As we believe in at least attempting to have some sort of balance here at the Asylum between humor and the outright lunacy experienced from monitoring current events, we thought a visit with our friend Joe D for a bit of the real world was in order, hoping for a chuckle or two from his sage, politically incorrect advice and unique outlook.
As always, we found him hangin’ at the corner of St. Paul and Madness Avenue, telling it like it is. Let’s check in with him….
So, dude…I’m hangin’ at the corner, 
smoking my rolled up cigarette, and some young hipster bucks up, yelling at me to put it out…you know, man…the usual stuff with these hypocrites. So, I say to the dude, “Dude, what the hell! Just back off with your sanctimonious horseshit.”
He takes a couple of steps back, so I say to him “So, tell me dude…who died and made you frickin’ God?”
I can tell the dude has no frickin’ clue what to say. He then frantically checks his pocket and pulls out his pacifier that these young turds can’t do without, you know, that cell phone bullshit, and so I say to the guy, “Dude, is this phone of yours, is it like a nipple or something to you?
“Huh?” the guy asks.
“Dude, is your phone like a frickin’ pacifier to you?” I ask again.
“What d’ya mean?” the hipster asks.
“Dude, grow a sack and answer the question, okay….you confronted me – now I’m confronting you. Is this frickin’ phone of yours like a nipple to you…like a pacifier for an adult boy? In other words, can you actually have a conversation with me without having to check with your mommy that you’re holding in your hand?”
The poor guys eyes start to spin – one clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. He’s not just confused..the poor guy doesn’t have a clue – hasn’t had the dawn of thought yet. I can tell he’s embarrassed ’cause I notice this guy is on some sort of mental frickin’ tether line. Yeah…can you dig it…the guy is on a frickin tether as I’m noticing this young beauty off the side of him, shooting the poor dude a look of disdain. I’m thinking he’s totally whipped. You know what I mean here? Just not a real dude. Anyway, I say to him, “dude, do you smoke pot?” The guy looks to this chick for approval and slowly nods his head.
“Alright! Now we’re getting somewhere,” I say to him. “Now dude, tell me…when you’re getting that first buzz, you know, the real good kind of buzz…what are you feeling?”
“Um…feeling good I guess,” he tells me.
“Oh come on, dude. You can do better than that. What feeling is grabbing you by the ass and saying to you, ‘OH YEAH…THIS IS GOOD!”
The dude looks over to the chick again for approval, so I grab the guy by the arm and I say…”dude….tell me what YOU’RE feeling?”
“I dunno, man. Happiness…freedom maybe.”
“That’s it, dude!” I say to him. “That’s it…freedom, dude…freedom! And do you know what that freedom is…it’s freedom at the thought of you being able to be you, dude. Not this poor shit that needs to check in with his cell phone every 10 seconds for updated programming…not some poor slob who needs the approving look from his girlfriend for his very existence… not some poor grunt who gets his opinions from a frickin’ phone, right?”
“No man, that’s not it at all,” he says to me, shooting that nervous look to this chick.
“Look, dude. You started in on me ’cause I’m smoking a frickin’ regular cigarette. You go home, toke up day and night, infest your crib with second hand smoke that you seem to be worried about out here in the real world, and you’re wanting me to put out my cigarette on the street? Do you realize what you’re breathing in just be being out here?
And dude, quit checking with your chick for approval every 10 seconds. Do you really think your girl digs this shit? Do you really think she wants a dude who is so mentally castrated that he has to check in with her for each new thought pattern? Of course not, dude. She wants a man – she wants an original. Can you get that concept, dude…a real, frickin’ man.
You got to start paying attention to your inner dude – just as she’s paying attention, or should be, to her inner chick. I don’t care what the media, the schools, your hipster friends, the colleges – where absolute dung is taught day in and day out – I don’t care what any of these shysters say. She wants a man who will respect her, do his best to care for her, love her, take her out, make her laugh and listen to her…dude…can you hear me? It’s in our DNA, man – deep inside each of us, whether man or woman are these layered complexities that we don’t quite fully understand, but rule us – the inner dude and the inner chick. I see it day in and day out. You ignore that inner dude or inner chick…you’re toast. Do you expect any sane chick who digs men to check you out twice? You look like a little boy. Grow a pair, dude. Get with it. Start being a man rather than this poor sop of a dude who hasn’t a clue what he is, where he’s going, what to say or what to do. Man, you can do it. Here’s the deal…you turn off that damn mommy you have in your hand, you quit checking with your chick every 2 minutes for approval, you don’t turn on the TV and dude, here’s the real deal…you start with your mind and get it in shape. You start reading, dude. Books, dude. Not the horseshit of today…I’m talking the real shit – classics, dude – philosophers, poets, artists, composers, fiction writers, thinkers – any of the real shit – the tried and true. Go the the library and get educated. You’ll thank me someday.”
So the dude’s looking at me. I see a glimmer of hope in his eyes. He starts to look at the chick, and I say…”no man…no. It starts now.”
Anyway, whether there’s any hope for the poor dude, who knows. But at least I set him on righteous tracks.
So the next time someone starts yelling at you about smoking, dude, you’ll know what to say.
Thanks (we think) Joe D!
And to end with a little jazz sanity, we send long the following
Stan Getz – Samba de uma Nota Só
Dispatches from the Asylum 