FEBRUARY 14, 2014
Apparently I have some very strong thoughts on Valentines Day.
I was researching my archives and February 14th is like a volcanic eruption on the Life’s Crazy Radar.
Today I present for your reading pleasure, an unprecedented move; NOT ONE – BUT TWO, Life’s Crazy rants on the day of hearts and roses and societally pressured affection….
Enjoy. Or don’t. It’s up to you.
FEBRUARY 14 2010
You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Valentines Day.
Yeah, I hear you women cursing me right now. I can feel your thoughts cutting off my manhood and plunging chocolate daggers into my heart for even thinking such blasphemous thoughts. But I don’t care. Someone needs to tell the truth and this is my truth.
Valentine’s day is a made up holiday to promote commerce. It’s the greeting card’s version of the Obama stimulus plan.
I know most of you love hearts and candy and the mushy cards. You like romantic dinners and diamond earrings. You like love and passion and french kisses swirling in chocolate. You like ribbons and bows of pink and red.
That’s fine. Allow yourself to be hypnotized by the socio-economic demons that control this made up holiday. Go ahead, drink in the lie that is Valentines Day. Swim in the warm current of this fabricated, fictional day. go ahead, and reach into your wallet and spend more money than your bank account should allow, all in the name of love. Go ahead and live the dream, because I am immune.
I am the Valentine’s day grim reaper who spits up pea soup and vomits chocolate on your Hallmark moment. Maybe I am drinking from the goblet of ignorance when I publicly share my thoughts. Maybe I’m doing a belly flop into the shallow end of the crazy pool when I declare heretical thoughts that most men won’t dare utter.
Valentines Day is Crazy. It’s a made up holiday like bosses day or shave your poodle’s butt day.
Valentines day benefits restaurants and card companies who plan for February 14th like the Allies planned for D-Day. Store shelves are stocked to the ceiling with Red and white and pink products that order you to buy now or forever be the outcast of love. Restaurants sell out weeks in advance to couples who need to publicly declare their love in a symbolic, saccharin explosion of the absurd.
Maybe I don’t understand Valentines Day so I went to the Google God of information and looked up Cupid. See also: Eros.
EROS was the mischievous god of love, a minion and constant companion of the goddess Aphrodite.
The poet Hesiod first represents him as a cosmic who emerged self-born at the beginning of time to spur procreation. (See the Protogenos Eros and Phanes, for more information.) The same poet later describes two love-gods, Eros and Himeros (Desire), accompanying Aphrodite at her birth from the sea-foam. Some classical authors interpreted this to mean they were born of the goddess at her birth, or alongside her in the sea-foam. The scene was particular popular in art, where the pair flutter around the goddess seated in her floating conch-shell.
Just reading this passage got me so “infuriated” I had to stop writing. This is a mythological apparition.
Valentine’s Day?
I still don’t get it. It’s not like Valentine’s Day is Christmas. I mean Christmas is the grand daddy of days, right. The birth of Christ, a time for saint nick shove his big rear end down a chimney. It’s presents and trees and Fa La La La.
Thanksgiving. I get it. Turkeys and family and loosening the top button on your pants while watching the Lions get their asses kicked at the SilverDome yet again.
Easter, again a no-brainer. The resurrection, the cross, the egg hunts, a time for redemption and renewed spiritual commitment.
But Valentines Day? Really? Who says? Was the son of god born on this day? Did reindeer fly around a candy heart on this day? Did Jesus die on a chocolate cross for your sins on this day? No.
Did HERSHEY’s fill a heart shaped box on this day and promote it as a must have, must sell sexual elixir? As Sara Palin would say, “you betcha”
“Valentines day is a sham created by greeting card and chocolate company’s to, “reinforce and exploit gender stereotypes” as Liz Lemmon on 30 Rock so decidely declared this week.
I’m not sure I could sum it up any better than that.
February 14th is a day conjured out of thin air by Hallmark. Did cupid die on February 14th? Was Cupid born on February 14th? Did Cupid get shot in his own heart on February 14th. No. Who the hell is cupid and why even care? Isn’t he a toddler with a diaper and wings. I say burp the kid and put him to bed.
February 14th is a dart in the calendar thrown by Mr. Hallmark and Mr. Hershey’s Chocolate. It’s a strategic date between New Years and St Patrick’s Day, when little is happening outside Black History month, and last time I checked, Rosa Parks go to the back of the bus cards were not selling all that well.
Hallmark is a multi million dollar image and emotion churning machine that pumps out love and hearts and mush like so much toothpaste oozing out of the Colgate Toothpaste Factory.
364 days out of the year, it’s ok to be single. It’s ok to thrash around in the rip tide of dating insanity. But come Feb 14th, if you don’t have a significant other, you are chastised and cast into the pit of social stigma. “What you don’t have a date on Valentine’s Day,” some ignoramus will say.
Well to you single people on February 14th; I salute you. Being single means no pressure to, as Liz Lemmon says, “reinforce or exploit those accepted gender stereotypes.”
You have no pressure to make dinner reservations at the sold out bistro. You have no pressure to buy one rose, 12 roses, or a bouquet of crab grass. You have no pressure to purchase chocolates, or buy a gushy card. You have no pressure to be seen with a significant other in a club, bar, or popular night spot.
But you have just as much chance as getting lucky as the Valentine’s day fool who goes broke trying to outdo the next guy.
To Hallmark, I say take your caramel fudge and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
To Hershey’s, I say bend over and sit on your chocolate kiss.
Hey cupid shoot your arrow at someone else, because I all ready know that Valentines Day is a sham.
And that is crazy!
FEBRUARY 14 2011
You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Valentines day is crazy.
No disrespect to you hopeless romantics, but you can take February 14th and shove it.
Hearts and candies and flowers and Mylar balloons with messages of love.
Like so much dog doo on the bottom of my shoe, Valentines Day stinks.
It seems so contrived, so over sensationalized, so preconceived.
If Valentines Day could sing, it would be a chubby Brittany Spears concert full of lip synching drivel.
The so called holiday is a TV producers wet dream. Days before Valentine’s Day, I am seeing special reports on Good Morning America about picking the right diamond, choosing the most romantic restaurants, selecting the best flowers.
Why?
It’s a Hallmark manufactured holiday. It is designed to generate money for flower shops, revenue for greeting card company’s, and sales at the chocolate counter.
Cupid is an arrow launching punk wearing a diaper. Spray the little gnat with a can of RAID.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a subscriber of the thought ”If you can’t love the one you want, then love the one you’re with.” But don’t do it because of a date on the calendar. Don’t let February 14th intimidate you.
Don’t let Jared’s Jewelry commercials make you feel like a douche because you didn’t lay out $850 dollars for that special someone.
The whole concept is a farce. It makes men feel like they have to buy roses and cards and dinner.
After men open their wallets and hearts, they have a sadly unrealistic expectation that women should show affection. If either party doesn’t complete their end of the transaction, it is a recipe for disaster.
Why not treat every day like Valentine’s Day? Why not buy your lover flowers on April 7th? Why don’t you shower your wife with pearls on June 3rd? Why not take your girlfriend to dinner on Sept 18th?
The heck with Valentines day. It’s for suckers.
I’m holding out another month for a real holiday.
St. Patrick’s day.
Now I realize March 17th is a beer industry sponsored extravaganza, but it’s a celebration without expectations.
Erin Go Bragh. Kiss Me I’m Irish. Pinch me if you are wearing green.
So much potential for drunken debauchery which often leads to ample amounts of loving. The beautiful thing is expectations are realistic if not down right green. No need to send your lover a
St. Patricks day card or green carnation or chocolates made out of mint.
Give your date a bunch of green beer and let alcohol be your guide to better relations.
If only Israel and the Palestinians could figure this out.
It is with this knowledge that I present the following Crazy Story.
DATELINE: Sacramento, California
SHOW US YOUR T**S!
A nice theme at Mardi Gras if you are tossing beads down from a balcony on Bourbon Street, but not such a great message if your 12 year old daughter is munching on Valentines day candies.
According to a Sacramento TV station, a 6th grade girl is eating a Valentines day treat when she came across a candy with a sassy little message.
You know the candy. They are heart shaped and they have silly phrases on them like: I love you, You are cute, Be my Valentine.
That’s why it’s so unusual when the little girl pulled one from the bag that said: “nice t***”
As you might imagine no dad wants their baby girl seeing something so repulsive on a candy heart.
“I thought it was kinda shocking. I was reading them, and I brought it to my dad after I saw it,” said Ciara Bush.
The child’s father, who does not plan to take legal action against candy maker Brach’s, emailed the company and was promptly told to send the offending heart back to the company.
Valentines Day. Holiday of the Devil.
Just another reason to take those old Valentines Day cards and line the bird cage with them.
And that is crazy.