As a reconfirmed bachelor, I did the worst thing possible tonight: I watched the season premiere of "The Bachelor." A too-handsome man gets his pick of 25 hot babes who are all slobbering over his crotch.

What made the whole parade of wholesomeness so unwholesome was that so many of those hot babes were so family oriented. One chick wanted two kids by the time she was 30. How fucking gross. I am reminded of the old joke: she oughtta have a badge because she's been on more man hunts than the FBI.

I sat through the sequence of all 25 women getting out of their limo and strutting their family-oriented all American desperation in front of the renaissance man (seeing this show made me never want to be called a renaissance man, where's his soul? Buried under layers of masks and antsy behaviour, as opposed to mine, huddled in a bar, watching late night movies on TNT wearing a beer-stained shirt, maybe with a trashy, toothless bimbo sleeping in my bed.)

We choose our own paths in life for better or worse and hope that things we do don't actually kill us. Just mudle through with recognition and maybe not have to look over our shoulders for a bitter ex-girlfriend (i.e. Missy) or a deranged fan with a Kafkagun. The human vultures and the leeches are everywhere, and I wonder sometimes if I shouldn't stop being their victim and become their leader.

I'M THE THINKING MAN'S CAMUS