"did john henry die for nothing?"

Last night some friends were over for nickel and dime poker. One of them told us how he refused to use the self-checkout at soulless retailers. In order to repel some of the derision and giggles he invoked the name of John Henry, great American folk hero.

Though I didn’t give him much support last night, the more I think about it, the more I have to agree. Self-checkout is an atrocity. It is a perfect metaphor for the soulless, faceless corporation that is gutting the “mom and pop” small town retailers.

It is also quite literally soulless and faceless, and when the machine revolution comes I can promise you the automated or “self” checkout units are going to be right there on the front lines... although I'm not quite sure what they will do exactly. Do they have arms? Anything they can stab with?

I think it could also be humiliating to some (not all, mind you) cashiers. Don’t you hate when someone walks into your place of employment—some Joe Schmoe off the street—and conveys that he can do your job as well as you can. When you shop at a store and use the self-checkout, you might as well shout to every cashier you see “I can do your job, asshole!”

Worst of all, the self-checkout is eliminating one more human aspect to our existence. Interaction is a vital part of being a human and the more we eliminate that from our lives the less human we become.

I for one am not going to use them ever again. Maybe I’ll have to wait a little longer. Maybe I’ll have to tolerate a real dumbass cashier every now and then. But at least I will retain my humanity.

If you use self-checkout, you are basically pissing on John Henry’s grave. You are also proclaiming your contempt toward the plight of the American worker. And since John Henry was black, it probably means you hate black people too.

have you met my good friend?

I have always had a very strange regard for MySpace. I will not deny that I do have an account of my own, I will probably not deny that I did it only because a friend of mine did one first, and I will never deny that it serves an important role in my life since it is the primary means by which I am able to stay in touch with certain people who mean a great deal to me.

Besides real friends, I have made “friends” with a handful of celebrities. Some of my celebrity friends—take Kevin Smith for example—are people who actually spend a lot of time on the internet and put a lot of effort into their pages. Others, like the Spinal Tap page, are not as fun as they should be because there is no real interaction going on.

I know that these celebrities aren’t really my friends, but it’s nice to pretend that they are every once in a while... I mean, that is what the internet is all about, right? Pretending?

Every once in a while one of my not-really-my-friends will post something that makes me think that we would be best buds if only given the chance. My latest not-really-my-friend is Darren Aronofsky, and he posted something in his MySpace blog about how procrastination is a part of writing.

I totally agree with that. I have always felt that procrastination and interruption are an integral part of the writing process but it’s not something they tend to teach in college or high school writing classes where all of your assignments have a due date.

It feels good to make a connection like that with someone who I look up to. Not only that, but considering his “educated” attitude towards writing, I can’t help but think Mr. Aronofsky is a guy who would not only purchase but truly appreciate my autobiography: Who is this Noodles person?

If you don’t believe me, check out a sampling from the first chapter…

“…I was born on the heels of the Watergate scandal in the heart of one of the most—Oh look, something shiny!”

So far that’s all I have. I hope you were able to get as much out of it as I put into it. It was a labor of love… Love for shiny, shiny things...

music at work

Each night while we're unloading the truck at S-Mart we listen to one of those radio stations that plays random music as a gimmick, even though they play pretty much the same random music every couple of nights.

One of the songs I hear every time I work is "Super Freak" by Rick James, which is a song I really dig.

Except for the line where he sings "She's a very freaky girl. The kind you don't take home to mother." That line doesn't sit well with me.

Rick James obviously never met my mother.

TV is confusing

Is it me, or is it strange that the new NBC show Friday Night Lights is going to be on Tuesday nights?