Things People Assume I Like But I Really Don't Pt. 4

Welcome to the Hodge Podge Edition of Things People Assume I Like But I Really Don't. It's a hodge podge because I really didn't have enough material to make full blogs out of each of these things, so I decided to mesh them together and make one blog. So here we go!

"I'm going to recall something from my childhood in a very intense way with a lot of body movement.

Isn't that funny?"

Yeah. I really don't like Dane Cook. He is second on the list of comedians who I just cannot stand to listen to, and he's only second because Jeff Dunham exists. Most people can understand my hatred of Jeff Dunham, or Larry the Cable Guy, or any of those other Blue Collar rednecks who keep their comedy low brow and rely on fart jokes for punchlines. However, few people can understand my dislike for Dane Cook, but I think it's easy enough to understand - his comedy is boring...plain and simple. If you really sit down and listen to his set there is absolutely no substance to it at all. There are a lot of obscenities, a lot of jocularity, and a lot of Dane Cook describing things or life situations in a very intense way. A prime example of this is his bit about the Price Is Right where he describes in intense detail watching the Price Is Right.

When I first heard this bit I thought it was amusing. Like Dane, that was a show I watched when I was home sick from school, and yes, all of those games were just the way he described him. After the bit, however, I thought "Well was that really funny? I mean, was there comedic value to this bit?" Because for me it was just intense recollections, and for me that just isn't funny. Then again I like some pretty weird comedy, so who knows? All I know is that Dane Cook is a comedian I don't like, and people are surprised by that.

I saw an elephant do this once.

I love the creative process. I write songs and draw pictures all the time. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the artist and the creative process. That is why many many many people are shocked when they find out that I don't like Jackson Pollock. "He painted energy, man. How can you not love that?" That's something someone once asked me after I told them I didn't care for Mr. Pollock's work. My response was somewhat pointed, "I saw an elephant do a painting like that once."

Art, like so many things, comes down to personal taste. Pollock may have had some sort of plan, or he may have really been into the passion of the moment artistically (which I can respect), but as viewers of art we are not privy to that kind of thing. All we have is the work in front of us and our own emotions to go off of. Many people connect with Pollock on some level. I don't. To me it just looks like the random splatters of an elephant painting. So for me, I echo the sentiments of Georgia O'Keeffe when she was asked in an interview what she thought of Jackson Pollock. "They can have him," she said. I for one agree.

Meh.

Okay, let me begin by saying I DON'T HATE BOOBS! I like them alright. I'm just kind of tired of them. Let me relate something to you that best illustrates me sentiments.

When I was a kid it was a rare treat to have shrimp for dinner. I lived in Carthage, and the grocery stores didn't have fresh shrimp. For that you had to drive to Joplin and go to Dillon's. We hardly ever went to Joplin for groceries, and even if we did it usually wasn't for shrimp. Shrimp was pretty expensive too, so we only got to have boiled shrimp and cocktail sauce once a year, in the summer, and that was it! So, as such, shrimp was one of my favorite things to eat for a long time. As I got older, though, my attitude toward shrimp began to change. Stores in Carthage began carrying shrimp. The production of domestic shrimp made them more abundant and cheaper to buy. Soon, shrimp began showing up in all manner of foods, in all manner of restaurants. My rare treat was establishing itself on the table of mediocrity. These days you can get shrimp anywhere. Hell, I could go to Long John Silvers and buy some right now. It's not that I hate shrimp now. It still taste good to me. It's just that when I go out to eat or I have dinner, I'd rather cook something else. My attitude toward boobs is pretty much the same.

When I was a young teenager, bursting with hormones, a boob was something I only got to see once in a great while: at a friend's house in one of his dad's dirty magazines, on a video my sister's forgot to take back to the video store, in my imagination as I thumbed through the pages of Victoria Secret. I had an old beta copy of the movie Colors with Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. There was one boob scene in it that I rewound until the tape eventually broke. It was hard to see an actual boob, but when you did manage to catch a glimpse of one it was well worth the reward. I have found as I get older, as television becomes more lax about the kind of content it allows, as the internet makes boobs more readily available to my attention, that they have become kind of boring to me.

I am reminded again of another time in my life that echoes this sentiment. My friend had his bachelor party at a local strip club (the only such party I've ever been to with strippers). I was on my third lap dance. A busty woman had my face buried a mile into her chest. I could feel the vibrations of her boobs on the side of my head. It was neat, but I couldn't help but think to myself, "You know, if this is the extent of the activity this evening I'm going to get bored really fast." And I was right. I can't recall leaving that place and thinking, "You know, I really think the boobs were my favorite part of the evening." For me that's boobs. They look nice. They feel nice. But ultimately, there are so many other things I find interesting about ladies that I could really take them or leave them.

So to boobs, I say "Meh."