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How much is the Gold Plan? It’s only $5.00 per month, paid to me via cash mailed to my house. Email me if you want the address. Uhhhhh the things I’ll offer in the Gold Plan is, like… premium posts or something, like I’ll write extra good ones or I’ll email you my comedic notes I take in my phone’s notes app, or like I’ll record the Grocery Store Monologues I make in my head where I talk shit on products I see or something, I’m not certain yet, this was a poorly thought out post meant to capitalize on the idea of the April Fool’s day post because those get good traffic and I want good traffic, I need good traffic, you could argue, so this was my latest scheme to get past my lack of confidence in my own writing with the use of smoke and mirror clickbait, but now that I have you here, I need your help:

This is the ashtray in my Hyundai Elantra. It’s full of pennys, and almost entirely pennys. I know there are a few dimes in there, I see them. But I’ll see them next time I’m at a parking meter and I need to drop ’em in there. Most of the parking meters in my town don’t accept pennys, though. So I’m just stuck with all these pennys. I’m sure, built up, the pennys would add up to a reasonable amount, like that’s probably 50+ pennys there in the ashtray. But what the hell am I supposed to do with them? All they do is sit there, worthless, practically, and take up space in the ashtray. I can’t get rid of ’em because I’ve got no place to put ’em, and I can’t like put ’em in a coinstar machine because it’ll pay out, at most, like seventy cents so that’s kind of a waste of time and pennys. All they do is sit and rattle whenever I go over a pothole or I play anything with bass in my car, and ever since I got into Noise that’s most of the time now, like I’m not gonna ask Satomi Matsuzaki to turn down the bass riffs that’s what I bought the Deerhoof CD for, and if the pennys are gonna rattle then I guess so be it, but it’s so frustrating when I’m listening to like Life is Suffering off of The Magic or Bicycle Mystery Race off of The Runners Four and the bass is so crunchy and normally that’s great but the pennys, the pennys shake and rattle so damn much and let alone if I listen to Breakup Song, like Thirty Seconds Pause and We Do Parties are mostly nonstop bass riff, which is dope, but the pennys go fucking nuts during those songs, or like Myxomatosis? Like Myxomatosis by Radiohead off of Hail to the Thief (I’m just gonna call it “Thief” for the rest of this post, most Radiohead fans will get what I’m talking about, kinda like how if I say “Moon-Shaped” or “King” they’ll know which albums I’m talking about, it’s kind of cool Radiohead Fan Shorthand that we got if you listen enough kinda) but Myxomatosis is like that FANTASTIC bass riff for the whole song, and when it drops out for the chorus like “I… don’t… know… why I… feel.. so… tongue…….. tieeeeeeed” it’s like you’re coming up for air out of the ocean, like you got so lost in the bass that you forgot what treble was and getting that breath of oxygen right before you go back into the ocean of bass hits you like right in the chest, and I listen to Thief a lot now (again, “Thief” refers to the 2004 Radiohead album “Hail to the Thief” for those of you uninitiated) because it’s like a politically angry album and I’m politically angry now because like I lived in this hellscape for 22 years and now I’m seeing it like I feel like I woke up and dudes were getting shot in their backyard for no goddamn reason and kids are getting shot up at school and we’re just like all alright with it and the powers that be are all bought out and they won’t do anything about it cause the profits are so high for this economy and we’ve bought into this idea that somehow that’s going to trickle down to us despite the fact that we’ve been buying into that since like the 1980s and income inequality’s arguably much worse than it was back then and, again, we’re all kind of stagnated about it, and I know 2004 was like the Iraq war and that was indeed Some Bullshit but I think it kind of fits back here in 2018 as well, and the drums on There There come in like “boom boom boom” and that’s killer and I saw it live it was the last song they played in their third encore and oh god that song is so good but the drums, the drums are what make that song but the pennys fudge all that up with their jingling and jangling and all that and I’m like no pennys I want to hear the greenwood boys hit the big drumns and no pennys I want to hear Thom go like Just Cause You Feel It Doesn’t Mean It’s There and I know how that goes, from time to time I’ve felt stuff with people or ideas or movements and then I learned it wasn’t there and god, that hurts too badly because like sometimes you want it and you don’t get it and I’m trying to focus on that but then my concentration’s broken because the damn pennys are rattling and some guy cuts me off on the highway and shit and now I’m not thinking about There There and we’re on to I Will, which is alright, but There THere’s placement at the middle of the album sets it as sort of a crescendo, like the peak, like you reach the top of the matterhorn with There There and then you descend into like Punchup at a Wedding and Myxomatosis on the way down and by the end you’re crying and vomiting, I actually wish they’d had like a Motion Picture Soundtrack or Like Spinning Plates sort of song at the end of this one, but I think the anger of Thief could maybe be broken if that wasnt done right, like I prefer the ending of Amnesiac and Kid A to the ending of Thief but I realize it probably wouldn’t have worked there, I don’t know, sometimes a great ending can take away from the rest of an album, like I’m still frustrated with how Bjork put Triumph of a Heart at the end of Medulla, like that’s the best song on the album and it’s completely incongruous with the rest of it. Like Anchor Song is so good to end Debut but it works so well because you’ve gone through this whole hopeful, self-introspective album and Anchor Song’s all about acceptance and while it’s so simple it’s good sometimes to just accept that somewhere’s home, and after all that production and the techno influences and the electronic and jazz bits that make up Debut, it’s the simplicity, like the three saxes and Bjork’s visceral, incredible voice that make up the Anchor Song are like the one thing we know for sure at the end of debut, the rest is all based in hope and anticipation, the parts I love of One Day and the Like Someone in Love are based in that, but the Anchor Song is a reconsideration, an acceptance of that which came before and a love for that which comes forward, just an incredible way to end an album, the last song on Post is like that too, Headphones, like… ohmygod Headphones, hell yeah, that’s incredible, the way that whole album is so varied in style and at the end you get the sense that Bjork had done that on purpose to end it like this, to reflect how variety and uncertainty in music gets reflected in life and that phrasing, so simple “my headphones, they saved my life” is multifaceted, partially in showing that there are others who feel the same and create art to reflect that, and also in being just a comfort, helping in growth and uncertainty by showing solidarity, and that’s after an album with I Miss You and Army of Me and Like Someone in Love, which are so densely packed in production, then stripping almost all of that down for Headphones is beautiful, like there was potentially some posturing and wanting for everything before it, but Headphones is stripped, vulnerable, real, and the instrumentation just being that bass is like borderline haunting, like you get a real sense of who she is through Headphones’ production, which is unfortunate because the pennys get all goddamn shaky and ruin the mood when I listen to post in the Elantra and ughhh how can they do this, how can currency do this to me, how can little copper coins ruin me like this? At least it’s mostly like Bjork and not like a pounding-bass heavy artist, like I couldn’t imagine the jangly hell that would be playing Hood Go Crazy by Tech N9ne in the car, a song that I’ve heard performed live actually – Well, actually it was kind of cool because I unintentionally saw Tech N9ne twice within a year, once at a Sporting game and once at KU’s Late Night in the Phog event in fall 2016, which I enjoyed but they cut the montage video they used to do for time because of his performance, which was always one of the reasons I enjoyed Late Night, like we’d get to see the history that would bring people out to that event in such large droves and, I dunno, I get sentimental about that stuff, like I know I’m a little more of a football guy than a basketball guy, but with basketball there’s so much to draw from, like Langford’s shot at the end of the Georgia Tech game in 2005, or that Jacque Vaughn shot to beat Indiana in 1993, or any number of other great highlights, I love that, I love how Sports can do that, present us with moments to live in memory and on film forever, the only thing connecting them being the building, the uniforms, and the memories, but still just as meaningful, and I don’t know, I guess I wish football could do that, like there are maybe five good football memories on film anywhere, the interception against Nebraska in 2005, the go-ahead touchdown or the pick six in the 2008 Orange Bowl, the Meier touchdown in 2008, the Field Goal against Texas in 2016, maybe the game sealing interception in the ’92 Aloha Bowl or the Isaac Byrd touchdown against Colorado in 1995? I don’t know but even some of those are dubious, and part of that’s just like, I wish I had better football to watch and I didn’t have to grasp at straws because football’s a cool sport and I grew up with it, but oh well, you know, I still probably wouldn’t change that regardless, and shit even the bad memories were good, like blasting Kanye’s “The Good Life” in 2015 after a ten point loss because it showed progress, that was back in the old Buick before it died around October last year, and then we got the Elantra, I drove a van for a while around then too, I don’t remember what I did with my change in the Buick, maybe I just put that in a wallet or something, it didn’t have as convenient of an ashtray, or, wait, no, it had one of them coin holder things, like the waitresses at Sonic wear on their waists, and that’s where I put all my change. I miss that old thing, like it had one of those cigarette lighter things that actually lit the cigarette, like you’d push it into the lighter thing and it’d get hot and you’d be able to light a cigarette off of it, even though I didn’t because I don’t smoke and maybe the pennys are partially keeping me from doing it, like a lot of those pennys are already gross enough and getting soot or whatever all over the pennys would make it even worse, only thing worse than pennys and only pennys is pennys and soot I guess, and anyway there’s the eyedrops and nasal spray I keep there too, but I took those out for that picture up there because I didn’t want to conflate the issue, the eyedrops and nasal spray are fine, the tube of rolaids I used to keep in there before I ate all of them – and is ate even the right word? i guess I could say I chewed em, but that indicates that I didn’t swallow them, which is wrong, but eat would indicate that I ate them for pleasure, and I very much did not do that, I guess consume, or the very versatile “take” them would get the job done just as well, but I don’t know, all I know is they’re gone and I ate them up – took them, whatever, it’s just the pennys, the sprays, and like three times, all of which are a rattlin all the dang time and it’s just frustrating, you know? Like it doesn’t need to be frustrating but it totally is and I disdain that, maybe it’ll get better, maybe I’ll find a bottle or something to put them in, like I used to have a Snapple bottle I’d use, but now they’ve gone from glass to plastic, and, ughhhh, why would you do that, Snapple? Your glass bottles were iconic and reusable, they were perfect! Then you had to go and mess us up with these plastic bottles, they’re just as recyclable I guess but they’re also the exact same as every other bottle on the market so you’ve already lost popularity on a brand that’s not exactly the healthiest thing ever to begin with, so what do you have here? Tea? Well that’s a shame, you missed the tea boom by a few years and now Pure Leaf’s eating what should have been your lunch! It’s not your fault I guess that your faux-health consciousness lost its illusion once companies had to start putting calorie counts on their packaging and people realized that a strawberry kiwi juice was like 230 empty calories or something ridiculous like that, and to be fair most of that is just sugar, and the snapple lady was lying in all those commercials I’m sure, and you pegged Amar’e Fucking Stoudamire of all people to be your spokesperson during the twilight of his career – you remember that? he had a whole year with the Dallas Mavericks. Started at center, if I’m not mistaken. He went from high school, to a great career with the Suns, then a decent career with the Knicks, and as soon as he got to the Mavs he’d already lost it all. Ain’t that just the way it goes, though? You live and win titles by getting the most out of your vets, the Jason Kidds, the Jason Terrys, the Shawn Marions, and you lose fifty to sixty games in a season by getting the wrong vets, the Stoudamires, the Rajon Rondos, the, uh, like, Raef LaFrentzes? Shawn Bradleys maybe? I dunno. Raef was a killer in NBA Live 2003, though, like him, Dirk, and Steve Nash all had great outside shots so you could totally spread the floor with that offense, way before any game was programming defenses to guard them. They nerfed the hell out of Michael Finley, though. I think Zhizhi Wang and Juwan Howard were on that team too? I don’t remember for certain. That team was so strange, they just figured out futuristic offensive basketball after and better than the teams of the late nineties, but then the Suns came in a few years later and totally overrode all that they did, even though they upset Sacramento that one year then lost to San Antonio in the WCF. I miss those exciting Mavs teams, even though I love Rick Carlisle, it was cool as a child to be a fan of the team that was on the rise, now they’re hopefully restructuring and getting a good piece like Luka Doncic or one of those other good guys, the kid from Arizona maybe, to put around Dennis Smith and some pretty promising young pieces. I think I’d be a Kings fan if I lived in that area of California but it’s partially just cause I like purple and it’s cool that they’re the only major team in that market. The Hornets have my favorite color scheme of the NBA but they’re in North Carolina and I don’t think I’d live there unless I went to school there, no offense to the good people of North Carolina but their culture doesn’t align quite with mine and I don’t think they’d want me there anyway. You know the Hurricanes play in Raleigh? I thought they all played in Charlotte, like the Panthers and Hornets and them, but I was wrong, I guess Raleigh has the hockey team. Kind of like how Memphis got the NBA team that played in that big pyramid for a while – I’ve driven by that pyramid and even though it’s a huge bass pro shops now it’s still surreal, like the people of Memphis were just like, how about a huge pyramid and they were like sure, and then the Bass Pro Shops people were like “wait what if we put our store here”? Never got to go inside though, which is fine because Bass Pro Shops is up there with like Lowe’s and like uhhh Golf Galaxy and like Babies R Us because I’ll never ever ever be like excited to go in there, it’s always for a specific thing I’m looking for and have to buy, it’s not like a fun time like Holy Shit We’re Going to IKEA Day or something cool like that, no, it’s like, go to Bass Pro, maybe purchase a fishing pole or something, then leave. Get out as quick as you can. At least Cabela’s has fudge and it’s next to a fun shopping mall and a cool soccer stadium, and I’m not into fishing or killing so most of that stuff just isn’t for me really, maybe if they had a cool climbing wall like Galyan’s used to have it’d be alright, but they shut that down years ago. My uncle worked that climbing wall, I think I went in there one time before it got shut down and turned into a Dick’s Sporting Goods, and boy howdy is that a store I don’t care to go to either, partially because it reminds me of all the time I spent playing sports as a child only to end up a writing guy in the early adulthood stage, so like going and looking at baseball bats can only remind me of the fact that I played baseball for one year as a kid, mostly stood out in the outfield (it hit me that I played right field because our coach recognized that I was a bad player and understood that, generally, no kid would be able to hit it that far), which was probably the least damage I could do, basically stand in the outfield and wait for a ball to come and then throw it towards the infield if I got it, I don’t know, I was bad at baseball to begin with, cowardly, and never wanted to face up to the ball that was coming hurdling towards me, plus there’s all that pressure – you get like three shots in a game to make an offensive impact? What the hell is that about? Like that’s so tough, and I already shied away from the pressure for the most part, like even in basketball I tried to sell myself as a defensive workhorse because I’d always pass the ball away from me on offense, and don’t even get me started on soccer, because I was four years old and I don’t remember any of it, I think me and my friend Mark would just run around in the defensive backfield and pretend to be airplanes. Ah, shit, fuck, shit, fuck, mentioning my early soccer experience just made me remember my late soccer experience in fifth grade, where my team won exactly one game in two seasons, I played defender which meant that I’d be responsible for letting most of the goals go through, that was cool though because we weren’t good. There is little footage of me playing, which is good. That would be an embarrassing thing to dig up. I know there’s a bunch of embarrassing shit lurking on my old Sony MiniDV tapes from that era though, like fifth to seventh grade, me lip-syncing or pretending to do stand up comedy or like a solid forty minutes of me doing dunks on a Nerf Basketball hoop, which felt cool at the time but quickly probably gets old, like none of those dunks are impressive, I was an overweight ten year old, all I’d do was the standard like Tracy McGrady toss off of the backboard and dunk, maybe I’d do a backwards slam but even that was unlikely. I consider buying a nerf hoop and putting it up in this bedroom but I don’t think that’d be good, I got too much stuff hanging on the wall and if I threw stuff at that hoop, it’d probably knock all that stuff down and it’d be my fault and I couldn’t live with that, I don’t know, I keep putting LPs up on the wall because I think they look cool, and I bought a 7″ record about a month ago without having an ability to play it because I knew I’d just put it on the wall, that’s fine, it’s serving its purpose, I guess, but I kinda wish I was one of those vinyl dudes, I’m okay with my CDs and cassette tapes though, and my soundcloud rappers and what not – I once heard a soundcloud rapper who used “run shit like I’m Jeff Gordon” as his hook and I feel like that’s the best it could be, honestly, I had the idea like “Splash Hit like I’m Greg Norman” a while ago, but that’s mean-spirited and I think Greg Norman’s dead anyway so it wouldn’t be too good, plus I gotta work on my flow, and my production, and really everything, I’d have to get a soundcloud account too, like it’s all tough and, much like the nerf hoop dunking, and the getting the pennys out of my car, it’s too much effort for a mild want anyway honestly, like I’m not going to get it done, and I know that, so I’m not going to worry about it, I’ll get like a can someday and put all the pennys in there and take ’em out and put them in a bigger holder, like the star-shaped bowl my friend Manish gave me for my fifteenth birthday because I asked for a bowl full of Reese’s Pieces for my birthday and he was the Only Friend who Obliged thank you so much Manish, and that bowl has been in my room since like 2011 collecting penny after penny after penny, maybe one day we’ll abolish the penny like Canada does and there will be like a penny buyback program but that’s a ridiculous though, the United States will never do anything smart like that we’ll just shoot dudes in their backyards and shoot kids at school and shit because we’re awful and we don’t have the time to focus on other smaller shit like getting the pennys out of the currency and thus getting the pennys out of my car like the Canadians do – and that’s not to pretend like the Canadians don’t have problems either – but I’m like a huge dumb idiot anyway with all these pennys in my car what do I know about anything, really not all that much except for how to get pennys into my car apparently and that’s how it’s going to be, with no cessation, forever and ever, amen.

Oh and it hits me that I have a Burrito King punch card in the ashtray as well but, again, I know what to do with that.