he added me to IM the day he started, and was chatting with me for a while before I met him.  When I met him, I had no clue who he was and literally didn’t make the connection between this person and the person I talked to on IM for a few weeks.  Sad, but true.  But if you think about it, do big tools talk about the same topics in their super badass second identities?  I figured not, which made me feel better because I really was sort of talking to two people.  They just happened to inhabit the same extremely strange body.

I got married young, so I never experienced online dating, but I’ve heard that this phenomenon is very typical in around match.com and the like.  Girl posts profile.  Girl meets boy.  Boy seems pretty cool.  Girl goes on a date with boy.  Boy is a complete freak.

I think this happens because in real life, you can’t copy and paste your verbal communication from a Men’s Health article written by the girl next door.  In the middle of your dinner, you can’t Google, “something funny to say after a girl compliments your glasses,” and then come back to the conversation 3 minutes later saying, “Sorry, the phone rang and I had to take it.  Damn guys at the Pentagon won’t leave me alone ever since I stole that fighter jet after performing open heart surgery on myself and Condoleezza Rice at the same time.”  These are, however, tools at your disposal when you’re chatting up some 7th grader online and earning your spot on Dateline NBC.

I don’t know if I really have any advice on this one other than to shave that 2″ long stray hair growing out of your left check and start talking to more people in real life.  Potentially seeing a mental health therapist if you’re one of those people who plays online games where people love “the real you” (who, is probably a person with a fox head, DD breasts, a lizard tail, and some sort of a weapon I’ve never heard of) isn’t a bad idea, either.

Deathmatch: Hot Fudge vs. Caramel Sundae

People who eat the hot fudge variety of sundae

People who eat the caramel variety of sundae

There are times that I look at people and classify them in odd ways (if you can imagine that).  For example, sometimes I’ll look at a person and say, “Hey, I bet he’s a tater tots person or she’s a french fries girl.”  To my credit, I’m right 97% of the time (although I have no data to support that).

So here’s the rub: I find myself classifying people as “caramel sundae” people only when there’s something a little “off” about that person.  You know what I mean.  The kind of person who eats a caramel sundae just because it’s the type of sundae that other people don’t eat.  The nonconformists who have incidentally become conformists of a different kind, because there are so many of them.  They’re the long-haired dudes, the computer programmers into naked raves, the mixed-media artists who glue a pack of frozen turkey bacon to a canvas and call it a political statement and who have 7 fans / family members who acknowledge the brilliance of their work years after they die from snorting Pixie Stix.

The classic sundae is, of course, hot fudge.  If you’re a hot fudge sundae eater, you are a gathered person with good taste who doesn’t pair the bright orange cummerbund with your tuxedo, but who realizes it’s better to be sharp and blend in than to get cute with it and have people point at you from across the room.  The caramel sundae eater, in essence, is a caramel person because they do not want to be a hot fudge person, which is just ridiculous and puerile, like a suburban teenager buying clothes from Hot Topic just to piss her parents off, when she’d rather just get J Crew in the first place.

I have tasted both, and here is what I have concluded:

• Hot fudge is the vastly superior flavor, and is immensely classy
• Caramel’s first bite has a lot of promise, but by bite 5, you want to throw it at someone.  It’s like a sugar lick
• If you eat a caramel sundae slowly, it will start to harden back into the horse hoof from whence it was made
• Hot fudge retains its structure as it cools, and can even be put in the freezer overnight for later enjoyment
• If you leave a spoon in a caramel sundae and store it in the freezer overnight, that spoon will become Excalibur, extricable only by a natural-born king

Now I have to clarify: I do like caramel.  I’ll pop Rolos like you wouldn’t believe.  But when it comes to what goes on my soft serve, Caramel has to know its role and disappear back into the purses and pockets of retirees.

You are what you eat . . . with

High-class socialites who use utensils that look like they are made for torture

Regular old folks who are comfortable with sporks

Have you ever really thought about how deep and wide the class struggle really is? You can see the differences everywhere: your clothing, your shoes, your home, your pets (we all know you have a dingy-ass dog that you traded for a bicycle tire or something), and yes, even your utensils.

Escargot tongs: let them know that you’re so rich, you’ll eat stuff that would make them want to puke.

I honestly have no idea what this is for, and I don’t want it in my house.

If you’re not born into wealth, you might never crack a nut or a crab claw.  You might never put ice into a glass with something other than your hand. You’ll probably never understand the concept of a napkin made of a material finer than any of your suits, or why a plate that measures 18″ across is used to serve half of a cherry tomato with a blade of grass as a side.

If you are born into wealth, you’ll probably never eat off a plate with ridges that keep your food separated, especially if that plate was what your food was just cooked in.  You probably don’t realize that cups can have tops or that your fork can come in a handy plastic bag with a one-ply napkin and some salt & pepper.  It doesn’t make perfect sense to you to unplug the crock pot and put it in the middle of the dinner table, if you even know what a crock pot is.

There are several well-known sayings that aim to unite the classes; messages usually including: everyone is born, everyone dies, and everyone eats.  But some are born with a silver spoon, some die and are buried inside silver caskets, and some eat off of silver escargot tongs.

Everyone does, however, put their pants on one leg at a time.  It’s just that my legs are tanner than yours from laying out on the bow of my yacht.

Bloggers are flakes, so you think

People who write a blog for years as a creative outlet

People who write a blog for 6 months and quit when they don’t get rich and/or recognized at the grocery store

So, what kind words you all have had for me.  Here I am, dragged into a Mexican prison on April 4, 2009, tortured, fed Comet (it does make you vomit), made to bag cocaine in a corrupt government operation in Juarez, and when I get home, what do I see?

Hey TATTOPITW, why did you quit on us?

Hey TATTOPITW, where did you go, you big loser?

Hey you big douche bag, did you run out of creativity with your stupid little blog that I can’t live without?

I hate you, TATTOPITW, and I hope you’re in a Mexican prison being fed Comet.

Well, aside from that last guy, who was strangely correct, you’re all jerks, but I read the bible 8 times in that small prison cell and I forgive all of you.

I want to get back to writing to get past those horrible memories, suppress those flashbacks of chickens trying to peck my eyes out and watching reruns of Perfect Strangers – you have no idea what you’d be willing to do after letting Balki Bartokomous penetrate your inner thoughts.

The face I wake up to, screaming.

So, while I wish I came back to a supporting fan base, I can accept your frustration and just ask that we all move on.  I might not be able to write with the speed and frequency I once was (I had one of my hands sawed off and that damn chicken did manage to scar my right eye), but I’m back in the States where Balki is unwelcome and my safety is assured.

I missed you all.  Thanks for the warm welcome.

Only dogs are meant to be walked

People who walk their dogs

People who walk other animals

If you live in a reasonably large city, you’re bound to see some ridiculous things happen, especially if you step foot into a city park.  Truthfully, I had this idea sent to me by someone a few months ago, but for lack of personal experience, I shrugged the suggestion off, all the while hoping that I might one day witness the sacred “cat walk.”

The only three letters in the engligh language that can describe this are W, T, and F

Now, we’ve all seen movies where some rich dude takes a tiger for a walk, or some poor girl living in a huge, cluttered New York apartment takes her ferret out for a walk (how do poor female artists in movies always have huge Manhattan lofts?), but I haven’t actually come across this in real life until recently.  And it was a real blessing to my eyes.

So I guess the idea here is that there is only one animal that is appropriate for walking, and that’s a dog.  And I mean a real dog.  If your dog’s legs are less than 4″ long or 1″ thick, you don’t have a dog, you have a genetic Pollock that had to be classified into the dog family for lack of biologists creating a “food for real animals” category.

Don’t mistake this for two types of behaviors.  This really is two types of people.  The type of person (normal) who would walk their dog for exercise / female attention, vs. the type of person who is so out of touch with reality that they think walking a parakeet is any less crazy than dressing up like a ballerina and whirling a baton around Piedmont Park.

Different coloq’s for different folks

People who say “bucket”

People who say “pail”

So the example here is illustrative (did I just say the example is an example?).  It extends to many things:

• “soda” vs. “pop”
• “cart” vs. “buggy”
• “dinner” vs. “supper”
• “line” vs. “queue”
• “bitches” vs. “hos”
• “Setting money on fire” vs. “US Automaker Bailout”

In each case, there is the normal way of saying something and the stupid way of saying the same thing.  This might be over-generalizing, but I’m pretty sure that people who use the words “pail,” “pop,” “buggy,” and “supper” were either raised by a family whose collective grins revealed 5.2 teeth, or they were born in Minnesota.  Deciding which of these things is worse is something I’ll leave up to you.

Just a taste of my condescending attitude to get your day started…

Knowledge is fear

People who are blissfully unaware of the constant danger they’re in

People who have been educated into fear

So I’m going to let you all in on a little secret today.  I’m a huge dork.  Big nerd.  Yes, me.

Last night, I went to see a great show (Cut Copy) at a Masquerade, a venue here in Atlanta that is far less gay than it sounds.  It’s actually an old factory/warehouse where many people undoubtedly lost their limbs in the very threatening looking mess of gears and rope that apparently used to do something.  The building is old, very cool looking, but old.

So when a group like Cut Copy gets a crowd of a few hundred people jumping up and down in unison, the building – which is old, by the way – feels the stress, which was communicated back to me last night by the floor in front of the stage flexing no less than 4-5 inches underfoot.

The average person may say, “Wow, that’s really weird.”  To someone like me who took engineering classes in college, it says, “We are about to die.”

Here’s a look into my head, in the middle of a very good show:

Because my mouse drawing isn’t too good, that is me, mentally back in engineering class trying to solve for how much weight you can put on a beam before it breaks and we all die.

I found that a couple of beers could wash the engineering classes away, so I pursued that avenue.  Seemed to me that if someone nearby had known that I was having my own private Statics class in my head in the middle of this concert, they would have slapped me, and rightfully so.

I can imagine that lots of people go through this all the time: airplane engineers know all the things that can bring a plane down, train engineers know that we’re riding on 2 inches of faith, drug scientists know that if one molecule goes wrong in the batch of Advil, 100,000 people will probably die, trampoline engineers know that they’re probably going to kill a few children with their miscalculations – but consider it all worth it for those times when a cheerleader hops on for a try.

So where in your life do you know enough to be scared shitless?

Dress for the job you hate

People who dress for the job they want

People who dress to express disdain for the job they have

Ever heard the one about how you should dress for the job you want, not the one you have?  I don’t believe it happens this way.  I think there are those people who dress for the jobs they want, and the rest of the people dress to express total apathy.  If there is a range of footware that goes from leather lace-ups to flip-flops in your office, you know what I’m talking about.

There’s a reason that people ask you if you’re a glass half-full or a glass half-empty kind of person.  Nobody says, “I’m a glass at 50%.”  You either look up or you look down, and the way that people dress at work is a key expression of this.

If I work really hard, I can become Vice President some day!

If I work really hard, maybe they’ll let me plug in the yellow cables!  F, I hate this job.  If that bitch who’s sleeping her way to VP calls me about her Blackberry not working in the subway one more time, I’ll kill her.

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