Two pieces of white bread and a big stack of beef
a SUIT column by Chris Jungle

Nothing to say, except that I've gone astray, but that's okay, because in a way, it's all just one big day for which we try to play all our cares away.

Just in case you desire more out of my column this week, I'll tell you what's on my mind. I'm writing on a foreign computer, using a foreign program, in a foreign place, feeling kind of foreign. I still have the same thoughts I've always had, but I'm surrounded by different stimuli. I throw my beliefs off the wall. They bounce back differently here, and I don't catch them. Instead they fall onto the floor and roll out the room. I don't know where they are going and they don't wait around to tell me. But enough of this 'I' stuff, and let me get to some off the cuff advice wrapped up in brief paragraphs.

Never hang out in the area between Amarillo (Texas) and Oklahoma City (Oklahoma). It is a dreary, sweltering, wind-whipping section of the plains with no redeeming value whatsoever. The Indians were shipped off to this section of the United States long ago, and none of them stayed. It's the kind of place where lottery tickets provide the most enjoyment. If you must go to this part of the country, get through it with swiftness and hollow eyes.

There is merit in two pieces of white bread and a big stack of beef. Eating vegetables and fruits most of the time is noble and wise, but eating the flesh of an animal can be very fulfilling if prepared correctly. That's why we raise so many cows, and pigs, and turkeys, and chickens, and ducks, and fish. Wait until we find out how tasty humans can be. My man Swift may have said he was joking about eating the babies, but good satire always starts with the truth.

Everyone has an addiction. Some are legal and harmless, and others are destructive and retched. We all do something to an obsessive degree (if not three or four things). It may be playing a sport, sniffing cocaine, researching the JFK assassination, reading Kurt Vonnegut novels, watching Bugs Bunny reruns, playing the stock market, shooting heroin, shooting guns, shooting your mouth off, or shooting the moon. Remember two old sayings: one man's addiction is another man's bliss, and judge not lest ye be judged by a special prosecutor.

Keep your soap operas to a minimum. I'm not talking about the ones on television (see previous paragraph), but the ones we create for ourselves. How big our problems are has to do with how much we decide to blow them out of proportion. Everyone has problems. The rich, the poor, the healthy, the weak, the blind, the freaks, the gangsters, the trendy, the normal, everyone. If you want a problem to ruin your day, month, or year, it can. No matter how trivial or serious, a problem is as big as you let it become. And depression is a bitch and should be avoided by anyone who is not properly trained.

Do what other people suggest occasionally. Sometimes you'll hate it and subconsciously kick your brain with a barrage of 'I told you so's,' but there are times when others know what they're talking about. Give them chance every now and then. You are not as hip and swanky, or as boring and lame as you think. Everybody has chunks of gold resting silently among the filth and muck. Be polite. Not ass kissing polite, but just respectful. And don't be selective with it. Give it to everyone. The meanest, ugliest, brashest beasts in the world will leave you alone if you just resist the temptation to announce how revolting you think they are and talk to them in a decent way. You don't have to sing songs or buy them drinks. Just don't scowl or be pissy. Once again, you're not that cool, and they're not that bad.

Have your own mind. Don't be a Democrat, or a Republican, or a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or a prep, or a blood, or a loco, or a rude boy, or a swinger, or a punk, or a junkie or anything that forces you to believe a certain way that you do not want be. The only person who will listen to everything you have to say is yourself. No matter what clothes, hairstyle, car, accessories, rhetoric, aspirations, or money you have. Well, people will listen to you if you have the money, but they will expect to be paid for it.

This is what I'm thinking about, but if you look really closely, it was all summed up in the first line.

Chris Jungle is on vacation and has no idea what is really going on in the world right now.

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