The News Feed

Hi.

ZFJ's been busy. But this blizzard has rendered ZFJ un-busy for a few minutes and now, ZFJ will rant...and refer to himself in the third person.

So, by this point, thanks to Facebook and other forms of media, we all know that the Government is launching Drones to spy, arrest, kill, kidnap and who knows whatever else. We know that everything is basically a smoke screen for other underlying agendas to cure financial burdens of the government by squeezing every last dime out of the middle class. We are well aware that every politician is full of shit, and possibly robots. Or at least androids --devoid of emotions at any rate. We know the best comparison for all this is: "Big Oil" vs. "The f*cking middle class". Meaning, yes there's tons of oil (I met an independent contractor working out of North Dakota the other day who proclaimed, "Oh yeah! There's TONS of crude oil....". He hauls the stuff.) Big Oil is making record profits (again, common knowledge at this point), we fucking middle class folks are not making big profits. We are having our backs financially broken, especially at the gas pump. Since most of us don't own oil companies, have lots of stock in them, or other "interests" in them, we're all just making a select few A LOT of money. This money fuels our government (not just THIS money of course), this money runs America in it's attempts to conquer the world!!(again, not just this money, just making a simple fucking comparison here).

But thanks to the News Feed, we ALL know this shit now. And, whatever. Today's topic isn't about all this "bad" shit, it's about me wanting to type some swear words. And it's going to include some valuable lessons on etiquette within Facebook itself. Which, because everything sucks, is so prevalent in our lives right now. We turn to Facebook to nurture the self-image we've sought our whole lives, to voice whatever we feel like on our Facebook page --which are basically our real lives at this point. Indeed Facebook is now a business platform, a social platform, an information platform...it is everything. Bwaahaaahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!

Look, I have plenty of conspiracy material to read through, and enough Awkward Band Photos to laugh at on my News Feed, so it kind of gets me pissed when I stop and look at one of my "friends" posts that reads to the effect of: "My only flight options were 5:30 tomorrow morning, or Sunday. I chose 5:30." ....................yes folks, that's the whole post. An update on someone choosing flight times (don't think I didn't catch the subtle blizzard topic intertwined in there). Wow. Who gives a fucking shit???? (Again, buckle up for some swearing)....oh yeah, quick note too, Mick Hubis and I became friends again, on Facebook, of course. To us, that is real friendship. You block someone or un-friend them on Facebook that is real fucking shit man. Anyway, I realize you don't care about my previous statement. But many people don't realize that nobody gives a flying shit about the rigors of their everyday life, what you're cooking, your every thought, and other vague statements that have no point. I'm going to launch some examples of "Bad", "Decent" and "Good" News Feed sightings. All in my fucking dead-on opinion, because I am a Facebook expert. Fucking truth.

BAD:

"With all this snow will be able to take the boys sledding tomorrow." (Oh WILL you??? That's really awesome...I'm sure I/We needed to know that.)

"Out of work and home! Yay!" (Good for you!! ...has zero effect on our lives and I want to two seconds of my life in which I read that back...and now I want the ten seconds back that I spent typing this....FUCK!!!!!)

"Heading to the gym.....:)" (Oh. My. Fucking. Gawd! I was wondering where you were heading...I'm heading to take a nice, steamy shit. Right, no one needs to know that either.)

"It's snowing." (I'm not sure if there's really anything to report here...)

"Slowest day ever." (un-fucking believable. It's the slowest day "ever". Time is dragging ass....no person has endured a slower day ---EVER.)

"Fuck You Montreal!!!!!!!!!!!....Tyler Seguin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....David Krejci!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...." (Just some Facebook-post outbursts of a couple Boston Bruins players along with some fucking cussing towards the fucking Canadiens. Ok.....yeah.)

"Wicked irritated today." (me too...now anyway.)

"Fixed!" (Yep. That shit is this person's whole fucking post. WTF??? ...terrible.)


DECENT:

"Dairy Queen has Blizzards every day." (almost nice right here...a lil' play-on-words tying in the weather and Dairy Queens mother fucking milk shake.)

"Giving you all fair notice right now. Put up a weather comment tomorrow and I will give you the ride of your life. Don't think I won't have enough time to copy and paste YouTube links for all of you." (this mother fucker ain't playin'. And he's funny/witty enough to actually fuck your page up with spot-on YouTube videos. MORE than decent post right here...)

"Glad to see the malls are closing early. Both the Holyoke Mall & the Eastfield Mall are closing at 5 and not opening until noon on Saturday! Even though Jeff had to go in at least he'll be home a little earlier! Everyone stay safe if you have to travel this afternoon & evening!" (I love this, but it's only decent. We get updates on mall closings, an update on Jeff's work schedule, and a recommendation to "Stay safe" --fantastic!!)


GOOD:

"They call me 'coffee trousers'. Mostly because, I just spilled coffee all over my trousers." (I literally did spit up a bit of my morning coffee reading this one. It's got sarcasm, slapstick humor in the wording, and is just funny. It "gives" a moment of pleasure to the Facebook friends. Thank you)

"Let’s just grant the possibility that there is a creator god, who’s omniscient, who occasionally authors books. And he’s gonna give us a book - the most useful book. He’s a loving god, he’s a compassionate god, and he’s gonna give us a guide to life. He’s got a scribe, the scribe’s gonna write it down. What’s gonna be in that book? I mean just think of how good a book would be if it were authored by an omniscient deity. I mean, there is not a single line in the Bible or the Koran that could not have been authored by a goat herder in the Iron Age. There is not one reference to anything - there are pages and pages about how to sacrifice animals, and keep slaves, and who to kill and why. There’s nothing about electricity, there’s nothing about DNA, there’s nothing about infectious disease, the principles of infectious disease, mathematics, space travel, the Internet, it never mentions planes,cars, bombs or guns. There’s nothing particularly useful, and there’s a lot of iron age barbarism in there, and superstition. These are not candidate books." (Now, I'm not in the business of questioning gods and religious books. But my new Facebook friend is --I'm not kidding, I'm digging this guys wit and insight right now--this post is normalcy-bias-busting, thought-provoking and strong. That's how you fill up a News Feed suckas!)


So, the fucking moral of this shitty post? I like swearing. And please consider other fucking people and if they would give a fucking shit about what you decide to post. Because it's cluttering up my News Feed from Awkward Band Photos and Conspiracy Watch. Dammit.

I hope we can improve the way we consider other people on Facebook going forward, I hope we can learn from this valuable guide on the legendary "ZFJ Blog", and I'm going to keep doing this shit until we as a society (meaning the real-world society we live in called "Facebook") learn to enhance each others lives rather than just always thinking about our fucking selves. All future posts with similar content will also have a ton of swears in them.

Thank you.


~ZFJ

Restroom stories, Volume 1

Hi everybody!

Well, I've been driving around towns and cities destroying bugs as a day job when I'm not booking bands, recording music and/or hanging with people I generally like. Naturally, due to my consistent driving, I have to visit public restrooms on occasion to relieve myself. And I've been flabbergasted by the type of behavior that sometimes happens when people inadvertently interrupt us in our times of restroom solitude.

People can get crazy about public restrooms, as I've experienced too many times firsthand. I've started using the "knock-first-then-slowly-try-the-door-handle-then- still-look-into-the-bathroom-before-barging-in" technique recently due to many "situations" I've recently been caught in. Below are a few snapshots of the aforementioned "situations".

At a bar. I go to the MENS restroom. The door is slightly ajar and the light is on. It's obvious to me that the room is vacant and ready to be used.

Other than the GIRL who was in there wiping her ass after a nice, awful-smelling shit has been taken!

Traumatized? (her more than me, I'm sure) Hilarious?? (Yep. Just from the look of utter astonishment reflecting panicked thoughts of "oh-shit-I-Just-got-busted-wiping-my-shit filled-ass-while-in-a-public-bathroom-in-which-I-shoulda-double-checked-the-fucking-lock-especially-considering-that-I'm-in-the-MENS-bathroom AND, the shit-I-dropped-smells-really-fucking-bad too!!). After this, to me, that girl became "The Girl Who Just Took a Shit", rather than anything slightly desirable...

At Dunkin Donuts in Amherst. I had a serious emergency brewing, and I wasn't close to home. I stop at one of my favorite "watering holes" (heh heh), first I knock on the door. I hear nothing. I try the handle and it's not locked, so I open the door slowly. I look in and there's a flustered contractor-type dude in there who gets all huffy with me barking "I'm almost finished!!" I sheepishly backed away muttering "maybe ya shoulda locked the door..." Then I hear him say "jeez, I locked the fucking door..." What?? No you didn't!!! If you had, it would have been LOCKED. What, do you think I picked the lock or something?? Do you feel this was a personal attack on your bathroom solitude?? Damn man...be accountable for your own actions. Lock. The. Fucking. Door.

At the Shell/Dunkin Donuts in Palmer. I'm using the restroom and treating it real bad. I'm finishing up and I hear someone outside try the door handle. I didn't give my standard "Be right out!" cry as I foolishly assume that the person on the outside would realize that, since door is locked, it means someone inside the restroom has locked it. The dude starts banging on the door. Really?? Where's the fire man??? Then I gave the "Be right out!!" cry as I rushed to get outta there fearing he would kick the door in or something....c'mon people. A man needs some fucking privacy when he's taking a shit!

At Bruegers Bagels in Noho, this very morning. I head downstairs to the restroom and knock on the door. I hear nothing. I slowly try the handle and it's not locked. OK, I know it's safe to go in because I heard nothing in response to my knocking and the door is not locked. I foolishly proceed into the restroom after my pre-barging-in tests have been completed, only to discover that there's a man in there. He's not too happy with me as he's trying to rush out, looking all pissed-off because someone is coming in while he's still in it. Wow. What else could I have done??? I apologized, muttered under my breath "that's why you lock the fucking door...", and waited. He gave me a dirty look as he exited the restroom.

The point of all this? Well, I think that in our society, we all need to keep our public restroom etiquette a bit more on the front-burner. Yes? So, here's some basic guidelines:
WHEN USING THE RESTROOM:
1) Lock the fucking door.
2) If someone doesn't get why the door is locked and begins banging on the obviously-locked-for-a-reason-door, give a polite yet assertive "be right out" type greeting.
3) Conduct your business in a timely fashion.
4) Be neat.
5) Get out and go on with your life.

WHEN APPROACHING A POSSIBLY OCCUPIED RESTROOM:
1) Knock on the fucking door.
2) Slowly try the handle.
3) If the door is unlocked, don't assume it's vacant, maybe try a "hello?" or other acceptable pre-greeting call-out while cautiously proceeding.
4) If the door is locked, there's no real need to bang on it. It means someone is in there, probably taking a nice shit. Just wait your turn.


Hopefully this information will help some of you avoid unpleasant, and possibly dangerous, situations when you are faced with the need to use public restrooms. Bye!!



~ZFJ