But you know, it's my job.

The requests for holiday graphics are coming in and it's damn hard to get into the happy, cheerful, sweet, cuddly, warm and fuzzy Christmas mood while you're manipulating dripping blood on some hideous face for a Halloween costume party poster. Somewhere in between lies some bad luck Tom Turkey stuffed with colorful bows and ribbons and dripping blood from a fresh gash across it's scrawny neck. Ok, so it's actually fully feathered and holding a frothy beer and beckoning you to show up on Thursday for a wet t-shirt contest or some other testosterone driven, woman degrading event.

I used to go to a bar called "The Stadium Lounge" when I was in my early 20's. I liked to dance and drinking was limited to pop or the occasional Fuzzy Navel. That's what you did, danced, drank and if you were lucky, were able to ditch the leech with the glazed eyes and foul breath that hit you with some barely coherent pick-up line while you were on the way to the ladies room. At the time I was driving a turd brown Renault Le Car whose stick shift was held in place with rubber bands and had tin foil for fuses. That's off topic, but memories kinda slap you in the face some times. I loved that stupid car. In Pennsylvania, where I'm from, there is a little Pub on almost every corner. "Irish Cousins", "Ma's Place" and "Polish Sharpshooters" (that's an oxymoron) come to mind. But there weren't any wet t-shirt, wet thong, pole dancing, naughty schoolgirl, and bikini contests - ever. Just quiet, shoot some pool, hang with your buddies bars. Nightclubs were scarce. Now it's all changed, it's all for the men and it pretty much disgusts me. When you see photos taken of these raunchy contests, don't look at the scantily clad female (although I'm sure that's difficult for men to do) but look beyond at the vacant, slack jawed, men with primal lust oozing from their sweaty skin.
It's just plain creepy.

But you know, it's my job.