Demotivator

Wallflower

Wallflower, wallflower
Won't you dance with me
I'm sad and lonely too
Wallflower, wallflower
Won't you dance with me
I'm fallin' in love with you
Just like you I'm wonderin' what I'm doin' here
Just like you I'm wonderin' what's goin' on
Wallflower, wallflower
Won't you dance with me
The night will soon be gone
I have seen you standing in the smoky haze
And I know that you're gonna be mine one of these days
Mine alone
Wallflower, wallflower
Take a chance on me
Please let me ride you home

-Bob Dylan

You've Really Got A Hold On Me

I don't like you
But I love you
Seeing that I'm always
Thinking of you
Oh, oh, oh
You treat me badly
I love you madly
You've really got a hold on me
You've really got a hold on me

Baby,
I don't want you
But I need you
Don't want to kiss you
But I need to
Oh, oh, oh
You do me wrong now
My love is strong now
You've really got a hold on me
You've really got a hold on me

Baby,
I love you and all I want you to do is just
Hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me
Tighter, tigher

I want to leave you
Don't want to stay here
Don't want to spend
Another day here
Oh, oh, oh
I want to split now
I can’t quit now
You've really got a hold on me
You've really got a hold on me

Baby,
I love you and all I want you to do is just
Hold me, squeeze me, hold me, hold me

You've really got a hold on me
You've really got a hold on me

-Smokey Robinson

Intolerance

I don't wanna be
Hostile
I don't wanna be
Dismal
And I don't wanna
Rot in an
Apathetic existence
See I wanna
Believe you
And I wanted to
Trust you
And I wanna have
Faith to
Put away the dagger

But you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
And I tolerated it

Veil of
Virtue
Hung to
Hide your
Method while I
Smile and
Laugh and
Dance and
Sing your
Praise and glory
Shroud of
Virtue
Hung to
Mask your
Stigma as I
Smile and
Laugh and
Dance and
Sing your
Glory

While you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
How can I tolerate you?

Our guilt
Our blame
I've been
Far too
Sympathetic
Our blood
Our fault
I've been
Far too
Sympathetic

I am not innocent
I am not innocent
You are not innocent
No one is innocent

You lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
you lie, cheat and steal
How can I tolerate you?

I will not tolerate you
I will go down beside you
I must go down beside you
No one is innocent

-Tool

It’s Been a Long, Long Time

Kiss me once, then kiss me twice
Then kiss me once again
It's been a long, long time
Haven't felt like this, my dear
Since I can't remember when
It's been a long, long time

You'll never know how many dreams
I've dreamt about you
Or just how empty they all seemed without you
So kiss me once, then kiss me twice
Then kiss me once again
It's been a long, long time

-Sammy Cahn

Omniscience

Monotheists claim their god provides all the answers, but in reality it only excuses them from having to provide any. Any and all questions challenging the validity of their beliefs are smugly met with, “I don’t know all the answers, but GOD DOES!” They don’t seem to realize this is a non-answer. Assuming someone else knows does not mean that someone else does know nor should it excuse one from knowing themselves. I humorously imagine these Christians standing at the Pearly Gates and having God ask them, “Why should I let you in?” and hearing them respond, “I don’t know, but YOU DO!”

Christians love to challenge the theory of evolution. “It doesn’t make sense,” they declare without knowing anything about it other than what others who don’t know anything about it have told them. Um, have they read the Genesis creation story? It is LUDICROUS; containing no historical or scientific basis whatsoever. They love to ask, “How could anything exist without a creator?” but refuse to answer, “Who created God, then?” They don’t realize they are merely parlaying the problem. “They demand an answer for the existence of the universe. Their answer is simply, “God.” Yet, they get offended when asked for an explanation of the existence of God. In this context, isn’t “the universe” and “God” simply two ways of saying the same thing? For example, if, “How does the universe exist?” is answered by, “God,” it logically follows that the next question in need of answering is, “How does God exist?” Otherwise the original problem has not in actuality been addressed.

Gods don’t provide any answers; they simply eliminate the incentive to look for them. “Simply believe.” Most Christians would be surprised to know that the idea of BLIND FAITH that they rely so heavily upon isn’t even in their precious albeit mostly ignored- except for when it’s convenient for them to quote from- Bible. I’m fairly certain the term was originally intended as an affront against so-called “believers.” Blind Faith is little more than an Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood collaboration, folks. Wake up and smell the hypocrisy. If you can’t rationally defend your own beliefs your existence is null. You certainly have NO business challenging, criticizing, demonizing, questioning or denying anybody else’s beliefs.

Let me break it down another way: Christians claim their god is omniscient; or all-knowing. This is from the Latin omnis, meaning “all” and scientia, meaning “knowledge.” We now mean science, from that same root word meaning knowledge, to be the methodical pursuit toward acquiring knowledge. “Christian” literally means “of, or like, Christ.” For them, Christ is a manifestation of God. In order to pursue the ways of Christ, the very manifestation of omniscience, one must by definition also be pursuing knowledge. It can therefore be said that Christians who hate science are uninterested in the being they claim to worship.

No doubt someone will want to accuse me here of simply using semantics. On the contrary, I am accurately using semantics. I would LOVE for a Christian to say, “By ‘blind faith’ I mean I don’t want to know,” which IS what they mean.

Jambi

Here from the king's mountain view
Here from the wild dream come true
Feast like a sultan I do
On treasures and flesh never few

But I
I would
Wish it all away
If I
Thought I'd lose you
Just one day

The devil and his had me down
In love with the dark side I'd found
Dabbling all the way down
Up to my neck soon to drown

But you changed that all for me
Lifted me up turned me around

So I
I
I
I
I would
I would
I would
Wish
This
All
Away

Prayed like a martyr dusk 'til dawn
Begged like a hooker all night long
Tempted the devil with my song
And got what I wanted all along

But I
And I would
If I could
Then I would
Wish it away
Wish it away
Wish it all away
Wanna wish it all away

No pressure could hold
Sway
Or justify my kneeling away my center
So if I could I'd wish it all away
If I thought tomorrow would take you away
You're my peace of mind my home my center
I'm just trying to hold on one more day

Damn my eyes
Damn my eyes

Damn my eyes if they should compromise our fulcrum
If wants and needs divide me then I might as well be gone!

Shine on forever
Shine on benevolent sun

Shine down upon the broken
Shine until the two become one

Shine on forever
Shine on benevolent sun

Shine on upon the severed
Shine until the two become one

Divided I wither away
Divided I wither away

Shine down upon the many
Light our way benevolent sun

Breathe in union
Breathe in union
Breathe in union
Breathe in union
Breathe in union
So
As one
Survive
Another day
And season

Silence leach
And save your poison
Silence leach
And stay out of my way

-Tool

Bogus Cocktail Books

Somebody recently asked me how to spot a lousy cocktail book. The Cocktail Handbook, by Maria Contantino is but one example of such a book, and I thought it might be amusing to make fun on it.

Since I’m no newcomer to cocktails, I typically skip past the first part of books that tell you what to buy and how to use it and delve straight into the recipes. This book, however, doesn’t use ounces to measure the cocktails- it just says 1 measure, etc. But she’s not strictly using ratios either, as she’ll then slip in a teaspoon of something. So I had to go back to the beginning part of the book to find out what she thinks a “measure” is. It turns out in Maria’s world, one measure=25ml. I have no idea what a ml is, but no problem- I have a computer handy. It turns on 25 ml is equal to 0.845350 fluid ounces. Wow, thanks. That’s REAL useful. Strangely, I don’t have anything that measures 0.845350 fluid ounces lying around. She goes onto suggest once you get as good as her you won’t need to measure at all. I see what’s going on- she has no idea what amounts she uses. Whatever, the measurements in recipes are always wrong anyway, so I’ll just figure them out myself.

While perusing the front section, I couldn’t help but notice she neglected to explain how to use a shaker.

The book is separated into sections with drinks using the same base spirit, and I much prefer this to wholly alphabetized cocktail books. The first section is gin, and the first cocktail is the Bennet. I know this one! (It’s not as good as a Pegu Club.) But wait, check this out- her recipe is 2 measures gin, 2/3 measure lime juice, 1/3 measure sugar syrup and 1 dash bitters. Okay, so what’s 1/3 of 0.845350 fluid ounces? I already know it’s supposed to be 1 tsp, so why the unnecessary complication (especially since she uses teaspoon elsewhere)? I’ll stop harping on it.

Her instructions throughout the book are to shake with ice cubes instead of cracked ice. She must be a vigorous shaker.

Her 26 gin drinks are extremely basic and boring. A lot of gin and citrus juice combinations. Also a lot of what I call “genre” drinks: Gin Collins, Gin Daisy, Gin Fizz, Gin Rickey, Gin Sling, Gin Swizzle…. For a book entitled the The Cocktail Handbook, these are sure a lot of drinks other than cocktails. Her martini is acceptable. There were three gin drinks mentioned that I hadn’t tried. The Pink Pussycat was stupid. The Grass Skirt called for the drink to be shaken and poured unstrained into an old-fashioned glass, which no self-respecting bartender would do (you put fresh ice cubes into the glass and strain out the mostly-melted cracked ones). The Honolulu looked interesting, so I started making it- only to realize she was asking for ¼ teaspoon of three juices instead of ¼ ounce which was obviously what was meant. So I ignored the book (also using 1.5 ounces of gin instead of 1.5 measures or 1.268025 ounces) and the drink turned out pretty good, if a little boring.

Not having any rum, I paid less attention to the rum recipes and started reading the short drink descriptions. Turns out, they aren’t descriptions at all; simply conjectures on the drink name’s origin and punny plays on their names. These could have all been written without having tried the drink. The most descriptive she gets is “orange-and-cinnamon flavored” for a drink containing rum, sweet vermouth, orange and cinnamon. She’s a damn poet.

In the vodka section I come across the third drink containing grapefruit juice, and the third time I’ve read something like “This is the best way to drink grapefruit juice!” She seems to be under the impression that grapefruit juice is extremely sour, which is odd. She also often writes, “Try it and see what you think.” I suspect this author is a teetotaler. She couldn’t think of a way to comment on the name Volga so she didn’t write anything.

The whisky section continues with the stupidity. She doesn’t know that all bourbon uses sour mash. Here’s the description for the Thunderclap, an appalling beverage: “Too many of these, and that’s what a pin dropping will sound like!” I want to punch this lady in the face. She continues with the genre beverages- the highball, the sour, the squirt….

There is a drink in the tequila section called the Doralto that is simply outstanding. This one recipe (which I altered only slightly) suddenly makes this book worth purchasing.

I also discovered a decent and heretofore unknown tequila-based drink in the Poker Face. (She fails to correctly describe how to build a highball, but my standards are so low at this point I almost didn’t mention it.) The author claims gold tequila has been aged 2-4 years, when in actuality it is un-aged (silver) tequila with yellow food coloring. (The intention of gold tequila is for gringos to mistake it for reposado tequila, which is aged from 2 to 11 months.) I also created a decent drink by changing the Icebreaker recipe completely.

I can barely go on- the ludicrous Tequila Moonrise is described as: “After the sun goes down, up comes the moon!” She is fond of exclamatory comments. The Operator is “A great ginger-wine flavor!” The ingredients? White wine, ginger ale, lime juice.

New gripe: Extremely similar cocktails in the same book. The Sidecar AND the Tantalus? The Negroni AND the Americano (even after she mentions the similarilty)? (I had already forgiven the Martini, Gibson, Kangaroo trilogy).

In the champagne section there suddenly pops out a drink that the author has actually tried: the Bamboo. Or at any rate she gives an opinion on it. Curiously, for this drink, she’s suddenly keen on pointing out that the mixing glass and cocktail glass should be chilled, which is true of ALL cocktails. I’d try it if I had sherry.

Mercifully, the book ends. With the Yellowjacket, a boring mocktail combination of fruit juices, described thusly: “A yellowjacket is a type of wasp, so be prepared for quite a sharp ‘sting’ of a drink!”

Stinkfist

Something has to change
Undeniable dilemma
Boredom's not a burden
Anyone should bear

Constant over-stimulation numbs me
but I would not want you
Any other way

‘Cause:
It's not enough
I need more
Nothing seems to satisfy
I said
I don't want it
I just need it
To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive

Finger deep within the borderline
Show me that you love me and that we belong together
Relax, turn around and take my hand

I can help you change
Tired moments into pleasure
Say the word and we'll be
Well upon our way

Blend and balance
Pain and comfort
Deep within you
‘Til you will not want me any other way

But:
It's not enough
I need more
Nothing seems to satisfy
I said
I don't want it
I just need it
To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive

Knuckle deep inside the borderline
This may hurt a little but it's something you'll get used to
Relax, slip away….

Something kinda sad about
The way that things have come to be
Desensitized to everything
What became of subtlety?

How can this mean anything to me
If I really don't feel anything at all?

I'LL KEEP DIGGING
‘TIL I FEEL SOMETHING

Elbow deep inside the borderline
Show me that you love me and that we belong together
Shoulder deep within the borderline
Relax, turn around and take my hand

-Tool