So for starters, I have this to confess to all you, 3 of the last 4 nights I have eaten chicken wings and half a dozen beers for dinner. 

I bet that's pretty different than what you had for dinner.  So anyway, just like all things, I'm getting older and I'm changing.  Sometimes I have a question I ask.  Have I become a conformist shithook, or am I still a rebellious leopard of animal sex?  I'd like to think I'm the second one.  But whenever I ask anyone that question using exactly those words, I never get a straight answer for some reason.

I like to ridicule all bandwagons, but mocking bandwagons isn't exactly groundbreaking comedy.  Bandwagons are 100% easy targets.  So you don't get, or deserve, much respect for ridiculing the sadly lame.  Its too easy, like that saying goes, "its easy like choking to death hanging from the ceiling masturbating in a Hotel in Thailand."  Wait, have you not heard that expression?  

Its like making fun of Paris Hilton, or making jokes about Michael Jackson circa 1990-2009.  In those years jokes about him were considered no better than a cheap laugh.  But then Michael J Jackson turned the tables on all of us when he perished so nobly of an old lady drug overdose, making him the pope of pop, or whatever Dukery and regalia he truly deserved, for living as he did in such greatness and non circus-ness.  

But besides bestowing Michael Jackson to the monarchy from beyond the be-cemetery, what else has the bandwagon done for us?  Not much, by my reckoning.  You shouldn't just blindly follow the mainstream.  Don't listen to the media monkeys and the junket junkies who invite you to their plastic pantomime. Throw their invites away!

So what about the opposite of being a brainwashed obedient lemming?  What about gestures of defiance?  I dare say that defiance of oppressive norms in a backwards society is the only path that society truly advances, and in an unjust dictatorship defiance is heroic.  But defiance of social norms to cut in line for a movie, or on a crowded busy sidewalk lined up for a hot dog isn't the same kind of selfless transcendent act.  Some acts of rebellion are cheap, aimless, and unfocused defiance, which is not really the kind of rock and roll I'm into.   

But, I should mention that one time I gave the middle finger to a whole school bus full of kids, no joke.  But they fucking deserved it.  

Is this the kind of rock and roll I am into?

Nope.

I don't know what you'd call these bozos.  Actually ... bozos fits pretty well.  These guys are juggalos, and despite the natural first impression, I don't think they are bad people or anything  They're just overly enthusiastic dummies, and they're shooting at a pretty wide target that they hung up for themselves.

I guess what qualifies as non conformity is pretty simple, but what is defiance?  I don't have an answer, because its a lot harder of a question than I thought it was before I started thinking about it.  But I am noticing that the appeal of being a rebel often makes people take a step down to the lower rungs on the ladder of moronic self absorption.  Sadly that seems to be where we're all fucking headed.  Its an interesting contradiction, everyone loves the bandwagons, but nobody wants to think of themselves as a lemming.

But that is just our own personal pride that we think of ourselves each as people are special and different.  And we are all different, in the same way that worms are all different.  You wouldn't grab one worm, and then grab a second worm, and think they're the same worm now would you?  That's because you know they're different things.

A lot of things of conformity in our society are justifiable because it is a part of our common humanity.  Socially positive things, like being considerate to the elderly, not making poo-poops on the bus, and giving strangers a helping hand when they need it to overturn a cop car during a hockey riot. 

But it's not always positive, because those same instincts to fit in and do what's normal can ironically backfire.  To use a grown up example, in cases such as the recent real estate market debacle that caused the recession.  Everyone got caught up in jumping on the buying a house bandwagon because everyone else was doing it, and then something or other bad happened, and it all went to shit.  Right?

If we can't trust the bandwagons, what is left for us stupid lemmings?  I've given this almost no thought, but I guess one option is just to stab in the dark at non conformity.  Like performing at urban poetry slams, or nude sunbathing, or cannibalism. 

What I'm saying is you can't trust what's considered normal, because its as likely to be stupid as it isn't.  I'm not going to do society's bidding.  My decision to defy your dumb peer pressure could take any form.  You might see me refusing a high five from a bro and leaving him hanging, or talking to a stranger even if they're fat.  Because you can't cage me, I am meant to be free like a bird, a beautiful big drunk bird.

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