Stop It

The last few days have been dark.

But, it’s time to regroup. So, things are not working out spectacularly for me in the work, spinal health, automotive, and other areas of my life. I cannot wallow. I definitely have been wallowing, but it’s difficult not to when you’re trapped alone on the floor of your living room with nothing but a Lucky magazine and a television for company and a spine that is so inexplicably angry with you that it has decided you cannot go for more than two steps without yelping in pain and hunching over like that woman who poisoned Snow White, you know? Besides, today the back feels better, so me? I’m going to Stop It. I’m going to Stop It with the sad and the complaining and the general misery that is doing me no good at all. As I was lying on the floor, making my Stop It decision, I began to think of all the other things and people in the world that need to Stop It and I made a list (I should really say “another list,” I think about my Stop It list a lot, it is unlikely this is the only one you’ll see). These are things that just need to Stop It for the general betterment of society, I think. Here is the list (which was heavily influenced by the ridiculous amount of tv I watched while lying on my living room floor with Weezer's "The Sweater Song" in my head since Thursday afternoon) in no particular order:

*George W. Bush
*Usher (except for that song with Alicia Keyes, that can stay)
*Jay Leno
*Anyone and everyone currently working at VH1 (except for the guy who does Bands Reunited because that show? Good stuff and I love him)
*Caroline Rhea
*The commercial for the toothbrush strip thing you stick on your finger
*The horrendous commercial that starts with “Isn’t it weird that I’m like coming up to you in this maxi pad aisle?” Yes, it is. Stop It.
*Anyone and everyone who has been on The Real World since the London season
*Pat O’Brie/an (The guy on The Insider. That show is disgusting and what the fuck is he talking about during the closing credits? It didn’t make sense on Access Hollywood, it doesn’t make sense now either)
*Parents who let their children become bodybuilders before puberty (see above jackass for more info there)
*A certain friend of mine
*Every kid who appeared on that horrendous MTV sweet sixteen nonsense show, particularly the guy with the collar (except for the girl whose mom got wasted…I like her)
*Guys who wear their collars like that kid
*Paul Schaeffer (I can’t help it. He makes me insane and he’s not funny and just oh my God he needs to Stop It!)
*Weathermen…and women (You don’t know, just fucking say it)
*The Goo Goo Dolls
*Any and all Capital One commercials
*The guy who wrote If Only It Were True
*Donny Deutsch
*Geraldo Rivera
*Wolf Blitzer
*Basically, anyone on cable news who isn’t on Headline News or isn’t Anderson Cooper
*Every student loan consolidation company that is not the one I already picked
*Guys who idolize Jack Kerouac, yes he was cool but odds are he wouldn’t like you
*Jon Favreau (this breaks my heart. I used to love him but his ego is out of control on that dinner show he has and Jon? I saw Made. It was bad)
*Dr. Greg and his Corti-Slim lifestyle
*Not Oprah, but most of the people in her audience definitely, although she is getting close
*Channel 9 and those awful commercials you put on during 10 o’clock shows. That anchor is not appealing and he’s trying too hard and I think his forehead may be collapsing. “We’re in an Amazing Race to get the news together for you tonight” Are you kidding me?
*Peter Jennings. I don’t know what’s up with you lately but enough already with the touchy feely, ok?
*People who use “party” as a verb
*Beatles fans


A special Stop It note to Andrew McCarthy. A few hours ago I caught the last five minutes of a Hallmark movie you did with Teri Polo. And in that movie you were a cowboy. Now, Andrew McCarthy, I’m not a particular fan of yours. I thought Pretty in Pink was atrocious apart from Annie Potts and the scene where Molly Ringwald makes her own dress, and that eye widening pursed mouth face you make all the time is creepy and vaguely alien-like. Plus, you were really annoying in St. Elmo’s Fire. Putting that all aside though, I don’t wish you ill will, Andrew McCarthy, so please listen to me when I say that when someone offers to put you in a movie where you play a cowboy and you start to think that that is a good idea and something you can remotely pull off? Stop It. It’s not. Especially if that movie ends with you walking a horse into an art gallery.

And another Stop It note to myself: Stop It with the Hallmark Channel immediately if not sooner. Thanks.