Life and Times of Buz's Mind

stuff

2011-05-20T11:59:00.000-04:00

Cause what the hell

2010-08-11T17:52:00.002-04:00

I am writing this pretty much for the people I don't know who would come read this blog. I think Danielle is the only one, in actuality, and maybe that's ok. I don't think I'm coming back here, except maybe to read up on how endearingly silly I've been over the course of my 20s.

Still, that being said I still do stuff. I still write. I still live... foolishly, and maybe being some kind of binary friend via social networking or some kind of penpal may be enjoyable.

As such I'm putting a couple links below so, now that the story of my early 20s has ended, that maybe you can check in on the epilogue now and again.

Literary blog (updated sporadically)
Facebook
Email

It's been (sur)real

Updates and Echoes

2009-09-01T13:15:00.002-04:00

I've been taking time away from this because I don't think it's as cathartic to document my life as it once was. I used to document everything because I'd tend to forget these moments in a growing haze of boozy wonderment that pervaded my evenings and so much seemed poignant about my life and I enjoyed my evolution as a writer and, let's face it, I was in my early 20's and everything seemed so much more important than it was.

Looking back, I see a lot of foolishness that I'm glad I didn't avoid, but hindsight being what it is I have to admit is still foolish. It's a wonder I'm not dead.

After 6 months of unemployment I landed an amazing job.

After a year and change of being hopelessly single I find myself in a terribly complicated but largely satisfying romantic connection, and I'm no longer concerned about old flames, new temptations, and the like.

After 3 years and change of living in the city I'm finding a way to stand on my own, admittedly shaky ground without feeling like I'm never having fun or will never get out of debt.

After a goddamn lifetime I feel like I can talk about the minimal things that bother me as they happen, and I'm no longer that really nice guy who nobody seems to know very well. I feel appreciated for the person that I am, and occupy a pretty necessary space in my friends' lives.

After 5 years I might have outgrown this blog.

This is an indefinite hiatus until I can find something worth writing about for this space. In the meantime keep up with my fiction at buzandbill.blogspot.com, or a new project roommate, R, will be contributing to with me. I'll put up pictures, I suppose, here and there.

Just Another Fucking Wednesday

2009-07-15T14:33:00.002-04:00

I turned 25 last week.

The last couple months have easily been the most fun and the most complicated of my entire life.

Coming off of this, and cutting back on the drinking/going out, I am coming to the realization that while I may be gainfully employed soon, I will not be getting what I want anytime soon or possibly ever. It's cool. I'll be happy. Fuck, I am happier than I've been in a long time.

The concept of deserve is oftentimes ridiculous to me. Life is a goddamn crapshoot and it's seems a little presumptuous to say one deserves anything. That being said, though, I think I deserve better in certain aspects of my life. Every day recently I'm being reminded of how good of a man I've become, even if I don't often believe it. In the most recent conundrum I've come across where I'm getting passed over, I firmly believe that I'm better than all others involved.

Still, my new philosophy on life is that people will do whatever the fuck they want in the end. No amount of advice will really sway them when push comes to shove. The best way to handle life is to let the people do what they want, but always have a exit strategy out of trouble. In short: Let life happen, but cover your own ass.

...Let's face it, while I will adhere to this principle, at any given point I'm covering several other people and that isn't going to stop.

The Week That Killed Me

2009-06-29T09:08:00.002-04:00

Last Sunday was karaoke and it ended late with E at fuck-all o'clock as it usually does when he's involved. It was a good time as it usually is when he's involved. I vaguely imagine that I stayed indoors on Monday, but this might very well be bullshit. I can't fucking remember what I did Monday and that's a first and it's a little scary.

Tuesday. A's, J's show. E brought us to the city. Drunkenness ensued. Went with my bartender, C, to St. Jerome's and there was some kind of ridiculous party, she got drunk, walked her around Stuy-Town until like 5am and it seemed as though she was attracted to me a great deal but fuck it, she was so goddamn drunk. At the bar she'd give me that damn look that means that she wants to be kissed. I love that look. I hate that look. I've always been a pretty awkward guy. That look fucking terrifies me more often than not, even if I know exactly what to do.

The last couple years have seen me kind of break from this hesitant, pussyfooting, knownothing that I've been since, well, always. I've done my best to try and get what I want, to write what I want, to make shit happen, and to be straightforward when I want to tell someone something (usually women). To date, there has only been one person that has broken this streak. I am now able to say things honestly to her, but that is going to get me into trouble. I have said all that needs to be said, and now, honestly, I just need to shut the fuck up.

But I digress. Wednesday was J's dj set and I stayed out too late yet again.

Thursday D came to town with one of his bands to play 2 shows. Went to that, a dj set by J, then back to the city to see E and get shitfaced on the Misery Mile +2.

Friday saw D play his second show, missed Prizzy Prizzy Please, sadly, and headed into the city to see C. Got shitfaced. Danced forever. A couple girls decided that they wanted to make out with me, but both were in complicated situations. I did not, surprisingly, with either of them, which, given the level of drunk and the kind of guy I usually am, is fucking inspiring. Stayed out way too late with E. Noticing a trend here?

Saturday I went to the Magic Tricks show, possibly the last one, as one of them might be jumping coasts. Walked across the river to the city. Drinks with J, E, and C. Later drinks with the younger J. Friends presumably dj'd at Arrow, but I think I got the night mixed up as we walked into the bar after a fight broke out and the cops had just left. Slept fitfully on the roof. Woke up with the sun.

Sunday: Spent awhile in bed just hanging out and realizing that my Saturday night would best have been spent indoors. Went to A's party for awhile and ran into roommate J. Good breakfast with J, A, and C. Took off early to head to the Prizzy show. Good to see those guys, and my friend H who is moving to the hood soon. Had to take C back to the train station and things started to go downhill. Complications, realizations, and something else that fits the rhyme scheme if you can think of anything. Went to karaoke tired and slightly angry, but not sure at who or what. Had a good time trying to cheer up and it was a lot of fun all things considered, but I probably should've gone right back to Brooklyn to see the Prizzy kids. A showed up, downed far too many drinks far too early, and then proceeded to lose it. Her friend, J, appeared to be helping her but apparently ditched. Think that guy's a fucking douche. I was leaving the bar, unaware that J had left, when A needs my help getting home. Fine, free cab ride across the river. Irritating as fuck because I'm goddamn sick of helping people out, but whatever, she's been very good to me and deserves it. She might hit on me constantly, she might get way too emotional about seemingly insignificant events, she might get strong feelings for any boy she goes on two dates with, and she might try to take home all of my friends. She's been there for me and understands that I'm not on top of the world right now. I owe her so much more than just taking her drunk ass home to sleep in her bathtub.

So my Sunday ended badly, more or less. I was having a fantastic time for the entire day until I realized that I can be worn down a lot easier than I thought. I realized that it's time to get my life back into shape. I've gotten myself into trouble recently and I'm not sure, given my lack of stoic resolve, apparently, if I can just let the sleeping dog lie. I want to be done with all of this, almost as much as I don't really want to be done with this at all. Let's hope I can make all this shit work.

Conundrums

2009-06-27T21:37:00.002-04:00

The women interested in me in the past few months have been either attached, unattractive, or uninteresting.

The women in whom I've been interested in the past few months have been attached, emotionally unavailable, or uninterested.

I can almost guarantee that the second the uninterested ones start dating someone else that they will be all over me like a hobo on a ham sandwich. Betcha a dollar.

Aside from that, things are good. Have friends in town more or less for the rest of the summer. I'm terribly happy. I'm jobless and broke. I'm getting a lot done. My friends are fantastic, even if some of the ones with boyfriends do try to make out with me when drunk. Last night I got wasted and danced a great deal. I hadn't been so drunk in a long time, and it felt good.

What it is.

2009-06-06T13:10:00.002-04:00

Something that I've always realized but never quite accepted about a recent situation is that I'm not living in some cheesy '80's movie. I'm not John Cussack, and those situations are damning when played to the tune of reality. Do I think I'm the better man in this case? Yes, absolutely and without question. Am I still going to walk away from the whole thing? Yes, absolutely and without question. I am living an honest life, and I'm doing the right thing, and it sucks.

Funemployment continues, and while I'm actively looking for work it's slow-going trying to find a job with my salary requirements.

A bartender seems to like me a whole damn lot. I don't know if I'm really in a place to date anyone right now, but I'll try if I can and see where it goes. It will make someone a little jealous, but I don't think I can care and she has no right to be jealous at all.

E is back for the summer and life is good even though I seem to be hemorrhaging money. He simply manages to make life better all of the time, and has done remarkably well at cheering me up. My bartenders, even at bars we barely attend, have almost entirely stopped charging me except when hardly anybody is in attendance.

The last few months have seen me doing a lot of favors for people. I've cat-sat, moved someone on two separate occasions and another once, have put people up for the night that I had no business putting up due to the nature of our relationships, paid for a taxi for someone who only stayed at the destination for 5 minutes before leaving, dog-sat, and then some. Reflecting on this over Sunday I felt like a shit-heel and became suddenly bitter. I cheered up and got a girl's number. I talked to my friends. I sang a couple songs at karaoke. All was well and good with the world. My troubles are easy to forget. Out of sight, out of mind and all that nonsense.

I think I'm still hoping for an ideal resolution for everything right now when I know none is possible. Still, in the end I'm confident that I will be happy, less acquiescing, and vindicated. Things tend to work out for me that way.

Anniversary

2009-06-03T19:40:00.001-04:00

It's year 3 today and not a hell of a whole lot has changed. But I have so much promise and hope and good in my life right now that I'm not the least bit worried.

Cheers,
Blaine

Recent Ridiculousness

2009-05-28T04:28:00.002-04:00

Christ I love alliteration.

I'm sitting on my couch listening to Prolonging the Magic by Cake and to my new roommate's cat mew for unknown reasons.

I'm thinking about the last few months that I've been away from this blog. I'd been meaning to write but I've been spending a lot of time writing on my other projects; unemployment will do that to you. Currently I have a solid 8 hour schedule. I spend 4 hours job hunting on Craigslist and another 4 writing with 1-2 hours for lunch. I've been trying to stay away from excessive drink/smoke but it's very difficult and I'm currently finding myself way below budget in the red. F.M.L.

I'm up late, but it's not as late as I'm used to these days, so I guess that's OK.

I haven't had sex since I left Indiana for the second time (end of March). There's not exactly a moral obligation there but it makes me feel like a better person to say it nonetheless. I suppose it really is those little victories that make the day.

People are visiting. Old roommate, C, a longtime favorite, E. Both in June. Long-time friend A and friend J in early July, and another A before August sometime. Girl, G, who I like a good deal sometime in the next couple months. Longtime crush, M, in possibly November.

My 25th is coming up and I don't know how I feel about it.

I did something that I've wanted to do for some time but have told myself that I wouldn't do for a somewhat shorter amount of time. It is the reason I smoked too many cigarettes and have stolen a roommate's last beer tonight. I've done worse by the standards of most everyone else, but not mine. I really want to be fine with it. I will be fine with it, but I don't want to be fine with it, and I shouldn't be fine with it, and I'm not fine with it, but I need to be fine with it, and I need to forget about it, but I can't forget about it, and I don't want to forget it at all.

You see where I'm going with this?

Fuck I'm ridiculous. If you've been reading this over the last few months I'm almost certain you can guess what happened, but you'll probably need to minimize the severity of what I did in your gutter-located minds. Really, guys? I'm kind of a sonofabitch but I'm no asshole.

If you take anything from this it should be that my life is still a poorly-written sitcom, but I'm doing my best to make the main character more and more endearing.

Before the Rattle

2009-04-15T16:57:00.001-04:00

I come to and I realize that I'm lying on the sand. My everything hurts, and my eye is swollen shut from a very impressive beating about the face. Oh, and there's a hole in my gut dripping blood over all God's creation. I look at the hole as another droplet forms and falls into the sand like a motherfucking hourglass and I realize that it's literally the liquid form of my time on this earth leaving and splattering on the desert. The only things that I can see beyond the sands- the only things on the horizon at all- are the mountainous outcrops miles away, and the man who did this to me.

I'm gonna die soon, and if I don't move now I'm going to die lying down bleeding like a fucking quitter.

Well fuck that! If I'm gonna shuffle off I'm damn sure that I'm gonna be standing straight and tall and staring at the hell that's comin' for me with my one good eye.

And I'm gonna try my best to take that sonofabitch straight there with me.

I try to stand, and it seems to take a million years. Every subtle movement stretches muscles over the wound and more blood leaks out and searing pain shoots all over everywhere and my entire body is telling me to lie down and accept it. The man is walking away, contented in the fact that he's put me to the dirt. I can't see his face, but I can imagine the smuggest of all goddamn grins stretched across it, and the anger it causes makes the pain and the blood-loss and the bruises all seem like the whining of a petulant child.

I'm on my feet and I'm seeing red. I scream, and were there anything for my voice to echo off of I imagine that it would reverberate damn near forever out here in the wastes. But it doesn't. When my lungs rasp and empty out the sound stops and the world is silent again. The man turns around, with a sullen expression of acceptance on his face, as if the bastard regrets that he's gonna have to try and put me down again.

Blood runs down the length of my leg and starts to pool in my boot. I hear the sloppy squish of it every time I take a step, and it pisses me off even more that I have to die with a wet fucking sock. My advancement is slow and willful, but with each step I realize the unsure manner in which my legs plant themselves on the ground. I'm wobbly. I've lost too much blood. I stumble. I'm gonna hit the ground. Hard. I'm not gonna get up this time.

Arms, sturdy and strong, wrap around my chest. That fucker caught me. I look up. I can see the regret in his eyes. Why? What did all of this mean? Fuck it. I slip his knife from his belt and lodge it between his ribs. The regret leaves his face to be replaced by that of pain.

I laugh for probably the last time in my life.

He hits me square in the jaw and I go down. My vision is blurry, and I'm about to pass out. My sock is still fucking wet. Shit.

Somebody's gonna dig me up someday. Somebody's gonna find my body and wonder how the fuck I got here with my broken bones and ripped up clothes. They'll wonder why I died and who killed me. It doesn't fucking matter. It's all useless now.

My killer takes a few slow steps away, wavers, and falls to the sands.

I die smiling.

Hesitations and Reservations

2009-04-05T17:13:00.003-04:00

I have started a new blog with my longtime friend, The Dusty Emperor of Nothing. It is something of a literary challenge for us to come up with new ideas and to write about them. You can find it HERE.

I have decided to advertise the new blog, as I think that having our ideas and our writing out there is good for the world and the collective unconscious as I see it. Still, I do have my reservations on the issue. As I am posting under blogspot, people who find the blog from, say, facebook, might stumble across this one. I long ago stopped putting the link to this website where people can find it because I felt that I had to write about my personal life and share feelings that some I would not have read. I'm reluctant to have my written work about my own life thrust back into my face.

Currently, I am changing the way this blog will be written. I'm not sure if there's a better way to say that I've been too personal with the information I've put here. I don't necessarily feel that way, but should this become a more public page then I will need to be somewhat more careful in the future.

I will keep posting about my life and the random weirdness that it entails, however I will try to throw in more fiction, and move to a slightly less personal tone when discussing certain people and events. Is that a cop-out? Most likely, but it seems that this is the way it must be.

The Sitcom that is My Life

2009-03-08T15:20:00.002-04:00

Bloomington was exactly the kind of trip I needed it to be. Cheap cigarettes, cheap beer, and good friends who I hadn't seen in awhile.

We were at the party at my old house for 20 minutes before realizing that we were way too old for this shit and went to the bars. Bar. It really is still just the Vid.

Monday I hung out with a girl I vaguely knew from yesteryear and ended up making out with her at 7am before catching my ride to the airport.

Thursday night my roommate's friend, R, and I got really drunk and had sex. She had a boyfriend but nobody liked him. She left my house and then told him. They are, obviously, now broken up. The girl from Bloomington, J, informed me shortly after R left my apartment that she is most likely coming for spring break. Shortly thereafter C said that she would be down for the evening. Next weekend is C's brother's birthday so she'll be down for that too while J is in town. I have no idea what is going on with R besides the fact that at the time of this writing she is removing anything she had left at her now ex-boyfriend's place.

People who know me will understand that I felt really bad about this. I mean, I had that rule about not doing anything with someone who was in a relationship. I guess nobody liked that dude so it was like doing our circle of friends a favor, but I felt shitty about it until today when for some reason I stopped caring.

I will see the J thing through regardless. I will still be good friends with R, but I'm not sure if anything can come of that. As far as C goes I think I really am finally through. Too complicated, too ambiguous, and not worth it. It's time to move on and find other people.

Who do I see about that, by the way?

Weird Fucking Week

2009-02-23T00:56:00.002-05:00

I just had one of those weeks in which everything possible happened.

I went to karaoke on Tues because it seemed like fun. My friend was dj-ing in South Brooklyn, but it seemed like such a hassle to get out there. I had a good time. Flirted with the bartender a bit and had fun.

Wednesday for some reason everything ever was happening. Friends played at sidewalk at 7:30 where I met R and a bizarre friend of hers. I went to Library from there to meet with C at her request. You know, the usual nonsense that never quite works out for me. I went with her to K's show and then to her brother's dj set and we had a good time. R showed up there as well and I let her walk me home and then bid her goodnight. See? I can totally just say no!

A very bizarre thing happened. C stayed with our friend, A, in the city as opposed to with her brother or close friend. I have no idea why, and I know he really likes her, but she said nothing happened so maybe it didn't. Actually she stayed with him all 3 nights she was here, which is terribly weird. What further confounds this is the amount of alone time I spent with her this time around. Thursday we got lunch and went to the museum of sex. I took her to meet up with a friend to get her hair styled or whatever they're calling it these days, and afterward we met up to go to the bar where, yes, she ended up meeting up with the rest of the crew, we all went dancing then back to the bar. Friday she came over to watch a movie and then met up with her later at the bar and a dj set by her brother again. As always I spoke with her the entire way she went back to work. The ongoing situation with JGKY seems to change daily, and it's clear that she's having a shit time about it.

Fuck. I really hate being this hung up. The situation isn't changing anytime soon it seems, there's not much of anything I can do to facilitate a paradigm shift, and there's nothing I can do to just get her the fuck out of my head. I'm perfectly set up to be a miserable fuck for fucking life. At least I can laugh about it with my friends, and I'm not really waiting around, even though I've stopped dating until after March. I just really don't want to make it an even 30 first dates in a year. Unless you count C and I hanging out as a date, in which case I broke 30. Shit. I'm not counting it.

I saw the V.Day girl at a party where K played. Nothing happened, thank god. I talked to some college buddies, saw the show and went the fuck home. Today I stayed indoors. This week I plan on staying indoors, doing my taxes, doing laundry, and basically staying out of fucking trouble. Then I fly to Bloomington for a week of foolishness.

I am well over a month without sex. It is about this time when I begin to do stupid things. I hope you're all ready to be entertained when I finally go off the deep end.

Bizarre Weekends and Other Random Shit

2009-02-17T02:39:00.002-05:00

I was honestly determined not to do much this weekend. I had a friend dj on Friday in the motherfucking meat-packing district, which is what I would describe as a hellish place where angels fear to tread. I did not see my friend. Apparently there was a downstairs to this ridiculous bar and so I missed my crew. Instead I went back to our home base, the Library, and proceeded to drink excessively. Odd thing, though, is that I didn't get drunk. Lord knows I wanted to, but the tipsiness never increased and so when it was time to go home I remained ok.

My roommate's friend, R, was there. Like so many of the women in my life these days she is a) Attractive b) Intelligent c) Entertaining and d) Lacking in self-esteem and going through some form of existential crisis. She's also dating someone who none of her friends like, and seems to think very highly of me for largely unknown reasons. She is very affectionate around me, and while this has been explained to me as something that she does to all of her friends I'm struggling to pass it off as merely platonic companionship. Something is very fishy. Don't get me wrong; it's not that I wouldn't sleep with her or date her should that be an option. I've met her boyfriend and the one thing that I can honestly say in this case is that I don't give a flying fuck about making a cuckold of him beyond the fact that it's, in the most general terms, a shitty thing to do to anyone. What I'm expressing here is the growing weirdness about it all despite my attempts to uncomplicate my life.

Then there was this bullshit holiday. I always get pissed off when this day rolls around. Sure this is my first single Valentine's day in the city, but it's shitty being alone on a holiday no matter how bullshit it is. I was contemplating staying in the whole night, and in fact I didn't even make it out of the apartment until midnight, so technically I suppose the holiday did pass me by. I went to the local place, Elote, where the staff treats us very well. I proceeded to get shitfaced. E, one of the bartenders, remarked that it was terribly funny that I always bring a girl in except on Valentine's day. I agreed. The second I arrived I proclaimed to the bar "Alright fuckers, I'm single and bitter. Let's get wrecked!" It might be one of the greatest statements I've made in quite some time. An old bartender, J, came and chatted for awhile, and it was good to see her outside the Library. I often wish I could be closer with these people.

Two girls walk into the bar. Stop me if you've heard this one. One of them is insanely attractive. Everyone flirts with her. I was staying back, because, well, who cares? Of course that doesn't work out so well, but I did get her number so I suppose that makes me the winner. I got a cute girl's number at the comic convention as well, but that didn't seem to work out. This girl at least got back to me, and seems to want to hang out, so hopefully I won't fuck that up royally. Hell, I'm not even sure if she's single, so given the course of my life I would say probably not, but if he wasn't around on Valentine's Day then that presents a significant opportunity for mischief.

I know, wasn't I just blabbering on about how I was pinning away for two completely different women not too long ago? And then didn't I give up entirely on dating? Yes. Yes I did.

Fuck it. Let's make some big damn mistakes!

Ah Hell

2009-02-13T04:32:00.002-05:00

I'm finding it very hard to give a shit about much these days. I think that's part of pseudo-unemployment. I need a vacation. So I'm taking one. I'm headed back to Bloomington at the end of the month. I don't know the extent of who's still out that way and I don't fucking care. There's people that I've wanted to see for quite some time and I need to go if only to make good on past promises. I'm still going to London for the great Library excursion as far as I can tell. Still, it'll be good to escape.

I know; I so rarely feel like this.

I need to recharge, and get away from the humdrum that is my life. I've become too used to this shit and it's starting to take its toll in terms of me getting weirdly miserable in my off time and, hell, everything else. I finally have something for which to be really excited.

It's been a bizarrely disappointing few moths. In a lot of ways the last year has been bizarrely disappointing. I say that in hindsight. Despite the reservations about the job and my current shit-fest involving being unemployed I'm well aware that I had a whole lot of fun since moving to this part of Brooklyn, and it's largely one of the happiest times of my life. Still, the little things do add up when you start looking back, like the way the stars twinkle because of all the dust and shit floating through space. Things simply become tarnished.

Of course, this could also be because it's 5am and I just need to pass out and life is ever more complicated these days. First some relaxation with old friends, and afterward I can sort though my myriad of half-complications and try to decide what stays and what goes and what steps need to be taken to ensure that I keep up this great trend of self-improvement I've been on thus far.

I'm no longer content to drift, and that makes all the difference to me.

Days and More Days

2009-02-03T21:17:00.002-05:00

I've given up drinking for a time. Not permanently, just during the week and I plan on not getting drunk during the weekends anymore. Happy hour style only: just a bit then on my way. I also don't plan on buying cigarettes again, but then again, when has that ever worked for me.

Yeah, I'm back on the normalcy kick, which probably means that I'm going to do something very hilariously stupid in the next month or two. Stay tuned.

Huh

2009-01-30T13:06:00.003-05:00

And just like that I'm back to normal. I suppose they call it Misery Mile for a reason.

Yesterday I went home way before last call when my friends were still around and I had nothing going on the next day. I watched Legend on the couch and fell asleep. I felt like I accomplished something, which is kind of bizarre considering how insignificant the gesture was.

Things are becoming a little more clear to me at the moment. I feel like my attention has been focused in weird places for a long time. I have been writing that sentence repeatedly over the years, I just realized. Wow. I suppose I need to start making some changes. Nothing major, but there are little things I can do to help make me a better person, I guess. It might be time to retreat a bit, or at least hang out with other friends. Maybe I should just keep at it awhile longer.

Ah this life of confusion. So much fun.

New Revelations on Past Lives

2009-01-29T05:45:00.002-05:00

I've been reading old emails. Old notes. Old communiques. I even have several text exchanges saved in my phone from a few people I didn't want to forget.

I remember getting a call from Pappa John's HQ and being entirely frightened because it had a 502 area code from Louisville and scared about who it could be, but it was only because the chain I ordered from had closed.

A lot on this blog I make myself out to be largely above contempt. A lot of times I just assume that people will read between the lines and realize that I am as thoroughly fucked up as anyone else on this spinning cosmic orb. We have the same fucking makeup with atoms constantly moving on a rock that spins around and around at speeds that most will never achieve in their lives.

Am I, in fact, a sucker? Am I, in truth, a sonofabitch? Yes. Absolutely I am.

It's weird to realize that I am still a bit screwed up from something that happened to me 9 months ago, because I'm simply not the type to have that kind of attachment, but as the blog will show there's at least someone who has managed to incite that in me.

I realized tonight, sporadically and then cemented by a call to K, who is the only girlfriend I've ever remained truly and outwardly amicable with, that I still carry some baggage over my last breakup.

Shit.

This is not entirely unexpected. She meant a lot to me, and while she was revealing a lot more of her darker side I was falling a lot more into an existential depression, so things inevitably went south. I'm not really considering that things really could have worked, because, as I've said before, I was trying to get out and rise up while she was set on simply making due. It was something that I couldn't stomach, and I couldn't bring it up to her because it was her life and as close as I may have been at that point, having had numerous diatribes force-fed to me about what I should be doing with my life, I decided I would never tell anyone what to do again.

She was content to stagnate. I was trying. I'd like to think that this was all it was, but while I was trying I wasn't really sharing any of my exploits/failures. This was a mistake on my part. There were a laundry list of other problems, and these would not change. I brought these little things up as they happened in that vain hope that people can voluntarily stop such things, but then I stopped mentioning them; knowing that I would have to live with them or move on. For the longest time I thought I really could just ignore them, but when have I ever been the type to ignore anything?

This is the first time this has happened in the interim. I used to get like this in college, but that was more of a pinning thing. I don't exactly know what the fuck this is. Self-loathing? It might be. I feel kinda like shit but that might just be the liquor more than anything. I don't even know what to say anymore. Everyone that knew her agreed that she had no business being with me, that I was right to end things, and that she was crazier than a shit-house rat. All of this might be true, and I probably should've known as much the first time we tried getting drunk together and she kept breaking down crying on me and telling me she was a horrible person, but I guess what I'm trying to say to the ether out there is that I'm a fuckup too, damnit.

I don't know, should I feel better for saying that? It just seems like I have more problems than I know how to deal with on so many fucking levels. I'm currently pursuing 2 different girls with equal share of problems that I normally wouldn't even fuck with if I didn't think each of them were halfway worth my time in one way or another, a job search that is totally questionable at this point in the economy even though I have a shitton of money saved up here and there that I don't want to touch, the potential for a huge drinking problem, and I just smoked cigarettes all night after staying off of them for 3 days and I don't know if I can actually quit.

Many would say that these are small issues, and they are, but I'm fucking coddled and I'm not used to dealing with this shit on my own. This is where I vent this stuff, I suppose. I'm not drowning, because I am not in a position to really drown, but I feel in over my head for the first time in awhile. I feel like I've been fucking up for 3 years and that I'm utterly hopeless as a human being. I feel like my roommates and everyone else I've gotten close with over the last year doesn't really know me because we've only gotten close after my relationship(s) and I've become something of a different person, for better or for worse.

I feel stretched thin.

I am also entirely certain that come tomorrow I'll be fine. I will, of course, remember writing all this and feeling this way, but I'll also realize that I'm not substantially different beyond the fact that I'm a little more forthcoming with how I feel to people that matter and that I'm living a good life and remain a good man despite my forays into ridiculousness (see last post). I'm going to be a published writer soon and I have a guy that wants to get me a gig at Time Out and certain things are coming up Blaine (Buz) and I have a great deal to be happy about, but it's not tomorrow yet and I've got to close my eyes for that to take place and it's oh so close but I feel like embracing this feeling for all it's worth because who knows when I will actually feel this way again.

Some days I wish I were a paramecium.

New Year Wonderment and Sitcom Moments

2009-01-25T19:23:00.002-05:00

It's been over a month, and I've had some strange times. My life is more hectic than normal these days and I'm not sure how to feel about anything that's happened recently or what to do about the current female dilemma or whatever else is dominating my thoughts these days.

So, Christmas. Let's start there. I went home, hung out with C and the family. I saw my dog for what might be the last time ever. R took me out and let me get drunk before going to Waffle House and the airport. On the flight over I was trashed and fell asleep mid-ginger ale but don't think I spilled it on the lady next to me. On the flight back to New York I sat next to a very nice talkative and slightly attractive woman who mentioned her boyfriend in the first 5 sentences so I fell asleep. One day I really hope to be seated next to an intelligent, attractive woman. Doesn't matter where she's going or where she's from, but that I can hold a decent conversation with her.

Regardless I dropped off my stuff at home and went to the bar where I met a French woman who hit on me a great deal as I was getting drunk and then, in what one could only call blind stupidity, I hooked up with her in the hostel where she was staying. I've never felt so fucking dirty, but I showered at the hostel, air-dried, and was able to walk to work, which was important to me when I decided to go with this endeavor. There is a bar on Houston that opens, apparently, at 8am. If I was ever going to kill myself with alcohol it is certain that I'd start at Milano's.

After that not a lot happened. I hung out with Eduardo, who is in town until Superbowl Sunday and is one of the greatest human beings I know, and sang karaoke and drank more than usual.

I had the first good New Years Eve I've ever had. I went with L to a party that my friend J was supposed to dj at, and my friend O was playing, but the opening bands were so fucking stupid that we immediately left and went to the Levee. The Levee is an awesome bar with one problem: it's often overcrowded. It's impossible to get a drink and the douchebags bump into you and you begin to hate life. On New Years it was empty and fun and we sat down next to some girls and I laid on the charm. I really liked one, J, and the other two were a little more stereotypical for my taste but nice enough. I almost get into a fight with some douche for stealing my beer. He was one of those assholes who pretends to be gay to hit on girls and I really wasn't having any of his shit, but I guess I did make him leave by describing him perfectly as everything that encompasses 'that guy.' Those girls and my roommate, L, all left at this point while I was waiting in the longest bathroom line ever. I then proceeded to drunkenly meet and have sex with the girl I met 30 seconds later. I took her on a proper date sometime later, and she's really nice, but couldn't keep up with me in terms of wit and humor, and whatnot, so I let it go.

I slept with one other person between New Years and now, but I'd rather not bring it up. It's not as horrible as you might think, knowing me, but I'd still like it kept under wraps.

So J and I have been hanging out. She's just gone through a horrible breakup, and you can tell she's not even close to being over it. I like her a great deal, but she's not staying and I'm really, really scared of hurting her, because she's already had it so damn rough. Reason tells me to let this one go, but when have I ever been reasonable?

Further exacerbating this situation is the ongoing whatever the fuck with C. She and Johnny Go Kill Yourself came down on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Both nights they got in fights. C was kind of flirting with me on Thursday night unbeknown to JGKY, and it wasn't anything serious, and I might just be making more of it than it is, but that's what it felt like. Friday she seemed to be thinking that it was all going to be soon over between them and her bro and friends were advising her and when they went to smoke I'd try and be silly and change the subject and it seemed to cheer her up. As always she text me from the train back upstate and she called me from her car, and I don't even fucking know anymore. At this point, due to some promise I made to myself years ago, I won't step in and say what probably needs to be said to at least get closure. I suppose that's somewhat my fault for being too chickenshit to say it when she was still technically single. I'm living somewhere near an episode of Dobie Gillis.

Whatever. I can be a bumbling lovestruck fool for the rest of my life, even if it's all unrequited. The point is that these days, while awkward and ridiculous, are where I succeed; where I feel like I'm actually living, and I never want them to stop.

This Beautiful Chill

2008-12-02T20:53:00.002-05:00

He shuddered as he walked down the street staring at a strange object at the end of the block undulate across his path that he couldn't quite make out. He assumed that it was one of the numerous plastic bags from one of many bodegas that was discarded after its contents, likely cigarettes and tallboys, were removed from within. Now it was caught in the wind and made to look so alive, like a severely over sized slug inching a viscous path to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.

The wind blew through his coat and made all the muscles in his back tense up as if to fight through the unconquerable season that is winter and take back every super-excited atom for themselves and reclaim warmth. He stopped momentarily to relax and let the hot blood resume its normal flow; halt the biting cold a little longer, and he mused on the notion that parts of his body could have their own desires and dreams and ideas, however infantile and instinctual. He, after all, sometimes longed to be infantile and instinctual; never worrying about niceties and ethics and his own over-productive sense of empathy and the likeliest 3 possible outcomes of every action ever. He longed for functional catatonia, like the non-slug meandering ever so slowly on its journey perpendicular to his own.

The flame from a Zippo met his cigarette and the smoke traveled through the filter and into his lungs. He found himself unable to move much more than his hand to bring the cigarette to his mouth and continue the habit which he had long tried to quit. He wondered if it was a lack of discipline, which seemed to be the cause of so many of his disappointments in himself. He questioned so many of his decisions over the course of the last couple months: ditching the girl when he decided he wasn't going to pursue purely physical relationships, not quitting his job when he realized he was unhappy with it, spending too much money on frivolous endeavors that didn't involve drinking with his friends, taking that cab to Brooklyn when the subway was right there on one occasion, not making things plain to the girl he fancied when it may have incited change, not voting in the election, not quitting smoking for real this time, making out with that one girl when he got too drunk even though he knew she was more drunk than he. He realized there were many regrets that he had not shrugged off in his usual manner and now, through virtue of remembering them, they seemed to be causing paralysis in his legs.

The non-slug had since crossed the street and off into the mysterious night where he could not see. The end of the cigarette warmed his index finger as the cherry burned ever so closely to it. He took the last drag and flicked it into the street. As the embers cooled and died on the asphalt he knew that despite all his regrets that it had not been a bad couple months, and that he had a great deal of fun in the interim. He realized that the regrets were minuscule and worthless. He could do better, and he had already done worse, for which he felt nothing but satisfaction. He continued to the street corner and pondered with growing alarm the slimy trail that now lay before him and oozed along around the corner. He heard a gush and saw the color as the moonlight shone through it like stained glass, and the gentle breeze as this giant, delicate, organic tapestry caught the wind and took flight. Tiny red and yellow scales, soft as silk, rained down on his head, and onto his face as he stared in awe at the creature taking to the sky.

He stepped in the goo, he noticed, and as he lifted his shoe from the disgusting fluid he laughed so hard he thought his ribs would crack.

Thanks is Given

2008-11-27T17:51:00.002-05:00

For reading, commenting, and bearing witness in some small way to the tragedy, hilarity, and more often than not insanity that is my life.

I miss you all even if I don't know you.

Fucking Half-Truth Nonsense Editorials...

2008-11-19T21:54:00.001-05:00

A letter I sent in response to these two articles.

Greetings,

To preface this response I feel it prudent to share what type of man I am using certain reference points from your two articles concerning SYM: I'm 24, single, and gainfully employed. I own a copy of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, and have had a good chuckle at The Best Page in the Universe. I have played, and will likely continue to play, a fair amount of video games. My favorite movies at the moment of writing this are Conan the Barbarian, Dirty Work, Jin-Roh, Royal Tenenbaums, To Live, Paprika, and Tokyo Joe. I have a voracious appetite for literature and enjoy Murakami, Dennis Johnson, Hunter Thompson, and Robert E Howard. I'm currently in the middle of Dr. Bloodmoney and the Walking Dead, a comic series about zombies. I have been in 2 serious relationships in as many years since I moved into the city. I lived with both women, and broke up with both of them. I mind my Ps and Qs with alarming regularity, but speak very crassly almost as often.

Now that you might have a fleeting grasp on who I am I feel we can move on to my thoughts on your articles. Perhaps I'm being a little naive, but I don't consider myself to be a part of your little group of extended-adolescents. Certainly I fit some of the description; likely more than my fair share, but like many of the kind you just described I have one foot in this (largely stereotypical) camp and one foot outside trying desperately to find more stable ground.

You mentioned that the world is different than the time when apparently men were men and boys were boys, and that is very true, but I'm not sure that the feminist movement and women's empowerment necessarily has had the effect that you perceive. Many of us don't start our careers until well after college, and as you mentioned many of us still plug along for a yet higher degree, but once out of higher education we are often faced with the knowledge that we don't know what we should be doing, where we should be, what we should be making, and so on. Gender has nothing to do with this, and in my experience this sense of being lost is universal for a substantial majority of the twenty-somethings. College has done nothing to help define who we are, as it's a bullshit playground compared to life, particularly life in this city. Consider the NYU undergrads that crowd every bar in the West Village. Spend one year on your own in this city and you will grow quickly apathetic, possibly even enraged, towards these youngsters who live in the city and yet stand apart as most of them don't "pay their dues," as the saying goes. So do we hold on to the more enjoyable aspects of those collegiate times--possibly the last time we had clear goals and ambitions--after beginning some semblance of adult life? Yes, but perhaps it's not as bad as you think.

Not all video-games are Halo 3. Many have intricate plots and employ more metaphor and deeper characterization than most "chick-lit," or, hell, regular bestselling literature. The same could be said for the comic books of today, and no, I'm not referring to Frank Miller, who can't seem to pen a story without implying that all women are whores. Perhaps you might be fond of reading Y: The Last Man; a series where a plague kills every male mammal on the planet. The point I'm trying to make here is that yes, there are cheap thrills, but that was no different now than it was in the history of ever. However, many young males happen to be seeking out their reflection/introspection-inducing moments through other mediums, as we have advanced to the point where this is possible.

In terms of your claim that many of us are remaining in the adolescent phase because of some "why the hell not?" mentality, I think that you'll find that you're again generalizing more than your fair share. How many of us, in this world that you've described as dating chaos, can find someone we can actually be with for an extended period of time?

For example, my last serious relationship lasted for over a year and I moved in with her. She was anti-marriage/children and claimed something along the lines of she would never marry while homosexuals could not. A noble statement, no doubt, but I should think that this was not really the case, although whether this was based on her own insecurities or some attempt to spite her parents I could never decide, although I later learned both were likely scenarios. Regardless, she, 3 years my senior, moved to the city to be a professional dancer (ballet/theatre), and after 5 or so auditions remained an art model for the remainder of our time together. I left for other reasons to be sure, but a large part of this was that I was looking for gainful employment and self-improvement while she was not. Men are not the only ones who remain in adolescence for far too long, but I suppose we often express our childishness in more obvious ways. Not to mention the growing number of hipsters amassing in our gentrifying neighborhoods living on trust funds and claiming to be artists/musicians while seemingly only partying all the time. Apparently, even the counter-culture is not immune to the Odyssey Years.

And now we come to the dating scene. How does one date, marry, and start a family if one does not have a full grasp on his or her life? How are we supposed to meet people when so few are consistently compatible and both parties still find themselves in a state of flux? The dating one does in college simply does not apply, as it's before this identity/impending adulthood crisis that occurs post-graduation. Yes, the lack of chivalry is appalling, yes, the constant treatment of the dating scene as some kind of game is at best despicable, but at a point in our lives when we can change fundamental qualities about ourselves any given day is it so hard to see why even the "good men" aren't settling down?

Assholes, jerks, bitches, douchebags, bastards, and just plain boring people aside; the simple fact is that dating is difficult. People are not as forthcoming with their intentions as they once may (or may not, hell if I know) have been. It's hard to read a person while on a date even if that's the specific point of a date, and so many times there will be a date that ends in sex and doesn't proceed to a second date. There will be a date that proceeds to a second date that I will still get text messages from that I ignore even after explaining that I don't want a third date. There will be dates that I end by explicitly stating that I don't want a second date. And of course, every once in awhile, there's the date where I discover that she already has a boyfriend but really likes me and I have to step away from her even though in every other way she seems perfect. Yes, there are people like that on both sides of the gender fence.

The dating scene is a scene of half-truths and fear. People hide perceived flaws as they fear the suitor will disapprove, and then when they do appear later on and the suitor does disapprove it's truly mind-boggling that these jilted people continue their cloak and dagger dating practices. The indecision and fear of commitment on the male side could be simply that, but keep in mind how awful it is to date someone for a somewhat significant amount of time and watch the person you're with transform into someone you'd rather not know. It's justifiable that a man or woman would be hesitant to jump into the same situation; especially when we find ourselves on dates with people still pretending to be perfectly happy hiding everything about themselves beyond the what you do, where you live, what you like humdrum of modern conversation.

I, on the other hand, am originally from Kentucky, was raised by southern gentry (or something close to it), and by God (or Odin, or Amaterasu, or whoever, really) I'm going to answer honestly when queried, pick up the check when appropriate, hold the damn door open (and not let anyone tell me holding a door open is somehow chauvinistic), and I'm not going to pretend I'm perfectly happy with a bad date and lead some poor, boring girl along in hopes of getting my dick wet. Yeah, I'm that guy. Sometimes I feel like the only one. I'm fucking Atlas. But I think that you as well as I know there are others, even if they are still following the first star on the right straight on until morning.

Decisions

2008-11-10T21:08:00.002-05:00

When he woke up in his apartment in the city he felt a kind of desire he was certain he had never felt before. He wiped the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles; still curious about why he was now burdened with this need that had not crossed his mind in his previous 24 years of life. Why the hell did he, the young man who gave up the midwest for the big city, suddenly and inescapably want to ride a horse bareback across a great and endless grass plain while chasing down a deer, or antelope, or buffalo, or hell even jackalope? Where the hell did it all come from, he wondered as he brushed and flossed his teeth. "I don't think I've even fucking seen an antelope before," he said as he tried, and failed, to finish shaving before the hot water from the shower fogged up the mirror.

He walked to the train while pulling at stray whiskers that he missed and hoping that the light color of his hair would make it unnoticeable to his coworkers who probably already saw him as something of a slacker. The subway pulled away right as he got through the gate, and he ran after it; stopping just short of trying to jump onto that little platform between the cars. He knew one day he would, and that he would make it, but the thought of getting his shit completely and irreparably ruined by the MTA kept him in check for one more day.

The next...Manhattan-bound.. L train... will depart in approximately... 15 minutes.

FUCK! He knew he would be late, or at least on time, which was as good as late, and he hated the thought just a bit less than his supervisors did. He left the platform and on his way up the stairs turned around to confirm that the original announcement was wrong, the next train was arriving in 5 minutes. It was perfectly reasonable to him that the universe would somehow do something like this, and that the train's improved schedule was the direct result of leaving. It did comfort him a bit to know that he had somehow brought the rest of the people waiting a minute amount of relief.

By 9am he was sitting in his windowless office doing work that he knew was good and right and true and not at all useless and he felt like he was making a difference in this place but whenever he looked over to the wall all he found himself wanting was green grass and blue sky and maybe a mountain off in the distance while the sun beat down on his shoulders and the wind kissed its burn away. He squinted a bit and could almost see it out beyond the wall and the office and the river and fucking New Jersey and...

It wasn't. He knew it wasn't. There were roads and cars and large tractors and no matter how many times he took his car up to 88 miles per hour no flux capacitor ever flared up and took him back to a time when it still was. Someone had told him he could be anything, but apparently no one expects the answer to be the king of the Great Plains.

He smoked a cigarette on the long, cold walk back to the train and another on the long, cold walk home. He looked towards the West and nodded at a life that could've been his. He trudged up the stairs, poured some bourbon over some ice and sat down. It wasn't so bad, in the end....

The News on the Street

2008-11-09T09:42:00.002-05:00

Things have been good. I've been hanging out with friends, J and T, and trying to make time for my roommates as well as the pretty girls in my life, particularly L and G, who I don't think really want anything to do with me, at least not romantically, but they're fun, and it's good to have attractive people in my life.

There are others, people I haven't seen in too long who I miss desperately. My former roommate, J, my college friends, S and newfound friend A who is also cute but I never see, and my first New York Friend, H. I guess you could throw my one-time almost roommates M & L in that lot as well. Swearing off women has been working out well for me, at least this week. It helps that I never have time to go out and focus most of my attention on my friends. G's roommate had a birthday party on Friday night that ended up at Lit, my old stomping grounds. I'm too old for that shit, I've decided. One of her friends grabbed my ass and seemed to really like me. She was cute, but, even as drunk as I was, I decided against being anything other than drunk dancing dude, and that's a good place for me to be.

Still no internet at the house. It's equal parts relieving and infuriating. If I can't pay bills online then I'm kinda screwed, so I have to hit internet cafes and places with free wi-fi and it's really annoying given my schedule. I'll live, but I also refuse to have this bill in my name, as everything else already is. R is planning to move in with her dude in September, which will be a huge loss. Both he and my other roommate L think that R is kindof an ass when she's around me. It really bothers her, and thus I feel bad for inadvertently driving a wedge where there shouldn't be one. In the meantime I'm doing my best to stay a bit subdued when I'm around these people. Sure it's a compromise, and no, I don't like putting limits on myself, but I've always been one for being there for those closest to me, so I'll do it with a big shit-eating grin on my face and speak nothing more of it.

My burrito is cold, and I need to write something, which I guess you'll probably see before you even read this.

A Look Back on the Last Two Weeks, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Accept that My Life is Ridiculous

2008-11-03T19:44:00.003-05:00

Let's start with the internet. Through inaction and irresponsibility on my and my roommates' parts, the internet is down and we owe a fuckton of money to Time Warner. This is in part due to our couch-surfer, P, dicking us over and generally being horrible. We all liked her, if a bit happy when she left, but regardless it was a serious letdown to be dicked over like that by someone we helped, and really did more for than people she knew for awhile. Just wrote her an email asking for our fucking keys back.

I had a nice Romanian girl mentioned ages ago in this blog who was supposed to come and visit. I guess we fell out of touch despite my efforts. Time differences don't really help as she was online at like 5am and I would be passing out. Texting is expensive so I tried to only do it when I could never get in touch with her, and she thinks email is isn't personable. I'm not terribly concerned if she doesn't come, but it is a little disappointing thoug. She's a wonderful person and it's been way too long. She's also very attractive and seems to be into me. That helps.

Other news. I seriously scaled down the women in my life to which I could be romantically involved. Significantly. This involved canceling some dates I had scheduled, telling a couple girls I was on the fence about that I was on the fence, and I realized that what that meant was that I really like them but the answer is no, and basically just packed up shop. Why did I do this? For one I was tired of it all. I hated first dates that I had to tell I didn't want to date again because I'm on this honesty kick, and I hated sleeping with girls that I liked but knew couldn't date and also liked me a disproportionate amount. That just makes me feel bad in the long term and I can't continue with it.

For two, I really liked a girl. She was the friend and sister to my friends and she lived outside town but would come in every couple weeks and I would see her very drunk and it would be fun and we would flirt and I think she really liked me. Later I saw her sober, talked to her, interacted without other people a bit, and, yeah, I liked her. At least enough to go on a couple dates, and I know that were that to happen I would not be opposed to a relationship. That sounds creepy, but despite what my dumbass decisions in the past say about me I can be pretty sure after spending a little time with a gal if I'm going to date her once or for awhile. Let the record show that largely I mention to my friends how dumb I'm being when I wind up in a relationship with someone I don't feel that way about. So trust me when I say that I know what I'm talking about when I say I'm a good judge of a person and their compatibility with me.

So, she was down for a week, things were going about as good as can be expected. Half-assed flirting, suggesting she could crash at my place but really not meaning it because I didn't want to ruin things by sleeping with her, joking, dancing, drinking, and the like. She'd grab my hand occasionally and look at me all wide-eyed, and I really just wanted to lean over and plant one on her. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have had the whole encounter taped and had my friends go over the footage with a highlighter and commentary like a goddamn football replay. Regardless.

It eventually comes to my attention that she had this boyfriend that she was with for multiple years and they broke up recently because he tried to off himself. Well, that explains a whole damn lot. The hesitations, the sometimes strange looks, and getting phone calls that she looked pissed off about getting but took anyways. Sure. Well I see her off at the bus, and I tell her that I had fun and I'm looking forward to seeing her again and she says she'll be back the Saturday after Halloween and that's fantastic, I'll be there, and whatever. We text as she takes the bus. About a week goes by, and I manage to get Sunday off so when she comes back I don't have to go home early like a responsible chump. She's not coming. She apparently gets back or is getting back with her boyfriend, who I called Johnny-go-kill-yourself. Yeah it's immature, and sure it's horrible to think that I'd be better off if he finished the job he started, but, well, I have these moments and I need to be honest about them if not entirely forthcoming.

Moving on... this news is a little upsetting. I mean, I know that whole thing about all one's eggs in a single basket nonsense, but well, I guess that's how I really live. Sure recently I've had a string of women interested in me, but I don't really feel great about all that most of the time. It was always about getting down to one person, so, yeah, this was bound to happen eventually, minus the disappointment I had hoped, but whatever. I mentioned this to my roommate and a couple friends. They were shocked at my reaction, saying surprisingly, "wow, you really like her, don't you?" Well, yeah, but I suppose since they know me from here and are aware of how I felt about my relationships or how they affected me that it would be a little shocking to see me really care and feel disappointment and try to shrug it off in that way that everyone can tell it still bothers you. It sucks, but I deal with these things better than most. Of course, I had just sworn off women and quit smoking, so that didn't help matters, but yes, there is always beer.

So one night I'm woken up by my phone beeping at me and it's a text from her asking if I wanted to date her. It was late, I was, until previously, asleep, and generally not thinking so I wrote back in the affirmative. I get a call. It's Johnny-go-kill-yourself. He tells me it's not in my best interests to talk to C anymore. I tell him that he's incorrect, and that it's not in his best interests that I talk to C anymore, and in my best interests to do whatever the hell I like because that seems to work out for me. I don't think he's ready for this. His tone when he tells me it's alright to be friends and we're all friends is not to my liking. I let him speak his peace when he calls her a marked woman even though that really pisses me off. He says if I step over the line and put "the moves" on her that he'll punch me in the face. I tell him that it's fine as I've been hit by bigger and better people, provide a much worse threat, kindly thank him for his time in a very condescending way and end the call.

Life is fun sometimes.

She finds out about it, apologizes. I tell her it's dropped. She brings it up. I finally say exactly what I think about the situation, further clarify that I don't care to hear about it anymore, that I'm still there for her, would love to see her next time she's here, and try to be a little more pleasant. I haven't really heard from her since, and maybe that's ok. Johnny-go-kill-yourself called to apologize, which seemed sincere enough even though I'm sure it's not. I now have his phone number and can use it to ruin his life, but I won't. I've decided that I don't want to be underhanded, and that I should just drop it and leave it all alone. So it's all a little depressing, yeah, but that's ok.

T moved to town. Introduced her to my friend J. They get along and I hope they end up dating or something. J needs a break and he's a good man and T needs friends up here and that would be nice. Halloween was with the Brain Trust, my old coworkers. Then I rushed to the City, ran into L, went to her friend's party and back to the Library where I probably had a decent shot at hooking up with one of two girls, didn't matter which one, but decided against it. Had a 3-day weekend, and spent Saturday night hanging with my roommates and Sunday with G watching a movie and fixing a puzzle. Didn't see anyone else I wanted to see so badly, but there will be other nights. I'm back in that "I'm single and don't want to get out there anymore so now I can just be fun" sort of mode. Lord knows it's gonna be great.

My life...

2008-10-26T15:12:00.001-04:00

Apparently through action or inaction, my life seems to be the running joke of the universe. Most people would be disheartened by that, but somehow I find it strangely compelling and mysteriously comforting.

Posting at Work...

2008-10-21T19:17:00.002-04:00

Not the best of ideas, but I have no internet at home.

I'm simplifying these days. Trying to stay responsible and hungry and not get into such a slump that I usually get myself into when I've been in one place for longer than I generally like, because that really is the cornerstone to many of the problems I have in life. Writing exercise time I suppose...

Bed. Light. Bed. Light. Alarm. Anger. Acceptance. Towel. Shave. Shower. Teeth. Towel. Hair. Towel. Floor. Cold. Air. Cold. Prancing. Room. Clothes. Jacket. Book. Cigs. Tea. Door. Stairs. Street. Cold. Tense. Relaxation. Cold. Sun. Street. Smoke. Stoplight. Street. Stoplight. Street. Stoplight. Stoplight. Wait. Cars. Wait. Cars. Train. Missed. Wait. Read. Train. Seat? Fail. Stand. Read. Jostle. Exit. Walk. Train. Exit. Smoke. Walk. Door. Elevator. Door. Door. Corridor. Salutations. Corner. Sit. Desk. Keyboard. Typing. Hours. Stand. Elevator. Street. Food. Smoke. Desk. Typing. Phones. Typing. Strangers. Morons. Banter. Sympathies. False. Jokes. Laughter. True. Analysis. Boredom. Facebook. Work. Bathroom. Texting. Boredom. Smoke. Jokes. 10:00. Freedom. Street. Cold. Smoke. Broadway. Bowery. Smoke. Bar. Friends. Smiles. Energy. Beer. Laugh. Smoke. Stories. Laughter. Beer. Beer. Beer. Girl. Flirt. Eyes. Smiles. Hers. Seductive. Ethics. Mine. Irritating. Flirt. Care. Sparks. Drunk. Smoke. Flirt. Water. Flirt. Girl. Drunk. Sparks. Brother. Friend. Damnation. Gone. Attempts. Feelings? Genuine? Uncertainty. Past. Screams. Ignored. Late. Surrender. Street. Smoke. Train. Home. Alone. Failure. Hope. Street. Smoke. Verizon. Turn. Street. Mine. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stairs. Door. Keys. Texting. Idiotic. Feelings? Drunk. Genuine. Drunk. Stairs. Slowly. Stumble. Wall. Lean. Door. Keys. Apartment. Tea. Bottle. Fridge. Planning. Room. Clothes. Gone. Bed. Drunk. Alone. Confused. Satisfied. Maybe. Eyes. Darkness. Thoughts. Mistake? Fuck! Ambiguity. Longing. Annoyance. Myself. Others. Remembrance. Satisfaction. Smile. Darkness. Dreams.

Annnnd maybe here in a couple days when I get internet back I can fill all of this in with more of those fucking words we all seem to like.

Actually...

2008-10-06T03:15:00.002-04:00

Living in this city is not as difficult as most of us make it out to be.

3 parts luck, 5 parts skill, and 0 parts expectations.

This is a place for versatile people who have no idea what to expect from life. At least at first it is. The more you think "oh, well I should be doing this, making this much, and living in this neighborhood," you start to screw yourself. One starts with numbers, quick and simple. Jobs are more readily available for normal, college-educated people in this city than one could easily find practically everywhere else. People will tell you different but the number of temp agencies, customer service jobs, high-ish-paying retail stores, bars, cafes, and who the hell knows what else that are continually hiring leave one no excuse to complain unless he or she thought one just waltzes into the city and takes a job at $30k+ doing something that directly pertains to their chosen career path. I honestly wouldn't trust anyone at my job who hasn't lived in the city for at least a year and worked at least one of the aforementioned jobs. Having worked those places says to me that a person would appreciate a stable job with prospects for a future and would work hard for it. Does that mean that one can't pay dues and then some on, say, $10/hr? Fuck no. You can work 40 hours, get your kicks in, eat, and not go into debt too much. I never quite understand people's complaints about all of this shit, and I've decided that a lot of it stems from several things:
1) People don't cook. Cooking your own food is cheap and healthy. You'll feel better about your life and you won't go broke eating pizza every goddamn night.
2) People place a huge emphasis on getting drunk at bars. There are open bars where a $10 tip will get you fairly hammered. They happen every day. But they're unnecessary. Personally I can count the times on one hand that I've walked out of a bar feeling stone-drunk. Most of the time it involved me staying after close for free drinks with the staff. Drink less. Socialize more. Go dancing and wonder about how all the drunks manage without copious amounts of water.
3) People try to live in Manhattan, fail, and move to Brooklyn. Queens is cheaper and safer. Or you could just start in Brooklyn in a halfway decent neighborhood to begin with.
4) People end up sticking with jobs that aren't fulfilling because they're not willing/afraid/think they're unable to give up a little to find something better. There will always be jobs out there that can get your rent payed up. There won't always be interviews for something really good in a job you're qualified to do.
5) People move in with significant others. I'm guilty of this one, and it's one of those things that people rush into because they think they can save money. Security deposits for new places are terribly expensive and relationships should probably be assessed over significant time before this should be on the radar. I suggest sometime after (no, not right after) the first really big fight. Trust me, you should know when that is. Otherwise you're really unprepared. Also, figure out who, if anyone is benefiting most from the move. Some people are not comfortable being a crutch and will not suffer it long.
6) People are fucking afraid to socialize. I keep hearing that it's hard to make friends here. I don't see why. I met my roommate on the subway, the other through Craigslist. My best friends here I met at a bar, and the people I hang out with regularly are on the whole people I met in the city these days. There is no reason why one should have the right to bitch about not making friends. Period.

There are probably a lot more of these but I no longer care, and am going to sleep.

I Am Having A Good Time

2008-09-30T23:06:00.002-04:00

Life is interesting these days. I find myself feeling productive and happy and generally doing things the way I like finally. Mostly, at any rate. I don't have a lot of time for anyone or anything, but I use my free moments pretty well all things considered. I work like a madman and still find space for most of the people in my life, which, given that I no longer have time on actual weekend days is a bit of an accomplishment. My written work is taking a back burner to the devilry of the office.

I don't know exactly what's going on in my romantic life vis a vis my growing harem of women I have, may not, and might sleep with in the future. A couple of them are actually promising, but I believe I will remain single until November barring something particularly awesome. Celibate? Probably not, but single nonetheless.

I get paid sometime tomorrow and I believe I have a date with a lovely girl who I don't want to be my girlfriend who is just about everything she should be to fit that bill but something's missing... and she leaves claw marks on me.

Not as bad as the Puma but finding scabs on my neck is still unpleasant. Ah the intricate subplots of my life. So much fun.

Really?

2008-09-20T00:58:00.002-04:00

Wednesday night I go out to the bar, meet a nice girl, take her home and have sex with her.

Truth be told I'm not one for these kinds of situations. I'm actually really looking forward to losing this single life and actually be with someone for a significant amount of time.

R mentioned tonight that she thinks I'm a sociopath, which really bothered me. She has quickly become one of my favorite people in the history of ever and it really upsets me that the thought would even cross her mind. Especially since she's the one that I confide in and explain my reasoning, however flawed, to and it was just a joke that really hurt.

I ran into someone I did not want to see tonight. I was waiting for friends and this one walks in wearing fake glasses and done up all hipstery. I checked the status of my crew and they were 15 minutes out and I decided that I couldn't wait and had to leave immediately. It's not so much that I was frightened or saddened or awkward in any way. Really whatever compassion and sympathy I had for this person is all dried up. Mostly I didn't want to risk having a conversation, especially in light of the shit my roommate laid on me. I just know that the best I could have been was curt. At worst I would have explained a number of reasons why I reviled the person in question, and might have mentioned that I was just hanging out with some friends that the person knew who let me know exactly what they thought as awful as it was. Instead I left and I feel like a better man because of it.

In other news I don't quite understand how I can attract women. I know I'm a pretty cute guy, and them wanting to remain in my company is understandable because I'm a decent fellow who's good in the sack, but I share the confusion of my roommate when it comes to how I get these women to like me in the first place. One or two is easy to get, but really the number that want to be with me doesn't make any damn sense, especially when you consider how much of a sonofabitch I tend to be. If anyone has answers I'd love to hear them. In the meantime I'm being responsible and going to sleep and ridding myself of this weird night forever.

Sound, Fury, and Really Just Fury

2008-09-16T23:59:00.002-04:00

Not that I'm angry. I think Fury is just a fucking awesome word.

At some point, as soon as I find someone worth a damn, I'd like to start dating again, as in some form of relationship and not like, going out on a date, deciding I don't want to date the girl I'm out with, tell her so at the end of the date, and then trying, and failing miserably, to explain that in a way that doesn't hurt feelings. As mentioned there are several people with whom this is possible but thus far it's terribly difficult to get them in the same room as me and I've never been one for putting up with that kind of shit.

I'm on my way to a bar to meed a ladyfriend who is terribly nice and interesting and thinks I'm attractive but I don't know if it's worth my time. I'm about to go find out.

I love my life.

Not Far From the Tree

2008-09-13T02:14:00.002-04:00

My roommate, R's, dad is here and sleeping on an air mattress in her room. He's a very delightful New Zelander and I'm a big fan. I can see where she gets a lot of her general awesomeness so that's great.

We cleaned the apartment the other day and I spent the entire day today playing video games and watching the office. I got some writing done but not nearly enough. One day I'll have all these literary works finished and I can finally at least attempt to get them published.

I had a Friday off for the first time in awhile last week, and Monday (Labor Day). It's very bizarre, because I didn't realize how important something like a Friday night could be. In the last couple weeks I've met about 4 girls who are all terribly attractive. If you include the terribly attractive single girls I know that might actually be into me but through one circumstance or another have never pursued it's probably something like 6-7. It really is feast or famine I guess, but about half of them have normal people schedules so it's really hard to meet up with them as I'm working mornings on the weekends. One day, I suppose, things will be different.

In the meantime I'm trying to stay present in everyone's life as much as possible so they don't forget about me. It's tough trying to put people into my schedule, and I don't really like that I have to try so hard just to meet up with people, or that if I call someone at say 6pm on a Friday and they say that they'll be out around 10 that I can't go because I work so damn early. It's 2:30am and I work at 9am and tomorrow's going to suck. I feel fantastic though, and I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. Here's hoping I can get Friday nights back soon, though.

Cheers kids. If you're reading this I probably miss the hell out of you. Unless I don't, or I don't really know you. That's also a possibility. Meh, there's a good chance that I miss the hell out of you or would like to miss the hell out of you but can't because circumstances don't allow it.

Updates and... Words

2008-08-18T22:51:00.002-04:00

I've been working between 55 and 60 hours a week for the last 2 months. My roommates think I'm constantly upset because I'm not drunk when they see me and they are or have been drinking or maybe they just think that because I'm very, very tired most of the time that I'm not happy.

I'm not entirely sure that they're wrong. I'm happy with my job, and I feel like I'm actually contributing something to something and not just pushing a damn boulder up a hill. I have money, or at least the promise of financial pseudo-stability, for the first time since I've moved here. I haven't really seen my responsible friends in longer than I care to remember and I can only gibe with the bar friends so well. I got a girl's number after something like 2 months of celibacy or mostly celibacy and by that I mean I've been celibate in the ways that really mean a goddamn bit of difference. I slept at another girl's place or at least passed out on the bed and woke up with my shoes on and a cat sleeping on my hip and my hand on the girl's hip inexplicably and I had to go to work and was way far down the street when I realized I didn't have her number and she didn't have mine and I wasn't going to see her for awhile and I wanted that to be different. The girl whose number I got I'm not sure about. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking for something serious; I am, but I'm looking for something serious in a non-serious way and don't even fucking ask me how to describe that.

I don't want long talks about what we are and how we feel about this that and the other and I just want things to find their way into being what they ought to be without having to just step out and say what the other person should already damn well know and I'm tired of pussyfooting around and I'm sick of my friends leaving fucking town and of 8am-7pm work schedules and I love 5 hour energy shots and I really need to get laid and I'm sick of one night stands and people who think they fucking know me and can read me by how I look at them and conversely glad I'm no longer suffering or having to suffer the kind of people who question my every everything be it legitimate or just a game of manipulation and winning upper hands in the game of who's sorrier for hurting the other's feelings.

I find myself burdened with a bunch of things that are only superficially burdensome, the kind of shit you could describe to someone in 5 seconds and shrug it off in just that time. Similarly I notice that I'm free of all those complicated things that really fucked up my demeanor because you could never explain it without sounding like you were venting and I don't vent at people when I can help it because I tend to want to deal with my own shit alone.

I was pseudo-dating this 30+ gal who wouldn't let me fuck her. It was probably because she's finished with the whole casual sex thing but we went down on eachother a bunch of times, which was great for her but doesn't really mean much to me more than a really good start that never got a chance to be something. As you can imagine I ditched her and I'd be a liar if I told you that counted for less than 50% of my decision. Still, she wasn't at all cynical and I can't deal with that shit. I really can't stand those girls who have no humor or malice of their own and just laugh at other people's jokes or recite the ones they've heard before because the words made them laugh. She was the type that would get drunk and tell me that I had a lot of growing up to do and that when she lived in LA blah blah blah. Great. I've lived on a boat. I've seen personal disfigurement for the sake of being a better beggar. I've set a corpse on fire and filled in graves. I've lived poor, taken and given nothing back and given and got nothing in return. These are the reasons I don't take advice well.

So when I let it slip that I had a break-up a few months back it goes without saying that the last thing that I wanted to hear was how I should have tried to make it work. But I suppose I should thank that morally righteous twat because in explaining why the making it work phase had been, gone, and faded into the horizon I realized the full extent of why I did what I did and only gave a passing glance back. I don't think much about myself or my actions once they're done you see, and hindsight is 20/20, so these epiphanies come late in the game for me sometimes. It's funny how the infinite puzzle pieces of my past unhappiness all sorted themselves in that drunken moment before the 33-year-old just playing at grown-up started bitching about how I didn't have an air conditioner. I could see everything I chose to ignore, all of the shit I continued to believe that was only temporarily true, all the things that I did that I was so apologetic for, and just everything flashing before my eyes, a year and change and months in a former life in another place and how it all fit together and the differences and the similarities and it was all so much that I stopped and looked up at the moon which, full as it was, seemed to give me a wry smile as if to say "there you go, fucker! took you a fucking age." I wasn't sorry anymore. I simply couldn't be. Of course that's not to say that some of it all wasn't my fault. How could it not be? But I realized that it was ridiculous to feel bad about any of it. I wonder now if I ever should have. I refuse to go into it in detail but to put it shortly and vaguely I realized at the time I was living like I was somewhere else, someone else, and at some other age and so were those immediately around me and the ones that weren't knew it too and didn't drill it into my head enough to make it stick, not at all that it's their fault. It's mine for being oblivious.

I guess getting your shit together really makes you realize how blind and dumb you used to be and how wrong you've been. For that feeling of enlightenment alone I wouldn't trade (more than half) of that time drooling in the dark.

So now I may be overworked, undersexed, and hopelessly single, but I'm also feeling like an adult for the first time in awhile and it feels legitimate. I feel unburdened and uplifted beyond the physical exhaustion of a new career. I feel like a truly epic SOB-- the king of this goddamn universe, and you, and everyone else for that matter, is just renting space.

Make (fucking) Way.

I own a Cat Vest

2008-07-26T20:37:00.002-04:00

It is probably the greatest thing that has ever been given to me.

It has magical powers.

But it makes me look like a damn hipster.

But it's a motherfucking cat vest.

These are the choices that one man should never have to make.

Then again, you all know me. I only make the best decisions.

Another Day...

2008-07-07T23:15:00.003-04:00

Another year and maybe I'm no closer to figuring it all out than when I started the day someone smacked me on the ass to get me to start breathing.

But I probably am.

I have the best friends anyone could ask for in this whole goddamn world. I've loved, I've hated, I've hated those I loved, I've made love to those I've hated. I swam with dolphins and sharks. I've lived freely. I've lived poor. I got my shit together. I learned what it was I wanted. I tried. I failed. I failed to try. I tried to fail.

I explored alcoholism.

I fucked well above my league.

I moved around, I slept around, I bummed around.

I created. I destroyed. I fought and argued and debated and shook the very pillars of heaven with the relatively mundane struggle of being a disenfranchised, directionless twentysomething.

I made the city my home.

I calmed my fury, but remained a truly worthy SOB.

I put my loose ends to rest.

I burned bridges, built new ones, and even rebuilt a couple.

I found, if not my way, a way that works for the time being.

I found myself happy with things exactly the way they were, and knew peace while retaining that all-important, life-giving, world-enhancing desire and passion that keeps one from ever becoming complacent.

...Not bad for twenty-four. Not fucking bad at all.

Happy Birthday, you motherfucking bastard. Many happy returns.

Because these Questions are Interesting

2008-06-26T13:07:00.002-04:00

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Finding myself on a bus ride back to Kentucky knowing that I just fucked up my entire life and had to go back home to try and be what everyone else thinks I ought to be.

Where would you like to live?
Some ancient castle with fireplaces and secret passages, or some stone house out by the beach on an island or in a very, very large and accommodating tree house with all the amenities.

In what country would you like to live?
I kinda like the intricacies of my native land, but I could do Greece or Japan, or Ireland and Scottland so long as I could escape the weather here and there.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
A bar where everyone knows me. Freedom to leave the city when I like, money enough not to miss out on the city's siren call, a good jukebox, attention from a pretty girl, respect for my written work, and a tasty steak every now and then.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Lethargy and lust, baby. The most carnal of sins.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
Benjamin Braddock, Chance the Gardner, Hiro Protagonist, Bruce Wayne

Who are your favorite characters in history?
Miyamoto Musashi, Sanada Yukimura, Teddy Roosevelt, Geronimo.

Who are your heroes in real life?
Ain't got no one to really believe in. Probably why I'm such a fuckup. But maybe those guys from Penny Arcade, or that guy that wrote I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Atalanta from the Argo... so... I guess I read a lot more about dudes, how bizarre!

What historical figures do you most despise?
Steve Jobs for creating a damn cult. The founding fathers for not being specific enough and making the past 30 years really really stupid.

Who are your favorite prose writers?
HST, Murakami, Gaiman, Kerouac even though he was a douche, Neil Stephenson.

Who are your favorite painters?
Stephen Hannock: The Oxbow, After Church, After Cole, Flooded, Green Light
Whoever does those kickass metal album covers.

Your favorite musician?
Prince

The quality you most like in a man?
easy going-ness, fun-loving, humor, non-douchiness

The quality you most admire in a man?
Determination, and Jesse Custer-ian moral fiber.

The quality you most like in a woman?
spontaneity, humor, thick-skin, moderate sanity.

The quality you most admire in a woman?
Independence, ambition without ego, and a fiery spirit

Your favorite virtue?
Character, definitely. People with ethics, and maybe they break them sometimes, but only the ones that don't particularly matter and we can laugh about the slight moral failings while knowing that he/she will never let you down on the big stuff.

What is your favorite occupation?
I loved my job as a flower-waterer at the cemetery.

Who would you like to be?
A formidable and worthy S.O.B.... but don't we all? Possibly also a writer, superhero, and maybe a sorcerer if there's time.

Your most marked characteristic?
Being funny/silly/ridiculous, kindness, and crassness. All the qualities the ladies love.

What do you most value in your friends?
Intelligence and a thirst for fun.

What is your principle defect?
Currently having weak will when it comes to the ladies, either hooking up when I know I shouldn't or not being able to just close the book in fear of hurting their feelings.

What is your favorite color?
Blue. Brings out my eyes.

What is your favorite flower?
Tiger Lily

What is your favorite bird?
Falcons or ravens

Who are your favoite poets?
I'm sick of poetry, but I guess Ginsberg

Who are your favorite composers?
Bach, Beethoven, Yasunori Mitsuda.

What are your favorite names?
Chaim, Lily, Suzanne, Rex, motherfuckin! Buz and I'm getting much more comfortable with Blaine these days.

What is it you most dislike?
Irrationality; douchebaggery, people who don't shut up, people who harp on inane bullshit without realizing it's inane, obliviousness.

What event in military history do you most admire?
Sekigahara, Siege of Osaka, Little Bighorn, Thermopylae .

What reform do you most admire?
Fuck reform. Let's dance

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
Electricity.

How would you like to die?
Spontaneous combustion, leaving only shoes and a grease fire on the carpet.

What is your present state of mind?
Calm and excited and all things at once but mostly just hopeful.

What is your motto?
1) Don't fuck on the first date.
2) The second bar you go to counts as the second date.

So...

2008-06-24T00:06:00.002-04:00

A girl came to look at the apartment and I ended up sleeping with her. Why is this? Because I'm either extremely smart or extremely dumb. R, her bro-dude-man-friend, this girl, and I all hung out at my place and then went to the bar next door. Before leaving she made fun of my sandals relentlessly and simply wouldn't let it go. She would continue to do this for the rest of the night. Still, after she got to the bar she informed me that if the whole room thing didn't work out that we should get dinner. She then spent the rest of the night hitting on me. My guard was down because she was looking to move in and we both had mentioned our ongoing attempts at pseudo-celibacy. She was attractive mind you, but I don't think I made a very good decision here. R, my remaining roommate, approves wholeheartedly, but that's just because she's awesome. If I could I would clone her so I could live with two of her and probably have the most fun ever.

It's cool though. The potential roommate did blow, which I'm not specifically opposed to, but she was also a schoolteacher, and plans to be for some time, and she totally did a bump when she got home and since it was Sunday night (meaning that she had to do some form of teaching in the morning) that just didn't sit right with me.

Scars on her arm indicated that she was or is a cutter and I don't really abide by that either. The two might be related. Plus she was kindof a bitch and listened to much horrible music... so I slept with her. I know, I know, what the hell was I thinking? I didn't even put on a good show. I mean, she had fun, but it had been a solid month of nothing, and with that one girl not really fucking me and me by virtue of that not able to really get me off otherwise, well, let's just say I was a little shorter lived than I'd like. Also, she informed me that she never gets off from sex. I don't know if this was true or not, but that bothers me too. I know that this isn't exactly an uncommon thing, but I don't really cotton so well to that. I get that it's still enjoyable for the girl in question, but it always feels as though I'm being humored somehow.

Besides, for me a big part of what makes sex better than masturbation is the act of inducing an orgasm in a woman.

OK, all that aside, tomorrow is my first early shift of what will soon be 55-60 hour weeks. It's sweltering in my room, my friends are leaving town one by one, and yet I've never been happier. I'm absolutely flat broke til at least the end of the week, I'm scared shitless about my funds, I'm hopefully going home for the 4th, and still have no idea what I'm doing, but by god it's all finally coming together somehow. I'm going to bed and I'm going to work and it's all going to be spectacular tomorrow.

My first love is blowing back into town in a couple weeks, and may be staying for good. While we have repaired the bridges I burned when I moved here, I have decided to let that one go. Moving forward and upward is a difficult process for me, but I think a lot of that is accepting my decisions, even if ill-advised and haphazard, as the right ones. This is not acceptable to some, who will bring my motives/feelings/character into question. A few weeks ago it wasn't exactly an uncommon thing among a couple people I know. As if I don't know myself. As if I don't know how I feel. As if I were some kind of liar. As if they thought they knew me, and in some cases as if they never knew me at all. I think that maybe it's time to leave a lot of that behind, call the game on account of hindsight-related bitterness and bullshit and return the whole "fuck off and die" attitude that you wish you didn't mean.

At least the light at the end is bright and the sky is clear and the water is azure and I begin to not feel bad that I no longer care. Life is hilarious and wonderful and full of all the twists and turns I always expected. I am the universe.

What a Night

2008-06-17T07:08:00.003-04:00

I am about to start my new job on no sleep.

I know, this is about the dumbest thing I could ever attempt.

I'm having a conversation with what could best be described as one of the ones who got away during my college years. Actually, it's more that I was too chickenshit to take all the signs as serious so never got my chance.

She's coming to visit in November and we've been having one of the best conversations ever. I currently feel completely stupid for not trying to do more with her in the past.

Tall beautiful Eastern European girl with dark sarcasm and hazel eyes. She also apparently owns property in 3 countries. Now, I'm not one to care one way or the other about a potential suitor's financial assets, but come on, that's damn impressive for a gal only a couple years older than me.

Other good things include my new job, which is nice, and A might come out to visit from Chicago area this summer, so I'll get to meet her which should be entertaining.

OK, giddiness about her aside, let's deal with my more shallow tendencies. I've spent a lot of time this past month drunk somehow. Mostly at the Library, to the point where I don't really consider it going out because it's more like home to me and I hardly pay anything, and I never call my friends when I go because it's almost depressing to be in the same damn place every damn day.

Joey came back to the city and we discussed our apparent reformation from being complete fuckups although the reality of that will be put on hold until after spending my first day on the job after a sleepless night. We hung out with my old roommate, J, which was fun, hit, predictably, the Library and then Crash Mansion where I met a gal who we went back to the Library with. She and I were terribly drunk and then she was my prom date, along with my friend Kari, who I ignored a bit more than I liked in favor of my ongoing flirtation with a girl that H informed me was not really my type as far as she knows. I figure maybe that's good, because maybe then she's not crazy. Still, I'm not dating anyone exclusively until after November and I see where this bizarre situation with the Romanian goes. At least this current one, while I have yet to actually sleep with her, is very good at other sexual things. So that's cool.

Before that a friend slept over a couple nights. She's very nice but has a few problems with dudes. Specifically she's been head over heels for a man I consider to be the worst form of non-woman-beating scum. She stayed at my place one night that it was like a billion degrees outside and in my room and she was terribly drunk. At one point at 4am I look over and she's just lying there completely naked. At that point, being completely confused, took a longer look than I felt appropriate (but still shy of a full on staredown), rolled over and went back to sleep. It's not that I wouldn't fuck her. I would, and she'd like it, because I'm good at that. It's not really even because I don't want to get involved in her crazy string of boys she sleeps with. I don't, but I think I would anyways. It's that I'm somehow inadvertently becoming a better person and better people don't try to get girls much much drunker than they are to sleep with them after they brought them back home with them specifically so nothing like that would happen to them in their drunken state.

I know, who knew I was even capable of all this? Probably that Jesus fellow, but he says the same thing about everyone so I don't trust his opinion.

It truly is an amazing life these days.

Recent Shit

2008-06-06T02:14:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking about the city.

This is my home, and more often than not it feels like home. I love it here and I never want to leave.

Currently I'm in dire straits... again. It looks like I'm going to get this job, but I'm not sure when it'll start, and I'm just about to be overdrawn. Rent for next month is questionable.

Somehow, a lot of this doesn't seem to matter.

I found myself walking down the street feeling like at any given point I could step off and start flying.

They raised cigarette prices out here, and with that I'm not sure I can really justify the habit anymore. I'm about this close to packing a lot of shit in. Theoretically I'm here until next August, after which I can't promise I won't pack it in and ship off. Dave and some others claim to be coming out, and my dearest hope is to have something in order in my life by then.

My devotion to the Library Bar has severely limited my meeting of new women. While I'm often just fine with this, the lack of sex in my life is getting a little annoying. Do I know people who are totally up for sleeping with me? Yes, but I'm very hesitant. My trysts since the big breakup have been limited at best, which makes me suspect that maybe I'm subconsciously sabotaging the designs of my shallow, lustful side. Perhaps that's OK.

I think it's just going to be more confusion for me for quite some time now, but at least I'm happy, as usual, and more than ever I realize that's all I'll ever need.

That and money... and maybe a cheeseburger.

Milestones

2008-06-05T04:47:00.002-04:00

As of yesterday I have been here for 2 years.

Hooray for me.

Musings

2008-05-16T17:19:00.002-04:00

I sometimes feel as though my life is not my own. I make plans on a first-come, first-served basis and stick with them except in case of emergency (like that time I had a non-date but my friend got mini-evicted and needed a place to crash for the night. Otherwise I take my orders from whoever right at the start and then fill it in with the stuff I want/need to do.

This might sound a tad silly, and it is to be sure, but I actually rather like it this way. Sure some people might find themselves feeling unimportant if I can't make space for them when they call last-minute, and I do sympathize for certain, but my priorities lie in my friends and I've decided not to break plans once I've set them. I can be running late, because that does happen and the internet is distracting (like now) but on the whole I feel like a better person by setting everything up as it comes and letting it play out in that order without feeling the need to reshuffle everything every other day. I like the simplicity. I've missed the simplicity for quite some time now and I'm relieved to find out that as complicated as I've felt over the last several months it wasn't necessarily me that was inherently complicated but rather a myriad of outside influences that was constantly giving me pause.

That's a huge burden to be able to be rid of, actually, and if it weren't for the unemployment thing again (I quit my job last week, yeahhh whatevuh!) which will be quickly remedied I will be perfectly ready to get back to the kind of normalcy I've been striving for. This may or may not include: being awesome, making definite plans of my own, and maybe, just maybe get into a relationship again.

Don't get all confused and shit over that last one. I wholeheartedly refuse to be looking for anything even resembling that right now. Basically I've decided to cut out dating. I know, that seems to be a large part of the social process, right? But it sucks. It's like meeting someone, having a good time, and then marching right into limbo for usually like a month in which you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing, every word you say is (or seems to be) scrutinized at every level to determine how serious you are and every little thing the girl in question does is equally scrutinized because am I really going to be able to live with that snorty laugh if we get together (just an example, fictitious and not pertaining to anyone I know)?

Instead I will be spending my time going for the two extremes, which is casually hooking up here and there, and something actually serious. Do I know how I would just fall into the latter? No, but I've done it before so who knows. Shit, gotta shower and be off to drink more than my fair share.

Goodnight Moon.

1 Minute Told at the Speed of Thought

2008-05-15T15:54:00.003-04:00

So I'm watching my bartender play a show...

I immediately think about the last girl I kissed and how I probably shouldn't have done that and then how I probably shouldn't have kissed the last 2 or 3 girls I kissed most recently and then I think that maybe it's not so bad, and drunken mistakes happen and I was so very close to doing the right thing which is almost like actually doing it considering that I could've done so much worse so I dropped it at that and started thinking about how awesome it would be if I had a dragon and isn't genetic engineering up to the goddamn task yet? I mean we can put fish genes in tomatoes and that's like inter-kingdom genetic engineering and all I'm talking about is breeding a terribly large lizard with wings that can fly me to work should I ever get a job again but you know what? Fuck jobs I just want the wind at my hair and to ride on the great plains of a horse that shares my passion but there's too many damn roads so maybe I want to take a boat and sail the Atlantic to Greece and fish and every night take the boat home to my coastal house built of wood and stone and clay and dare I say adobe? Oh I dare, maybe the New Mexican desert is really where it's at. I do like that rust color and maybe peyote really just is exactly what I've been missing in this life, or fuck it, what about Machu Pichu. Nobody lives there and I could just set up shop in an abandoned stone enclosing or something and live off the mountains and be the badass I've always meant to be. Does anyone live on Easter Island anymore? One would assume so but what the fuck's the point? You know, they probably never pressure anyone into the army out there, must be nice. My god that bartender can sing and she's so fucking attractive, but wasn't she dating the guitarist? Or was that someone else? Am I just associating a No Doubt scenario on them? Why is it the ones I like flirting with me never really mean it? It's fucking karma isn't it? God PBR is gross when it's all you can afford. How many cigarettes have I smoked today? I think 4, but I didn't smoke at all yesterday oddly enough and maybe this cough is the emphazema or whatever how the fuck does one even spell that fuck it I don't have it I wonder who's tending bar at Library after this maybe I'll stop by and say hey and I should pick up toilet paper from the Duane Reade before I go cause I keep forgetting and we're on emergency roll and maybe since K is moving out this month I can get him to clean the bathroom before he goes I mean he's hiring someone to clean his room so why not chip in the extra ten bucks and clean the bathroom cause it's not all that bad oh shit I need lighter fluid too goddamn I hate being broke I wonder if that girl would fuck me.

Love and Lightening Bolts

2008-05-12T13:48:00.002-04:00

She was madly in love with him for approximately 4 hundredths of a second.

Before that, during the three or four months she had been working the bar he frequented she liked him a good deal, and knew that he cared deeply for her, but would never let anything come of it. Instead she would severely undercharge him for his drinks and he would smile ever so sweetly and make up more than the difference in tip. There was a time when she tried refusing the amount, as he looked young and hungry on what had to be a meager wage, but she had since given up. "Sweet as sugar but stubborn as a mule," she said of him once. He smiled and with all the gravitas of southern gentry replied, "Why deary me, Miss Sonya, you're liable to give me the vapors!"

It was the kind of relationship built by strangers with the deepest understanding for one another; where the conversations reflect the passion of a torrid love affair, but remain completely shallow so as not to bring out any real emotion. The kind of relationship guys always have with their bartenders, and he loved her the second she sassed him.

He always wondered what it was about the girls that served him beer that touched all the right nerves with him and made his heart leap out of his chest and do handstands even though he never really knew them. Was love really in a perfect Guinness poured especially for him? Or maybe love was knowing that he preferred an orange to a lemon in his Blue Moon and getting the bar-back to cut some when he came in. Still, he had a sneaking suspicion it was simply the way they always looked at him; a very complex combination of affection without admiration, contempt without malice, and lust without interest. That surreal kind of look that asked him to take her to bed and then disappeared down the bar without a second glance.

Which was not at all the kind of look she was giving to the other gentleman at the end of the bar on Sunday. At that man she looked wide-eyed and frightened and at the opposite end of the bar he saw that man's gun trained on her and knew that everything was wrong and that everything was going to get so much worse and that his hand had been forced and it was all about to end.

Quickly, he finished his beer and quietly walked around behind the bar and towards the armed man at the end, whose gun was still pointed directly at the bartender. The armed man didn't even seem to see him until he was standing between the bartender and the gun. The bartender asked him what he thought he was doing, cursing several times in the asking, but he only apologized with the most heartfelt utterance of "I'm sorry," she had ever heard pass through another person's lips, and she knew that something terrible was going to happen but found herself hoping that he would be alright somehow.

The armed man yelled and asked for money and he refused and calmly insulted the armed man. A patron told him to back away and give up the money, but he knew he couldn't. He had been living the charade for so long; ignoring any desire to do what was right in favor of remaining unknown. But this was love, or at least something like it, and he was prepared to do what was necessary for the first time in his life, all for her.

The shot occurred during the silence between jukebox songs that seemed to last forever and was, because of that silence, all the more loud and ominous. The flash from the barrel illuminated the back of the establishment and was reflected in the windows, and seemed brighter than the sun; forcing all but three people to shut their eyes upon seeing it.

She stared at his back and in that instant saw so much. Everyone at the bar would say that time seemed to stop the moment the shot rang out, but only she would know that her consciousness expanded and allowed her to see everything she ever felt about him in 4 hundredths of a second. She saw herself crying at the funeral and throwing herself on the coffin. Her mind scanned his back looking for an exit wound, and wondered if he would live and maybe get a house and a dog and have kids, or get tattoos together and play in a shitty band or rob a bank and steal a boat and sail to Crete to live out their days. She thought about ripping off his gown after he got out of intensive care and fucking him in the hospital. She thought about staying with him for the rest of her life.

He thought about his deadbeat father, and longed for a more stereotypical way for the next few seconds to play out.

The armed man was suddenly struck with the knowledge that he had just done the single dumbest thing in his life, and that this would not at all be like the man he shot on Knickerbocker Ave, or even like the time he heard about how his neighbor stabbed a cop at Kelloggs Diner. He didn't even want to shoot anyone in the first place, but he did shoot someone, and he knew that it was the one person in the whole goddamn world that he shouldn't have shot.

She saw him, having not been shot, and he seemed about ten feet tall even though she looked again and swore he hadn't gained an inch. Bright light surrounded him and she heard the clink of a bullet hitting the floor. She heard him speak to the armed man with a voice more powerful an more beautiful than anything she had ever heard, and watched as the armed man dropped his weapon, which shattered like glass on the floor and ran out into the street only to get struck by lightening. He turned around to face her with his glowing blue eyes and aura and shimmering raven-colored hair and smiled. He told her that the man would live. He told the bar-back to call the police. He told everyone to forget what they saw him do, and they did.

She looked at him, completely speechless, and smiled back, and when he saw it his heart sank and, were it possible, the pain would have killed him where he stood. He saw the love in her smile, the real, almost unconditional kind, and watched it fade into that kind of smile that accepts bad news. He loved her madly, but he saw that there was nothing left for him with her and so he turned somberly, hopped over the bar, and exited, looking more and more like the poor, young and hungry fellow she always thought she knew.

He walked down the street and cursed his fate. Because what good is taking a bullet without risk of injury? What good is love without that kind of sacrifice? What good is life at the side of a god, and is it any kind of life to begin with? He tried to stay normal for her; to give her that kind of love between the poor and hungry that was always the purest of all, but the only thing he realized he could sacrifice was his chances with her.

Alone and omnipotent, he sauntered down the street in search of a new bar.

Trading Up

2008-05-08T01:31:00.003-04:00

The man stared at the computer screen until all the little black squiggles came into focus and began making sense again. He let his fingers find the home row, scared that if he looked away from the screen that he would never be able to make sense of the written word ever again.

His fingers hesitated as his left index brushed the raised bar that indicated the 'f' key.

He stopped focusing.

The words seemed to drift back into the screen and became nothing more than little black marks on a solid white background, as luminescent as the lights overhead, stuck forever in a little white box like he was, only now they could no longer communicate; the words were lost to him. He considered that maybe it was all going to be alright somehow; that he could get by without the ability to comprehend words. He considered that maybe he'd get it all back in the next 5-4-3-2-1...

Nothing.

The man stood up in the middle of his tiny little open-topped box and stared off into the distance out over the myriad of other boxes to the offices on the far wall. He kept the door to one particular office in his line of sight and headed straight there; paying no attention to the people shuffling by with their 25-cent coffee and vending machine snacks. This was the master's office, and when he opened the door without knocking he knew that he crossed some kind of ethical line and could see that the master recognized this as well in the look on her face, but it was too late. He knew he had to say something to her; to explain his predicament, but couldn't find the words. She, too, seemed to have lost the grasp of language, as she simply stared back at him quizzically and visibly irked. Instead they continued staring at one another until finally the phone rang and the master looked away to answer it.

Somehow satisfied with this, the man left the room with a view and headed towards the elevator. He could not bring himself to push the call button, so he walked down the 10 flights alone and dejected, yet strangely compelled; his body seeming to move independent from his mind with a powerful will and a mysterious goal. He could not question it. There were no questions suitable enough, and no answers to be had. There was only the will separate from his own; enveloping his own, and forcing him out into the light of day.

As he walked along the sidewalk the sun hit his shirt and provided the kind of slow burn one can't help but appreciate on a windy day. He smiled big and let his pace quicken. He closed his eyes and let his body move as it liked. He unknowingly darted around women with grocery bags, kids on scooters, cars barreling through intersections, and an elderly pair of gentlemen playing dominoes in the middle of the sidewalk.

When he finally opened his eyes he found himself sprinting across the bridge away from the skyscrapers and felt the breeze in his face for the first time since he moved to the city with no agenda and no prospects other than his will to survive and succeed. The memory resonated with the mysterious force controlling his body and he somehow knew that this was right. As wrong as it seemed, as disastrous as it was to everything he strove for over the past half-decade he knew that it was over. There was only this will. There was only this movement. There was only this desire. He closed his eyes again and let his body fully appreciate the breeze and the sun and let himself keep moving.

That night he slept under the stars, the clearest sky he remembered seeing, in a farm the next state over. He didn't know how far he ran or why he wasn't tired, why something hadn't pulled or torn or broken. He had never felt better. His clothes had seen better days, though, and many of them did not make the trip. His coat was left on the back of his chair in the building so far away now. His tie fluttered from the bridge to the water below. His shirt, pressed and collar starched, hung on a tree 10 miles outside the farm. He cared not. He didn't need them where he was going, wherever he was going. He knew that this was a one-way trip and that some things were simply not meant for the journey. He didn't know why he knew that, but he didn't push the issue. It was not something he wanted answers for anyways.

Days went by as he ran along back roads with a determination he never knew. West. Always was he traveling West to a fate he wanted so desperately.

Weeks. He ate. He slept. He ran. He spoke to no one. He read no signs and registered no direction but West. He lost his wallet while crossing a stream to get to the next road out in, were he regarding such things, Missouri. He was branded thief at times and derelict at others but these names meant nothing. His identity lay in the will that moved him, the will that became his own, and no man could name him ever again for the will was stronger than any man or any law.

He stood for about an hour before opening his eyes and realizing that he had stopped running. His journey, though, had not quite ended. He stood on a little road surrounded by parked cars and tourists with cameras pointed directly at the tree line of an immense forest. He had reached some kind of natural reserve. At the edge of the woods stood some sort of antlered creature that he no longer needed to recognize. The will had stopped. The will waited for his commitment to his new life, and at that time the will seemed so small and fragile. Were he simply to turn away and begin walking back East he knew somehow that the will would die and vanish and he would be free to reclaim his life. For him, though, there was no choice to be made. He took one cautious step towards the tree line, then another.

He kicked off his shoes, which, tattered as they were, fell apart upon hitting the pavement. The tourists looked at him, perplexed as to why a camera-less man would even bother going in for a better shot of the animal, and then simply zoomed back in for another picture for the grandchildren. The beast eyed him cautiously, then broke off in a run back into the forest. It didn't matter, the will assured him, since there were always so many more. He passed the first tree and put his hand down flat on the ground, noting the fur and claws and pads. He proceeded with his other hand, knowing finally what he was doing. He smelled the forest and smelled everything: the tourists' sweat, the prey that was once in front of him, and the large bear up in the tree that none of the humans had even seen.

Finally ready, he took a few more steps in, howled, and ran into the dark woods in search of his pack.

The Real Political Battle: The Internets

2008-05-06T18:53:00.002-04:00

Or the Intertron 5000 if you wanna be fancy about it.

Internet politics continually blow my fucking mind. There is a really bizarre set of ethics that go along with your life in binary that to me seem about as easy to discern as reading the newspaper through a vat of Vaseline.

An example of this: My ex girlfriend is facebook friends with more of my real-life friends than I am. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit upset about this. Negligibly, sure, but it's there. The thing is, I'm really not sure how to feel about that at all, because I think that was just her thing, clearly moreso than it was ever mine. I remember she added my friend Paul even though she had met him once and was only in his presence for about 5 minutes and barely spoke a word to him. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or that it's somehow wrong of her to do so. What I'm getting at is that I can't really understand why one does such things. I don't understand it when people, let's not say overuse, because that's just my opinion, but use the full advantage of the facebook/myspace options.

Another thing I don't understand is the following (and again I will be using the subject of my ex and I because that is largely what got me thinking of this and also it's a good example): When we broke up there were a number of her friends who I liked and enjoyed the company of, but definitely considered her friends who, once we broke up, I knew I would never see again, or, if I did, would bump into them in an extremely awkward fashion. The fact is that we could never be real friends after something like that. Should I remove them from my social networking accounts because what the hell is the point, really, it still seems as though I'm making some sort of faux pas.

And writing this is something else too. Because I used the examples above there are people out there that are going to dissect everything I've just written as opposed to say, a story about how I got drunk and puked on a cactus, and make all sorts of assumptions about my state of mind, and furthermore, some might even find it rude that I decided to use said examples as subject matter or that I wrote something a certain way which was offensive. It comes to the point where this trivial thing, this document on the way I feel during the 5 minutes I'm writing it all down, is thus used as a window to my life, but because time is what it is, they're looking at a window to my life minutes to hours to days to weeks to months and now to years ago that is almost certainly not an exact representation of me because I move with the times and my temper flares and cools and my wounds heal and reopen and my feet get kicked out from under me and land safely.

It is at this point that I realize that the internet is completely full of shit, and that everybody is at least somewhat like this, and thus every blog is at least in some small part full of shit. Not because the writing isn't genuine, nor the feelings behind it, but because of the fact that the internet is viewed as something immediate when it is in fact about 6 steps behind the speed of life. I could tell the world that I feel like utter shit, which would be a complete lie right now, I feel fucking phenomenal, and be fine in an hour when someone were to read it, thus screwing with the collective consciousness by propagating false sympathy.

Will any of this stop me from being on facebook or myspace or writing this? No, because I find this a nice little release and a bit of practice for my untrained hand and I do find the internet networking sites to be extremely useful for keeping up with people who insist of speaking to me through text messaging which I don't want to pay for and I can write letters and not have to post them even though I do sometimes because damnit it's nice to get a letter sometimes. It is, however, why I will not spend 5 minutes in your presence and insist we be facebook friends. It is why I removed the link to my blog from my facebook and myspace page, and why my ex girlfriend is friends with more of my original friends on the internet. I just can't be more than half-assedly interested in this whole thing and would rather not slow myself down from the speed of life to the speed of 1s and 0s.

And anyone reading this will be advised, if offended, to shut your pie hole and let it go. All this went down a lifetime ago when you think about it, something's lifetime at least, and were I you I would be damn glad of my non-paramecium status.

I Met Lloyd Kaufman at the Library...

2008-05-04T16:35:00.003-04:00

bar. I met him and a bunch of other Troma employees at the Library Bar (also known as a pretty fun bar housing the best bar jukebox in the history of ever) celebrating their 35th anniversary.

At first I was intrigued. Then I was pissed. They took up the entire space past the bar (i.e. all the booths), which was largely fine since I wanted to sit and talk to my bartender, Kristen, but they had it all lit up because of filming nonsense which was terribly out of place as I don't think the back has seen more than candlelight before last call once. Furthermore there was a DJ parked right in front of the jukebox as if he was ever going to do better than that thing... on random... on a bad day. Then when I was out smoking there was some "reporter" trying to interview people on the street, but really just asking people to sing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant's Song" with her.

But J showed up with a friend and I talked about my brand-new shallow existence, complete with the attempts and subsequent failures at being a stand-up guy. A good time was had by all. Lloyd Kaufman bummed a cigarette off of me and we spoke to him about the glory that is Kabuki-man.

That was pretty cool, but last night at last call Kristen and a girl talked a lot about sex right in front of me for no good goddamn reason, then she showed me her boobs (also for no good goddamn reason), after which Kendra said that she was really embarrassed about me seeing her come out of the bathroom after making out with some guy, put her hand in mine, and seemed pretty upset that I didn't arrive a little earlier, and Tanya, a bartender who was there but not working last night said that she wanted to fuck me but apparently couldn't the last time I saw her because I was on a non-date that she thought was a date. Where the fuck did all this come from? Did I stumble into another dimension where I am, in fact, some kind of god? I don't think I've ever felt better about myself after leaving a bar alone.

...except for maybe that time I dropped my non-date off at the train and still managed to make it back to the bar for last call. I felt accomplished after that, too.

The Latest Political Hot Topic Nearly Makes Me a Political Activist

2008-04-29T22:11:00.002-04:00

For the longest time the battle waged between Clinton and Obama like so much masturbation and I don't think I could possibly care less. At least I didn't.

First that McCain fellow, who I never had any beef with whatsoever, came out in favor of a gas tax reduction. Then Clinton did, and my black man-(political)servant Obama did not. Holy shit, I might very well go back home and vote in a primary (but believe me, I won't).

The thing that we have to understand today is that we're at war with ignorance, which pervades the world to the point where even people that make it their business to not be ignorant seem somehow and may very well be ignorant. Have you ever heard an activist speak? The experience is not unlike a douche-squeegee being swashed across your face forever.

But I digress. While I absolutely hope that a gas shortage is going to be what totally ruins the economy and breaks the whole damn world, a part of me doesn't see it working out the way I'd like. When I really do think about it, there's not a really great chance that I'll be wandering the wastelands of middle America in the next 20 years swinging a sword into the face of anyone that crosses me. I will be forever hopeful of such a time, but in the brief moments that I'm rooted in reality I will admit that this is not a likely scenario.

That being said, what the fuck is with this tax reduction for gasoline? Here's a commodity that is universally used for just about everything and pretty fucking scares by the best guess of. Fucking. Everyone. Meanwhile, we've got what has got to be some of the cheapest gasoline in the whole goddamn world and we do nothing but bitch about it. Why couldn't one of these candidate assholes actually just say it straight: Hey, you know what fuckers? We're going to be more or less out of this shit in if not your lifetime then your kids' lifetime. Yes, that one, the one in grad school who's going bald at 28. Yeah, him. So you know what? If you're going to continue carting around all that air in your fucking Suburban then I don't see why you can't keep paying more and more for it, and the next time you fucking complain about gas prices we're going to send you to Sweeden or something where it's five or six Euro a gallon and see how you like it then. Also, fuck you, you greedy fucks. A very simple economic lesson I feel would instruct a lot of people how twatastic they're being about paying $3.50 a gallon now.

I no longer drive, true, but I also made $13,000 last year. I feel comfortable telling you al that because there's like 5 of you anyways. $13,000. If I made twice that much, which as far as I can tell is just about at the border of blue-collar I could afford a goddamn car easy, insurance and all. All this talk about the recession and all this bullshit and I know I don't have all the answers, but seriously? I get the feeling that there's a lot more these people could bitch about than gas prices. I'm sure they do, but that's just what's on the media plate these days, and it seems a bit ridiculous to vilify a democratic candidate for not supporting a temporary tax reduction that will do far more harm than good.

End incoherent rant.

Back to Basics and Other Revelations

2008-04-23T20:04:00.002-04:00

Last weekend was absolutely worthwhile in every way imaginable. I had a chance to get sloppy drunk, met some fun new people, hung out at a comic convention with two of my absolute favorite people in the city, got a check from a former roommate, and (gasp) planned ahead. Ok, just a week ahead for this Sunday, but that is actually saying a lot from me.

Truth be told I don't really make plans. I have routines that I am more than willing to break if someone offers me something different, but otherwise Friday nights you can find me at Crash Mansion and then the Trash party (wherever the hell they host it, Ave C now), Saturdays it's the Library for serious, and just about every other night I'm at home putting work in on various projects until I get distracted by cable (which I haven't had since the Atwater), video games, or reading in some capacity. Usually people call me or email me during the week and say what they're doing and that's how eventful weekends take place. Recently people are doing this a little bit earlier than I'm used to, and it's not that I mind at all, but it's a bit bizarre if people suggest doing something on the weekend during the week and I already have plans. Comic-con was scheduled weeks in advance, as was passover, and I think I'm going to a party for an old neighbor on Saturday that came up awhile ago, another birthday party on Monday, haphazard early plans for Thursday and Friday is my only day to see anyone who can't come over on Sunday.

I believe this is that full-life that people have been asking me to live for so long, or at least my version of it.

It's a bit upsetting, though, that I'm not able to see a good deal of people that I care about this way. I'm committed to something when they invite me to the thing they just committed themselves to and then we're just S.O.L. This didn't really happen so much when I was unemployed, for several reasons, actually, one of which being that I had less friends and others that I won't go into because I refuse to get all sappy, repentant, and overall foolish like I have previously.

What I will say is that it's extremely nice to know what, in basic terms, I'll be looking forward to at the end of the week. There is enough variable material there not to feel too pigeonholed and enough structure to keep me excited about random events. It's a good place to be and I'm legitimately excited about life, the universe, and my transient place in it. My Friday night ritual is becoming a bit too ritualistic, but I'm living with that and at least I'll have that staple so you can all find me when you need me.

Until then I still have a phone, so there's that.

Taxes and Trips

2008-04-16T01:58:00.002-04:00

The taxman was, as far as I can tell, pretty good to me this time around, and our commander in chief really boosted my tax return so that's pretty cool.

All this bullshit makes me want to take a vacation, so once the cash comes rolling in I'm going to do just that. A part of me wants to go to Bloomington and get pitchers at the Vid and get the gang back together. I feel comfortable saying that while I miss everyone I left behind there I think it'd be weird going back and talking to the few people left and all the new kids who don't know of my legend.

No, it's a nice place, but they can come up here. I'm going to go somewhere different. Oddly enough I can actually afford Coachella now, and now that Prince is playing I hate it that I'm not going, but I'm not. Maybe next year.

It might be fun just to go to L.A. and hang out with the Websters in Long Beach for awhile and see some of the gang that's taking over the goddamn town out there, but I'd need a long time for that, you know, upwards of a week instead of Memorial Day Weekend. Instead I think I'm just going to pick a friend at random and visit them wherever the hell that may be. Just a nice $200 or so plane fare, some beer money, and a desire to get into the kind of trouble that the funniest stories are made of.

Yippy Skippy!

F'd

2008-04-14T18:18:00.002-04:00

It's been a weird weekend full of letting people down here and there. Apparently I'm the type of guy that looks/acts like he's got it all figured out. I would just normally assume that anyone who takes a look at how I live would realize that simply couldn't possibly be the case, I mean, how could it?

Sure maybe if I was like Kerouac or something, but truth be told, while I did enjoy his writing I thought he was just another disenfranchised little shit who couldn't make due along with the rest of them; just a group of lost boys still looking for the second star on the right. I suppose I am too, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I hate being broke and just breaking even all the time, I'm not a fan of working a dead in job with a schedule that puts me in a position of upsetting my coworkers because I can't hack it in the mornings (I may very well be narcoleptic, actually, more on this if I ever get health insurance again), and I hate finding myself with too much to do, because I always forget some important little fact and upset someone and life is confusing wah wah wah.

The truth is, I'm not sure how long I can keep any of this shit up. I'm pretty sure if I don't get a better paying job with hours I can hack relatively soon then life is going to go down the shitter. My place is not guaranteed after August and if the landlord raises the rent significantly (or as much as he's legally allowed to) I'll be out on my ass yet again remembering how great/terrifying/fun/miserable it is trying to claw my way back to sustainability. I don't even know if I'd have it in me to try if it's that soon, but a lot can change in a season. If not, I'll be out of here, and I don't think anyone could stop me. I can think of a few who could make a good run at it, though.

Despite all this, I'm actually doing OK, and really it's a bit jarring that I can't express that in words. Basically I'm not nearly as put-together as I apparently seem in real life, and not nearly as depressed as I seem in type. Like everything else in this world, I occupy a space in between, and I suppose I'm fine with that.

The most utterly bizarre thing to me now that I think about it, though, is how (melo)dramatic my life has become in so short a time. In maybe a little under a year everything went from foot-loose and fancy-free to big decisions and long talks and deep emotional content where before there was none. I suppose that's bound to happen when instigating break-ups with girls you live with, one of whom you still cared about during the stagnation process, but I can look back here and see myself meeting her for the first time, getting fucked over, regaining my confidence, becoming haphazardly awesome again, and really enjoying all the goddamn tiny insignificant wonderment that kept me going out here when I didn't know a goddamn soul and couldn't make a friend to save my life. I hate to call it baggage, or even think about it that way, because the word has all the wrong connotations, but that's exactly what it is. My past experiences are informing me of my present situation and I'm tripping all over the moving walkway. Losing socks. Bizarrely enough, though, I'm also going up the escalator, laughing at myself as I go to the gate and make it in record time to a flight someplace nice.

And that's about as much good goddamn sense as I'm prepared to make. There's probably enough here for the lot of you to jump to any number of conclusions about it all, and it will be quite amusing here in a couple weeks once I've heard what they all are. In the meantime I'm going to drink a beer and write a country song for a friend.

A Simple Solution to My Complex Problems

2008-03-22T18:12:00.002-04:00

So things have been really looking up. Everything is apparently coming up Buz. My friend is probably not going to basic training tomorrow, so that's pretty good, I've been out dancing and not had to think twice about what time it was, and the Library had a supply of free condoms, which I figure is important that I take advantage of since I left all of mine in Bed-Stuy. I'm sure they'll come in handy one day.

You could blame it all on the seasons, the ebb and flow of life, the gradual warming of the earth, and free vodka, but I think it's something a little more direct. I think the universe wants me to be free; my red hair flying in the breeze and not a single attachment to lavish my attention on and later, let's face it, emotionally destroy.

So I think if this trend continues I may very well stay single for the rest of my natural life, and maybe take a bride out of convenience sometime a bit before my tragic death by swordfight at the age of 45. My ultimate goal is to become legend, and just melt into the stories people tell about my life years down the road, and after almost 2 years of what I'm growing to believe was just pissing in the wind I'm finally back on track.

I'll play the lone wolf. I'll walk the deserted path among all the smiling, chatting people, and I'll stay unattached for as long as I can manage. Most of you will like me better that way anyhow.

Picking Up Mail...

2008-03-19T02:22:00.002-04:00

and trying to find those minor few things I left behind in a place in which I used to be so happy was a very trying situation indeed. Compounded ever so by the affection of a creature that truly, unabashedly, and ever so simply missed me. As I left and heard it's cry, unsure if I would ever really see it again, I experienced a pain I long since thought I'd given up feeling about anything in this world. Goodbyes are harder when you know it was all genuine, and you don't know if the goodbye is permanent or not... fucking dog. You made me feel something. Kudos you sloppy sonofabitch.

But I got a package that included some Japanese rock music and it might be one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. I saw a friend's band and met up with an acquaintance from yesteryear. Holy shit the J-Rock band is playing on Friday! I'm fucking there, Grammercy be damned.

I know, this whole thing was almost somber and depressing, right? Trust me, everything's cool, sometimes I forget I have a soul until it bites me in the ass. Need to scrape all the dirt off of that thing; see if it still fits so I can take it out on the town.

After two or so weeks of Limbo...

2008-03-16T22:46:00.002-04:00

I'm back. I'm not sure exactly how noticeable it's been but I've been pretty confused about my life, the universe and my place in it for a pretty damn long time.

But I've gone through something of a hard reset. New job, new apartment, and new lifestyle now that I'm back on the 9 to 5.

It's not ideal, the job part at least. It pays alright, and I'll be able to pay my dues and shit, but it's a dead end, and given that no matter what I'm constantly tired during the day I might not be able to make it last as I'd like.

With luck I'll someday either be able to make this writing thing work to at least some extent, and, failing that, finding a job in which I would just be out and about for most of my shift, not have to sell anything and really just minimize my time sitting down. Anybody know anything like that that isn't completely degrading like those fucking Greenpeace survey assholes?

Let me know.

Radio Voice

2008-03-04T01:59:00.002-05:00

I totally forgot about how I used to sound when I was on the radio. I get told by a lot of people to go back to it, and try to dj in some capacity, and it would be great to get like an hour long set or something at East Village Radio, but really my finger is very far removed from the pulse these days.

I don't particularly care for a lot of new music that's coming out, even on the indie scene, and while it's true that I'm not getting that big exposure to those midwestern bands I loved so well, I'm not really all that sad about it. I'm getting off the train for now, shutting down my desire to go out and grab whatever new band is out these days and just stick with songs I know by heart. They make me feel better anyways, but that doesn't fly for indie sensibility, which urges people to keep getting newer and newer things to the point where you're not even allowed to be into anything anyone else has ever heard of. That's great and all, but I liked playing the Impossible Shapes for the IU audience, and maybe a couple friends elsewhere. I loved playing Neutral Milk Hotel and My Bloody Valentine along with Johnny Cash. I love the song "Return of the Mack," for fuck's sake... like, legitimately.

But I do miss how people used to talk about me as a radio personality. I loved getting calls from girls requesting songs, and having Dave and Dave and Ryan come up to play ridiculous songs. Maybe I should figure out podcasting of some such shit. I could still do a show every week I guess, just maybe not in realtime? Who knows.

Fucking Derg

2008-02-19T18:28:00.002-05:00

Broke my computer's power cord.

He's sitting on the bed right now, thinking that everything's cool, cause he doesn't know what a power cord is and what it means to my continued sanity. If it weren't for that I'd be asking him the time-honored question, "Pepsi or Choke, motherfucker?"

Awhile ago when things were a little sketchier I was searching for rooms in an apartment both couple-friendly and otherwise. Of course, now that there seems to be a plan for everything some of these people write back to me and offer room, so I looked at a couple over the weekend and everyone was really nice and really pleasant and the rooms were all very do-able and now I think that maybe given my current state of being it might not be such a bad idea to just mellow out there for a month or so and get a sense of... well... me I guess. I've had people come visit a lot, which is lovely and I wouldn't ignore them for anything, but playing guide combined with a completely full house, a needy-ass dog (who breaks my shit after shitting on the floor, apparently), and a new job that's not so conveniently located stretches me out pretty thin and getting back to normal is a lot harder when you've got a lot on your plate. While I haven't really decided yet, simplifying, living alone, and closer to my job in a nicer neighborhood, in a smaller apartment, and in a place that doesn't seem to be falling apart might do wonders for my mood.

Of course, that seems simple enough, but knowing me I'd be creating a lot of problems by doing this as well. As always it seems I can't win. There's a lot I suppose I need to decide about my life in the next couple weeks before I go screwing with the status quo too much.

The Tribe and the Usual

2008-02-15T19:33:00.002-05:00

I find myself having finally joined the Eastern Standard Tribe after years of living inadvertently, yet successfully, as a member of the Pacific Standard Tribe in the Eastern Time Zone.

I feel like I'm growing up, accepting real responsibilities for what they are, and the like... and it sucks. Granted I'm happy to be at a nearly normal schedule and all but I also feel like I'm losing a very big part of myself somewhere along the way. I also fear that this can't really be helped and that this is just what happens when you start working full time and trying to make yourself more compatible with a healthier lifestyle. Conversely, I feel that I need to quit, run off into the woods, and live among wolves for the rest of my life, slowly but surely forgetting the language of men.

I'm finding myself increasingly detached from just about everything; just growing more ambivalent by the day, and aren't I in an environment that should keep me tethered? I can only hope that this is some sort of temporary thing, and mind you I'm not unhappy by any stretch, I just no longer know what to do about my life. It's like my life is looking up, but it's walking down an incline.

But other than being at point A, wanting to go to point B and heading to point C, things are fantastic.

Whaaaaa?

2008-02-15T01:04:00.002-05:00

I was sitting at lunch the day before yesterday contemplating about leaving the cafe at the bottom of my building, taking the subway to JFK, and trying to book a flight to Greece for that day, and, failing that, anything out of the country.

I had my passport so I could get some paperwork filled out for my new job, and it was weighing on me something fierce. So what if I've got only a few hundred dollars to my name, I could get out of here, go someplace scenic, become a fisherman or some shit.

I'd send you a postcard... maybe... if I remembered your address.

You Know, Like You Do...

2008-01-22T08:30:00.000-05:00

I'm lost and pretty much disillusioned with just about everything. Still I'm, I wouldn't exactly call it motivated, but more like hopeful to succeed in... hell anything at this point.

I've had a pretty raw deal ever since I came out here and while things are better than they were a year and a half ago I'm only partially sure this was a good move for me. Maybe everyone does that when they get here and they're hungry and broke with the odds so thoroughly stacked against them, but it still doesn't change the fact that I'm not pulling my weight like I'd like to be and I'm basically one pitfall away from a potentially abysmal fate.

Still, the fact remains that I couldn't really survive home either, nor could I afford to remain in Bloomington that last year. Also, were I decently employed, or employed at all for that matter, the issue wouldn't be as poignant. I do think I'm where I'm supposed to be, more or less, currently, but I still can't help but feel a bit out of place and lost in life at the moment.

I wish I had my vacation days.

What More Could I Want?

2008-01-09T18:40:00.001-05:00

"These people should know who we are and know that we were here."

(Oh My God) Shoes?

2008-01-08T19:15:00.000-05:00

When Dave was here he decided he would play a weird game with himself (yes, he was playing with himself... in public) where he would keep his head pointed towards the ground and try to ascertain what kind of wardrobe the people around him wore based on their shoes. I think he was 1 for 30.

It occurred to me then that you could probably tell a lot more about a person from their shoes than from anything else they wore. I think people put a lot more thought into their shoes than anything else, and shoes exist in a world all their own.

Consider the difference between men's dress shoes and sneakers. More often than not the dress shoes are pretty damn uncomfortable and the sneakers are comfortable, but many of the name-brand athletic shoes are poorly made and fall apart all the goddamn time. In women's shoes the comfort to class differences are uncanny. In both cases here's rarely a middle-ground shoe that one could wear to say an interview and then put on with jeans and not look like a fucking moron.

So when you look at a person's shoes in a way you're seeing a very specific part of that person. There's a guy with really nice looking loafers or Aldo bullshit pointy-toed Peter-motherfucking-Pan looking shoes, but he's wearing jeans and a hoodie? Dude's trying to impress people in a really unimpressive way. The girl in the power-suit wearing sneakers? Level-headed and probably a free-thinker (whatever that means); just putting up with the company dress code and not letting it affect her heels after the clock strikes 5. The girl with 5" spiked stilettos carrying 3-5 bags filled with other colors of the same damn shoe? Batshit fucking loco and future candidate for a hip replacement later in life.

The thing is, though, that for people that aren't constantly walking with their head hung low, no one really looks at a person's shoes. The owners really care about them. They absolutely should. They're what's going to be holding them up while they travel through life. But the average observer doesn't generally give a flying fuck, unless they're fashionistas or something and are concerned with the designer/etc. But what use is that? What use is a shoe that has a name attached to it? Why don't more people observe the shoes as a purveyor of comfort to a person who walks everywhere? What use are giant-ass heels if you can't walk or dance on them all night? What good is a $200 pair of white sneakers if they're designed to get scuffed and dirty... what use are they if they fall apart after 6 months?

Yes, I am an enemy of fashion. I hate it. I hate fashion with a passion. But in this case I'm more enraged by the fact while fashion more often than not seems to present itself as the antithesis of function and utility, the sentiment seems to be exaggerated in the case of footwear; the one article of clothing that really does affect the rest of physical form in terms of bone position, mobility, and overall ability to move.

End of Rant.

On Infinite Complexities and the Lie of Simplicity

2008-01-01T19:31:00.000-05:00

I was talking with Dave the other day and I decided that there is absolutely no such thing as simplicity when it comes to people. Sure, as Dave commented, there's a lot of people out there whose complexities can be completely ignored and the person boiled down to a base stereotype or something like that and yeah, that's completely true to an extent, but that doesn't change the fact that Miss Slutty McFormer-Tri-Delt or whoever that bitch is with the writing on the ass of her pants is, sadly, infinitely complex.

Why sadly? The world would be a lot easier for me if I could disregard these seemingly two-dimensional people like I often do, and know that I was completely justified since there wasn't any substance to them. However, everyone is thinking about more shit than they even know to count, and their experiences permeate their lives and mine in an infinite chain of commonalities that we are collectively unaware of and I carelessly toss aside when I decide that, on the whole, that the person in question ain't shit. It seems like a waste, does it not?

Also sad is the necessity for these people. These predictable, "flat" people with such bold and basic personae that we can know all that's really necessary to know about them in about a minute and then set our watches by them so to speak. Who else would sell us cars, or vacuum cleaners, or insurance; totally focused on their work because they believe it worthwhile? Think of all those other professions out there that I could never do simply because I would constantly wonder about the job and why the hell someone needed to see another goddamn advertisement for a Lexus, or ponder the ethics of ever comparing any iPod-carrying asshole fun runner with Nike shoes to people fleeing Viking invaders or police officers chasing criminals (seriously, have you seen this shit?!?). But there are people who preform these tasks and I would venture that most never even question it.

It's because of these people that the world runs the way it does, and once could indite that, but I know that if everyone were like me things would be different and much of the world would probably be caught in a tidal wave of existential crises while the rest would be swinging axes into the faces of people that were rude to them.

You know what? That wouldn't be so bad. Well, this was a good exercise, and now I can officially not give two shits about the people I discard because if they were more like me-- if everyone were more like me there would be a different, more dangerous, more profound world to live in.

So fuck those fucking guys and their infinite and infinitely subtle complexities.

Brain Dribblings

2007-12-27T18:41:00.000-05:00

My life can be counted by days consisting of too many or too few cigarettes and a series of almosts... almost enough sleep, almost enough time to write, almost enough to eat, almost satisfying video game experience, & almost etc. In an odd twist of fate this kind of life is completely satisfying to me. I've said before that I believe life is fueled by desire, and because I don't feel I get enough of anything I'm constantly left wanting and to me that is an amazing feeling and a great motivation.

Of course, anyone not psychic and constantly reading my thoughts would think I was totally complacent. Nothing really bothers me too much, I don't exactly run a fast-paced life, and I'm not really a talker, which seems to bother everyone that tries to be an intimate part of my life. Despite the fact that I prattle on about ridiculous shit when I'm inebriated I most enjoy silence and listening to other people talk. People don't expect this from me, so it comes as sort of a shock when I don't have anything to say for long stretches of time.

At home for the holiday assault of family interrogations I decided to be pseudo-honest for a change and let the family know that I was quitting the wine sales business (which I already did about 6 months ago). They, of course, asked me what I was going to do next at which point I told them I didn't know and the extended family cheered me on while my parents berated me and advised me of a great number of equally repulsive potential career choices. The truth is that I do have a vague idea of what I want to do with my life. I don't tell a lot of people because it's mine. I don't want help, I don't want suggestions, and I don't want to explain what I've only half-assedly figured out so far. The decisions will be mine based on the information that I've collected and if I don't follow through it will be my failure. Maybe that's hard for a lot of people to understand, and I try not to make such job-related suggestions to people anymore (although admittedly sometimes I fail at that too) and instead say if there's anything I can do to help, blah blah blah blah.

The simple fact is that there's so much in my life and my pursuit of a career/careers that is completely out of my hands that it's absolutely fucking terrifying, and makes me constantly question if it's even worthwhile to try. In my particular , infinitely complicated yet strangely simple situation I want to be in charge of everything that I can because so little of the experience could possibly be in my power.

Insert witty/poignant conclusion here.

Return of the Mack

2007-11-07T17:49:00.000-05:00

It has been quite some time. Not too much is new.

Matt came to visit and it was a lot of fun. Drinking and video-games and debauchery all around. I miss those times more than anything.

I like playing Metroid on the Wii, and it's games like that which make me think of the system as something more viable than a novelty.

In other news I've been watching that show Lost. Over the past couple weeks I've watched all three seasons and have decided that there is a good show in there somewhere but there are some pretty big flaws. The fist of which being that a good deal of every episode is what I like to call "ABC Jungle Recap Theater." That is to say that the first 5 minutes of most episodes start with "Previously on LOST...." and when people talk to eachother they spend a lot of time referencing shit that is out in the open.

Personally I think the whole concept of the recap is insulting, especially now that networks stream old episodes online and there are old seasons on DVD. The last time I think the recap was appropriate was ever appropriate? Before television when people listened to shit on the radio. Yeah, those crime dramas on the radio used the recap and it made sense. Radio is a pretty testy format and it's understandable that a large amount of viewers would miss segments of the broadcast despite the fact that they were trying to listen to it. The way Lost handles their recaps doesn't particularly make the show easier to pick up since the story and relationships between characters are so convoluted so basically the recaps at the beginning are saying "this episode is based off these events that you need to have previous knowledge of in order to really understand what's going on anyways." So they're basically useless and a waste of time.

Secondly, the show is written season to season and it shows. This is a program based on mysterious events, locations, and people, so raising and answering questions is really the primary function the show has for producing entertainment. That being said some questions are answered in a way that makes some of the other questions that much more bizarre. For example, at one point it is revealed that the Dharma Initiative's presence on the island was wiped out, so there are no Dharma people there. However, everyone is getting shipments of Dharma brand items. Any fan of the show would find some way to explain this but it's pretty obvious that the writers came up with the "purge" as they went along and now they have to write themselves out of it. It's not like that sort of writing makes the show less entertaining, but it's a strain on viewers who are seriously thinking about things. Yes obvious answers are sometimes a cop-out, but sometimes really-bizarre answers are too tedious. Stuff like this takes a good, strange, and entertaining story and draws it out.

It's pretty clear to me that the writers of this show had a fully fleshed out, rich story for this series. However, with another three seasons planned for Lost it's far too long, and the writers are trying to stretch everything out the best they can because they have 6 seasons to fill. Why not have just one more full (23+) episode season and be done with it? There is no way anyone can tell me they can't answer all of the questions of this show with almost a full fucking day of footage. It seems American series just don't want to let things end, and I think that's a problem more often than we realize when someone doesn't literally jump over a shark on water skis.

As far as other story-rich shows go, Amanda really likes Carnivale and I kinda don't. I've read up on it, and I've watched I think most of the series now, and it's not for me. Like Lost it's not that there isn't a good show in there. The writer/director seemed to have everything planned out for a couple more seasons before the show got canceled and I'm sure it would be a great narrative. However this would only be true of the series as a whole. In each episode I'm constantly struck at how nothing happens! In one episode I watched the protagonist went snake hunting, tried and failed to recruit a freak for the freakshow, and some girl signed up and got fired from dancing "the cooch." Did I miss anything? Oh, yeah, a carnie fucked a whore. All this? Took an hour. Are you serious? And then I read that the guy turned down finishing up the series in the form of a feature film because he didn't feel he could answer all of the questions the show was raising. Really? Maybe because you space out 3 pertinent plot points over an hour of worthless meandering! It's at this point that I will refer everyone to the case of Firefly and Serenity. A whole season or more of television can be condensed into a feature film and still be entertaining and cathartic, and don't pretend that it can't.

Next time I'll be reviewing that new Cavemen sitcom. Shocking twist? It's not that bad!

Ugh...

2007-10-07T19:02:00.000-04:00

Most of the time it's flattering, but I do occasionally get sick of women finding me attractive. Especially ones I don't fucking know. I know that sounds weird and believe me it's not always true, but it is very tiring trying to veer conversations into normalcy/non-flirtatious realms without overtly saying, "hey, guess what, I have a girlfriend and I know what you're doing and it's very nice but stop it!" and then hitting the girl in question on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Sure there are less obvious ways of doing it, but I don't have that kind of tact.

It's hot as balls outside in October and I need a vacation.

I've been watching season 3 of the office and I hate it and love it immensely. I mean, the characters are so ridiculous and irritating in every possible way that each episode makes me want to scream for normalcy, but they're also just clever and/or eccentric enough to be endearing to me to the point where I want everything to work out for them. I suppose it's a credit to the writers for creating something in which each episode makes me hate the characters and yet fills me with a desperate need to watch more.

God damn you the Office!

Atlantis Doesn't Exist and I'm Saddened

2007-09-27T01:43:00.000-04:00

I started thinking tonight on all of those amazing mysteries of our childhood before the advent of super-modern technology. The Loch Ness Monster, Martians, and Atlantis among others, and how easy they are to dismiss now. I mean, we found the giant squid and all, and that's kinda cool, but we've lost so much along the way.

Of course, there are guys out there who still believe in all of that shit and that's fantastic despite the fact that they seem like colossal tools, but us normals are stuck with overwhelming evidence that there are no more mysteries in the world. It's all been relegated to fantasy novels and movies that take an hour trying to explain what at one point was just casually relegated as what could be.

Where do we go now to find those arcane wonderments, those exotic locales and inhabitants that set the scene for our playground fantasies? Is it just the farthest reaches, beyond our galaxy? Is there nothing closer; something that we can actually hope to reach in our lifetimes?

I think that's why I'm constantly hoping for that apocalypse. If I can't have it one way, with finding sea-people and talking to the creatures from beyond the moon then let it all burn so we can start fresh and interesting.

Still, I'd still like to believe in the off chance of visiting that mythic kingdom under the sea. I suppose it now falls to me and those other would-be writers to try and re-instill that wonderment into the masses.

To create it for others and keep none for myself? Fuck that, that sounds lame, I'm building a time machine!

A Simple Plan

2007-09-15T13:08:00.000-04:00

Things to Avoid: The Past

2007-09-04T02:39:00.000-04:00

So somewhere along the way today I decided it would be fun to read all of my blog starting from the first post. This was a stupid idea and I wish I had never done it.

I mean sure 75% of it was full of drunken misadventures, but a good portion is whiny emo bullshit from a time when, well, I always put my best foot forward but when it was just me and the keyboard above that god-awful subway I was a whiny emo little bitch. It's weird how things worked out back then up to now: I went against my better judgment and pulled an asshole move, said move made for a wonderful month and change but ended up with a lot of pain for two people and left me a whiny little bitch, but by virtue of the fact that I wasn't entirely able to recover from that time for so damn long here I am happy, if a bit under pressure, with the person who made me a whiny emo bitch in the first place.

That's all ok; I accept it as part of the quirky nature of my life, but then I start thinking about those little spells I would get occasionally when I was curious about her and just had to say something, those stalktastic moods that would take me once every few months when I'd come home from hooking up with a girl I didn't give two shits about or when no one else was up and I just felt alone. I no longer know exactly what I wrote, and I never knew how it was taken, and that bothers me a bit when I think too hard about it. This is probably because somehow I know it wasn't taken well, I mean, how could it? I have to live with that almost-knowledge and that's fine by me in the end, but it does get under my skin occasionally because as much as I know people grow and change it's sometimes hard to make sense of someone liking me, probably hating me intensely, and then loving me.

See? Now this shit is getting all depressing. It's cyclical I tell you!

I'm better off just not thinking about that shit any more since I'll only confuse myself. I live day to day with only the most half-cocked plans for the future and that seems to be best for me. If I stray too far into the past or the future my confidence about everything kinda erodes so I probably shouldn't do it... unless I think about the future either with flying cars or zombie hordes.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I haven't quite felt like myself for the last week or two except for a few moments, but now that I realize it I think I'll be right as rain (whatever the fuck that even means) when I wake up tomorrow.

A Night At Studio B

2007-08-31T18:44:00.000-04:00

So VHS or Beta played a free show out in Brooklyn; their first time there since playing Cony Island like 3 years ago. They called it their first real Brooklyn show, but they were in Williamsburg, which I commented was really just the extension property of the East Village. Regardless their show was pretty decent, but I've come to realize how much I hate going to concerts.

I'm a simple man but an irritable man. I love seeing live music but I hate crowds, I hate strangers bumping into me and most of all I hate assholes crowding into my 2-inch bubble of personal "I can just barely smell the asshole in front of me" space. These people can range anywhere from drunk dude who wants to take video footage with his digital camera to the ugly thin girl who thinks she's cute and will try to brush up next to you to get in front of you and then invite her 8 fatter but cuter friends. I hate that shit, and it's just something that people do at concerts. I assure you that if Yo Yo Ma played a fucking general admission concert there would be people doing this shit. You know what the travesty is? If the tall smelly fucker with dreads comes in and stands directly in front of me and I break his nose for being inconsiderate I'm the one that would get in trouble. According to Robert Howard that's part of what civilization is: A place that protects assholes from getting fucked up for being assholes.

As for the opening bands it was a funny scene. I think the first one was called Team Roadspear and they were like speedy synth punk with screaming and they were pretty angry and somewhat funny and no-one liked them. This might be because, from the lyrics I heard about solid gold sunglasses, etc. they were basically writing songs about all the fuckwads that were at the show. In a lot of ways they were the most amusing band of the evening.

Then there was Walter Mego, who everyone seemed to like... except me, because all I heard was like Muse lyrics over house music. In a lot of ways their set was like Muse playing a phoned-in show at an Abercrombie, and there was just enough actual playing of instruments to differentiate it from house/trance music with lyrics (and not like sound clips that happen to be words... FUCK I hate house music). Did no one else hear that? I mean how did that not sound completely lackluster to everyone else there?

Sometimes I'm pretty sure I'm the only rational person on the planet. Last night was one of those nights. After the show the girlfriend and her friends wanted to keep the party going, but it was 2:00AM and while I wasn't really going to go to sleep I was broke and didn't feel like going out on the town for all of 2 hours only to have to trek home. Plus some people in that crowd get on my nerves after awhile so I figure I'll minimize the time I spend around them while I'm sober and at my most misanthropic for a healthier time for all.

Sometimes I can't wait to get out of this fucking city. Last night was fun, but this broke-ass shit is exhausting. Can't wait for a new job.

A Quick Overview of my Wherabouts

2007-08-08T17:20:00.000-04:00

So it's been almost a month and a lot of you may be wondering what the hell has happened to me.

Honestly not much and at the same time a hell of a lot.

I'm more broke than I think I've ever been in my life, and while I'm going for a new job that will actually provide me with money that I can use apart from paying rent which will be nice.

I feel like a lazy asshole a lot of the time, and I am; I have no illusions about that. However a lot of that has to do with the nature of my job and I think that once I have more responsibility I'll be able to feel a lot better (aside from not being broke).

I'm also working on a lot of different projects. I'm working on two proto-novels and am toying with the idea of a third as well as starting some initial work on a comic with Matt. It's not that I've not had time to write this, but I only get a small amount of readers, most of whom I talk to through different means so it hasn't seemed important. I'm toying around with dropping it altogether, but I think I'd like to go out with one of those stream of consciousness posts that I love so well. I'm still not sure, though. Either way things are going to be more sporadic than you're probably used to and I apologize in advance.

Anyways, I was thinking a lot about racism today while walking from my Hasid-populated street, past the Marcy Projects, past the flooded G train (!), and to the J. No matter how far we've come we are still a very segregated people, aren't we? I think this is a problem of which we've only brushed the surface. Sure we have mixed-race schools, but what does that matter when 90% of the district or more in black or white or whatever? How many white kids are having problems in this city because they're fresh out of school, have no money and the only neighborhoods they can afford are full of black and latino people who hurt them because they think they represent white oppression, or at least are largely acceptable targets for battery and theft? How big of a problem is it when the afore mentioned white kid eventually does represent white oppression because he is the herald of gentrification and all the hipsters follow him to the cheaper rent and drive everyone else further out?

What got me thinking about this? I was walking to the train past the yelling screaming jewish children when I realized how much I hated them. Now, I'm well traveled enough to know that I hate children in general, but I've also never seen so many yelling screaming kids on a city street during the day. Also, they're not black, or hispanic, or Asian, or Pakistani. They're Jews and so there's a point where I lump this hatred into a category: I hate children but I particularly hate Hasidic Jew children. Sadly for me this is a true statement, although I would say for the sake of specificity and to make me seem less of a bigot I particularly hate the Hasidic Jew children on Skillman St. Normally I wouldn't hate them more than any other child. I am, after all, an equal opportunity child-hater. However, the way the community they set up is so closed off to others I can't help but see them as a specific group.

Now, I'm a relatively easy-going individual. This has to be a common occurrence for people. I mean, in my example if the Jewish kids were yelling and screaming with a bunch of Chinese, Mexican, and Jamaican kids I would simply say "fucking kids," and move on. Do people look at the black community in a similar respect since they so often all live together in the same neighborhoods? There was a story about the minister of my parents' church back when I was still into that Jesus fellow. He was asked to speak for this guy's youth group about inter-racial dating at which point he said that inter-racial relationships were good, and that every one of the kids there should take a husband or wife of a different race and start procreating. That way, over time everyone would be the same race and there wouldn't be an issue anymore.

I think it's time for that; not necessarily for everyone to start having babies for the good of humanity, but I do think it's time that we throw our heritages aside. As much as people scream about the benefits of diversity these days I think that the idea of a cultural identity, something that people have no real choice over but take pride in it nonetheless is a major problem in inter-racial harmony. As I said earlier this is easy for me to say because my cultural heritage is basically whiskey, scotch, fighting, and plaid skirts for men and there's no white history month, but I think it might be time to drop the whole thing for the good of the world. Can you be an individual? Of course, it's going to be hard to stop most people from having their own opinions (despite the efforts of the media and pop culture). But I think maybe we should stop identifying race/religion/cultural history as a part of what defines us as individuals because I don't think it really does that as much as it identifies you as part of a specific and separate group which is really the problem anyways.

Let's just treat it all as history and not necessarily (or at least openly/obnoxiously proudly) as your people's history and maybe we can all get a better feel for what crazy ideas we humans have had these last 10,000 years.

Picture Dump: Coachella Bands

2007-07-15T03:49:00.001-04:00

Pictured (from Top to Bottom): Justice, LCD Soundsystem, the Decemberists, Hot Chip, the Black Keys, Of Montreal, Cornelius, Flostradamus

2007-06-27T03:17:00.000-04:00

Matt (2:38:39 AM): eh?

BuzInt5 (2:38:50 AM): chi

Matt (2:38:54 AM): oooh nice

BuzInt5 (2:39:31 AM): it might be sooner than I expected, but I can't tell how on board A is. She says she wants to but that might just be because I want to and I'm not sure what to do about that.

Matt (2:40:33 AM): hm

Matt (2:41:00 AM): did you tell her about ~(:o

Matt (2:41:03 AM): and this? http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=1460

Matt (2:42:12 AM): brb gonna shower (just got up from like a 10 hour nap)

BuzInt5 (2:42:34 AM): holy shit what is this?

Matt (2:51:11 AM): back

Matt (2:51:19 AM): its charles barkley shut up and jam gaiden dude

BuzInt5 (2:51:25 AM): hahaha

Matt (2:52:13 AM): starring in alphabetical order: charles barkley, hoopz barkley, michael jordan, and ~(:o

Matt (2:52:18 AM): by the way

Matt (2:52:24 AM): i'm working on a [~(:o- ] vw beetle in forza 2

BuzInt5 (2:54:01 AM): oh thank god

Matt (2:54:10 AM): it'll probably take 40 years because i'm bad at it

BuzInt5 (2:54:12 AM): I bet you could sell it for cash if it was any good

Matt (2:54:12 AM): but it must be done

Matt (2:54:15 AM): yah that's the plan

Matt (2:54:19 AM): so what're you up to tonight?

BuzInt5 (2:55:02 AM): nothing, brainstorming... I find myself with a lot to think about, the move, getting a new job, [demographic], the comic, and the novel

Matt (2:55:13 AM): all of these are good things, except [demographic]

BuzInt5 (2:55:18 AM): right

Matt (2:55:18 AM): would you8 really want to get a place together?

Matt (2:55:40 AM): because id really want to, it'd take planning to time the moves though

BuzInt5 (2:56:20 AM): yeah, like, we found one out in what A calls greektown for like 800/mo which is a 3 bedroom, so, it looks like my security deposit could actually just about pay for an apt out there

Matt (2:56:52 AM): my new place lease ends next july, id have to work something funky out with that

BuzInt5 (2:57:04 AM): haha, sublet off craigslist

BuzInt5 (2:57:11 AM): trust me, that shit works

Matt (2:57:23 AM): its an expensive place, would someone bite?

Matt (2:57:29 AM): also where the fuck is greektown lol

BuzInt5 (2:57:33 AM): probably

BuzInt5 (2:58:13 AM): I have no fucking clue, A has spent a good amount of time out there so she would know more than me... I would really just be looking for safety, affordability, and proximity to the L

Matt (2:58:46 AM): yeah thats all i want

Matt (2:58:55 AM): ideally id like somewhere with a garage

Matt (2:58:57 AM): but meh

BuzInt5 (2:59:05 AM): and yeah somone would probably bite, and if not we could figure something out, maybe sublet for like 6 mo or so

BuzInt5 (3:00:29 AM): A has a lot of shit, but we could definitely pack everything in a moving truck and be done with it. As it stands I can practically just rent a car and take all the shit I've got with me

Matt (3:00:46 AM): haha

Matt (3:00:51 AM): manktown

BuzInt5 (3:01:32 AM): yeah

BuzInt5 (3:02:08 AM): I don't know, I'm in kind of a weird place since I've got no fucking clue what I'd be doing out there

Matt (3:02:12 AM): yeah

Matt (3:02:16 AM): so why the move? people?

Matt (3:02:19 AM): change of scenery?

BuzInt5 (3:02:23 AM): mostly

Matt (3:03:04 AM): i mean id love it, but im not gonna talk you into moving just because i want you around haha

BuzInt5 (3:03:40 AM): I don't know, I like it here, but I came to this realization that I'm fucking 22. It's not important to follow whatever dream I thought was going to be what I do with my life because I know that dog won't hunt

BuzInt5 (3:04:10 AM): it's more important to be around the people that matter to me and practically all of them are out there

Matt (3:04:21 AM): who all is out there?

BuzInt5 (3:05:14 AM): you, half of bubble, most of the guys I know from the vid who actually left the vid

Matt (3:05:47 AM): haha

Matt (3:06:00 AM): would you want to get a place with more than just us? i wont be around except friday-sunday

BuzInt5 (3:06:07 AM): and then everyone else is pretty much on their way

BuzInt5 (3:06:19 AM): we can think about it when that time comes

BuzInt5 (3:06:51 AM): so are they basically flying you hither and tither for this job?

Matt (3:08:32 AM): yeah

Matt (3:08:37 AM): but im not gonna be in it for longer than like 2 years

Matt (3:08:45 AM): it'll be good for experience and a quick salary boost

Matt (3:08:55 AM): and it'll make it easier to land something i want but it'll be fun for awhile

BuzInt5 (3:10:13 AM): yeah

BuzInt5 (3:10:33 AM): you think it's mostly major cities you'll be going to?

Matt (3:10:43 AM): can't say

Matt (3:10:46 AM): coudl be new york one week

Matt (3:10:52 AM): could be bumblefuck idaho for 3 months

Matt (3:11:05 AM): im gonna try to get more in-town engagements though

BuzInt5 (3:11:25 AM): mmmmmm bumblefuck

BuzInt5 (3:11:36 AM): fuuuuhhhhccckkk

Matt (3:11:55 AM): hahaha

Matt (3:12:00 AM): as dorky as it is

Matt (3:12:27 AM): im getting too interested in the racing thing to want to travel all the time, plus if you were to move there itd be a bigger reason to actually want to stay and socialize more in town rather than go meet people out of town

BuzInt5 (3:14:21 AM): true

BuzInt5 (3:14:37 AM): plus it's going to be where you hang your hat at the end of the week

BuzInt5 (3:14:57 AM): sounds like a tall order, nonetheless

Matt (3:17:17 AM): yeah

Matt (3:17:32 AM): honestly i could just see myself getting fucking sick of it

Matt(3:18:08 AM): i like too many things not related to a career that id start to resent spending so much time "furthering my career" which that job would demand of me if i stayed in it longer than a year or two

BuzInt5 (3:19:17 AM): I'm right there with you, plus you have to be ready at the drop of the hat to help me build the farm compound

BuzInt5 (3:19:26 AM): and watch CANE

Matt (3:19:41 AM): fuck yeah i do homie

BuzInt5 (3:19:50 AM): from which we undoubtedly could learn something

Matt (3:19:57 AM): i'll teach you hwo to ride a motorcycle so we can be all mad max in that shit

BuzInt5 (3:20:08 AM): tits

Matt (3:20:39 AM): so you're moving pretty fast with this chicago thing just a few days ago you mentioned it haha

Matt (3:20:45 AM): unless you've been tossing it around for awhile

BuzInt5 (3:21:26 AM): I've been thinking about it for some time, really

BuzInt5 (3:21:53 AM): to be perfectly honest I probably should have just come out there in the first place, haha

BuzInt5 (3:22:14 AM): but what the hell do I know, this has been a pretty good run out here

Matt (3:22:34 AM): fucjk that man

Matt (3:22:39 AM): -j

Matt (3:22:50 AM): new york is too cool to pass up

BuzInt5 (3:24:19 AM): true. in a weird way though it gets old kinda fast

Matt (3:24:43 AM): exhausting?

BuzInt5 (3:25:04 AM): I don't know what it is exactly, but I feel that there's something very hollow about this place and the people here, especially those in my age group

BuzInt5 (3:26:04 AM): it's different if you talk to older people by and large (though many of them, too, are full of shit), but this is the primeir place that people go for self discovery and starting their lives anew

BuzInt5 (3:26:09 AM): fuck it's why I came out here

BuzInt5 (3:26:21 AM): but, I don't know, they don't take much with them

BuzInt5 (3:26:32 AM): in terms of character I suppose

Matt (3:26:37 AM): yeah

Matt (3:26:44 AM): have you met many people that arent like that there?

BuzInt5 (3:28:01 AM): yes and no, the worst part of it is that people like that, like us, are so well guarded against this empty hipster mythos that it's so easy for us to miss eachother

BuzInt5 (3:28:55 AM): oftentimes I'll have a conversation with some great folks and we'll just part ways not knowing if we'll ever see eachother again and not sure if the other party was really worth a damn

Matt (3:29:25 AM): that's really depressing

BuzInt5 (3:29:35 AM): which I think is the real reason it's so hard to make lasting friendships out here

BuzInt5 (3:30:17 AM): like, I met a group of nice folk at this bar and we hang out about every week, but apart from that there's my friend from elementary school, Laura's friend, and a friend or two from IU

Matt (3:30:16 AM): say what you will about empty hipsters dude, at least its an ethos

Matt (3:30:17 AM): fuck

BuzInt5 (3:30:23 AM): haha

Matt (3:30:31 AM): haha

Matt (3:30:40 AM): that's really a shame

It's true, though; it is a terrible, horrible shame. Everyone comes out here for different reasons, more often than not because they think it will be cool and life-changing living in the cultural epicenter of the world. A lot of them want to reinvent themselves so they won't be outcasts like they were among the bullshit people they left behind (somehow forgetting they left the bullshit people behind) and they get caught up in New York, which is, in and of itself, ever-changing. It's no kind of life, picking up a new shit every five seconds and assimilating it to the point as if it's always been a part of them, and eventually they've assimilated so much reference material that there's little else to them. Is it just a New York thing, or is this common with all hipster cliches? My coworkers like to call the hipster girls on the L "pretty pretty princesses" because it looks like they're little girls who want to wear all the clothes in the closet, and it sometimes seems as though this is a physical expression of that feaux-substance I was talking about with Matt.

Being well-read, knowledgable of art, and listening to diverse music is one thing, but not everything. When I talk to these kids I feel that this is all there is to them: shows, galleries, books. What about driving to a friend's place at 2am because neither of you could sleep and just playing some video games while drinking shitty diet soda? What about sitting at a bar discussing the female patrons and what outlandish things you could say to them? Of course they do these things; there's a reason Williamsburg is full of bars (but hardly any dancing), but they want to believe that these are the minor things in life, and instead make the constant street-cred-one-upsmanship the core of their being.

Fuck 'em. They can keep it. I will drink my fill of what parts of this city I deem worthwhile and then tip my hat to her and say farewell. There is more to life then this and we will partake.

Retreat to Nerdopolis

2007-06-17T11:44:00.001-04:00

It's that time of the month again... noooooo it's not when girls start bleeding out of the vajayjay, but rather when I bleed nerd all over this blog for the enjoyment of... basically Matt. Today I will be talking about shit I've been reading/looking at/playing that is both awesome and badass.

Actually not a lot has happened in comics this last month up until this past week in which a lot of shit happened. I've been by and large sticking with Marvel comics because I don't have the time or patience to read the DC books I want, which, besides Morrison's Batman run are all Green Lantern books. There seems to be a lot of them and I keep forgetting which storyline I'm on.

Sam Noir the Samurai Detective came out in trade, prompting me to pick it up and read it. Imagine a Sam Reimi/Bruce Campbell joint... with swords... and ninjas... and no color. It's practically just like that and it's as good as it can possibly be.

I started reading World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and it's pretty engaging. I never read the Zombie Survival Guide, mostly cause I live my life in constant preparation of a zombie attack and this book would simply be superfluous to me. Still, I really like the world that he's created through the survivors' narrative and it's full of suspense and introspection on the near-end of the world. Worth reading.

Also worth reading is DMZ. Essentially this book is about a photojournalist during a new civil war that goes into a mostly abandoned Manhattan to see how the survivors, long abandoned by both sides, live. The title character spends most of his time downtown, making it up to the park as far north as 96th street as near as I can tell, but only in the park. I take this as a bit of a joke since most people my age rarely venture above 14th street for entertainment, but he's centralized the population in the lower end of the island, which I find a bit bizarre. The idea here is that this is a less wealthy area of town (at least compared to the northern parts of the island) and fairly condensed so they would find it the most difficult to leave the island while the upper east and west sides would've evacuated early. That part makes sense, but I have to wonder why no one ventures upwards. Wood makes references to staying off Delancey or 14th street since they go from river to river and both sides could pick one off with sniper fire etc, and people stay away from the park because with most of the trees taken down for firewood it's a danger zone (that and the eco-army patrolling the area). Beyond that there's a constant need for trading goods, food, & money all of which can be found in abundance uptown along with the kind of seclusion one would desire in this area. Shit, even now you can dumpster dive for really quality designer furniture uptown that people just leave on the sidewalk.

I think his characterization of Stuy-town is spot-on, as even now it's this weird kind of no-man's land in the East Village. You can sort of wander into it and then realize that you're in a place that just seems like college dorms everywhere, very well spaced off from the rest of the city and all one would need is to build some better walls to make it a complete and secure closed community. Still, when you stop to think about it the upper east side is very similar in that regard. There are lots of buildings by the water providing protection further inland and enough room away from the park to form a community. I would imagine that looters would go up there en-masse and secure the territory and just roam apartment buildings taking valuables to sell and trade elsewhere, a weird cohesive thieves community. The lay of the land is good and there's no subway to worry about people coming up through should any be down there. The same goes for the upper west side through Harlem, there are hills and plenty of buildings. There is already an established community here, few of which would've made it out of the city. What happened to them? They're a group that's both too poor to leave and culturally cohesive enough to make a community. One blurb mentions that Washington Heights is "not that bad," but I see this as a thriving latino community, almost the same as it is now. Gang shit mostly happens off-island and that's reflected here in the sense that Matty doesn't run into any really, but since "Amurika" has made Brooklyn into a large army base one would think that there would be a lot more unrest out there and while we haven't seen enough of the bouroghs to have much of an idea about this it doesn't even seem to be implied yet which I feel is leaving something out (probably for the sake of brevity, which by-and-large is okay). Regardless Wood's Manhattan is both largely believable and intriguing; I'm very excited to see what he does with it.

The first issue of World War Hulk is the beginning to a great comic event. The plot starts off quick and keeps its pace well with beatings and great charicterizations of all the heroes involved. I get the feeling that somehow this event is what brings Thor back into the fold and that worries me. We've been waiting for him for a long time now and the Civil War implied that he was on his way back and we've just been waiting it out for the Hulk and Thor to return and now they are at relatively the same time and honestly I don't think I want that kind of match-up. The Sentry? Fine, fuck 'im. Hercules, Namor, Black Bolt and anyone else but Thor just this once. It's not that I don't like the idea of it per se; it's mostly that I would rather Thor come back on his own terms and with his own agenda, and if he comes out in this crossover then it will just seem like a by-product of the machine. So far it doesn't look like he's really a part of it but I'll be cautiously optomistic until then.

I recently got the chance to go back and read Fans!, a webcomic I was enamoured with in my early college years. It's good. I think it's got its flaws for the format, but there are really good story arcs and the art and characters grow as the series progresses so it's worth a read.

I finally finished Xenogears and it was totally worth it. A young man's quest of self-discovery and killing "god" was everything I thought it was and I'm glad I was able to play it all the way through in a somewhat timely maner so I wasn't completely fucking lost. I'm currently working on Xenogears which is a lot better in terms of production quality but it's also broken up into 3 parts which is a kind of strain. Still the characters are very compelling and are all useful (unlike in gears where there there are several fuckers you don't look twice at).

I'm missing my friends of old, scattered though they are around the world and the City placates me nicely but I often wonder if it's only making me complacent while a deeper yearning grows and tests the limits on its restraints. Is the time nigh to contemplate a new locale or do I wait for my reckless abandon to subside?

Dumbasses and Other Observations

2007-06-10T16:39:00.001-04:00

Living in New York I'm bombarded by a lot of ridiculous shit. Today, for example, was the Puerto Rican Day parade, in which a bunch of people get together to celebrate the fact that they're all from the same place. It's understandable, and I understand pride for one's place of origin even if I don't really practice it, but wouldn't you think that there comes a point where it becomes a complete non-issue? I suppose I'm a bit biased because I'm from America, there isn't a Southerner's Day parade, and I don't exactly fit into the demographic that would celebrate even if there were such a thing.

Another thing I see a lot of are protests of varying kinds. Union Square is often plagued by these small crowds of people protesting the Bush Administration or the war, or the Bush Administration's handling of the war and one has to wonder what the hell these people think they're accomplishing. First of all their stance is always so vague. "We're against the war in Iraq, it has to stop!" OK, I accept that as an opinion of sorts but apart from that you have no answers. The Machine is the popular metaphor here so let's use it. You can't just tell a machine to quit, and if you go for the hard-reset; pulling the plug or whathaveyou it can meet with disaster. Essentially you have to give the machine instructions to carry out that allows for it to cease its function. That would be that whole "exit strategy" all of the anti-war politicians bring up come election time. If you don't have one then what the fuck makes you so goddamn special? What makes you and your 30 or so tagalongs worth listening to, and do you realize that you're essentially just crying wolf?

Protest is one of those double-edged swords that comes with the 1st amendment. On the one hand it can be a very useful tool for showing the powers that be, often far removed from the pulse of humanity (despite what they claim), what the people want and how badly they want it. On the other hand any group of assholes can get together and yell whatever they want as loud as they want despite the fact that what they're saying has no merit. There is no law against doing this and it's wonderful that there isn't, but discretion and taking the time to come up with real solutions and rebuttals barely has a place in a world of internet forums and asinine debates. Despite what these people may have been told by their mothers, a handful of people with signs showing the general public, none of whom are public servants, that they disagree with something will not make much of a difference.

Do they know this? Do they plan these little meetings knowing that they'll just go home and cry about how it didn't work on the internet later? I mean, despite their low turn-out numbers and vague messages one should also consider how these are also mostly die-hard liberals choosing one of the most liberal cities in the world in which to protest. So, what, then? Are they merely looking for assertion and acceptance, because that's really a piss-poor reason to protest.

But then again what is a good reason to protest? The only thing in recent memory worth protesting about was that immigration legislation that was proposed last year. Pretty sure that had a pretty big turnout in LA even though I can't say that 30,000 people who can't vote can really make much of a difference. At the very least it was a whole fuck-ton of people representing a group of families, workers, and generally productive members of society (if you're reading this and you're anti-immigrants then you have to pick, alright? These people can't be stealing all of your jobs and your tax-money by not doing anything). And even then what is 30,000 people compared to a city of over ten-million? I suppose these protesters are the small demographic of people that are angry enough to take the entire day to try and make a difference and representatives of the larger populace that feels strongly about the issue but are locked in a workaday world where every dollar counts. Still, that at the very least is a real number. So next time you see a protest of 15 let them know that from now on 10,000 is the new benchmark. You have 5 hours to raise that many people at the end of which you need to admit that no one really cares enough to make a difference and that you need to head home and make better use of your time (in your case, yes, crying on the internet is in fact better use of your time).

Time Out New York Tackles Hipsters

2007-05-31T16:12:00.000-04:00

A and I were reading an article on Time Out New York's online version of the magazine primarily because the main article was about why the hipsters must die. They call these people the assassins of cool, and, while they don't put it exactly in these terms they make reference to them as vultures of long-dead trends. It then goes on to explain that the hipster has become mainstream; oftentimes being a desk jockey, investment banker, or some other nonsense during the day and a music/art/film snob by night like some kind of useless pop-culture vigilante.

This is all true. The hipsters that don't have 30k/year jobs and have a more bohemian "professional" life are living off trust funds and parental "emergency cards." I have both, the former I can't touch yet and the latter I largely use for its intended purpose: saving my broke ass. Regardless, I am no hipster nor do I ever want to be one. The article is right in that these fucking kids are a plague on our society and are ruining whatever "New York Cool" is left with their snark, vanity, and hypocrisy. Still, I find it difficult to blame these fuckers for their lot in life.

Think about it. We've got such a divided nation in terms of political/religious/fashion beliefs and recently their concepts and pleas for attention "Hey everybody! LISTEN TO ME AND BELIEVE WHAT I BELIEVE!" are an overwhelming force bearing down on us. Imagine the frat house at college; a bunch of beer-guzzling, white, Christian, right-leaning assholes wearing pastel-colored-popped-collared polo shirts and crooked baseball caps for teams that are nowhere near their hometowns or where they live. The liberals are no better, although since their mantra isn't "Let's go out and kill every fucking thing!" they're able to sound more appealing even if it's just an illusion. Bleeding-heart-asshole celebrities are everywhere telling you how many people are dying in some African country that they weren't even aware of until Don Cheadle starred in a movie about a similar conflict. Using the college environment metaphor earlier we can draw allusions to all of the theater majors who always had some sort of vague concept about current events and a loud, if ignorant, opinion. Those types of people who would go to protests of 35 or so people against the Bush administration in the middle of town or perhaps those idiots who still believe that the 9-11 attacks were staged by the government somehow and thinking that they can really make a difference.

So anyways, you've got this nation of polar opposites and then you've got relatively normal people who are suddenly finding it difficult to fit in anywhere. They move to New York because by and large that's just what people do to start over. This is rambly and incoherent. What it all boils down to is that the article blames the hipsters for ruining the nature of cool with their despondence and I'm blaming a broken society for the despondence. The electoral college more or less implies that our votes don't count, as most states aren't swing states, we have the media yelling at us so loudly from way the hell in the left or way the hell in the right so far that no rational youth can really get behind either, we've gone to college not really knowing what we wanted to do and were presented with what we expect was a once useful venue for starting a life for ourselves where we can now graduate with no real life skills, and then everyone from the previous couple generations (parents, etc) who never saw this kind of university wonder why we haven't figured it out yet.

When you get to that point there's a couple options: 1) stay in school, or 2) start a life that is really just a continuation of self-discovery. That usually implies moving to a big city and trying to find a scene while experimenting with different careers/clothes/music. Unfortunately this can be very lucrative and addictive. You end up with a job that gives you a lot of money and the constantly changing city coincides with your constantly changing lifestyle so perfectly that you never have to grow up. Face it: the directions to get to New York City are essentially "Second to the right and straight on 'til morning," and even though the kids all age here they just grow into this idiotic non-lifestyle that contains equal parts narcissism and apathy. Still, who's appealing to these yuppie-slash-bohemian fucks to hang it up and do something worthwhile? Who is showing them that their little game of "On the Road" is no kind of hard-knock life as they aren't squatting (nor do they deign to hang out with the real squatters) and always seem to be able to eat exotic/organic food with a steep price tag? Who is showing them how to be successful or political without compromising their beliefs, and who in the legitimate counter-culture is telling them that none of that shit matters in a way that leads them to a certain level of maturity?

TONY says the hipster must die and then goes on to suggest a hipster "civil war" that gives them Bushwick and Williamsburg... how about a reasonable "general" that can bring back the culturally affluent neighborhood without all the snark and high cost of living?

If there aren't people like that then this hipster phenomena is just going to grow and absorb the ever-increasing number of disillusioned youth. Despite the fact that TONY calls global warming the cause that many hipsters need to look towards to be led to activism I disagree. It's too big, too impossible to combat, and everyone is contributing towards it. Besides, you can't protest the degradation of nature. You can either start a the most legitimate colony you can come up with that doesn't use modern machinery or you can become a scientist and try to solve the problem but yelling at a world so dependent on greenhouse gas-producing machinery that they use it to make "green" products clearly isn't gonna do a damn bit of good. Give them something they can accomplish and they'll hang up the skinny jeans. Give them something to really believe in and they'll set the snark out to sea.

Me? I'd be fine setting them all on fire, but if TONY wants to argue for a non-violent solution then I'll have to rebuke it with a non-violent suggestion... Or we can move them all to Greenland. Is that cool?

Someone Understands

2007-05-23T18:23:00.001-04:00

While an exaggeration, these two comics are perfect examples of that whole memorandum on the condition of men's bathrooms I wrote about. Hilarity ensues and I hope it's an ongoing mystery, really I do.

Recent times are bringing people back into the fold. Talena returned for a week, and I saw Jade and Marlena for the first time in ages. Maggie is coming to visit at the end of the week, Katie is arriving June 1st, and Alex will be here shortly thereafter. Beyond that I'll be home in July for Chris's wedding and KC visits sometime that month... maybe. Ryan, Dave & co's potential visit is still just that. I've also been told one of my readers was planning on making a trip out which I'm pretty sure is still a go, but who knows.

Life is becoming fun again. I mean, it's been a steady increase in fun since about February, but before that was a severe slump due to guilt and poverty and while the poverty is still there I think I'm finally resting somewhat easy (if erratically). Still, the more I think about it the less I'm sure that this is really my kind of town. Having been in Long Beach surrounded by uber-nice Californians in a city I usually hate and camping in 90-degree weather I'm beginning to realize how much I miss things that simply aren't city-fare. Not that I was incredibly outdoorsy or anything, but there were places in Kentucky and Indiana where you could go and see unplanned nature, not a sectioned-off park, where you could go and get lost and find yourself and see the squirrels (and they were merry). I'm beginning to realize that I'm too much of a misanthrope to be a salesman, and too much of a misanthrope to be in a place that's really, like soylent green, made of people.

The thing is I'd like the simplicity of public transportation, concrete jungle, and numerous night-life options of a large city, but I would just as much like the inexpensive rent, feasibility of a car, and beautiful landscape of a rural town. The more I consider this along with my penchant for making alcohol the more I think that the pacific northwest is right for me. Or do I? I might hate it there too. Amanda might get a job in Florida and then I would go. How's she going to get dancing jobs in, say, Oregon should I go out there? How easy would it be to completely start over keeping in mind that I haven't really made a lot of friends out here? You see? It's mind-bending to think about, which is why I never think too much about any of my major decisions. So what does my future hold? I don't know, I'll probably stick around here until I'm 25 when the trust fund I just found out about is available and then use that money to move/travel and then start all over again.

Portland might be a nice place to be when the gas shortage-induced apocalypse happens.

Brick Breaking Man with Burger can Stay!

2007-05-15T18:49:00.000-04:00

So I'm doing the manly routine of reading a magazine whilst taking a shit the other day. What magazine? Bitch! magazine, the feminist take on pop culture. I assume it was A's, because the implications of it belonging to anyone else in the apartment is profoundly disturbing.

Anyways, one editorial caught my eye because it was about the Burger King "I Am Man Hear Me Roar" commercial where guys everywhere are going to get a burger in the manliest way possible. The self-proclaimed beef & tofu eating feminist wants to know what the deal is with this commercial; why it's so appealing or, rather, what's with all the man shit.

I wonder if this is perhaps because the only woman in this commercial is holding a burger on a tray in front of an old man pulling a dump-truck by himself (using only his grit and gumption, of course). The thing is, I'm a bit confused about why a feminist doesn't understand the appeal of breaking away from the submissive feminine role. Couldn't we replace all of the men in this commercial with women who, also, are tired of quiche and really just want to eat a damn giant burger and throw the minivan off an overpass? Are the feminists in this commercial so against men that they cannot see the hidden themes within? Now, I'm not one to call a fucking Burger King ad "deep"... well, maybe I am, but not this one. I for one love this advertisement. Mostly it's the Asian businessman with a burger in one hand and breaking a brick with his other. That my friends is everything that's important in life.

On another level, though, there's something appealing in a bunch of guys doing guy shit and singing a humorous parody song about setting free the man within. The simple fact is we're becoming coddled around here. Everywhere, really, and maybe it's no different than say 25 years ago or whatever, I don't know, but it seems like we're over-protecting ourselves and we're losing a lot of our... let's call it inherent capability because of it. Becoming "cultured" is more often than not being replaced with becoming "liberal" and while I'm all for peace in the Middle East and everything there comes a point where you've got to get into a schoolyard brawl, fall off the jungle gym, and get a goddamned spanking, metaphorically speaking, and we're moving far and away from all that. There's men out there who don't know how to change the oil in there car; grown-ass men for fuck's sake. Theoretically there are probably also men who don't know or "can't" change a tire. I don't think women should get a "by" in this either. Look, it's ok if you don't know how to drive stick, but seriously, if you own a vehicle you should know at least enough about how it works so you can fix the simple things that you don't need extra parts for.

George Carlin called it the "pussification" of America's youth, and he's right, and the more kids I see from high schools like mine who played lacrosse or hockey and are physically capable kids who, nonetheless have never done any real work it still makes me depressed about the future and what to expect from life. So if you plan on siring the next generation, dear readers, please take your child to a farm and have him/her work the straw, rent a rowboat and make your kid paddle you around the whole goddamned lake and then spear-fish in the shallows, scale it, clean it, and cook it. Teach your child to take a punch and to throw a proper left-hook. If anything I simply don't want to be 70 and know that I can still beat the shit out of any given 20-year-old I pass by... ok maybe I do want that, but I at least want to be able to consider it a bit of a contest.

And Bitch magazine editorialist... you know you want that burger... that Asian man is a role-model for the world.

Addendum to Nerd-town 2k7

2007-05-14T18:40:00.000-04:00

Matt reminded me of why I even started that post in the first place: Fucking Iron Fist.

Anyone who is ever planning on re-introducing an old character in an ongoing series should hold up the Immortal Iron Fist as their bible. The Moon Knight crew wish they were this good. Ok, to be fair I think the MK art is on the whole a lot more detailed which is appealing to me (except for the face thing, I mean honestly!), but Iron Fist's art is consistent and interesting throughout, there's no wanting for action. Orson Rand is a complete badass and you really get the impression that he's going to kick the bucket hardcore in the next couple issues but know that a) he will be missed, and b) he ain't going out like a punk-ass bitch. It is the perfect mix of new takes on the Iron Fist mythology and the time-honored classic pass-time of beating the shit out of Hydra; a feat which has been preformed by Captain America, Deadpool, Bucky, Daredevil.... fucking everybody, it's a rite of passage or something.
"Hey man, I beat up my first battalion of Hydra goons yesterday!"
"Dude awesome! Here's your card, you're now officially a SUPER-hero."

I've read Invincible a couple times and I like it in the same way I like going back and reading those old-school Superman comics where he would punch the sun. It's really fun to read

Comics This Month

2007-05-09T23:26:00.000-04:00

Nerdtown 2k7:

Loman and I have been comparing our comic likes and dislikes a lot more than usual over the past, oh, couple months so I figure I'll take some time each month to talk about what I'm reading, why, and what in general I think is awesome.

Let's start with the New Avengers. I've been pretty big on this title since it started. Why you ask? Because in the first issue they introduced a brand new hero by having him, a self imposed prisoner/former hero, fly Carnage into spaceand rip him in half. I like how it went from one storyline to a post Civil War lineup with only one real filler issue and by and large stayed on the very fringes of the "event." The art is servicable leaning towards good, and it's nice to see a bunch of counter-culture heroes together mixing it up. Also, there were a bunch of ninjas and Dr. Strange got stabbed hardcore. This is a fun book for me, and since recently it's all about how Iron Man is a dick that's a plus because I always thought he was a dick.

Moon Knight: This is the one I think Matt and I disagree on the most. A lot of people I find, dislike this book. I know why that is and I don't disagree with them, but I think it's a part of why I like this book. He's an underdog hero and he's a sonofabitch and to top it all off he's either talking to a god who's even more of a bastard than he is or he's crazy as a fucking loon. A lot of people have a problem with the Taskmaster fight, saying that Tasky wouldn't be so fucking afraid of Mark Spector, but this is where I disagree. Taskmaster has always been a punk. Sure he faced down the Avengers, sure he's got photographic reflexes and he's a badass fighter, but when the hell has he gone into a fight knowing that if he loses he dies or is horribly, horribly disfigured? The idea behind the character is that he's a mercenary who trains other people to do the dirty work. He's a goddamned D-list villain teacher, so when he shoots the guy with a crossbow... twice... and he's still coming looking mad as hell and believing that he's gonna get his face cut off he begs and pleads like a whiny bitch because he is, and always has been, a (albeit very capable) whiny bitch. The artist needs to know how to draw faces though. Everyone really does look like either Clint Eastwood or Clint Eastwood taking a shit.

The Hulk: This is honestly the best run on the Hulk I've seen in a long time. There was a time when Hulk would run around breaking all sorts of shit and all was well in the universe. Then somewhere along the line they added like 3 Hulk personalities and a whole bunch of bullshit so I just fucking quit, couldn't handle it. I picked it back up around the House of M and was floored by how much I enjoyed reading the Hulk, then Planet Hulk was something that I wanted to read each month, and now World War Hulk is coming with all due fury and anticipation of the Smashing to Come.

Y: The Last Man: If you're not reading this then you're seriously missing out.

Nova: Alright, Annihilation was something that I didn't get into until it was almost over. I never cared a hell of a lot about the space heroes, so a culling of them was fine by me. I was more into Civil War and I think I really missed out here. The first issue of Nova to come out of this event was awesome. Here's a C-list hero at best who's basically supposed to be part of an inter-galactic police squad... only there's no more squad. He's the last one and sure he's got all the power of the entre squad combined now but he's got a lot of ground to cover what with the known universe all falling apart and shit. He's running himself ragged trying to make things right, knowing that just as one man he can't cover all that ground and it shows. Then he crashlands on Earth after this whole Cival War debacle. His old team practically started the whole mess, the world doesn't work the way it used to, and everyone is asking him to enlist in the Initiative and talking to him like it's the biggest thing that's happened in...well...forever. Let me emphasize here: Tony "I'm a Self-Important Douche" Stark is trying to explain to Nova, the hero of a goddamned inter-galactic war and basically Mr. Fix-it for the whole universe why he should 1) Register with SHIELD and 2) Join the Initiative and train fledgling superheroes. Here's essentially how the conversation went down:

"Hi Richard, Tony Stark here. I'm Iron Man by the way, did you know that already?"
"Um"
"Yeah, sorry I showed up to your folks' place with a platoon ready to blow up the place. I'm sure you've known about what's been going on here right?"
"No."
"Peter Parker is Spider-Man. We've had a bit of a Cival War, bunch of superheroes fought each-other. Your old team started it. I won, and now I run SHIELD. We need someone like you. You fought in, like, space wars, right?"
"Yeah, actually I just saved the whole damn universe. Uh... like I told you guys about it, but we didn't get anything. Galactus was imprisoned, the Skrull are like, all dead, the Kree are hanging on by a thread, my entire team is dead. Really coulda used the help. Right now I'm basically in charge of taking care of....everything... by myself, so if I could just take a breather and get back to my job-"
"Well listen, you take a breather but then I'd like you to register and train super-heroes here on Earth. I mean, I know we haven't really arrested a lot of the heroes who are still out there who are basically vigilantes like the Punisher and Moon Knight, but we'd take you down in a heartbeat what with you having more important things to do and all."
"Galactus... imprisoned... Thanos... you know, Infinity Gauntlet guy... yeah, he's dead... EVERYONE'S FUCKING DEAD."
"Just think about it. Whelp, see ya!"
To say nothing of the big super-prison being in the Negative Zone. I think Tony left that part out, what with it being a sore subject and all. In short, this book is the best thing that's come out of the two events and I'm glad it's as good as it is.

Wolverine & Wolverine Origins: I flip through these every month. I kinda like 'em, kinda don't, and they're really fucking confusing on where the hell they fit in the continuity. I also like Cable and Deadpool, but there's not much to write about there.

My girlfriend loves Katamari. She does that thing where she moves the controler all over the place. It's fucking cute.

Picture Drop Supreme

2007-05-05T16:14:00.000-04:00

One would think that I would insert pictures sporadically and junk... not true. This is all saved up from my first trip to Bloomington to the beginning of Coachella this year. Remaining mand pics to follow.

Chic Shit

2007-04-17T18:47:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this then you're probably my girlfriend. You might also have come from Raymi's blog or you're a friend of mine from elsewhere. That's a pretty high chance that you know me. Knowing me I think you recognize how against current trends I am. I hate everything new these days, it seems. Hybrid cars, 98% of movies, music from bands I don't already know, car commercials... fuck the only things I've liked to come out in pop culture recently have been 300 and that Robert Goulet peanut commercial.

But there's been a lot of weird shit popping up recently. I saw a piece of a runway fashion show thing where all of the ladies' dresses came complete with a full-on gauntlet up to the shoulder, which more or less made the models look like every anime chick ever. I still hated it, but with regard for the interesting and elaborate armor pieces that were probably fake, not functional for their perceived utility, and would never be used again off the runway.

I'm really enjoying the geekification of things. Not so much for the fact that people like me can finally be considered cool, because we won't. That shit is an illusion. The geek-is-chic phenomena does not apply to real geeks or nerdy guys or whatever. You know what it's for? It's for fucking hipster posers to get their fucking "new persona material" from a venue other than music. There's a point where, especially places with a dense population like NYC, people will have heard of your favorite band with a regularity above the hipster-acceptable range of 12%. Thus you have to go into different venues, like so: "My favorite band is... Have you heard of them." "Why yes, I have, but I think they borrow too much from the Pixies/Depeche Mode/Bowie." "Yeah? What have you been reading these days, have you read the Watchmen?" "No." "Oh, it's a graphic novel by Allan Moore, probably one of the more influential works of artistic storytelling." INDIE DOUCHEBAG LEVEL UP(HP+2, Snobbery+6, Obscurity Factor +1). While I've never heard the expression artistic storytelling it's something that will probably start spreading around like the fucking Black Death to refer to the comic profession. No, the geek/chic phenomena is bullshit and believe me intelligent and pseudo-sociable nerdy types like me and my brethren have been taking advantage of it for quite some time now through the time-honored practice of attracting girls who don't know any better.

Uh... that isn't what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is the availability of nerd products outside their source materials. Almost 30 years ago we had a Superman film, years and years later we had a Batman. Several shity sequels and about 15 years later we got Spier-Man on the big screen in a halfway decent picture. Now we have a sequel to the Fantastic Four, a trilogy based off of Blade, fucking Blade for fuck's sake, several Moore and Miller works, and recently I heard Y: The Last Man's film rights were purchased by New Line Cinema. Not to mention the several wonderfully made video-games made since the X-Men arcade game (arguably the best comic based game in existence). Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, X-Men: Legends, that Hulk game where you just run around smashing. Do you have any idea how long we've waited for this shit? Now that I no longer need to shamelessly hit on women these are the benefits of mainstream geekdom that I've been able to delight in.

But what happens now? I have to take a step back and realize that while I enjoy these things they're largely not in the hands of my kind anymore. These characters have been licensed and those licenses are in the hands of these big movie companies who seem by and large to say "We want you to make this movie and please the fans because it's a really neat thing, that's why we bought the movie license, but bottom line is we want to make 10 ho-jillion dollars off this movie so you need to make a movie that everyone will want to see a bunch of times." The real bottom line is that pleasing the fans and making a movie for everyone are 90% of the time analogous and more often than not it's going to go in favor of the people who will bring in the closest to 10 ho-jillion dollars which I assure you is hardly ever the fans. With Sin City, 300, V for Vendetta, Batman Begins, and to a lesser extent Spider-Man and X-Men we've seen a fantastic display of the source material being presented on the big screen that appeals to both parties more often than not, but I think we're approaching the peak of a bell-curve. We're in the midst of a sort of population explosion of geek-mainstream and when you option all of this stuff and put it through the machine at this rate it will come out shit.

So my predictions for the future? We'll see a lot of really interesting stuff, probably a Silver Surfer movie, a couple more Batman flicks, a Wolverine feature and it'll get a lot more obscure: Black Panther, Moon Knight, Green Lantern, the Avengers, Y: The Last Man, and hell, probably another Conan flick. They'll be released closer and closer to one another until the summer blockbuster will be called superhero summers and everyone will hate it. They'll be kids movies again like the later Batman flicks and we'll be pushed back into our comic stores and you know what? I might even prefer that. Just once I'd like to see an animated feature that at the very least had its script overseen by the comic writers. Just to have a cartoon, yes a fucking cartoon movie that doesn't suck that I could sit down and watch and love like I do, say, Cowboy Bebop or the Transformers movie.

I've got nothing left to say so I'll end here.

Oh Lamentable Grape

2007-04-04T17:30:00.000-04:00

Oh Grape Jolly Rancher! Why the fuck do you exist? Are you placed there by the Hershey Company to taunt me? By all accounts I've heard you are the least desirable of the Jolly Ranchers, so why haven't you been replaced? I vaguely remember a peach, and there's currently a blue raspberry floating around in that big bag in my desk drawer. I think about him, that tasty blue raspberry, mingling with the grape; possibly even getting some grape shards in its wrapping, oh the horror! Would that the blue raspberry could only be with delicious Jolly Ranchers like cherry, watermelon, and the much-lauded sour apple. Oh what a perfect world this would be. But no, the purple-colored candies swell and their numbers only seem that much greater now that the desirables have been consumed. You were always like that, though, the most populated flavor in the bag. How could this be? Is it a reflection of the human race? A lot of undesirables and but scant shining individuals ever so few and far between? No, that's impossible. I've never seen a purple person. I just want you to know that I hate you, grape Jolly Rancher. I hate you with every fiber of my being and I will not mourn your passing if and when it occurs. I'll see you in hell, grape Jolly Rancher, for you are, I presume, the devil.

Content/Discontent

2007-03-29T17:22:00.000-04:00

So I've not written in awhile and that's to be expected sometimes but what the hell, let's give this a shot.

I've been doing a lot of other writing, mind you, trying to write from the perspective of a 19th century man in a foreign land is proving difficult and I think more often than not looks stupid. After reading some other shit I had written aloud (albeit stuff I hadn't type-edited) I'm finding it a little weird; smothered with dialog and a little heavy-handed, so I think I'll try to move away from that in the future.

I started working on a new thing at the airport that essentially started out as a slightly disguised first-person narrative of my own feelings of misanthropy and euphoria, but I think I'm going to make it something of a multi-part future epic about the quick decline of our current civilization. I really like what my girlfriend is doing with her novel; writing from the perspectives of multiple people on a train (thus far)...Co-worker Mad-Lib: "I like what my girlfriend is doing with the place. The beaver pelts look really good on the wall. But I might have a problem with the antlers above my bed. I'm afraid they will fall in the night and accidentally castrate me." OK, tangent aside, I'm making it a kind of chronicle, a past tense thing that might be from the perspectives of several people who eventually run into eachother/reunite when everything goes to shit. I think it has the potential to be a lot more readable since the prospect of governmental/societal failure is actually becoming more and more hopeful.

I also promised pictures 10,000 years ago. That'll happen.

We went back to Bloomington and it was good, really good. My girlfriend, who, as much as I'd like to give a name I've really stopped doing that in this blog and only refer to them by first initial (which is where I stand despite the fact that I would really like to write something spiteful to her ex since he apparently stalks my blog/myspace and is one of my avid readers and probably currently realizes that I'm talking about him at the moment and using his logic now believes me to be dating his ex girlfriend at which point I say good for you for figuring all that out. I don't mind if you continue to read this and you can even comment if you like. Otherwise I'd really prefer it if you stay the hell out of my life like you have been, thanks)... so... A had a lot of fun and really liked my friends and my friends really liked her and she was actually totally up for having sex in Bill's bed... much moreso than I (we didn't... but I was really fighting not to say "ok" to that. If anyone seriously wanted to join us I don't think I could've said no). Ok, all tangents aside it was a great drunken trip.

I'm moving in to her apartment as soon as I can afford to, which has been kind of difficult since I'm still in debt with the previous roommate on account of 2 bounced checks from a different roommate at the worst possible time that put me in debt with the bank. It's a very uphill struggle and I'm currently questioning a lot of things like my job in sales and is it really worth it foregoing the potential money I can make doing this job which isn't that hard and is actually quite enjoyable for a phone-gig. Should I put everything on hold for awhile to get settled (which is totally not my style really, but whatever)? I should probably just focus on work a bit. I don't know. Fuck, but in a quiet voice... so... like fuck.

On Violence, Film, Media, Stupid Kids and Dumber Parents

2007-03-13T18:24:00.000-04:00

I saw 300 last night and I enjoyed it. There's something about films these days where everything has to be Lord of the Rings-esque, so while Miller's original graphic novel, while certainly skews the actual history in its execution, is actually a bit more realistic than the film. I've read critics that downplay the movie for being too stylized and graphic-novel-ish or too over the top but really what I'm trying to figure out is what fucking part of the Miller work included an 8 foot tall "Berzerker" type creature, a sitar-playing goat man, and a fucking fat squat abomination whose only purpose is to behead disappointing Persian generals with mutilated, bladed arms?

My girlfriend often flinches at gory scenes in movies. It's not irksome, as it has been with some of my female companions (which might be a testament to my subsiding misanthropy or just that this one is special) but rather kindof charming as we're probably equally cynical people yet she is put off by the depicting of human death while I greet it with amusement if not general excitement. I told her today that I was trying to desensitize her to such things, which got me to thinking about being desensitized in the first place.

Desensitization is one of those buzzwords, those horrifying phrases that news stories throw out in order to demonize whatever flavor of the week needs demonized be it some video game, and by extension all video games, the latest movie or best-selling novel about child magicians... despite the fact that the most horrific thing I've seen in recent memory was people jumping off the WTC towers because there was no other way off the building; horrifying because I knew it was real and that there was no plainly evident CGI involved. I'm pretty sure I saw that on the news, FOX News to be specific, the same news show that says horrible things about video games, movies and books. Regardless, this word gets thrown about a good deal as if things that we see (or more importantly, things that our children can get their hands on) make us and them more and more OK with violence.

My question is this: When have you ever seen a kid that was born without being ok with violence in some regard? Do you not see parents constantly telling their kids not to hit their brothers and sisters? What about that kid that screams and screams when he doesn't get the toy that he wants? Do you think he's sad? If he wasn't in that stroller do you think he'd start throwing shit around? The fact that I think that everyone forgets about all the fucking time is that we're humans. Most specifically we can be classified accordingly: Animalia Chordata Mammalia Primates Hominidae Homo H. Sapiens or just the general Homo Sapiens Sapiens. We're fucking animals and animals are violent creatures by nature, territorial and prone to conflict. What was the last baboon who thought better of beating the ever-living fuck out of the other baboon who tried to take his goddamned food? "No, no," the ape thought to himself, "sure he's smaller than me, sure I gathered this food myself, but hell he's just so cute with his little red ass hanging out he can take it and I'll eat another day."

Now before you misunderstand me I'm not saying that humans are exactly the same as the other animals. I would argue that we are different because we can identify options and goals beyond our primal needs of food, sex, and shelter. We are different because we can collaborate with different looking members of our species oftentimes to find non-violent solutions to a problem (an aspect that separates us from the ants who are still big on the slave trade). We are different because we can rise above our primal child-minds and become sensitized to violence. Also we can discern what is real from what is fake, usually, despite how real it can be made to look.

A lot of people opposed to the media's stance on violence have said that the duty lies with the parent and that's true, but I don't think they're essentially saying it the way it needs to be said. Video-Games, Movies, and Literature do not desensitize people to violence. Parents do not do their proper job as members of the human race sensitizing their children to the reality of violence in the world. They do not do the proper job to instill in their children the very things that make us so different. In effect, they do not raise their children as human beings.

Now this might be somewhat unfair. It is, in fact, my belief that some people are just plain born fucked and no amount of parenting could save them. Those Machiavellian guys that may very well be inspired by our vast entertainment resources, but would get along without them one way or another. The type of fuck that thinks to himself "You know what, I'll go kill a hobo, they practically don't count anyways." My thoughts on most homeless aside, these seem like the types of people that have too much. Maybe it's not a lot but they've got a convenient life. Maybe there should be work camps for kids like this. If you have a problem child who can't seem to do anything properly send him to work the quarry for a year. Make him know that he works to eat and live and that if he spends his time killing hobos he better learn to cook and eat them because he'll never make quota that way. Then again, I hate kids anyways.

On Lyrics

2007-03-09T17:41:00.000-05:00

You ever have a song that you've maybe heard once or twice but can't get out of your head and you sing it and sing it and sing it and then finally when you've had enough you look it up on youtube or some such thing and you hear the actual song and then you look up the lyrics or something and you find out you're completely wrong?

I do that shit all the time. One of my landmark examples was this Oasis song "Live Forever" which I used to sing all the time thusly : Maybe I don't really wanna know/ How your garden grows/ Cause I just wanna play. Later on... we're talking years after no one cared about Oasis at all... except maybe Phil... I found out that it was actually "cause I just wanna fly." I know, whatever, right? Well, the thing is I liked my version better. I mean, what the fuck does flying have to do with a garden? You know what you can do in a garden? Fucking play in it! It's better and no one can convince me otherwise, least of all anyone in Oasis because who gives a shit what they think?

Recently I've been obsessed with this song "Heartbeats" by the Knife to which I thought the chorus involved the lyrics Took off and danced on a bar.... wouldn't be good enough. That wasn't right either... apparently "To call on hands from above" wouldn't be good enough and really I'm probably less pleased about this than anything. I mean, even though I only heard this song mostly through the throngs of screaming dancing people at any given club (and one acoustic version that had background noise from the Foo Fighters) that was the draw. The imagery to me was that of a broken heart due to a lover's insistence to run off and be a go-go dancer or some such thing and given that I was in a club every time I heard the song that made it all the more poignant. It's also disappointing for another reason: who the fuck thinks that calling out for hands from above is good enough? Isn't that the ultimate cop-out? I know that it "wouldn't be good enough" for the songwriter, but isn't that just generally assumed?

I guess what I'm getting at is that there should be a job where bands sing me their songs and I tell them what their lyrics should be and then they just alter them a bit... I mean, they don't even have to sing them any differently it should just be changed in the liner notes or something. Man, that job would be boss.

Dangerous Prospects

2007-02-27T17:42:00.000-05:00

You know, every once in awhile people need to know things... things about my life and how I think... that's why this exists. I think therefore you know how I think- something like that.

Anyways life has been pretty fucking wonderful. Rent is down, happiness is up (way up), zombies are apparently absent, C.H.U.D.s remain underground, and fun remains plentiful. I think I'm getting visitors next month. This weekend will bring a long-time acquaintance back into the fold for a brief stint. Long-time friends, not one, or two, but potentially four will be making rounds this month. It'll be good to see everyone that makes it out here. In other news a girl I know has informed me that I'm the best of the best in the bedroom as far as she can tell, which, while I've always been more or less certain of this fact it's a nice ego boost nonetheless.

A lot of my readers are ladies (as far as I can tell... or at least very effeminate) so I have to ask... do you know how difficult it is to be a somewhat rational, pseudo-polite male when you have to take a shit in a public restroom? I mean, I know that you ladies (and strange men) have to sit down every time but I'm not fucking talking about some seedy bar bathroom but rather every public toilet ever. This shit, if you'll pardon the pun, is fucking universal. Now while I'm not in favor of feminazis or overly bitter cynical spinsters and soon-to-be spinsters or whiny girls... or most females, really, ridiculing my gender as it's a terrible generalization and it's pretty fucking obvious that not all of us are completely useless, but after seeing the toilet at any given restroom in the whole fucking universe I'm pretty sure that it can be concluded that in the confines of a bathroom stall that most guys are complete ass-hats.

For example, why is it that if I ever go to take a shit in, say, a Barnes & Noble (arguably the most reliable facilities in the city in terms of availability and not having to fucking buy anything to use them) I open the stall door to find that the seat is down and that someone has pissed all over it? This is not the handicapped stall, so I would assume that people with obvious physical or mental hindrances would not be wont to use it. Why, then, do guys not simply lift the toilet seat? Even to kick it up with one's foot would be acceptable, as it is a well defined understanding that you will be using this foot to flush the toilet anyways (you know, if flushing is even your thing), so why not? Is this some kind of aiming game where you see if you can focus your stream within the confines of the toilet seat? I know I did that... when I was 5... and I didn't fucking miss either. So what this tells me is that you are lazy, have bad aim, and want everyone to know it. That's fair, but this can't be the majority of men can it? Yes, it can, because it's present in EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TOILET STALL I'VE EVER ENCOUNTERED!

One might wonder where the creative process starts for me; where the ideas come from. Well I'll tell you. After a particularly delicious but quickly digested meal in Chinatown I stopped by my staple shitting location to "drop the kids off at the pool," or whatever other horrible metaphor people are using these days. A man entered the stall next to me and said, to no one in particular, "What I don't understand is that this is a multi-million dollar corporation, so why don't they have those paper seat covers? What if the last guy in here had crabs? Then I get crabs! What the fuck?! Alright, cool, crabs, whatever.......... damn now I can't even shit anymore!"

While I don't really condone the use of paper seat covers (as they're unmanly and I am an eternally rugged individual... and I don't think they'd stop me from getting crabs if that happened to be the case) I found myself thinking how this man was absolutely right. We normal men are, in a way, front-line soldiers or subjects for a horrible experiment in this regard. We are faced with something truly disgusting (and potentially dangerous... crabs pinch I hear) and our only choice is to sit on it or remain in discomfort clenching our cheeks until we can get to a safe zone. This clearly is not the advanced age we'd like to think it is. Hell, guys were less likely to sit in dried piss in the days when they had to dig a hole and squat next to a tree.

So, ladies reading my blog, that's a look into the life of a somewhat normal, clean, and considerate person in a somewhat day-to-day event. It's fucking horrifying isn't it?

And guys? Flush your poops.

Meanwhile... in Outer Space

2007-02-01T18:37:00.000-05:00

Dancing and randomness and I've never been as happy as I am right now. Ok, not like right now right now but in general I think this is the highlight of me. I'm sick...ish. Cough and sniffles and my ears don't quite pop right which is quite possibly the worst fucking thing in the history of time. Seriously it goes Ebola, AIDS, Cancer, ear-poppy thing. It's in the books, fucking look that shit up.

B and I parted ways last week after a pretty turbulent weekend and in any other situation I'd feel like a complete asshole but I just can't this time. It's strange when I think back on all those pseudo girlfriends, people I dated before college and the ladies associated with me during my higher education and how I completely just quit on them and never gave a real explanation and one day simply stopped caring and I look back on it and see that I was totally selfish but don't care because that's just a part of who I am... am? was? I don't know anymore. Still, this was different. Things were good enough for me and if I was just being that guy looking for the path of least resistance I think I almost definitely would've kept phoning it in but instead let go with what started off as at least some level of compassion.

Of course I have this problem/gift that no one else seems to posses where I oftentimes seem to be in full control of my emotions. Except in rare cases when a girl has wanted our relationship to be strictly platonic it was with no pining or whining and no second glances. I don't really get angry and I can generally stop being irritated or depressed the second I realize that's how it is. So when I met someone else or at least realized I had feelings for someone else way earlier than I thought I'd be even marginally into anyone it caused a lot more trouble than I thought it would because no matter how many times I fuck shit up by not realizing that no one thinks/feels like me I still find it hard to see the obvious. It's kinda like a dog and a skunk. The dog smells the skunk and realizes the skunk smells like shit but it'll attack it and get sprayed time and time again each time thinking to itself "ooooohh right, the stripey one makes me smell bad."

Still that seems to have settled down and I'm having a lot of fun being young and in love in the city. Yeah, love. Remember that post a month or two back where I sincerely doubted the uber-romantic existence of love? Well I guess I was full of shit, cause I am and people vomit rainbows when they see us stroll by.

Meanwhile I need a new fucking roommate.

Under Construction

2007-01-27T17:13:00.000-05:00

It's been a mind-blowing week and I totally plan on telling you all about it. No really, I do... just not now. In time I will return with pictures and happiness. Currently I'm... you know... napping.

Weird Night

2007-01-19T03:34:00.000-05:00

I've just been confronted with the fact that I am, in fact, the devil; and not like some sort of joking comment like that, but seriously I should sit on a throne of flames and skulls and that's probably what's waiting for me after I die in a swordfight at the age of 47.

This was, without a doubt, the weirdest night I've had since I moved here.

Restless Evenings

2007-01-17T02:28:00.000-05:00

A lot of my life is spent not trying. I realize this and by and large wouldn't have it any other way save for the sink-or-swim feeling I get in the pit of my stomach sometimes at 3am when I can't sleep and no one's awake and I'm left with little other option but to ponder the greater mysteries of the universe and why I can't quite bend it to my will. I get these weird whims in which I furiously try to find people I long stopped talking to and will likely never see again but I'm transfixed on imaginings of what they might be doing and what kind of lives they've led in the meantime. I just heard that song, by the way, "In the Meantime" by Spacehog. I have the album for some reason. No doubt due to my 11-year-old business plan of screwing over the BMG music service in the days before cd copying was viable.

I'm often alternating between my real name and my nickname, introducing myself differently to different people and it's not really a conscious thing until I notice it and that's a new kind of strange to me.

It's cold and windy and my hand becomes a claw as I smoke a cigarette outside. There's blood at the bottom of the toilet bowl and as I piss I watch as it changes shape like whisps of smoke or clouds and it becomes this creature, first an octopus and then a scorpion and retreats further in; that place in the back where you can't see; where the aptly titled ghost shits go. I contemplate something like blood becoming a creature; a living sentient thing made of liquid but holding all sorts of cells and DNA and whathaveyou.

There was a time today where the dog (or the fucking derg depending on who you ask) was very well-mannered and I looked at him and wondered how long he could keep it up. I've decided that I don't hate him. Sure I don't think very highly of him, but he knows his shit.

Somewhere along the way I picked up this feeling of being lost and clueless, but in that way where everything is a-ok. It's as if I'm in this wooded path with all sorts of different branches to choose from and I isntinctively know that there's a very friendly, warm, hospitable village at the end of each fork but I'm just standing there not knowing which path to take. It's like, fucking move it doesn't matter but standing where you are ain't good, but I just won't budge.

I Don't Give A Fuuuuhhhhhck

2007-01-15T18:20:00.000-05:00

So in reading this I think I've been coming off as too intellectual and depressing and ridiculous and that's really, really boring.
To remedy this I will tell you tales of drunken shenanigans.

So Thursday I finally met this Raymi character. I had dinner with a friend in Williamsburg which is always a tricky neighborhood for me. I never know what to feel there. I'm not really one of them but we like the same things but I'm not a complete snobby asshole about it but they're often attractive but it's too expensive. We ate at this place called Thai Thai which, while tasty and good I don't think I would ever eat there again because it was called fucking Thai Thai! I mean what the fuck kind of name is that?

Regardless she's off to Lit and I to Barcade which is this strange kind of anti-bar. There's beer and people and music and you can talk to people but then there's all these quarter games that people play instead of really interacting. I like the place, but I like it as a Wednesday night let's grab a beer and play some fucking dig-dug establishment. Not a weekend retreat and not really a good spot to meet people for the first time. There's too much shit everywhere. First there's like a trillion draft beers the only ones of which I recognized were dogfish head and Magic Hat #9. I'm pretty well-versed on beer... this says much about their selection, but it's kindof an eyesore. People want to talk to you but you're just staring at the taps trying to figure out which one is tasty and which one tastes like shit. I of course pick the one with a gun. This turns out to be a pseudo-Belgian high-alcohol beer that doesn't really taste good and comes in an effeminate glass. Clearly I'm winning tonight. There was small talk, some shit about polar bears and global warming. I remember that she said "well-played" to some minor joke I made at her expense. It was mostly forgettable, but I felt that under other circumstances we would be fun friends setting fire to towns and kicking dirt in people's eyes for spite... but... you know... in a funny way.

The following night was what my meeting with Raymi really should've been. Haley and I went to Crash Mansion for an open bar of decadence and bad music. It's this rock (read: rawk) bar on the Bowery that every Friday has an hour long open vodka bar where the bartender loves us because we cozy up to the bar and drink and drink and tip and tip and end up nice and, well not hammered, but once it kicks in totally hammered. You know, it's only been an hour the vodka hasn't had a chance to enter the bloodstream. The bathroom attendant dude pointed me to the best sink when I went to wash my hands and he told me he loved me and that he didn't care who knew it and that there was nothing wrong with it. I tipped him a couple bucks and he waved his hand past the breath mints and candies and said to partake whatever I surveyed so I took a blowpop that would end up being my breakfast the next morning. From there we went to Cattyshack, a lesbian bar in Park Slope for dancing. Haley and her friend are bi and the co-worker she was meeting is gay so it made sense for them. Her boyfriend, Jeremy, and I? Not so much fitting in there. I was terrified since everyone was so cruel to me at the Cubbyhole, where I went with my gay friend on gay pride day to show my support for the gay population. No, like literally mean for no reason. Anyways the Cattyshack folk were nice which was a huge relief and I got many a strange look while on the dance floor and two of the strange lesbians we talked to thought I was gay but I suppose I was in pseudo-hipster wear so that makes sense. I had this really funny moment where I had to use the restroom but there's not really a men's room there so you just kinda go in and shut the stall door and nobody seems to care because nobody wants anything from you and you don't want anything from them and you come out and smile and give them the "what's up nod" and things really shouldn't be this nonchalant should they? That's when I realize that everything should probably be this nonchalant and that I was currently in a urine-smelling strange inter-personal utopia that I would never want to leave except that it would be too bizarre to stay. While smoking I was informed that Jeremy is quite jealous of me and when Haley and I go out to smoke he's under the impression that we may very well be making out. In all actuality I was attracted to Haley when I first met her, the night of the particularly destined cigarette, but I'm simply no longer the person to be doing such things. It wasn't necessarily shocking news as I think he very practically has the right to be jealous of guys she gets close to (she's a big flirt). Still, she's one of my very un-complicated female friends. I love them... platonicly... really. They're the perfectly compatible people but we're not attracted to eachother. These really are the best relationships I think I'll ever have save for my best male friends who border on family to me and actually surpass family ties when I consider how much I would favor them to the blood-relatives.

Anyways drunken Taco Bell and then on to Rififi to check out Jess and Pixie if she happened to be there with her fiance, Linus, lovely people all of them and I just needed something to do that wasn't at the GAY BAR GAY BAR GAY BAR WHOO! This dance club was closed down and a friend of mine later mentioned coke raids which would make a lot of sense but there were a lot of people outside who were going for a beer somewhere and I was apparently invited. Should I have gone home? Should is a ridiculous word. These were new interesting people full of stories and bullshit that I didn't really care about but I appreciated their excitement for the upcoming trip to Sundance and whatever. I was playing the "I don't want to go home" game. That game I used to play when I was 20 and would wander Bloomington at last call, go sprinting down Kirkwood in the rain; that one time in early January when no one was in town but the sidewalks were frozen and I slid on my stomach for the longest time from the corner all the way down to Killroy's where the sidewalk evened out; those times when I would get back from the bar and sober up and go play video games with Matt at 4am and then getting the coveted McDonald's breakfast; those times when Matt was asleep and I'd drive to Yellowood or by Lake Monroe and run around all night in the woods and sleep in trees. I like being at home, but I still have this restlessness that comes up every now and then that I have to act on. I am compelled to go out until dawn doing essentially nothing but being out all the same and I have to do this essentially by myself. Sure I might be out with strangers or close friends but I'm still out there alone and it feels like I never have to stop.

The Cheese

2007-01-14T06:27:00.000-05:00

Just remember that this object has legs and is strong in the way it stands with them. It's often amazing just how little things change in life, and sometimes I simply don't know why everything is so unassumingly difficult. Life for me, it seems, is this big simplistic thing that fragments like glass and slices into me everytime I come close to solving its mysteries. If I stand back and look at everything from a distance; not involving myself with really anything and being an only slightly participant observer then everything is fine, perfect, joyous. However if I decide that being aloof and mysterious (for a silly asshole) is no longer my scene, well, it doesn't pan out too well. I would suppose that it's not who I am but I don't really think the silly-yet-aloof asshole is really who I am either.

We're so much more complicated than we should be. Men, specifically, have this problem. Our entire lives we're being force-fed this tripe: 'boys are stupid' 'you're a man's man and you like trucks and jeans and steak,' and this and that on until infinity. Somehow we begin believing that we are, without a doubt, the least complicated individual on the planet; that everyone should practically be able to predict our next move and all our Christmas presents should be perfect because everyone can tell exactly what we need (wants are irrelevant because we don't want much of anything) just by looking at our faces. Most of us don't want trucks, find the prospect of steak every day a bit on the boring side, and really just want some fucking peanut m&m's. Women, too, it seems has this problem of perceived simplicity where none ever existed. "All I want is a nice romantic evening some night, is that too much to ask?!?" I had a person tell me that meeting up at Grand Central Station would be a romantic meeting point for the guy to suggest for a first date. I, on the other hand, would consider all of those fucking tourists and shops that I wouldn't even think of stepping into even if I could afford them a vomit-inducing experience. Maybe she really likes train stations because they remind her of an old movie or something. I hate tourists. Besides, I would never do something romantic on a first date. Instead I opt for the really awkward: Let's meet at some dive where they play Johnny Cash and everyone around us looks like a beer-bonging asshole but the bartenders are the nicest ever and the happy hour lasts longer than it should. Sometimes these brilliant idiosyncracies that separate you from everyone else, nearly to the point of incompatibility, need to be embraced. It's likely that no one, not one damn person you ever meet in the entire fucking universe will ever really understand you.

That's something I want to say to someone sometime, "I want you to know that no matter what you do, no matter how close we get, and no matter how much time I spend with you I will never ever even come close to figuring out exactly who you are but at least you'll be full of surprises and I've always been good about chasing unattainable goals."

Petunia has Lost Her Soul

2006-12-29T18:12:00.000-05:00

Ah the holidays. What can one say about these ridiculous events. Big dinners with relatives that always ask what you're doing even though you told them the last time you saw them.

I'm not a huge conversationalist. OK, that ain't true; I just hate talking about myself and stick to topics that are mutually interesting like breeding dragons, forging swords, and planning for the apocalypse. Suffice to say being asked about my life in the same fashion for 4 days straight could go better and I swear to Odin the All-Father the next time I hear "So how you liking New York?" I'm going to break something.

I got to hang out with Ryan and Hannah for a bit and they got to meet B which was spectacular even though she was super-duper-mega-insano tired. I'm thinking about moving to Chi sometime in the foreseeable future and I'd love to live with my friends of old... maybe... I don't really plan so we'll see. B also got to meet the beloved cousin Jim. I never have any of my girlfriends, "close" female companions, etc. meet family... ever... period... . Of the ladies I've been with none have met my parents and it's not that I'm ashamed by either party particularly (well, partially), but moreso that I simply minimize the contact and information shared with the folks so giving them an important piece of news like having a girlfriend and solidifying it by presenting her to the parents... well it's just not my scene. If I decide to marry someone on down the road I suppose the gal in question will meet my folks at least a day or two before the ceremony.

Now onto this ridiculousness. The FAA fucked me over on my way back to the city. I realized I had my lighter, Petunia, with me. I realize that such things are not allowed on airlines. I, if not understand, at least accept the fact that flammable fluids are not wanted in the airplane cabins these days. Still, it's the fluid, right? If a lighter had no fluid it should be ok, correct? Nope. After removing the flint, wick, and all the potentially-but-not fluid soaked cotton wads from petunia I had the inner unit of my trusty old girl confiscated with the explanation of "well even if it doesn't have these things you could assemble it." What the fuck? Even if you allowed the flint and wick on-board there's still the slight problem of the FAA NOT ALLOWING ANY FLAMMABLE LIQUIDS ON BOARD THE FUCKING PLANE! Essentially if some "contact" brought a flint and wick all I could do is amuse myself with sparkles. I mean, they don't even allow matches so what the fuck is the fucking problem?!? Now, if Bluegrass Airport wasn't a worthless piece of shit place that planes land at and take off from occasionally this would be a non-issue, I'd just find the little mailing station for such things and mail it to myself. But Bluegrass airport is a colossal piece of shit so the guy threw it away telling me that I could purchase a new unit for "like 3 bucks." Well cochise, Zippo doesn't fucking sell just the inside unit and I don't think I should have to buy another lighter or purchase a knock-off unit that isn't covered by Zippo for repairs just because of some stupid rule that never even seemed to cause problems in the history of flight. I mean honestly, would terrorists assault the passengers and crew of a Boeing 747 armed with their trusty lighters; threatening to singe any infidel that stood in their way? Were smokers trying to get their fix in the bathroom really that much of a problem? You'll have to forgive me if I'm not seeing the big fucking threat here. Actually, you know what I think the threat is? The fuckers working security were in serious danger of not being able to hassle people as much as they'd like. So now I have this shell (that you apparently can't get anywhere anymore) and I want for it to be a lighter so fucking bad right now, really I do, but no not a goddamned thing. Fuck you FAA I hate you more than... um... more than I hate children, and that's a fucking lot.

Got that fancy usb cable for ye olde camera. Pictures of things to come soon.

Hugs and Kisses,
Blaine "Candy Pants" Fennell

Now, onto the

New Things and Old Things and Old Things Made New

2006-12-20T17:56:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile has it not? I have my camera but the usb thing is gooonnne. I'm going home in two days so I can recover it... as well as a good deal of other things left behind.

Last weekend was Bloomington. I felt strange the whole time; almost like I was being tugged at from all directions to be in any number of places which all turned into the Vid. I saw half of the people I wanted to see for not even close to the amount of time I wanted to see them but it was good nonetheless.

The trip made me contemplate the odd situation that is my life. I moved out here to follow my dream and it's only kind of taken off. I'm enjoying my life and everything seems to be going rather smoothly, but most of the friends I wanted to keep forever are not coming out here for more than a visit, and while with each graduation there's a promise of those friends of old to settle here I think I'm a bit scared of what that could mean. I love it here, and I think I'm doing well and I want to at least keep at it until I start making good with selling wine, but I don't think people should follow in my footsteps.

Would it be different if I had a high paying job and a trust fund and lived in Manhattan or Williamsburg? Yes, it would. My neighborhood is making me paranoid and I hate the fact that I'm constantly thinking about exit strategies or combat techniques when I pass groups of men while walking to and from the subway. I hate the fact that my adrenaline peaks when I hear loud noises and most of all I hate that the first things that come to mind when thinking about getting out of a potentially precarious situation are inevitably the most horrible permanent injuries I could quickly administer. Most people probably aren't plagued by such things. Sure they might ponder the idea of getting into a fight or beating up some ne'er-do-well, but in all due respect that's fucking cracker-jacks compared to "If he pulls a knife on me I can rip out his eye with my hand," or "A kneecap only takes roughly 9 lbs of pressure to separate from the joint." The invention of the gun was probably the most horrible thing to happen to human history. It's an anomaly for me to feel this way, seeing as I mostly support our beloved 2nd amendment, but first and foremost I believe that humans are by and large an eternally flawed species and that the gun has always been too much power over life and death to put into the hands of the everyman. I once heard about a battered spouse who killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, thawed it, and then fed it to the investigating police officers for dinner. Whether this is an urban legend or not is besides the point. What I'm getting at is that the stripping of our constitutional right to life should not come with a point-and-click interface and doing so is really dumbing us down. Yeah, dumbing us down. If you want to commit a violent crime that's all well and good, but it should require effort and cunning enough to beat the system like the lady in the above-mentioned story, not just the fact that you and your victim are there and you simply feel like it.

That went somewhere strange didn't it? Long story short I miss you all even if we've never and will never meet and all I want is to surround myself with you once again; laughing in smiling like it's the only thing that matters in the whole goddamned universe and knowing that it is. OK, well, my shift is over so I'm going home to play video games and smoke cigarettes and dream about riding on horseback carrying a naganita and trampling the myriad of foes in my path.

Hunt

2006-12-05T16:01:00.000-05:00

The man in the mirror was certainly that: a man. I noted that as if to clarify to myself that I had not woken up to find myself a god or beast or monster. It's important to make these types of clarifications, if only to be fully prepared for the one day I wake up as something completely different. I read a play once in which people randomly turned into rhinoceroses. I'd rather like to avoid such an eventuality if possible.

It's not that I'm certain that I'd mind being a rhinoceros; it might very well be a change for the better and I can probably pull several examples off the top of my head for why the rhinoceros lifestyle is superior to that of a man, but I like my pale skin, opposable thumbs, and freckles.

Keep it Rolling

2006-11-28T14:51:00.001-05:00

There was something categorically un-dog-like about that dog, he thought as he stared down at the creature by his feet. To him, this thing, this quote-unquote dog looked almost exactly like what a Jack Russel Terrier should look like, but there was something more to it; a non-dog substance to the way it held itself. It seemed proud, but to him even that was an understatement. This dog seemed heroic, mythic, god-like; every bone in its tiny frame positioned in the most perfect of doggy bone structures so that it transcended dog-hood altogether and became the stuff of legend.

He wondered if anyone else could see it, this divine presence exuded by a canine. All around the room the looks on people's faces met him halfway. They looked as if they knew that the dog was special; admirable, but not exactly a being to which they owed their worship. 'Fools,' he thought, 'the day of reckoning will prove you all unbelievers.' One man emerged, equally attentive and oblivious to what he saw. This man would know nothing of the great dog god. Yet when the rotund man in a suit looked upon the great beast-king he could swear a spark flashed in his eyes, as if the dog's power itself extended from its body and warped this poor soul's mind to see behind the hairy exterior and perceive the golden light of Heaven contained within.

The suited man blinked, awestruck and took a step back. Regaining his poise he turned and walked away, betraying his facade by casting one last glance back at the great one standing by the steadfast believer's side. The suited man stared directly at the dog of hosts, extended his finger and pointed directly at it. The others, though previously unconvinced, found themselves doubting no longer and cheered their almighty shorthaired champion with zealous fervor.

The man with the god-creature smiled and looked down upon his lord with a smile. Through It he had received all his desires; through It he had received the reflected glory of a god. The prize was his.

He had won the dog show.

On Hierarchy

2006-11-27T12:07:00.000-05:00

Raymi's site and one belonging to a pro-life Canadian blogger were involved in a heated exchange of ideas due to a comment on the latter being upset that she lost to the former in a blogging awards thing. Raymi's fans dug into the lady as blogging fans are prone to do which were equally crass and intelligent.

The blogger holds her ground fairly well despite trying to maintain an argument with a bunch of blog-fans with whom she cannot win, not necessarily because of the validity (or lack thereof) of her arguments as much as it was that Raymi's fans were very persistent in their debate and honestly I think it was too much for her to handle.

She keeps insisting on a hierarchy of importance to, well, everything that is, to an extent, objective. In her argument she believes that while say, the Canadian election might be more important to her than it is to me, it is definitely more important empirically than what I had for breakfast this morning.

The thing about importance is that it is entirely subjective. She makes the claim that because one thing is important to a lot of people that it is itself important and that is not true. Importance is fluid. Right now what's most important to me is what I'm going to have for lunch, followed immediately by what I'm going to do about my evening. By tonight I'm not going to give a shit about what I want to eat for lunch because it will be past. In that same respect even by this lady's standards the abortion issue is going to mean fuck-all to most people if an asteroid was knocked out of the asteroid belt and was on a collision course with the Earth. Oddly enough this will not matter in the least to un-aborted fetuses as they have no idea what the fuck is going on. Sure that's kind of a cheap way to go about it but what I'm getting at is that since the importance of things is largely subjective and constantly changing than it is a fool's errand to call anything empirically important.

Also, since when has entertainment ever taken a back seat to the political climate or social issues? The Daily Show is fake news and it's the most-watched news based show. Entertainment is what interests people and keeps them happy. Would you trade your favorite novel's existence to have your political party win the next election? I'm sure that sounds like a simple thing to throw away, but how has it shaped you; how often do you think upon those several quotes you have committed to memory; how would you be different if you never read it? Entertainment in all its forms affects individuals more than any social issue could affect the whole because it affects how we feel and how we perceive before we act whereas something like a law affects our actions in a more reactionary way.

Take the draft: if the draft were reinstated I would move to Canada... or at least that's where I would start. Eventually I'd make my way to Greece or some village in Japan or something. This does not change who I am as a person; I just moved. However I would choose to move to these countries because of literature I've read and art I've seen.

OK, now that that's done I'd like to muse over her actual subject matter: It seemed from the little I've read that one of her main pro-life arguments is that she wants equality for the born and unborn alike because when an unborn is wanted that the owners treat it as a child and that it is only not a child when it is viewed as an inconvenience. So wouldn't I be in equal rights to say that no unborn should be treated as a child because it's only considered a real child by the people that want it? Her argument reminds me of people that think that the dog is a member of the family and not, you know, a pet. Admittedly this is the way I feel about my dog, but there are also dogs I see every day that I don't exactly consider either friend or family.

So to conclude, today I had nothing for breakfast, a sandwich and sushi for lunch (in the process of eating) and I'm pretty sure that's why you love me.

On Fields

2006-11-21T12:20:00.000-05:00

I am a fucking magnet. I swear Batman could just follow me around and be no worse off for it in terms of fighting crime... or at least attempted crime. No one has actually stolen anything from me yet. I would hope Batman would ruin their shit anyways.

I have a giant bruise on my face of unidentifiable origin. It's as if someone painted it there one night.

Everything else is wonderful. I have the new Nintendo system. The Wii as it were and it's pretty nifty. The tv, which Bridget got for free, is fine but certainly not optimal... Optimus. The images that appear get cut off a bit on the sides, which, since I play games with a lot of text, is a little irritating. Thankfully one of the roommates is less forgiving about such things and wants to buy a fancy-schmancy television. I'm working on making an actual living room in there and one day it'll be pretty nice... possibly soon.

I'm working on a plan for going back to Bloomington. I know exactly when this is going to happen but I don't want to publish it, I mean, what if someone sees? I'm not telling anyone really. Matt knows and maybe one other person... it'll be a surprise. Whooo!

Something About My Life This Time

2006-11-07T18:42:00.000-05:00

OK, so everything is going pretty well. I'm working, no longer in dire straits (although I am in debt, which kinda sucks), and overall pretty good.

I'm dating a roommate of mine, which one would think is a very tricky scenario, but I think it's working out quite well indeed. It's strange though, I haven't been in what one would call a real relationship in quite some time... or... ever depending on how you looked at it. My college flames were all very, very strange. One was pseudo-long distance and the other, well, let's not get into that one. What I'm getting at is that it's a big step into strange waters being with a girl who's around all the time sharing space and all that. It's not bad by any stretch, just completely different.

She has a dog. Dog and I have a love-hate relationship. Essentially he's moderately scared of me and I am swinging between liking and hating him. I get the feeling that somewhere in there is a fully-understanding adult dog that never got the chance to come out; buried under the brash, childish beast of instinct. Let's put this into a real-life example. Ok, last night I had the dog sit on my couch/bed while I played Final Fantasy and he lay down and was relatively quiet for a couple hours. Two days ago I was trying to pull him off a plate that once had Chinese food on it and he bit me. Perhaps I'm just holding him to far too high expectations. Kate, my dog, is a lovely gentle creature who is very well-behaved. It's a high standard and Mr. Burns couldn't possibly compete. Maybe it's because he's a small dog. I think about things like this: small dogs are generally more high strung so maybe that's all it is; too much energy in too small a package. Regardless on any given day I either want to play with him or use him as a punching bag. I think everyone, including the owner, feels more or less the same way.

Matt is in town and even when we met for lunch I realized how much I missed the fucker. Life really isn't the same without him, and that's something I need to consider. Would I move out with him to Chicago? Well, the time is all wrong, so no, but I do wish he'd come out here. Mom comes this weekend, and I hope things go well. I don't really want her to meet B. Nothing personal and I'd be happy to comply if B wanted to meet my mother, it's just I have this stigma against girlfriends meeting my parents. I essentially keep the folks in the dark about most of my life. It's just a sea of tiny bits of information held together by fabrications. Sounds terrible doesn't it? I honestly think it's for the good of everyone involved despite it's being morally questionable. What can I say? I'm a bastard but I never claimed to be a good man in the first place.

OK, end of update, see you later.

Winks and Nudges

2006-11-06T12:13:00.000-05:00

"Thanks," she said, "I always had a bit of an inkling that I didn't exist. It's nice to know I was right." "No problem," the man said, "happy to help."
The woman faded into mist. The man propped his feet on the corner of the old wooden desk; which leaned a bit under his weight. He removed a cigarette from behind his ear and patted his coat pockets looking for his trusty lighter; an ironic name, like calling a black cat whitey. Finding the device he gave it several good flicks before it finally produced flame. He sometimes worried about cancer and all the tar inside his lungs. He didn't need to, but he liked to worry occasionally; liked that feeling that he wasn't in control and that danger lurked around dark corners. It didn't.

A man in a tuxedo walked in the door. The man at the desk had never seen this man before, but knew that he was the conductor of the local orchestra. He just had that kind of look about him, as if to the man at the desk this was the only position the man in the tuxedo could occupy. This was true, but the man at the desk at least liked to pretend that the man could've done something else with his life. "I was told to come here," the man in the tuxedo said matter-of-factly. "Yes," the man on the desk said "as you're aware the season for the orchestra is coming to a close. I'm afraid that your services will not be needed until the spring." "No!" cried the tuxedoed man, "just starting and stopping like this- it's not right!" He would've continued with his plea but he was already gone.

The man at the desk sighed and leaned back in his chair. A puppy came from around the corner of the desk and licked at his knuckles. After a few seconds the puppy ceased his affections and walked towards the door, but never made it. Sure there was fear, helplessness, and the feeling of being watched and graded, but there was also purpose to the people in this city. Shouldn't knowing why one existed be satisfaction enough? The man thought about the woman he saw earlier; how relieved she looked when she went away.

Somewhere by the river the city's edge began to move. Everything began to melt into smoke and wind moving ever more quickly towards the center of town, where a man in the desk waited for the world to end. As the desk and chair faded away he watched his toes blur into vague blotches. 'Me too,' he thought to himself as he ceased to be, 'fitting.'

Some Kind of Dream

2006-10-24T14:20:00.000-04:00

I was driving in the middle of nowhere at that special time when late night mingles with early morning and everything seems brilliantly and terrifyingly surreal. I was driving a junkyard car; had a quarter-tank of gas, a flat tire, and no desire to take my foot off the accelerator. The rocks and sand from the desert stretched out in all directions with the highway stretched across it like black electrical tape covering a seam. As my headlights penetrated the darkness I contemplated the future. Despite the flat tire slowing me down it was only a matter of time before I reached civilization. It could be either the blinding lights and abundant vice of Las Vegas or Bumblefuck, Utah and I would be just as disappointed by coming closer to another human life and artificial lights. Sunrise would be equally depressing, but it was hardly my place to call the sun unwelcome

How I wished for a cave or a forest, anywhere to keep out of any light that wasn't moonlight or starlight. The flat comes loose from the rim and flaps behind me into the night; into the past. The sound of grinding metal drowns out the Bob Dylan song coming out the radio and white and orange sparks fly from the right side of the car, providing a comet's tail to my journey. It was bumpy, beautiful, but it couldn't last. I pulled off the road into the desert and put the pedal to the floor. I unlatched my seat-belt with my right hand, barely hearing the click over the roar of the wind, the squeaking of the suspension, and the crunching of rocks and sand under the naked metal rim.

A brief sensation; the perfect mix of euphoria and nausea starts in my chest and envelops me asmy car drifs over the bump. Shock and pain as I taste the steering wheel and fly backwards as the junkyard heap bucks me like a particularly wild and untamed horse. I'm flying; eyes closed with the moon kissing my eyelids as I fall back to Earth. My body shudders and goes limp as I bounce. A flash of pain and then warmth, wetness as a rock slices into my leg. I skid into the sand, all the while hoping that I make a long streak in the ground as a falling meteorite would.

I lay there broken and bleeding into the night. Sand stuck to my leg and was most likely already in my wound. I felt only the slightest amount of pain. I finally opened my eyes and saw the full moon; now exposed from behind the clouds, and a handful of stars burned brightly from a million years ago and shone down on my scraped and bleeding face. I couldn't remember a time in which I had felt better, and when I closed my eyes I knew that I would sleep that soundless deep kind of sleep that I could scarecely remember experiencing. It was a good night, and all things considered I wouldn't mind if it was my last.

There were dreams of animals; great beasts trodding the empty, vine-covered streets of a city whose lights had long since burnt out--dreams of people marching en-masse out to the fields and forests and deserts determined to survive-- dreams of the gods returning to the tales of man-- dreams of a life long since denied to me. Still, when the sun was high overhead tanning my skin and instilling a scorching heat to the surrounding desert sands I awoke with a renewed lust for life. I stood tall, ripped off a sliver of my shirt for a makeshift bandage for my leg, and limped towards the horizon. I was unsure when or if I would reach civilization or if I would eventually drop dead unremarkably out in the desert.

Whatever the case, I would welcome it with open arms.

.............march.