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Music

Regular Human Beings

We just buy CDs at Target and play them in the car.

Hi there. We’re regular human beings. We’re everywhere. Sometimes you “creative types” get mad at us, just for being ourselves. That’s kind of unfair, but hey, we forgive you. You’re probably just having a bad day. That happens to us too sometimes, believe it or not. In our defense, we can’t help it if we’re taking up more space than necessary on the subway. Nobody explained to us what you’re supposed to do on one of those things. This whole “subway” thing is still kind of a novelty to us. They don’t have subways where we come from, unless you’re talking about Subways like Jared from Subway (that was a joke we would make). ((We love Jared from Subway)).

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Hey, that reminds us. You barely know anything about us. It’s our fault. We usually just keep pretty quiet around you guys anyway, since we’re just not as… expressive as you are!  So, in the interest of full disclosure, here’s a guide to what we’re like so you won’t find yourself so upset at us all the time:

Music:

A little known fact about us regular human beings is we like music just as much as you do! I know that might be hard to believe, since you spend so much time talking about and debating it, not to mention spending such a huge portion of your income on records (wow!  they still have those?!) and concert (we like to call it a “concert”) tickets. But it’s true! We like music! Just as much as you do!

When we hear a song we like, we like that song in the same exact way as you like a song whenever you like a song that you like! It’s music! Music that we like! It’s just that we aren’t preoccupied with whether it’s good or not. We either like hearing something or we don’t. What sort of music do we like? All sorts of music! You know, everything. Everything but country. And also: a lot of us love country music. We don’t know.

Why do you ask? It’s music. Music is great. We love music. We’re sorry if that’s not enough for you. Sometimes we think about whether or not we should be “better” at liking music, but then it just seems kind of silly. If something is good, we’ll probably eventually hear it. And if we like it, great! We love liking things.

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Oh cool, a record store! They still have these? We did not know that. We like the idea of a record store because we’re not great at computers so it’s good to see when something is still a thing instead of a website you have to go to on the internet. But we don’t have a turntable anymore, most of us never did. We wouldn’t even know where to start with the whole “I listen to records” thing. We don’t even really know how one works except from what we see on TV about rap DJs. We know about scratching. Scritch-scratch, that’s how you play records. Anyway, we have CDs and iPods now. We don’t need records.

We just buy CDs at Target and play them in the car. And then at home we put on one of the music stations we get from DirecTV. We like “Smooth Hits,” but sometimes “Hot Jams” is good too. A lot of the time our favorite music to hear is “Peace and Quiet” LOL! We have an iPod. We use it to work out. One time we were listening to LMFAO “Sexy and I Know It” on our iPod while we were working out and it came on the gym’s loudspeaker at the same time! Talk about LMFAO!

Art:

If you ask us if we like art, we will tell you of course we like art. Art is important because without it you would have less things to look at. We like to go to art museums when we visit our friends and family. Our favorite? Ummm who’s the guy with the tiny little dots? We just saw that one when our cousin was in town. You know, that one painting from Ferris Bueller. It’s so crazy to think about all those tiny little dots. A lot of art is kind of just boring, but that tiny little dots thing is really something else.

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We don’t mean “boring,” it’s just, you know, we don’t know anything about art. We don’t know what a chiaroscuro or a Titian or any of those things are. You know, we just like to look at the paintings and have it be nice and quiet and check out all the thousands of tiny dots and then go home and take a nap. We don’t know what you’re supposed to get out of it. Sometimes we hear one of those tour group leaders talking about perspective and things like that, and it just sounds like some kind of a foreign language. We just look at the art and if we like it we like it. That’s enough for us.

Oh, you mean like “modern” art? Yeah some of it’s good, we guess, we just don’t really understand it a lot of the time. I mean, just some squares? We could paint that. It’s still nice, it’s just most of the time it’s like you’re supposed to look at these squares and see, like, the atomic bomb or something, and to us it’s just squares the whole time. Like “looking at a square, looking at a brown square.” We read the description that says it’s really about AIDS, and then we go back and stare at it, really try to see all that extra stuff, but we’re probably just not that smart. It’s just squares to us. It’s frustrating.

One time we asked a 12-year-old nephew what he thought of some modern art and he called it “bull (you know what).” We couldn’t help but laugh because it was so funny even though we didn’t approve of the language. From the mouths of babes, right? We would never go so far as to use the “S” word on something that somebody probably really cares about a lot, but sometimes it does seem like those squares are just squares. Maybe that’s the point, we don’t know. One thing we DO know: it seems a little crazy to spend a whole bunch of time and effort trying to figure out whether or not you like squares. That’s why we usually just stick to the paintings of things.

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Fitness:

We don’t always feel like working out, but we feel so much better when we do, it’s just worth it. After a while it’s like if we don’t get a chance to exercise, we get all cranky and mean. So it just makes sense. Plus: hot people are at the gym. We’re not super hot. We’re regular human beings. But hey, we like to look at hot people.

Nutrition:

Dieting is hard! It’s so unfair that everything that’s bad for you tastes so good! We love bacon. Our neighbor Tim has a bacon t-shirt. Not a t-shirt made of bacon, but a t-shirt with just a picture of bacon on it.

Anyhow, yeah, dieting is hard, but you have to do it. We know so many people that have had heart problems.

Alcohol:

Confession time. We measure the seasons by what Sam Adams we can get at our local grocery store! We remember back when us males were in college, we used to think nothing of drinking down an entire case of Miller Lite with our buddies over the course of a day, but now we’re really into enjoying the good stuff. We are married. Our wives drink wine. We don’t know what kind. Neither do they. In college they used to drink vodka and cocktails and things, but I think they got a little too crazy once too often and just decided “enough,” you know? We don’t let those crazy times bother us too much. The past is the past.

We like to be careful, because alcohol can be a real problem when you drink too much. That’s another reason why we like to exercise. It just kind of makes us happy and healthy, which helps us want to take care of our bodies and our minds. But, you know: everything in moderation (INCLUDING MODERATION!)

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Drugs:

We had a roommate in college who was a TOTAL pot head, but we haven’t smoked pot in years. We had a bad experience once.

Religion:

This is such a tricky subject because people get REALLY emotional when you talk about religion, but we believe everything happens for a reason, and if you can’t tell what that reason is you’re probably just not looking hard enough. Sometimes when we say “everything happens for a reason” people look at us like we just said something stupid, but it’s just better for us to think that way. The alternative is that nothing happens for a reason and we’re all going to die alone, our brief lives completely devoid of purpose or meaning. We have enough trouble getting through our days without thinking thoughts like THAT!

As for God, of course we believe in God. He’s God. Sometimes when we tell people we believe in God they start talking about the holocaust and how could God allow that to happen, and start telling us all kinds of stuff from the bible about how we shouldn’t have credit cards if we believe in the bible. When that happens it’s kind of just like “sheesh,” you know? Like if you started reading a bedtime story to your son and he started yelling about how that’s not real, it’s just a story. First of all, hey relax because it’s time for bed, and second, is it a good story? Answer: yes it is. It’s the greatest story ever told.

People Starving To Death In China:

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Isn’t it just awful?

Work:

Sure we don’t really love to work, but that’s why they call it “work.” We work in an office. It’s okay. The people are nice and the money’s pretty good. Sometimes something funny even happens. A lot of the people we work with are total characters. Like Eric from the mailroom is really into Kiss. And Gina is so afraid of spiders one time she almost couldn’t breathe. Sometimes we watch that show The Office and we feel like we’re watching our life! We love that show.

Family:

Family is the most important thing. Period. End of sentence. You work hard, you have a family, and you keep that family safe and happy, and that’s just what you do. End of story.

Theater:

We’re not really into theater.

Money:

We try to be smart with money because we have in the past overindulged in credit cards and we were like “never again.” Now we try to hunt for bargains wherever we can, and limit ourselves to “special occasions” with our spending. Costco helps a lot. Also: have you heard of this website Groupon?

Fashion:

Don’t get us wrong, we like to look good, but after a while you just throw up your hands and say “forget it!” They have cute stuff at Target for WAY cheaper than anything you can get at the Gap. Our husbands hate shopping. They would just wear pillowcases if it weren’t for our wives.  Our wives love shopping. But who’s got the time? And more importantly WHO’S GOT THE MONEY?

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The Children:

Children are our future and we try to always think about the children. We have children. We love children. They are the most important thing in this world. They are the gifts that the angels give us. Sometimes they can be brats, but it’s worth it. We have children. We love our children. We want children. We want to show you pictures of our children. That is what we’re up to these days: children.

Television:

We love television. Let us tell you about this one show, Modern Family, have you heard of it? It’s great. It’s like a crazy big family and everybody’s divorced and there’s one couple that’s gay, which is pretty crazy. It’s kind of edgy. DEFINITELY not for everyone. But it is SO FUNNY. We’ve got the whole thing on our TiVos. You have GOT to see it. It is SO good. We like it when things are good. We like to tell other people about it when we think things are good. And then when those other people also like the thing we like and think it’s good, we feel vindicated by that. We like to feel like we’re right about good things. We like it when other people agree with us. We are doing a good job at living. We like Modern Family. We think Modern Family is good.

Movies:

We are film buffs. We love movies. We used to go to the movies all the time, but not as much now. We saw the Avengers. That was great. That time Incredible Hulk punched Thor was great. We liked it. It was, you know, it was a good movie. Good popcorn movie.

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Computers:

We would love to just wake up in a world with no computers in it, but of course THAT’S not going to happen. We know “hate” is a strong word, and we “hate” to use it, but we HATE computers! We would much rather talk to a REAL HUMAN BEING and do things that way. That reminds us: we hate when they put you on hold and you can’t talk to anybody, and then when you finally do, they’re from India! It’s the WORST. But yeah, computers. They just never do what you want them to do. We can’t get this thing to print.

The Internet:

We’re not really huge fans of the internet, but sometimes it’s alright. (For porn, LOL). OMG did you see the YouTube of otters holding hands? It’s the best. Hold on let me see if I can get it.  Where do I type it? No, it’s on YouTube. Let me see. How do I get on YouTube from this? We need to do a Google search for YouTube. Where’s Google? Do you have Google on this? What’s BING? God, we HATE these things. Do “otters holding hands.” I think that’s it. No wait, that’s a remix. Where’s the original? Go back.

Marriage:

We are married. Two words you always have to remember: “Yes Dear.” We have a rule around here: she is always right, ESPECIALLY when she’s wrong. Ahhh ha ha. We like to joke around, but of course we love each other very much.

Sports:

We love sports. We’re sports junkies. Our wives don’t love sports as much, but they like to be together as a family, and we love sports so much it’s kind of hard not to also watch sports because that’s what we’re doing this weekend. We’re cleaning out the garage and then, by God, we’re watching sports. Uncle Mike might even come over. Oh come on, you love Uncle Mike.

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Sex:

Yes please! Ha ha we love that joke. Seriously, though, that’s private.

Education:

We went to college. You gotta go to college. Gotta go to college.

Urban Living:

We used to love living in the city, but you just worry with the crime and everything. Plus parking is a nightmare!

Creativity:

We are not creative people. We will tell you that, point blank. The term “creative people” is something we came up with to describe you guys. We do not understand creativity. When we like something it’s because we can understand it. We don’t like it when things are too creative where we have to imagine some kind of series of artistic conditions and context that take us halfway to the thing just to be able to like it. That seems like work, and work is not fun to us. We like it when things are only as creative as we are because that makes us feel like we’re creative even though we know we’re not. We don’t like this about ourselves, but we accept it. We have no choice.

We feel a sense of pride when we understand things. It doesn’t happen often. You might have noticed that we often parrot viewpoints and analysis we heard somewhere else, and we pass those things off as our own opinions or thoughts. That’s because we like to feel like others think of us as people who understand things. It’s actually kind of a sore subject with us, if you want to know the truth. Maybe that’s something we have in common with you guys. You seem to be pretty excited when you understand things, too.

We enjoy pretending to be creative. We like to do crafts sometimes. Crafts we saw on TV. We like to cook barbecue. We like to understand everything. We don’t like doubt. Doubt hurts us. Doubt makes us weak. We do not understand that this is why we’re not creative. We don’t want to understand. This might be frustrating to you, but you don’t seem to be too concerned about how frustrating you can be to us, so we’re not losing any sleep over it.

Happiness:

Yes, we are actually happy. It’s not just an act. We are happy because we’re not worried about any of the things you’re worried about. We don’t grapple with larger questions if we can help it. We like it that way. You know why? Because we’re happy. We are. We are happy. We’re happy. That’s exactly what we are. Happy. Nothing wrong here. Nothing strange going on. Just regular happiness. We’re regular human beings. Happy ones.

Our Worst Secret:

We are you.

So there you go, guys! As you can see, we’re okay! We’re not doing anything WRONG! Please don’t get mad at us, okay? Or: get mad at us if you have to! We’re happy people, so if you get mad at us, our response will be, “Sheesh, what’s wrong with THIS guy?” As a matter of fact, we find that to be an appropriate response to your whole life. It’s not that we’re judging you, you just seem so UNHAPPY. We’re not unhappy. Repeat: we are NOT UNHAPPY.

Previously: Co-MVPs of Wasting Time 

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