bleak

Suicide in a Cloudy Font

2012-01-27T21:11:00.000-08:00

Pencil lines everything looks and feels official. Everything looks and feels official and billable.
Somebody at another desk behind the wall said:
"Thank God for computers, I can't imagine how loud it was to work at night on a typewriter".
Yeah I guess.
I'm sorry I don't really have any idea what the hell I do now.

That number is always too low.
That number is never enough.
That number means I can't do things.
I guess I have no concept. I guess I should have thought ahead.
I guess I should want things more.
I guess I don't have as much time as I thought.

You should have heard her go off.
She didn't really.
But she probably wanted to.
She probably wanted to stand up and tell me to get my shit together.
Or get the fuck out.
Maybe not that dramatic.

But everything has stalled.
Engine revs. but there's no jolt.
I think the secret of being negative is to get everyone around you to slap on their most positive face.
Tell you everything is going to be fine.
Not to worry.
Not stress about things.

Life is a fluffy cloud.
At least it should be.
What's the fucking problem?
Well, there's problems don't get me wrong.
There's serious problems.
But what's the fucking problem?
There's ways around all that.
Nobody is happy.
Nobody is content.
Nobody is secure.

Pencil me in for next Tuesday.
Pencil me in for a lunch.
Once the check clears.
Once that other check hits the banks.
Once I check my balance.
Everyone is so loud.
Maybe we should just stay in.
Everyone's got something to say about something.
Maybe we could just watch a movie.
Escapism is hard to break out of.

So I'm not sure.
I'll have to figure something out I guess.
or not.
I'll keep going until I don't.
And then what?
Well I'll worry about that then, thanks.
Life's just a big fluffy cloud.
Or at least it should be.

The New Musical In My Head

2012-01-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

Every day is your birthday.
And the radio is killing us one commercial at a time.
There's nothing else left to do so let's stretch it out a little bit before we bring the lawyers and priests in.

Let's stay indoors for the next three of four years and figure it out.

When It's All Over

2011-12-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

Johnny Russo’s hotel room overlooked a small, run-down Spanish grocery store where a man spent several hours every morning announcing: “Flowers!” and “Fresh produce!” to the passerby, Johnny looked out the window anticipating the man taking his place in a few short hours. “You sure you want me to leave?” the girl asked, pulling the sheets up to her chest. “Yeah, I’m sure,” Johnny answered punching out a cigarette on the coffee table. He continued to gaze out the window, where the regular routine had yet to begin in earnest. Stragglers in paper top hats with noise makers still clung to their dates and stumbled down the sidewalk. The girl slunk through her pink-glittery dress and grabbed her spiked heels in her hand. She grabbed a wad of crumbled up bills off the nightstand and stuffed them into her purse. “Well, Happy New Year,” she croaked through a groggy voice. Johnny nodded back shortly and she exited through the door. He sighed deeply now that he was alone and rose from his chair and entered the bathroom. His hair was long and greasy, his beard long and wiry. Bluish circles formed under his eyes. He splashed some water on his face hoping it would wash away some of the evidence of having been up for the last 36 hours. He re-tied the belt across his coffee beige bathrobe. He pulled a gold watch out from the robe’s pocket, it had been a gift from the record company after his first Gold Record. It had been only three hours since 1972 had dissolved into 1973 and he had a slight, unexplained feeling of optimism. After tonight he was going to get his act together. He had run into Fred Bannister earlier in the night and explained that he was looking to get back in the game. Fred didn’t make him any promises but Johnny knew, he knew that if he just applied himself, if he really focused this time, he could get back to the top. “Johnny you were never on top,” he recalled Lisa had told him when he broke what he thought was exciting news. “Besides, Fred Bannister? You know what he does these days? He books those oldies shows, they get a few acts who had hits like 10 years ago. They come out, play their hits with the house band and collect their check until the next time Fred calls.” This deflated him so much that he left the bar, infuriated at his wife for popping the first bubble of good news his career had had in the last 5 years. Convinced this was the last straw in a marriage that was already fractured he returned to home and grabbed a large portion of his wardrobe, including some of his stage costumes in the pockets of which he hid money from his wife mostly for when a dealer would come by, but also in case he ever needed to leave for a few days. That was two days ago and he had yet to call Lisa. He’d burned through most of the money, though he was sure he forgot a patent red leather blazer that he wore during his last appearance on American Bandstand and a white cotton sports coat that he wore on his first television appearance, (The Clay Cole Show in 1961) both of which had a small fortune in them. The room was dark except for the street lights glow leaking in through the paper thin curtains. He turned on the television and rolled the dial across the channels but they’d all signed off. Abandoning the television he slid a dime off the nightstand, rolling it around in his fingers for a moment he finally sprung off the bed, his hand clenched tightly around the coin, he left the room and headed down the hallway to the pay phone. “Hello?” a voice answered sleepily after nearly a dozen rings. “Hey,” he said nervously. “Johnny? No, we’re not doing this now,” Lisa said, anger slowly awakening her voice. “But, I want to come home,” he said sweetly. “You mean my home? I am the only one who pays for anything around here Johnny you do know that don’t you? That while you’re out there chasing whatever fame you think you’re entitled to I’m the one who is paying the bills, you do realize that don’t you?” “You have to throw that in my fucking face every time, Lisa?” Johnny barked. “I’m not doing this with you now, it’s almost four-o’clock in the morning.” “Fine, I’ll just twist out here in the wind while her holiness decides she’s ready to talk to me about it,” he screamed. “Keep it down out there,” a voice yelled through the door of the room in front of the phone. “Shut up!” Johnny yelled back. “Save your voice Johnny, remember you’re gonna be back on top,” Lisa said coldly and hung up the phone. Johnny hung the receiver up calmly and slowly walked back to his room. He sat on the bed, tears welling up in his eyes. The door closet still opened, half full with clothes he’d worn in better times. “Those clothes were on t.v.” he thought. “I was on t.v.” In his closet at home he’d taken the time to arrange them chronologically, and the fraction he’d snatched from home maintained their order when he hung them in them at the motel. Noticeably standing out from the elegant jackets was a brown, suede jacket with tassels. Johnny rolled his eyes when his eyes came to it. “That’s what did me in,” he said. “Fucking hippie bullshit.” In 1966 his manager decided since Johnny’s records weren’t selling like they used to that he was going to do a whole album of more contemporary music. Johnny grew his hair out to an acceptable shaggy-length and let his moustache come in. He started wearing peace-beads and bell bottoms. He was 29, only slightly older than some of his rock-n-roll peers. Stylistically however, they were miles apart and Johnny managed to alienate both his core audience who were accustomed to his carefully managed clean-cut persona, and the younger audience who recognized the record as attempt to cash in and save his fledgling career. He didn’t make another record for almost 4 years when he abandoned the counter-culture look and adopted a more laid-back style. His new manager told him “you’re not singing to kids anymore, you’re singing to mothers” he released an album of standards arranged with a contemporary pop sound. The American Bandstand performance aired the night before the album was released and Johnny was sure that this would restore his career. Unfortunately the sales were week and he spent the next two years touring as a supporting act, before ultimately accepting a 3 month stint in the lounge at the Sands in Las Vegas, however only a month and a half into the engagement he performed so drunk the manager was forced to fire him on the spot after a heated verbal exchange with a heckler. Since then he’d been plotting a career resurrection with no success. All these memories flushed through him right up until watching the ball drop in Times Square just a few short hours ago, in the arms of a hired woman. He kicked the empty, scotch bottle across the room and swung the closet door, bear-hugging his wardrobe and carrying them into the bathroom where he threw the pile into the tub. He flicked his cigarette lighter and held the sleeve of the light-blue, butterfly-collared shirt he wore on the Ed Sullivan show under the flame until it finally started to burn. He released the sleeve and watched the flame engulfed more of the shirt and blackened one of the crisp, ivory jackets beneath it. He stared at the flame feeling no sense of liberation. A wave of panic hit him in the chest as black smoke began to arise out of the mound of clothes. He quickly turned on the shower faucet and the flame was quickly extinguished. He shut the water and scooped the wet pile out of the tub and gently placed them on the bed, carefully drying the red-leather blazer with a towel. “You never know,” he said out loud to no one in particular, “I may get hot again.”

Face Off 2: Yellvis

2011-10-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

"It's been nearly four months since Sean Archer allegedly disposed of long time nemesis Castor Troy, though some doubts linger about Archer's identity. Some question whether Archer, who allegedly volunteered to have his face removed and placed on the body of arch-Villain Troy. Troy, in a coma after getting blown into a wall by a jet engine in an airplane hangar, awoke to discover his face was missing. Somehow he was able to overpower a room of fully faced doctors and policemen, forcing them to restore Archer's face onto his body, then proceeded to burn the facility down with the doctors and police inside, thus eliminating anyone who knew Archer's true identity. After an unnecessarily long boat chase Archer (as Troy) was able to over come Troy (as Archer) with a harpoon gun. Afterwards, his face was transplanted back, and, at Mr. Archer's insistence, Castor Troy's face burned. From what we have learned Mr. Archer adopted Troy's illegitimate son who is roughly the same age that Mr. Archer's son Michael would have been had Mr. Troy not accidentally shot him while aiming for Mr. Archer. Mr. Archer's true identity was established probably by his wife because she's apparently some kind of doctor but does that really prove anything? Can we trust Sean Archer as chief of police or whatever he wound up getting promoted to? Let us know what you think when we eventually put this article on the Internet in about 2 or 3 years and offer a comments section."
-Santa Cruz Examiner August 7, 1997

Sean Archer wasn't Sean Archer, sure he was the same man that used to be Sean Archer, married with a confused teenage daughter who was trying too hard. But he wasn't the same after finally defeating Castor Troy. His life had become an obsession with catching Troy, extracting revenge but Troy was ever elusive and it never seemed as if his work would ever be done. After this last incident with the face switching thing Archer thought that Troy had one. He thought he was going to die with the face of his worst enemy while Troy went about ruining whatever was left of his life.

Now that Troy was dead the feeling of relief that initially washed over him was replaced by emptiness. Who was there to chase now? Local thugs, punks, drug dealers? None of this appealed to Archer any longer and two weeks after he retired from the police force he left his family and rented a room at the Carribean Queen Motel in downtown Los Angeles. He began researching strange surgeries, limb replacements, eye transplants, even botched plastic surgeries. There were no known successful face transplants on record.

See Sean Archer had a dream, something he'd secretly wanted to do before all this Castor Troy nonsense had started. A dream to sing, to dance; to entertain. He would have to go to Memphis Tennessee to execute the first part of his plan.

Meanwhile Castor Troy was again in a coma. Being kept alive in a secret facility just outside of central Los Angeles.

The first part of Sean Archer's plan was unsuccessful and he was thrown off the grounds of Graceland and cited for trespassing. After pulling a few strings he was released and returned to Los Angeles. He had spent three months (probably) trapped behind the face of the man he hated most in the world. He was now determined to spend the rest of his life with the face of the man he'd admired most in the world. But Graceland was a tough safe to crack and there was no guarantees that even if he could get in that he'd be able to use the face of the King of Rock N Roll to replace his own. But now he had another idea and this one would be cheaper.

Meanwhile Castor Troy remained in a coma.

Sean Archer returned to the hospital where his face was returned to him. A plastic bag in hand, he searched out the world famous surgeon Dr. Johan Franktuesian.

"Hi Doc, I just wanted to thank you again for fixing my face, I gotta tell ya, you do great work, I can't even tell this puppy was off."

"Thank you Mr. Archer, I have to say I consider your procedure my masterpiece."

"Well how bout I give you another crack at it?"

"What do you mean?"

Archer produced a gun from his pocket and shooed the doctor into a near by operating room.

"I want this on my face," Archer threw the bag down on to the bed to reveal a rubber Elvis mask.

"You're, you're crazy that would never..."

:"Just do it."

Castor Troy.....Coma.

Dr. Franktuesian's surgery with what can only be described as breathtaking results. The resemblance to Elivs Presley was uncanny, even if Archer had to apply an expensive Nitro Glycerin Jelly to his face every four hours to keep whatever remaining rubber elastic enough to support his facial movements. After a month of growing accustomed to his new mug, he started booking appearances under the name "Agent Archer" singing mostly standards, peppering his set with an occasional Elvis song, closing with "My Way". Unfortunately he tried to make up for what he lacked in vocal range by raising the volume of his voice the result of which threw him further off key.

After his third show the club owner, a short balding man name "Cocktail" Earl, approached Archer.
"Kid, I'm sorry but I can't use you any more. Sure you've got a great look but your voice, it's just not there."

"I understand Earl, I understand. Let's just say you put me on for tomorrow night, and I, well," Archer unsheathed his .45 magnum "I'll let you live."

"Archer, Archer, relax. Alright, I'll keep you on. Just put the piece away."

Archer headlined the club for the next three weeks. The Los Angeles Gazette finally reviewed his act gave him the moniker "Yell-vis" and described "enduring" a set as "painful".

Undeterred Archer continued to do his act, making slight changes when he felt appropriate but the more he belted out songs the smaller the crowds got, until finally Cocktail Earl's was practically vacant. Without any other options Earl went to the police. At first he wasn't taken seriously and was sent to the "Small Crimes Unit."

But as fate would have it the Commander of Small Crimes, Mimi Van Rogers, was once an underling of Sean Archer demoted when Archer left the force.

"If what you say is true, Cocktail Earl," Mimi Van Rogers said "than there is only one man who can stop him."

Castor Troy was still in a Coma when Van Rogers and Cocktail Earl arrived at the hospital. His face burned as per Archer's instructions however the remains were kept in an undefined clear liquid in a jar near his bed.

"I need this man, we have people being terrorized in this city Captain and you want us to just stand back and let it happen?" Van Rogers shouted.

"You remember what happened the last time he was on the streets? It was like Demotlition Man or that show from the 80's Sledgehammer. He was a menace."

"But wouldn't you agree Captain that to stop a maniac, we may need to send a maniac?"

"No, I wouldn't. But this is your case, so I don't care what you do."

Castor Troy's face was restored with three coats of house paint and some Spackle. He was brought out of his coma and brought up to date.

"So you want me to go after Archer, what's in it for me?"

"Your freedom. A full pardon for all offenses against you."

Troy considered this for a moment while a cigarette dangled from his lips.

"Alright, but only because it's Archer. Now get me my guns."

Troy's twin golden Beretta's lay shining in the velvet green box. He strapped them into the back of his holster and draped himself in an electric blue suit.

A helicopter brought him to Cocktail Earl's.

"We can drop you on the roof, you can sneak in through the fire escape."

"Oh no, I'm going in through the front door."

Castor approached the entrance and kicked the double doors open.

The club was dark.

"I've been waiting for you." Archer's voice rang out from the darkness. "I knew you weren't dead."

"As long as you're alive I'll be here to haunt you. You need me. You need me to have purpose."

"Not anymore. I've found something new."

The Jukebox kicked on along with the stage lights bouncing off a disco ball above the dance floor. Archer stood in a a sleek white, jeweled jump suite holding two magnums gleaming with rhinestones. Troy produced his two guns and aimed them, a flock of doves flew in from the doors behind him. They exchanged a knowing grin and sprung into action.

As if in slow motion glass was shattering everywhere. Troy gained an early advantage sending Archer retreating behind the drum set on stage. Archer quickly reloaded and came out firing. Troy flipped a long wooden table and took cover behind it. A cloud of smoke and feathers hung in the room, the jukebox had been shot out and not just produced a tinny, distorted buzz. Troy looked up at the poster on the wall in front of Archer. "Every Weeknight, Come See 'Yell-vis'" it read.

"So you're singing now?" Troy yelled across the room. "Elvis songs? That's pretty cool."

"Don't mock me. I won't be mocked," Archer shrieked and fired a few shots towards his voice.

"No, I'm not mocking actually. I used to love Elvis, before all of this started. Before all of this madness."

"Yeah, me too. I don't know how we got started on this. You start off wanting to do the right thing and the next thing you know you forget who the bad guy is."

"I don't know. I'm not sure I've ever know if I ever knew what the right thing is."

"What's going on in here?" Van Rogers and the Captain burst through the door. "Troy, did you get him?"

"No, he's back there" Troy motioned towards the stage.

"What's the matter Captain? Had to send Troy to do your dirty work?" Archer yelled and fired a random shot.

"Sean, c'mon. This is over. Let's just end this before anyone gets hurt. You can go back to your wife. Your daughter."

"No, I don't want that. Not anymore. I'm a performer now."

"Sean, we've heard you sing, it's...well it's terrible. It's really God-awful, I mean I honestly, what is it 1997? I've been listening to music for 43 years, and it's seriously the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. Seriously, setting Graceland on fire and pissing it out would be more respectful to Elvis Presley than what you are doing. I mean that."

Archer's eyes swelled with tears. "You really don't think I'm any good?"

"Sean, no, it's unbelievably bad. We gave a pardon to a career criminal just to stop you."

"Alright, I'll...I'll come out. I give up."
Archer began to rise out from behind the drum set.

"No, Sean stop. There's no reason you should give up your dream just because they don't like it. No, if you want sing Elvis songs then you should do that."

"Well I do some standards too, it's not all just Elvis."

"That's what you should do then."

"Well he's not going to do it at my club! He's too terrible!" Cocktail Earl yelled.

"Troy, have you forgotten about our deal? You want to go back into that coma?" the Captain snarled.

"No, but I think I'm about to make a better deal, count it off Sean"

"One for the money..." Archer belted and emerged from behind the drums, guns out and firing at the Captain, Van Rogers and Earl.

Troy leaped slowly to his left firing at the trio as well.

When it was all over Troy and Archer burned Cocktail Earl's to the ground. Any and all evidence of their various deals and surgeries burned up with it. They stole a powder-blue convertible, like the one Nick Nolte drove in 48 Hrs and headed to Las Vegas.

Epilogue
They started an act; Yelvis and Troy, it didn't do very well and eventually Archer couldn't afford his Nitro Glycerin Jelly and his face became a hideous sight. Troy went solo, playing folk songs. In 2003 he provided the soundtrack and starred in an independent art house film
In 2008 Yelvis and Troy reunited for a brief stint. As of 2011 they have no further plans to work together.

Fin

Everybody Liked You Better When You Were Still A Boxer

2011-10-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

Oh it’s still dark green October out. Better go back inside,better get ready for some doom. Better do better tomorrow. No wait. Shut up.Enough of that. Everything has a little distortion on it in October.

But manit gets loud in here. It gets scary in here. Heart beat speeds up. Hope I don’tpass out. Hope I don’t black out. Hope this helium in my head is just in myhead. Hope this bridge isn’t just a ramp into the horizon. Hope everything’s okwith you.

Panicstarts and stops uninterrupted at any part in the day. Tumors and thick bloodsrunning and getting stuck on vitals and other sugary conditions as of yetundiscovered in medical glossaries.

Sorrydad, these are some dark songs, butthese are dark times traced in neon lights. Uninterrupted, please. No more arguments, please. We’ve been throughthis before.

This isout of our depth. Throw rocks until all the windows are broken but they’ll justfix them tomorrow. No one will know. No one will care. A hundred years untiltomorrow anyway.

Sorrybut I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing anymore, anyway. Confusion and disgust and indifference allget blurry and instead of putting on your deciphering glasses let’s just sum itup with a big shrug.

Hopefullythe roof stays put. Hopefully the car starts. Hopefully the water runs and thepower is on. Hopefully it’s never anything serious. Hopefully the phone doesn’tring.

Studyhall day dreams about scraping by; doing things you’re not sure you have anybusiness doing. You’ll be the exception. Everyone else will get by. Everyoneelse will make it look easy but tell you that it’s really not. Everyone elsewill get over it.

But it’sdark, October, cold breeze anchors, crayon-drawn trees, miserable uncertainghosts; dress it up in orange and black, get it drunk, tell it everything willbe ok and then send it off to bed and hope for a flash of optimism in themorning. . Maybe it won’t be so dark anymore.

Up Amongst the Golden Hills of Saddle River

2011-09-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

Richard Nixon's Hall of Fame Speech

Halloween. Plastic pumpkins filled with shiny wrappers and loose change, candy corn doomed to be tossed into the street, at passing cars or ultimately thrown into a black garbage back along with any giant juicy red apples just in case some lonely, old sociopath discovered a technique of sliding razor blades into them with out cutting them in half.

This year however there would be none of that. This year they were going up to the rich towns. Tales of full candy bars being handed out like...well like candy made their way down to the lower suburbs and thus the plan was concocted.

Joe and Andrew were too old to be trick or treating, Andrew camouflaged this by bringing his 11-year old cousin Frederick along, however he was ill-matched in his plastic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume traveling with two 17-year-olds in white and black makeup liberally doused in red corn syrup.

"What are you guys supposed to be anyway?" Frederick innocently enough.

"Warlocks," Joe answered as if it was obvious.

"Well I think I'm more of just a random, demon-type. Maybe a guy who works in a castle, something like that."

"Oh," Frederick nodded seemingly more interested in putting on his rubber mask than listening to his cousin's answer.

Joe drove his white Buick, a hand-me-down from his father up the hill until he found a quiet side street.

"This looks good. We'll park here and work our way up this road," he said, sliding the car into park and removing his keys in one motion.

"There's only like 10 houses on this street," Andrew answered incredulously.

"Yeah but they're huge, this will be like hitting 25 houses in Arlington, you realize how much stuff they'll give us? Besides there's a few more side streets ahead."

They exited the car, Andrew keeping Frederick close to him, Joe leading the way. It was still light out when they arrived at the first house. They made their way down the long driveway and up to the glittering glass doors. Joe pushed the button and what sounded like cathedral bells rattled the door frame and a light went on behind a second floor window.

"Hello?" a voice squawked through the speaker just below door bell.

"Uh, trick or treat" Joe said unenthusiastically.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry, I don't have anything for you, we don't really get too many trick-or-treaters here. I'm sorry."

"Oh, that's okay," Andrew started.

"Okay then.." the voice concluded and the light in the window went out.

"Well so much for that," Andrew said as they made their way back up the driveway.

They made their way to the next house, an equally impressive driveway curled up the front yard with a sleek looking BMW parked next to a fiery red Porsche.

"This one should be good," Joe assured them as he again climbed the small set of stairs and rang the door bell.

A moment later a pretty blond woman in denim shorts and a t-shirt opened the door.

"Trick-or-tre..." Frederick started.

"Oh, right," she said as if she'd been expecting them. "Just hold on for a second," she smiled and closed the door half way.

They heard "looks like two 20 years olds and a kid, trick or treating" echo from the large house.

She returned a moment later with three cans of Sprite in her hand.

"Sorry this is all I've got," she smiled. She handed all three to Joe and closed the door as they were saying thank you.

Joe immediately opened his and took a long sip.

"You see what I'm saying?" he turned to Andrew.

"No I don't. Look at what just happened, she probably thought we were going to mug her or something."

"Whatever, we have to take advantage of that. They're probably going to be a little scared of us. We're like city kids to them, and it's okay for us to be on their property tonight so maybe they'll give us a little extra just so we don't toilet paper their houses or throw rocks through their windows."

"We're not going to throw rocks through anyone's window are we?" Frederick turned nervously towards Andrew.

"No, your Uncle Joe is just an idiot."

"Whatever man, you'll see."

At the next three houses they received the following:

-A zip-locked bag of stale corn chips

-A dollar bill

-A small paper bag of the dreaded candy corn.

It was not until leaving the 6th house that they had finally received the fabled full sized Snicker's bar.

"See I told you," Joe said before taking a mouthful of he bar.

"Told me what? You said every house would be like that," he shot back.

"You shouldn't eat that Uncle Joe, you'll have nothing left for later at this rate."

The next house they approached was the biggest one yet. It was finally getting dark and the long street was filled with leafless trees and flood lights so that all corners of the massive properties were ominously visible. Joe looked up.

"The sky is red, it's probably going to rain soon."

Andrew looked up. The trees looked like they were drawn in black crayon on the scarlet canvas sky.

"What are you Al Roker now?"

"I'm just saying we should probably get moving."

The house, aside from being undoubtedly a mansion, was distinct in another way; a flurry of people cascaded around the doors. Men in dark suits a few still with dark sunglasses walked in no particular pattern all over the grounds.

"What are they supposed to be Men in Black?" Frederick asked sincerely.

"I'm sorry gentleman, I'm just going to need a look inside the pumpkins," one of the dark suit men said in an iron voice as he stood in front of them.

"What for?" Joe asked, somewhat annoyed.

"Security," the man answered as he closely inspected the bag of corn chips.

"What does someone famous live here?" Joe asked, unimpressed.

"I'm not at liberty to say, sir," the man, now holding a flashlight to the paper bag of candy corns, answered.

After having gone through each item in their plastic pumpkin heads and giving them each a light pat down he told them they had been cleared to go up to the door.

Joe rang the bell. The trio waited with mild anticipation at who might be famous enough to require this kind of protection from two warlocks and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

"Yeah that's alright Pat, that's alright," an elderly man opened the door but was still facing someone inside the house, already engaged in conversation. "Trick-or-treat, huh?" he warbled.

"Yeah," Joe said flatly.

"Well, I don't have anything here but why don't you come in for a minute and we'll see if we can find something for you," but he stood in front of the entrance and looked back into the dark house "Is that alright Bob, can they come in? Okay, yes, yes, c'mon in," he now opened the door wider.

Upon entering the large foyer the three noticed two more men in dark suits were inside the house, one no more than five feet from the elderly man another down the hallway in the brightly lit kitchen.

"Did you find anything, Pat?" the man yelled down the hall.

"I don't think we have anything Dick," a voice cried back.

"Alright, well why don't you boys have a seat over here," just beyond the foyer was a room that looked and smelled like a library with a rich maroon leather couch. The three looked around and plopped down, taking in the enormity of the house. "I'll be right back."

The man disappeared off towards the kitchen while one of the men in dark suites remained behind his eyes blankly staring forward, arms crossed. He didn't seem to take any of them as a security risk, if anything he looked to be searching for an answer in his head at how he became assigned to this detail.

"I think that's Richard Ni.." Andrew started at Joe.

"It is," the man in the dark suite answered robotically.

"Are you serious?" Andrew asked.

The man held his hand out motioning towards the bookshelves where framed pictures stood of the elderly man, slightly younger, shaking hands and smiling with foreign dignitaries, other former Presidents, and perhaps most impressively, Elvis Presley.

"I'm sorry boys, I don't seem to have anything for you..."

The three rose as one expecting to be shown the door.

"No, no, no that's okay, I have Pat putting on the kettle, do you boys prefer tea or coffee?" he asked without a hint of irony.

"I'll have tea, but I think Frederick might be a little young for either," Andrew said nervously.

"Oh right, of course, well," he smiled as if an idea had just occurred to him, "we'll just have to bring him some hot chocolate then. How does that sound, Frederick?"

Frederick nodded.

"I'm Dick by the way, I don't know if you boys might have recognized me," he grinned hopefully while extending his hand and vigorously shaking each of theirs.

"Yeah, of course," Joe said plainly.

"Very nice to meet you Mr. President," Andrew followed.

"Hi," Frederick said in a small voice.

"I bet you might have heard some rough things about me in some of your classes. What grades are you in anyway?"

"We're seniors, well 12th, uh Mr. President," Andrew muttered.

"I'm in 6th," Frederick chimed in.

"That's great, that's great, and then off to college I'd hope?" Andrew started to answer but he continued, "nothing more important than a good education. No matter what you might think of me I wouldn't have been able to get to where I was without a good education. My father, he was tough, he wasn't afforded any of the opportunities I was so he made damn sure that I took advantage of them."

"I'm going to Seton Hall next year," Andrew said with a slight hint of pride in his voice.

"Oh good, great school, great school. And what are you plan on studying?"

"Business," he said flatly.

"Great. Fantastic. You know I thought about studying business myself but I went into law, you know before politics. People who make the laws have to have a complete and total understanding of it. Do you have any political ambitions?"

"Well, maybe on a local level," Andrew said but then realized the disappointed look on the man's face so he added to his answer, "you know, I'm running for student body president so I think that'll give me a good taste of whether I have the stomach for it."

Joe started to question this piece of information but Andrew gave him a slight, unnoticed nudge in the ribs and he retreated.

"Excellent, it's important to know you're limitations. Maybe running isn't for you, maybe behind the scenes. You know, it's important to surround yourself with good people, at all times, you can never be too picky about who you keep around you, isn't that right Bob?" the man laughed and patted the man in the dark suit on the shoulder.

"That's right Mr. President," he answered glumly.

"Oh I think the kettle is ready, I'll be right back boys, you just make yourselves comfortable."

He hurried towards the kitchen. Joe looked at Andrew, careful not to speak too freely in front of Bob.

"So this is pretty cool, huh?" Joe said even though it didn't sound like he believed it.

"It's really cool," Frederick said. "That man was really the President?" he looked towards Bob.

"That's right, 1969-1974," Bob answered.

The man returned and placed a cup in front of them and poured hot water into each with their specific drink.

"Now, you young man," he motioned to Joe, "what field are thinking of getting into?"

"Law enforcement," he said quickly.

"Oh honorable profession. Can't have enough good men ready to sacrifice themselves for others. You know as President I had to call on the service of the National Guard several times, unfortunately, as you probably know the most unfortunate time was

obviously Kent State, but you know, in times of unrest there is nothing more important than capable committed law enforcement," he leaned over and heartily patted Joe on the shoulder and then fell back into his leather chair turning his attention back to Frederick; "How is your hot chocolate, young man?"

"Good," Frederick took a quick sip off his mug and looked up, "Sir," he began "what was it like being the President?"

Andrew seemed a little taken aback but Joe leaned in to listen.

"Well," the man sighed deeply while Bob quietly rolled his eyes behind him, "it was the best job in the world. It was also the worst job in the world."

"What do you mean?" Frederick followed up.

"Frederick I don't think you should bother Mr. Ni.."

"No, no it's perfectly alright, nothing wrong with a little curiosity," the man smiled fully, his face turning into putty, hard features disappearing into a dimpled rubber mask. "Little fella," he began.

"Frederick," he interrupted.

"Frederick," the man corrected himself, "sometimes when you want something so bad, when it's within your reach, when it's taken from you and then you finally get it, let's say it's something as simple as a toy, maybe one of your video game systems or something like that, or if it's a lifelong dream of showing everyone that you're not weak, that just because you weren't born with a silver spoon, that you can make something out of yourself. To achieve that, to get to the top of the mountain is without a doubt one of the best feelings a person can have. To have arrived, but eventually that wears off and the job is still there. I liked doing the work, but eventually when you're on top the only place to go is down."

Frederick watched innocently as the man squirmed a little in his chair, obviously wanting to say more but not sure if he should. He finally crossed his legs and looked back at Bob, "Make me an, uh, apple juice, would ya? You boys want anything?"

Both Andrew and Joe waved him off and Frederick sat fixated, waiting for more. Bob quickly returned with a large tumbler, ice dancing against the walls of the glass.

"Ah, thank you Bob," the man took a long sip off it, "now where was I? Right the downfalls of the job, you see it's like I was saying to your friend here, you have to trust the people you have around you, and maybe, to some degrees, I was too trusting of the people I had around me. I trusted them and they trusted people, people, not bad people mind you," he took another long sip and jangled his glass for a refill, Bob obliged and he continued, "but people who thought they were doing the right thing for their country but didn't go about it perhaps in the best ways, now if you go back to the 1950's Eisenhower for instance had his guys around at all times..."

The man went on like this for some time, Frederick continued to listen intently whereas the other two were getting dizzily hypnotized by all the circle talking. Finally, as he began to trail off a little bit Bob stepped in.

"Mr. President, I think maybe that is enough conversation for one evening."

"Perhaps you're right, Bob," the man said sadly and looked wearily into his empty tumbler "I do appreciate you boys stopping by, feel free to come by any time if you want to chat about anything," and suddenly his demeanor turned sunny again. "I'll let you get back to your ahh" he seemed to be searching for the right word, "trick and treating."

He escorted the three out and stopped them before they left to let Andrew know that if he needed any advice on his school election to feel free to come by but that if he was serious about running he had to 'run the other guy through before he did it to him'.

They walked up the driveway, it was far too late to continue trick or treating up a dark road with blind curves while they were dressed in black.

"That was weird," Joe finally broke the silence. "Are you really going to run for class president?"

"I wasn't but maybe if I could get an official endorsement," Andrew answered with a smirk.

"You really think that would help?" Joe shot back.

"I thought that was kind of cool" Frederick said, "but he didn't give us any candy."

"Oh yeah," and Joe finally realized maybe this wasn't the best area for trick or treating.

Crawling Across the Dark

2011-08-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

The rain tap danced on the ceiling, the longer I sat there waiting the more I was convinced a huge splash would crash through and crush me to death.

"What the hell are you doing up there?" I yelled upstairs to Dave.

"Nothing," he appeared at the landing draped in his worn out leather jacket, thin layer of eye-liner applied.

"You're still going with the make up thing?"

"What do you mean?" he asked innocently, then nodded as if he realized my error, "Oh this? No I know it looks like eye liner but I'm just really tired. I haven't slept well in like a week."

"Yeah. You're full of shit," I said and we headed out to the car.

It was cold out; one of those horrible February nights that reminded you summer was a long ways off.

"Are you driving?" I asked.

"No, you drive," Dave insisted.

Fine. I'll drive. My white 1986 Pontiac Grand Am was more comfortable than Dave's rusting Coupe De Ville.

Dave got in and grabbed my pack of cigarettes off the dashboard, took one and lit it.
I wanted to ask if there was anything else he needed from me but I remembered that he had lent me $5 yesterday which I had used to buy said pack of cigarettes.

I had a better way of getting back at him; while we waited for the car to heat up I reached under the seat for my case of tapes, I had a special row of things that Dave hated, specifically Hagar-era Van Halen and post-heroin Aerosmith.

Dave had worn out his copy of Metallica's black album and whatever the last Megadeth album was, I didn't know because I was never really into them. And to be honest I wasn't really into Van Hagar or Aerosmith anymore either (though I did revisit Pump once in a while).

"Oh man, you're killing me, OU812? You don't have anything with Roth on it?" Dave winced.

"Yeah I have the case for 1984, but I lost the tape."

It occurred to me as we drove with the window cracked just enough to let the cigarette smoke get sucked out, that I was kind of sick of music.

If you had access to a database with every song in recorded history and told me I had my pick I'd have no idea what to put on. I thought I had everything I wanted at this point and heard it 500 times already. I listened to every tape I had until the point of almost wearing them out, I had mix cassettes filled with songs I taped off the radio or from friend's collections but I didn't have any preference any more.

We were going to see a band perform in some dark basement club somewhere near but not quite in the city. I knew the name of the club was the Hellfire which made me hate it right off the bat. I knew how to get there because it was near a bar called Mulligan's that I'd been to earlier in the year due to their relaxed attitude regarding checking I.D. That was my back up plan should the Hellfire flame out. Yes, that was a terrible pun.

It was always night in the late 80's, if you remember otherwise you are mistaken. Everything was dark and peppered with bright neon lights and saxophone solos.

We parked on the street right in front of Mulligans and walked the icy block to the small line outside the Hellfire. Once the doors opened red lights and a combination of fog machine and cigarette smoke poured out. Rows of faces and the buzz of dozens of different conversations reduced The Cure to background noise leaking out of the crooked speakers dug into the corner of the room.

"Maybe we should just go to Mulligans" I suggested to Dave.

"What?" he yelled.

Nevermind.
We fought our way through the lumps of people holding beer bottles and neon glasses of booze. Everyone looked at us but no one noticed us. Everyone was tarted up in black leather and bright make up. All the pretty girls with blood red lips. We were just conveyor belt extras in their little movie, pushing past them to get nowhere in particular.

We got into the back room. It was a smaller room with a short bar set up. You'd have though more people would have retreated here if only to hear each other speak or get a quicker drink, but these people were peacocks. They weren't here to listen to each other talk, or get a quick drink they were here to see who else was here and who looked better and hope for drama to unfold as the night went on and everyone's vision got blurrier and the music got louder.

The thrill of getting served at a bar hadn't worn off and when the bartender didn't give me a second look when I ordered a Miller I couldn't help but feeling slightly impressed with myself.

After handing him $10 for it and only getting back a few singles and some change I did some quick math and realized the drinking portion of the evening was not going to last too long.

"So you want to go down and see these guys are what?" I asked Dave.

"What's your rush?" he asked, sucking back on a Miller of his own.

"Nothing going on in here, and besides I'm almost out of money already."

He nodded disappointedly and we made our way down a narrow hallway, again lit with a red flood light. The hallway was much quieter and littered with flyers of shows long since past. Sometime around my 17th birthday a government micro-chip was implanted in to my brain causing me to be cynical about such things. This club looked old, but it just looked old. They wanted it to look like the New York Dolls had blown through here in 1975 and did coke in the coat room. And maybe they had but there was something new about this place. Like the pain hadn't quite dried yet. Like they designed it around pictures they'd seen of CBGB's.

A long stairway lead to the basement the club was actually called something different, like Ludlo's at the Hellfire club or something like that. It smelled, well it smelled like a basement; an unspecific musk of moisture and mold. The ceiling was low and it was freezing. A few electric heaters were plugged in but I suspected that the group of 50 or so people packed in tightly was creating more heat.

The band was all in black, leather, pale face make up, thick eyeliner. A low and lazy synthesizer growled over a muddy bass line. There was no drummer, just a girl with red blouse, fashionably torn at the neck, green eyes raccooned in thick black and shiny red lips, tapping on a cow bell and dancing with the tinny beat piping in through the P.A.

"That's the singer's girlfriend, I think they let her do that because she was hanging around all the time," Dave semi-shouted in my ear.

"No it's really good, adds a whole other layer," I answered sarcastically.

The singer brooded up to the microphone fully practiced in the art of Jim Morrisoning the stage. He stalked, he sulked, he winced as if a thousand invisible daggers pierced his silk shirt and leather pants. Each song was drenched in moody baritones and it was difficult to tell if one song had stopped and another started or if this was just one long performance piece.

Occassionally the singer slurred "yeh c'mon" and a new guitar riff would start chugging along amidst a smattering of applause.

A fairly large group entered the room, most of them had greasy looking shoulder length hair. They were wearing things like brown leather blazers and ratty torn up cardigans. One had shorts with tie-dyed thermal leggings underneath and combat boots. They were a strange looking bunch after they walked in they spread out across the room, hands in their pockets, they averted eye contact with anyone.

"Alright this is gonna be our last one, we want to thank you all for coming out tonight, we are the Crystal Souls, that's Matty Bizzare on bass, Roberto Strange on keyboards, Nicholas Insanity on guitars, and the beautiful Lisa Macabre on back up vocals, I'm Lax Panic and this is called And Then Love Dies, thank you guys!"

Then Lax Panic's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he let his head fall back as the drums rolled into a blast of sound, as if everyone was hitting every note on every instrument.

A flood of light came from the stage. Green and Blue. It shot out of the corners of the room right at the band. The music stopped.

"Alright, that's enough!" one of the greasy haired men yelled. He was holding a Fender guitar where the light had shot out from.

"Who the hell are you guys?" Lax Panic asked.

"I'm Mark Arm and we are here to stop you!"

"What do you mean 'we'?" Lax shot back.

"You didn't really think I'd come alone did you, Lax? Kurt, Eddie, Chris, Layne, fall in," the other men, now also holding guitars like rifles fell in closer.

"You won't be dropping any more of your tinny beats in this place," the one with long curly hair and a poodle face announced proudly.

"Oh yeah?" Lisa Macabre asked with a devilish smile. She reached to the floor and grabbed a cable glowing flouresent pink. She plugged it into the amplifier another loud burst and everyone in the band was transformed; their hair was streaked blonde and teased out with what must have taken gallons and gallons of hair spray. Their black leather was replaced with leopard and zebra prints, scarves, spandex, cowboy boots, and ripped up t-shirts.

Nicholas Insanity started playing some gently distorted power chords.

Lax Panic, now wearing a tiger striped cowboy hat strutted confidently up to his microphone stand:
"You know my baby, she looks so good.....when I get home you know it's understood. That I've got to got to got to got have it!"

The rest of the band kicked in. Lisa Macabre was now dancing seductively around a pole.
Matty Strange and Nicholas Insanity played back to back for a few minutes and then played at each other smiling as if every chord change was a magic trick.

"This is bad. Kurt take your Stratocaster and try to flank them from the left, Eddie, I want you and Layne to try to divert there attention right. And where the hell is Lanegan?"

"Got held up at a Stryper show in Denver," one of them said.

"Okay,then it's up to us. On three then let's do it!"

The men took their positions while the band kept playing:
"Then my baby comes back from work, she's looking real good!"

Again beams of blue and green light hit the stage and again a loud screech and a blinding flash of light that slowly dissolved.

"Is that it? Are they gone?" Kurt yelled.

Slowly smoke rose up around the stage and a few notes played.
A scream crept up through the notes.
My God it was awful.

"It's worse than we imagined" Eddie said soberly.

"They've, they've turned into Guns n' Roses."

"Layne, Chris, get these people out of here before it's too late. Kurt, Eddie, follow me, set your Fenders to 10," Mark Arm shouted over his shoulder as he charged the stage.

We were stampeded out as people began hurrying up the stairs pushing us along like a wave of mutilation, sounds of broken guitars and cymbals crashing echoed up the hallway until finally we were back in the red lit bar that now seemed quiet by comparison.

Dave looked at me and took a deep breath.

"I don't know. I thought they were pretty good."

"Dave they were terrible," I said shaking my head.

We headed over to Mulligan's for a few cheap drafts. Dave continued to defend the artistic integrity of Lax Panic and his band, and what do I know, maybe he's right.
After all it was the 80's and things were weird.

Double Barelled Attacks Against My Intention of Being Left the Fuck Alone by Both Friends and Family Alike

2011-08-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

There are people outside. Warm greetings and the occasional polite laugh at something that really isn't all that funny. The buzz of old friends feeling each other out; exchanging niceties until the wine flows or it's quiet enough for pretenses and inhibitions to drop.
People popping in for a quick hellow.
Text messages about getting a drink.
Why don't you stop in anymore?
There were times when I could not stand the idea of staying home. It used to make me nauseous to think that there might be something going on without me.
I was convinced I'd miss something.
Neither rain, nor snow, nor sickness would stop me.
And if I did for some reason miss something I would demand updates.
Immediate and detailed.
Now, not so much.
I know, I know, people want to think it's some kind of bow to age.
It's not.
I can stay up late.
I do stay up late.
It's not that.
It's the arrogant notion that I've kind had all that fun already.
I know the odds are more likely than not that the night will go one way or the other but in all likelihood it'll end, bleary eyed, sipping a bottomless cup of coffee and hoping to be awake enough to keep the car on the road.
I still hope for the weird nights, but I know they don't come along so much anymore.
On top of that I'm quite content reading a book with the air conditioning rattle being the only company.
But there are people outside.
And I can't turn into the curmudgeon who sits in the room and ignores the guests because I have a preference for isolation.
I have to slap on a smile.
Watch my "shits" and "fucks"
Be pleasant.
It's not something I'm particularly good at.

The People Were Clapping and Talking and There Was Popcorn and Chocolate

2011-08-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

I want to talk a little bit about the movies, mostly because I'm on a caffeine jag and I just went to go see Cowboys and Aliens and feel like I should be doing something productive besides watching yet another Yankees and Red Sox game, reading literature intended for teenagers or even working.

I like going to the movies. Yes it's overpriced. It's insanely overpriced. A matinee is now $10, which kind of made me forget that they have matinee prices, until I recently went at night and realized it is in fact a buck cheaper to go during the daylight. I'm picky about when I go to the movies; I won't go opening night because I don't want to deal with every drunk asshole who just came from a Houlihan's and wants to crack up his dumb friends. I used to be that asshole (sans the Houlihan's part) and I wouldn't want to sit anywhere near him. There's also kids or people who just don't get the movie and feel the need to ask questions out loud or senior citizens who get up to go to the bathroom fifteen times because soda goes right through them. There are a lot of pratfalls to seeing a freshly released movie. That's why I'll usually wait for a matinee a few weeks later or maybe a Monday evening.
Unless it's something that I simply refuse to wait for. The Dark Knight was a good example of this. I'm a grown boy who enjoys his Batman . I don't think I'm a fanboy. I don't know enough to be a fanboy. I've read some graphic novels but I don't know the complete canon of Batman, or Superman or X-men or anything really. I liked the Tim Burton Batman movies and I like the Joker. So the Nolan sequel demanded a Thursday at midnight trip there was no debate. Sir Blumes secured us Clifton tickets for myself and a surprisingly interested Mr. Howe. We arrived what I thought would be early but were already towards the middle of a few hundred people. I was worried we'd be neck crimping it in the front row, but we were lucky; the theater anticipated insane crowds and had 5 theaters armed with the film. We sat front and center.
They sat us an hour and a half before the lights went out. Hyper active and drunk the crowd was loud while we waited. Some goon was dressed in Joker makeup. Someone came in to do trivia with a bullhorn, t-shirts, popcorn and soda cups were tossed around, the kid in the Joker make-up wasn't the hit he thought he'd be. It was fun but I figured I'd miss half the movie.

Through all the bullshit soda commercials, previews of the Fall TV schedule and shitty August movies no one shut up, however once the credits came up for the film everyone shut up. We were all there for one reason. Aside from the occasional pop for things like the Joker pushing a guy's head through a pencil or the Batpod climbing a wall it was complete silence. People clapped at the end (which I still think is dumb). It was probably the best movie experience I had since going to see Back to the Future when I was like 7 because it was hot as hell out and raining and we went just to get in the air conditioning, and because, you know, it was Back to the Future and it was awesome.

Another example of an optimum movie experience would be the Happening. I had no desire to see it. None. Sir Christian Black prodded though. We'd seen every summer movie that opened up to that point and he told me that Lady in the Water wasn't that bad. I didn't know. I kind of gave up on Shyamalan after The Village but I reluctantly agreed. About 15 minutes in, inside a practically empty early Friday afternoon theater in Garden State Plaza I looked across the row to Sir Christian and Mr. Howe:
"Are these people in the same movie? This is the worst dialogue ever."
"Yeah I have no idea what is going," Mr. Howe agreed.
The rest of the movie turned into the kind of Mystery Science Theater attempt I'd normally hate but on this rare occasion was severely deserved. (the scene where the survivors are knocking on the abandoned house but no one notices the shotgun slowly sliding out of the mail slot made me laugh so hard I think I had soda coming out of my eyes.).

There have been some genuinely horrible movie experiences too don't get me wrong; I'm convinced that I still don't like The Hangover that much because of the three meat-heads sitting behind me that said "yeah bro, we'd told do worse than this when we go to Vegas" or sitting in the front row for Transformers 3 for 2 1/2 hours and wanting to stand up at the end and turn to the audience and yell "what the hell are you applauding for?"( To be fair though, after the first two I should have known what I was getting myself into). More amusing was the old guy, who probably was in World War II, behind me during a matinee of Inglorious Basterds who kept saying "this is crazy" to his wife.

I don't care. I love going to the movies. I hate the price, I hate the fact that the smell of popcorn in the sterile air-conditioning is usually too much for me to resist even though it gives me heartburn almost instantly. I hate the dumb behind the scenes features on tv shows that will probably be canceled half way through the season. I hate the fact that I usually see coming attractions for something that I'd rather watch than what I came to see. But overall I like the idea of going somewhere to completely shut off for two hours or more.

In Florida

2011-08-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

The flatlands.
Afternoon thunderstorms.
Something about this place seems like everything would be easier here.
Nothings really cheaper.
It's always hot.
There's weird lizards everywhere.
Maybe it's Disney-tinged memories from years ago when everything seemed easy.
The roads are always empty.
Oh but the air conditioners are cold.
Yeah I could live in the air conditioning.
I want to live in the air conditioning.
I want to grab that armadillo and that fish-sucking crane, throw them in a car bound for Jersey and make a Florida room in the apartment.
We'll all be Republicans in polo shirts counting off the days in that strange dusk between drunk and exhausted
with lizards.
and degrees in Air Conditioning repair.

Plus She Looks Great in Pants Suits

2011-07-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

And the devil is outside, flying around like a bat while I'm trying to clear out all the old 70's movies from my DVR. This devil isn't really the devil, it's like the devil in a Tom Waite's song, he plays an instrument (nothing conventional; broomstick bass, spoons, wooden knee blocks). He's more like a mall Santa Claus: an aura of bad ju ju. Like that motion detector light in Brick.

The air conditioner is blowing on me even though it's nice outside. Too many bugs outside, too many smells of mowed grass and salt water, fireworks off in the distance. Fun I used to have. Riding bikes in New Milford. Hanging out in friend's basements on Saturday Night watching Headbanger' Ball. Stealing beer and trying cigarettes. Everything new and fun.

The scope has narrowed and there isn't any fun left. These days I just long for some quiet. A book. Some mad scribble/typing. A few minutes with my girl quietly contemplating quiet futures.

But the devil is outside. He's always outside. Around the corner. Playing that racket.
And it's never quiet.

Maybe This October I'll Get It Right

2011-07-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

Every Arcade Fire song exists in the fall because that's when the Reverend Howe first played them for me and since then it's been a perpetual trigger for memories of brisk breezes and dead leaves. I'm sick of the summer already but that's probably my fault. No more afternoon buzzes on the boardwalk with the great expanse of the ocean right in front of me. Everything felt wide open and scary but scary in a good way. The unknown wasn't a bad thing because how could it be bad? Boredom was the biggest bratty fear to have and that was all I wanted to combat. Even all this scribbled down bullshit is really just foggy memories of good times long since run through a kaleidoscope of binges and breakdowns.
And enough on all that.
No one is here to be heady and heavy all the time.
I don't think anyway.
October looms.
It's been a mild summer until now.
It almost felt like fall a few nights
Soon enough the lights will go down early.

A Brief History of Coffee

2011-07-19T20:22:00.000-07:00

A few minutes later I woke up in the Doors movie. We were in a park across the street from the hotel, there was a Native American “Pow-Wow” going on according to the signs. Thumping drums echoed off the buildings a mile away. Chanting and singing. Drum skins taking a beating. Concession stands selling bracelets and stones and crystals, lemonade and hot dogs. A tall man in a wolf-skin and a smoking lantern walked the perimeter of the “sacred circle”. Barefoot hippies climbed the trees and danced around all 1967, beads bouncing off breasts in summer dresses. After a few minutes the drums stopped and someone grabbed a microphone:

“Alright everyone thanks for coming,” the calm voice announced, “I want any couple who wants to be in the dance contest to line up outside the sacred circle.” His voice was dry, too close to the mic he sounded more like a camp counselor than a shaman and it snapped me out of the Summer of Love.

Later on Jimi said to me:

“We don't get no summer of love. We're all at work, or looking for work. Everything costs too much. Can't have fun while you're thinking about your bank account rolling back to zero.”

Which was true. But we were at a bar and I had cash and was entertaining a mild buzz in an unknown city, and even Jimi and his cosmic blues weren't going to bring me down.

Cobain tried that shit the first night we were in town.

He was paranoid. He was always paranoid.

“No one is on your side. No one is on my side. I'm not on your side. I want to be but I'm not.”

“Alright that's enough out of you,” Morrison yelled. He was drunk and so was I. “We're here for a wedding not to listen to you ramble on about how uncomfortable you are in social situations.”

“Oh leave him alone,” I started.

"It's fine," Cobain got up to slink outside for a smoke.

Then we talked about getting a room in Atlantic City, just for old times sake. It seemed like a good idea on a Monday night. Weekday rates were cheap, it would be just us and the elderly slot players.

Morrison came up with the plan:

“We'll sit at the slots all night and get our drinks comped. If we win anything we'll go to a bar and cover the tab with it.”

It sounded like a good plan, but no one came around to take our order. Jimi quickly got restless and went to the poker table.

“Fuck it man, I'm going for it.”

An hour later I was back in the room.

The weather had picked up and from 20 floors up I watched the ocean pound the boardwalk while rain sprayed against the window.

Atlantic City was a bad idea.

Luckily we ended up back at the Biltmore, in the restaurant bar downstairs. Everyone was tired. It was a long day and things were closing up.

“Last Call!” the lights flickered.

“I'm not sure you want to hear this, but I have absolutely no intention of going to bed right now,” I said to anyone who wanted to listen.

“No, I'm up for going somewhere, but where? We don't really know this town,” Morrison answered.

We went through the park. The Pow-Wow was over. Everything was over.

A dark pub on the corner invited us in and we sat in a booth.

“I'm tired,” Jimi said.

“Go back to the hotel, we're probably only staying for one anyway.”

“That's not what I mean. I'm just tired. We got old fast.”

“You got old fast,” Morrison slurred, “I've always been old.”

“I'm not sure I want to do this shit anymore. Going out, sitting in a bar waiting for something weird to happen.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, acknowledging that Jimi was just slinging some drunken honestly, drenched in melodrama.

“Well what the hell else is there to do?” Morrison answered, peeling the label off his bottle.

“I don't know. I guess that's the problem.”

Then the fire alarm went off.

There was no visible fire, and everyone looked at each other as if someone was a member of the fire department and would tell us all not to worry it was just a malfunction but no one was qualified enough to make such a statement.

We slipped through the door, if for no other reason than the alarm was terribly loud. We walked back towards the hotel, and found the diner truck still taking requests.

We ordered and took our sandwiches over to the steps of city hall.

Two tuna melts and a cheeseburger.

Over priced.

We'll regret this in the morning.

“I don't think this is tuna,” I said.

“I don't think this is bread,” Morrison answered.

I rolled over onto a hangover that morning. I never remember to shut the shades after a long night of drinking and I always pay for it with light piercing into my beer-beaten brain the next day. A vague headache.

My neck hurts.

If I can just sleep for another 20 or so hours I should be fine.

But there are things to do.

Michael Keaton Batman was fighting Jack Nicholson Joker in the stereo of three tv's. The Door in between is Open.

Sir Paul is there in a fluffy, white bathrobe pacing.

Methodically.

Into one room around the corners then into the next room

He has a suite which lends itself to such things.

“What are you doing here, are you dead?” I groan.

“No. I'm getting married,” he answered.

Oh yeah.

Later, after the whirl-flash of fancy clothes and blue and red lights we're back down at the bar.

Ties undone.

Dresses exchanged for jeans or sweats.

I'm not sure I know who any of these people are.

There's music but I'm not sure what it is.

Background music.

It's probably on someone's I-pod.

On their “Awesome Songs” playlist.

This buzzing could be someone's favorite song.

Their Wedding Song.

But not tonight.

Everything is over tonight.

Couple of flashes of weather puddle up the streets and sidewalks and stain the park with mud.

The bar closes, again right on time.

“You guys can hang out for a bit and finish up if you want,” they say.

“You want another one?” I ask Morrison.

“Nah, I don't think so,” he slurs back.

“We can't sell you guys any more,” the bartender interrupts.

“That's fine because we don't want another one,” Morrison shoots back.

He puts his head on the bar.

“It would be too bad if I don't remember any of this.”

It wasn't long before I found myself back at the kitchen table. It was late.

Or early.

The sun was coming up.

The coffee started brewing.

Everything was finally quiet.

The Unenployment Thing That I Got Them To Keep "Whachamacallit" In The Title Of

2011-07-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

I can not come up with non-nonsensical titles for straight pieces, so the fact that they didn't change the title of THIS, even though it's not really a good one is a victory in and of itself.

Big-Dumb-Comic-Book-Thing

2011-07-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

I hate the title but here's something I wrote for newsblaze:

I mean here

Dracula's Castle and the Wildwood Monsoon

2011-07-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hair gel always smells like the beach to me. I dabbled in using it for a little while in the late 90's when I cut all my hair off but haven't touched the stuff since. It was the same hair gel I brought to Wildwood when six of us crammed into one hotel room and the same hair gel we shot into a pair of poor ol' Reinhold's trunks while he was on the deck chatting up some girl. I'm not sure if he noticed they were loaded before he put them on because I was probably passed out on the floor between the bed and the air conditioner, wrapped in a blanket or two.

On every pass through I made it a point to stop at Castle Dracula, I don't know why I have some weird affinity for haunted houses. I don't even particularly like horror movies, I just like Halloween and haunted houses. Castle Dracula sounds like a goth-club and it probably is somewhere but this was just a building that was made to look like a castle with some plywood, drywall and stucco.There was a moat running around and under the building and slabs of wood wrapped in rubber that ferried you around while people jumped out at you along the way.
The Castle itself was a longer attraction. You went through a parlor where a man appeared seemingly out of thin air and warned you to go no further because his "master" wouldn't be happy with guests. I worked in a haunted house for many Octobers and the 'master' theme was prevalent in each incarnation. I'm not sure if it's just standard haunted house procedure or if maybe it was ripped off, either way, everyone was just an Igor serving their faceless master.
It's not hard to fall for girls in places like that. Heaps of makeup, tight black dresses, fish-nets, candy-striped socks under high boots. Things like that.
And that's what happened.
I got smitten with some girl who worked the guillotine.
We caught up with her at the pizza stand across from the castle and barraged her with questions like the drunk teenagers (re:20) we were.
She just moved to Wildwood and sort of had a boyfriend but not really. It was complicated.
It's always complicated.
She has to go back in, her break was over.
She stomped her cigarette out on the boardwalk and told us she might be back around later if we were still in the area.
We were but we didn't see her.

A few weeks passed by and Professor Hogan, (then only Mr. Hogan) decided he wanted to take an impromptu trip to Wildwood before the summer was over.
I was already in Brick, not living there, merely visiting the empty house that was about to be shut down for the season. Headmaster Porr of Slytherin was also down there. We had a few random beers left over from the last party and were enjoying them when Hogan showed up in his his fire-truck red SUV blasting Metallica, armed with a bottle of Vodka.
"I'll drive" he said as we gathered a cooler and threw in anything remaining in the refrigerator that could be considered an alcoholic beverage.
Hogan sped down the Parkway stopping only at toll booths to open his door and recover any change that weak-armed drivers threw but didn't make the basket, until he was yelled at by a collector.
We made it down quick and checked into the first place we could find that had a 'vacancy' sign.
Let's call it the "Ocean Gate".
It wasn't but I can't remember what it was really called and Ocean Gate sounds the most motel-y to me at this late hour.
We walked into the office; two shirtless children, both girls, chased each other to all corners screaming at each other while their mother, behind the counter, held an infant in her arms and yelled back at them to "knock it off."
"Y'all want a room?" she asked.
Her hair was ragged and unkempt, and there were teeth missing from her smile. She handed us the key after we handed her our cash and she returned to yelling at the children after our brief interruption.

The only thing missing from the room was the chalk outline of a body. The rug was shit-brown with enough water stains to make it look like a map. The television looked like it was shipped directly from 1967, rabbit ears and no remote. There was no clock in the room but there was a musty smell as if no one had been in here for years. We put this aside and opened the cooler. There were two patio chairs in front of the room and if we turned our necks left we could see the ocean clearly.

Two hours later the weather had picked up and I was alone. Headmaster Porr and Professor Hogan were snoring the song of vodka drenched dreams in the room while Happy Days flickered on the screen. We were out of booze, and I couldn't sleep.
It was still early but the wind had started whipping around anything that could move. The patio chairs were dragged and some turned over as the gusts gained strength. I decided to take a walk down to the boardwalk even thought it looked like most people were packing it in.
My head was helium filled, drowsy but incapable of sleep. Not in that place.
I passed by the large hotels along the coast of the town. Bright beautiful lights, devoid of the sound of any people or cars or any other interference. Just the wind swelling up and down and the hum of the lights.

If that girl was working I was going to ask her to get a drink. Or a slice of pizza or whatever.
Why not?
And it wasn't a psych-yourself-up moment. It was just a simple light bulb flash. Oh yeah. That girl might be in there. I should see if she wants to do something since my two traveling companions have passed out.
I waited in the short line. Went through all the attractions. Finally the guillotine room. She was there. "off with his head" she shrieked before pulling the rope to release the wooden blade. As the group filtered out I hung towards the back of the line, she pointed to the exit, I approached her and took my "Hey I don't know if you remember me but we hung out a few weeks ago and I don't know what you're doing after this but I wanted to see if maybe you wanted to get a drink or something to eat when you're done" inhale but nothing came out.
I choked.
She looked at me for a second and kept up with the "get out" routine, perhaps knowing instinctively what I was trying to blurt out.
A few minutes later I was walking back to the hotel. It started raining now and I pictured myself as some dejected-hero in a movie, walking in the rain.
"Eh, broads."
I got back to the room and the two were still passed out, having only rolled over in the last hour. The Mary Tyler Moore show had replaced the Fonz. but I knew there was no way I was getting any sleep. Not in that place with whatever microscopic-DNA-monsters were swimming on everything.

I pulled up the patio chair and lit a cigarette. I started scribbling some bullshit, post-high-school-yet-still-high-school-sounding thoughts or poems about the tall girl in the vamp costume who I choked in front of. Then I heard a grunt.
I looked into the room but it wasn't coming from there.
Another grunt followed.
It was coming from the open window directly across from me; the upstairs level of the office.
Another grunt, a moan, a shriek, a moan, a grunt.
Head board slamming into the wall.
Yeah. Harder. Yeah. Oh. Oh God.
The tooth deprived woman with the ratty hair and topless toddlers was getting it good.
Good and loud.
The rain started up again drowning her and Mary Tyler Moore out.
The wind threw the rain around splattering up in my face a little.
I was awake and it looked like I was staying that way.
Only a few hours til the sun came up.
Plenty of places to go for breakfast and kill some time until Hogan and Porr recover and we can get out of this town and flip the calendar to Fall.
Until then I sat on the patio chair hoping, Mr. Hotel Keeper didn't have the stamina for another round.
Slightly drunk and wide awake.
Pretty fucking haunted.

Regardless of Most Things

2011-07-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

At the end of the day you'd probably miss this weight in your chest. The one that keeps swelling up at all those sad George Harrison songs, and revisited conversations. It's that big freak out that'll get you sooner or later.

Losing to the Scene

2011-07-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

Ah dark lights and smoke machines. Thumping beats and loud distortion. Ears ringing, head like a lead balloon full of watered down whiskey. Crumbled up dollar bills stuffed into your pocket. Coins jangling. Keys somewhere in there. Girls perfume and sweat thicken the air. Your head spins so fast you almost can't tell anymore. You're dizzy. You're sick. You're an alien. You don't belong here. What am I doing here? Who the fuck are these people and what the hell made me come here? What the fuck do we have in common that we should be spending any night of the week in the same place looking for the same kind of fun?

Maybe I'm not doing it right. I lose them all to a scene. I don't want to be in a scene. I have no real burning desire to belong with a bunch of bobbing heads. Sometimes I think I want to get old in front of a blue glowing monitor and type away every shitty impulse in my head. Hope someone gets it but never really care if anyone does.

A little bitter.

A little bitter and a little tired and a little burned out of all of it and having to think about it and trying to compete with it and trying to think of a way to get ahead of it and trying to stay on top of it and trying to get over it. Paranoid and intolerant. Too many losses to those armies of cardboard cutouts. Ah but thus is life. They will win because they do win.

Satellite Radio Withdrawl in the Old West

2011-07-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

I used to get in the car around 5 am, if I was lucky, I'd skip around the AM stations listening for traffic and weather. If it was winter I might have a looming fear that a snow storm would break out the further north I got. That had happened on more than one occasion, the worst of which the Parkway traffic slowed down to a one lane, 25mph crawl, where I spun out for a moment before getting control of the car. I stopped at the next rest stop, called out from work and drove back to the shore white knuckled.
But on a good day, by the time I got to the Parkway and the sun would start showing itself, I'd plug the satellite radio into the cigarette lighter and usually hear this come up.
It's from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly soundtrack by Enrico Morricone. Metallica used to come out to it in the early 90's, then recorded a version of it in the 00's. Opie and Anthony probably got it from them.

Anyway it was the first thing I'd pay attention to in the morning. I'd pretend I wasn't driving to work but was instead on some Eastwoodian quest for revenge, or justice or something of the like. It made it easier to wake up pretending I was headed towards some cinematic showdown rather than an office where I'd be fielding phone calls and discreetly abusing the Internet for 8 or 9 hours every day. Opie and Anthony, and usually Jim Norton but sometimes, (hopefully) Patrice O'Neal would start up shortly after that. The first segment of the show could run up to an hour long if they were on a roll and often they would. Sometimes I'd sit in the parking lot and listen to the end of the bit. This happened in college several time for things like this and missed a class for this (which is only part of a bit that went on for well over an hour).

There was also Ron and Fez. Both shows were on WNEW in the late 90's and early 00's. Opie and Anthony got fired over the Sex for Sam thing and shortly thereafter WNEW switched formats and Ron and Fez were fired. They came back a few years later on XM Satellite Radio and my boss at the time, VP Rolo Beesler, bought his own setup specifically to listen to them while he worked. After the first few "fucks" and "shits' echoed through the entire office he kept the volume low and usually shut the door to his office.
A few months later Ron and Fez got a show on the same channel. I started commuting from Brick to Ramsey. In honor of this, VP Rolo, who was upgrading his XM, gave me his old receiver; a stereo and a car mount. I'd catch the first hour of Opie and Anthony on the way in and rest of the show on a replay going home. Ron and Fez (doing bits like How Many 9 Year Olds Can You Beat Up) were on mid-days and I could keep them on while everyone was at lunch.

Sir Bert of Rohan soon joined us XM owners and it wasn't long before we just kept the radio on all day in the office and had our own little inside jokes that annoyed and alienated everyone else we worked with. The swan song for this came when Rolo and I were relocated to the warehouse (I suppose demoted) Rolo wired speakers running from his office to the rafters of the warehouse.

Anyway, I'm thinking about all this stuff because I'm looking for a job. Not a job, I guess. I'm looking for some work. I sort of have a job that I work at from home, however I'm constantly finding myself broke, so I'm looking for some supplementary income. So I'm going to go out and have to meet new people, get acclimated to a new environment, curb whatever tics or shitty things I say or do on a normal basis.

After I quit the XM place I got a quick job at a warehouse, closer to home. No radio, no friends, no fun. Just an old gray job. I loathed every second of it.

In the Air Tonight

2011-07-04T02:32:00.000-07:00

I never got used to the speed of the Ferrari. I always thought that was a good thing; it kept me grounded. This wasn't our car, this was all part of the job. Crockett thought like that too but he would never admit it. We both needed something to remind us that none of this was real. It was all part of the game. On the streets, in this line of work, the line was blurred often.
Crockett stopped off at a pay phone, said he had a contact that was waiting for a call. I think he called home, but within a few minutes we were off, our hair blowing in the wind, the radio blasting just to take our nerves off the business at hand.
The more I saw of Miami the more I missed New York. Sure, the weather is nice and the women are beautiful but it's all like an illusion. New York looks like trouble. You can smell it. This place is paradise and you never know where to look for it.
We finally pull up to the marina just outside of town. The Carteret.
"You ready?" Crockett asks, screwing a cigarette into his lop-sided smile.
"Yea I'm ready. Now remember we're just here to talk, Castillo is already on our asses."
"Hey, I'm cool." Crockett takes a deep drag and walks ahead.
I know the job is getting to him.
We're meeting Elisha Sanchez, a local girl who has agreed to make a connection for us with her uncle Livian, hired muscle for the Cortez gang.
Elisha was waiting for us and though she put on a brave face, I could tell she was scared.
'You're late," she snarled at Crockett.
"We can go if you'd like?" he shot back.
"Let's just do this fast."
She lead us down to the dock to a yacht. On the deck chair sat her Uncle Livian.
"So what's this all about? Why did you want to me?" he said lighting a cigar.
"Mr. Sanchez, we know that you might represent certain interested parties who would want what we have," I said to him staring him straight in the eye. If I've learned anything over these past three seasons, it's to always look them in the eye or they're liable to shoot you on spot.
"Oh and what is that?"
"How about enough of product to keep his business running smoothly for the next four months," Crockett chimed in.
"Hey man, who am I talking to you or him?"
"You're talking to me," I jumped in. Crockett looked flummoxed but he usually took the lead on these things and I felt that I was due.
"Ok, so how much is this going to cost him? That is if I represent somebody and if they're interested in whatever it is you might be selling."
"We won't worry about price now. If this is something he's interested in tell him to meet us back in town at a place called the Florida on Canal, tomorrow round 11 pm., that's not too early for you is it?"
"No, that's not too early for me, if anyone is interested maybe we'll see you there. If not maybe we'll see you some other time then."
We backed away and went back up to the car.
"How did it go?" Elisha asked.
"We'll find out tomorrow," Crockett snapped back.
"What about my cut?"
"Darlin' right now any percent of zero is zero so why don't you make sure you put in a good word for us with your boss."
"He's not my boss, he's my uncle. I don't work for him."
"I believe you." Crockett answered tenderly.
"I had nowhere else to go and I've had to stay with him."
"That must have been rough on you."
"It was," a tear started running down her cheek.
"There now don't cry," Crockett rubbed her face gently.
I took this as my cue to leave. Crockett had used this trick many times. He missed his family, sure, but he also was a man in a white Armani suit and when he had that suit on he became the character he was playing. Suave and ruthless. I on the other hand could shut it off, at least I thought I could. I caught a cab back to my apartment. It was a hot night in Miami.
The air conditioner was broken. A lake of neon pink ran through my window from the motel sign across the street. I was tired and I was lonely and I was bored.
My Atari 2600 was often the only thing I had to take my mind off the job, but how many times can I play Pole Position and Pitfall before I go crazy?
The next night Crockett knocked on my door, two coffees in hand and the cocksure smile of a man who had accomplished what he'd set out to do the night before.
We headed off to The Florida Club over on Canal street. They offered an early bird special of scrambled eggs, sausage or bacon, and toast for only $3.99 every weekday. It was a deal I took advantage of on many sleepless nights.
Our situation seemed bleak when we arrived.
Elisha was there and seemed like a new girl.
Crockett took her to the side and I only made out part of her conversation but I definitely heard the words "but we could leave this place, forever" thrown in there. This was all part of Crockett's game. He had the girl convinced that between the money he made in this score and the percentage he was going to throw her for making the connection they could start their lives over together somewhere else. Away from all of this. Maybe he believed it but I knew that when all this was over we'd just be going after some new drug dealer, with some other young pretty thing caught in the middle, and I'd be at home cursing the sensitivity of my Atari joystick.
"Tubbs you still with us?" Crockett yelled.
"Yeah," I answered.
"Mr. Cortez asked you a question."
I had hardly noticed Emanuel Cortez, the dealer we'd been chasing for the last few weeks was standing before me. I had so often deferred to Crockett in these situations I almost forgot what to do.
"Yeah, so do you want to buy some stuff?" I mumbled.
"Some stuff?"he answered disgustedly.
"Yeah," I snapped out of my fog, "Do you want to buy some of our drugs, I have drugs to sell and I want to know if you want to buy them?" I said forcefully.
"What the hell is this are you some kind of cop?"
"Yeah that's right I am a cop, undercover Miami Metro!"
"Tubbs what are you doing?" Crockett cried.
"Son of a bitch you set us up," Cortez reached into his jacket pulling out a chrome gun and pointing it at Elisha.
Before I could realize what was happening Crockett dove, almost in slow motion in front of her, yelling "no" for what seemed to go on for at least 10 or 11 seconds.
He was too late, Elisha was shot
Cortez then turned his gun towards me as did several of his henchman.
Except Livian, who was overcome with grief at watching his niece shot before him, he pointed his gun at the hench man, who, not expecting such an attack were quickly mowed down. Livian then aimed the gun at the back of Cortez's head.
"Drop it," he said in a clear distinct tone.
"What are you doing Livian?" Cortez growled.
"Emanuel Cortez you're under arrest," Livian said, reaching for handcuffs in his back pocket.
"What? You're undercover?" I shouted.
"Yeah, FBI. Name's Larkin" Livian said
"Livian Larkin?" I asked.
"No Agent Larkin," he corrected.
"How did you know we were cops?" I asked.
"Your partner there, he slept with my contact, told her he was going to get her out of all this, stuff like that, sounded like standard undercover stuff."
"So she's your partner?" Crockett asked.
"No, I just met her a few weeks ago, told her I was a long lost uncle, her mother's brother and that I was going to take care of her."
"She's not in on this then?" I asked.
"No, I was deep in on this,"
"So she's really shot then?"
"Oh yeah, she'll probably need medical attention."

An hour later the ambulance lights blazed
"That girl," Lt. Castillo said grimly, "she didn't make it."
Crockett looked stunned, His eyes welled furiously with frustrated tears.
"Was it worth it Lieutenant?" he said.
"Is it ever Sonny?"
I guess there are some lessons we're all still learning.
The ambulance was gone. A squad car took Cortez away to a life sentence for murder. But someone else would pop up in his place next week. They always did.

Counting Lights

2011-07-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

Alright, this is going to be about wrestling so if you have no interest in that you might as well just skip this one, of course there is a better than average chance that this could veer off into something else like being absolutely joyless for the first time I can remember about 4th of July weekend or my unconditional love for Deadwood
But for right now let's just stay on wrestling.
Professor Horgan of the Northern New Jersey Wrestling Archives of Pompton Lakes is to blame for my continued interest in professional wrestling. Sure, when I was a kid I was caught up in the wave of 80's rock 'n wrestling and Hulkamania, Macho Madness and the 'power of the Ultimate Warrior' and kept watching into the era of the steroids hangover when smaller guys like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels starting headlining. But at some point, I guess I kind of grew out of it. It was hard to get interested in things like circus clowns and garbage men who just happened to wrestle as a side career.
I didn't get it anymore.
The option was watching the rival WCW but as you can see by watching this or this that it really wasn't an option.
But in a few years time WCW started pulling in some of the older WWF guys like Randy Savage, Mean Gene, Hulk Hogan and probably most tragically Bobby Heenan. After trying to re-tread what WWF had done in the 80's with guys who were 10-15 years older WCW finally had the brainstorm to turn Hulk Hogan into a bad guy here and what followed was the wildly successful NWO angle that put WCW on top and almost put WWF out of business until they let Steve Austin off the chain. Then the the Rock and eventually things got bad in WCW when things like this happened and Vince McMahon bought WCW and ran it into the ground. Austin broke his neck, Rock went to Hollywood, the Undertaker became a biker, Shawn Michaels retired, Triple H married the boss's daughter and Mick Foley couldn't be thrown off a cage every night. Without any competition things got stale and story-lines got, um weird. (I'm not going to post it but search for 'Katie Vick' on youtube. Actually, don't)

But over the last few years Professor Horgan still gets himself amped up for Wrestlemania season beginning with the Royal Rumble, the winner of which gets a title shot at Wrestlemania. Feuds build up for the three months in between until finally the payoff. However like most things in life the build up is usually better than the result but usually one match steals the show, be it expected (Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker at WM26) or unexpected (Shawn Michaels vs Undertaker at WM25).
The best thing on television the past few months, maybe even years has been CM Punk. (I have no idea what C.M. stands for). The WWE is now kid-friendly. Their television programs have a PG rating which may or may not be linked to Vince McMahon's wife running for Congress last year. In all likelihood it has to do with marketing to a new generation of fans who will stay with the product for the next 20 years. Kids like me in the 80's who stopped watching came back in the 90's to see Hulk Hogan, that old patriotic vitamin-eater, with a black beard acting like a jackass and hung around to watch Steve Austin cursing every three words, drinking beer and beating up his boss but they took that as far it could go.
So now we have John Cena who started off as a rapper and has turned into Superman carrying the Hogan-torch, and just behind him is Randy Orton, a maniac who punts people in the head because he hears voices. They're the top to stars in the company but the best all around guy on the mic and in the ring is CM Punk. Cena can cut a promo but his matches are boring and usually end with him overcoming insane odds to win. Orton can wrestle but he's stiff on the mic.
CM Punk is allegedly leaving the WWE. He's announced it and then went on to cut this promo on Monday Night Raw this past week. It wasn't 'real' but it was pretty impressive. It was probably the most interesting thing in the WWE in ten years and they're letting him walk which is a shame and will probably result in me being done with this miserable sport/entertainment/tv show/thing that kids watch, at least until January.
Pro wrestling at it's best is stand up comedy and performance art; a bunch of maniacs throwing themselves at each other at lightning speeds and then calling each other names, controlling a crowd of people, most of whom are in on the joke.
Randy Savage died a few weeks ago and he was always one of my favorites.
His promos were insane and he always had exciting matches, easily outperforming Hogan and Warrior on their best days.
So here are a couple of those.
Here
and
here
and
here.

Ten Thousand Shows About People Digging Things Out of The Ground

2011-06-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

I've watched a lot of shitty movies in my life. I don't mean to the extent of seeking them out and I'm not talking about charmingly bad movies that were made on a modest budget but with complete and utter Ed-Wood-ian sincerity, I mean big, dumb-shit blockbuster movies that have no plot and seem to only exist so there can be a scene where someone is walking slowly away from an explosion. I watch those movies. I don't necessarily like all of them but in a way I find them comforting.
I like them much better than television.
I have no idea what is happening on television anymore.

Now, I will clarify that I do have shows that I watch regularly and some of them are nothing more than candy, nothing ground-breaking or necessarily artistic, just fun. Mindless fun. And I will also fess to watching marathons of Deadliest Catch. I will watch episodes, seasons, that I've already seen because I like the ocean and I don't have the balls to do that stuff myself so I will endure hours of grizzled men, most with mullets, regurgitating hyperbole about the dangers of their job as if they are doing something more noble than scraping the sea clean of crustaceans for a substantial profit, all set to Bon Jovi and other nauseating rock 'n' roll cowboy dreck.

I'll watch that. But that's about where the line is drawn for me. I dabbled in some American Pickers this winter with Ms. Falk, however that show is only tolerable when altered, and was in fact the inspiration for an entire drinking game which can be found here* (Bonus Link!)
But that was it for me. I can't watch people work anymore. Every show on every channel that isn't HBO seems to be about some weird, crazy job that some 'character' has and they want to let you know that not just anyone can do it. Loggers, truck drivers, swamp animal wranglers, prison guards, motorcycle builders and let's not forget Dirty Jobs, a show that features a new such occupation every episode.

This doesn't even count the sub-genre of chef based shows about people preparing everything from raw fish to cupcakes. Everything becomes a "war" battling it out between who makes the best bowl of New England Clam Chowder. But it's not just about how good it tastes, it's about the presentation.

Another sub-genre that we won't even talk about are the house-wife and children-of-fringe celebrities based shows. We're all adults here and we can all agree that the only thing worse than people trying to inflate the worth of what they do for a living is watching people who do nothing for a living while they shop, tan, and talk shit for an hour. We don't even need to talk about that.

And since I'm already going all high-horse I may as well confess I don't know what the hell happened to the History Channel. I used to like some of their shows and not just the endless barrage of World War II documentaries. They used to have shows about, um, history. Finely produced original documentaries on things like Watergate, Benjamin Franklin, the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson, etc. They still parade some of these out every once in a while but they have caught the "job" bug just as bad as any network. Between Ice Road Truckers and unleashing the American Pickers on poor, unsuspecting senior citizens to low-ball them on their classic cars and oil signs I don't even bother anymore.

I'd rather watch shit bombs like Wolverine or Terminator: Salvation (or more preferably any of the oft-mentioned Nicolas Cage films I've cited here over the years). Sure they're schlocky entertainment but you're watching people whose job it is to make schlocky entertainment.

Of course I find other ways to occupy myself, like occasionally poorly animating Blumes' Facebook status. Perfect blog link of the day: is here
It's kind of a double dip self-promotion but I'm kind of happy with it.

I think I'm going to rant about wrestling tomorrow.
Or maybe later.
If you're good.

The Tommy Lee Jones Manufactured Podcast from Western Wyoming Pennsylvania (not Really)

2011-06-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

There are people downstairs talking again. Talking alot. They're drunk. The Monday drunks are much more lively than the Sunday drunks. At least in East Rutherford. At least this week. Maybe there was a better game on tonight. Anyway, I just heard some guy talking say (something) like this:
"I mean out of all of them Tara probably fits my life-style the best, but is that the kind of fucking criteria I want to be judging this on? Is that what I want from my life?"

He went on but they were headed down the street towards the diner that is closed for renovations. I got worried for a second because I thought it was some past flashback of me drunkenly ranting about girl problems to poor ol' Reinhold Hadrich or Headmaster Porr of Slytherin. But I don't know any girl named Tara, at least not one that I've ever had any existential, alcoholic fits about. Maybe it was me from the future.

I didn't give this too much thought because Tommy Lee Jones just showed up to tell some of these "biker types" to keep things down because people, good people, are trying to sleep around here. But he did it in a 'no-nonsense' folksy way. He called one guy Junior and the other guy "bub" which lead me to wonder if in his younger days Mr. T.L. Jones would have made a good Wolverine. It must've have worked on the bikers because they kept it down. And Tommy Lee Jones went back to New York to finish making Men In Black 3 which from what I read is going to be quite a hot commodity at the box office.

So now that there were no more movie stars in the area and the drunks had all been warned about their antics there is very little to do.

Here is the perfect blog link for today, don't think I forgot about all that nonsense:
The Alexxcast
Alexx Bollen has a podcast.
I had one that is currently being excavated from the vaults of the New Jersey State Podcast Archive and will perhaps be available to public soon. But until then more of this.

Dispatch from the Kitchen Table

2011-06-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

It's not that late. People are sleeping here in the apartment, the bars are getting out a little bit but it's really not that late. I don't have to be anywhere in the morning so what do I know. But I used to have to wake up with the alarm and even then I never considered midnight to be too late. I can't sleep anyway.

I saw the movie JFK when I was a kid, 12ish I think. I have no idea why. Maybe I was a Costner fan. Anyway it scared the shit out of me then and it still does now. I realize there are terrible inaccuracies and fictions in the film that even people who believe in a conspiracy point out but it's a topic that's always fascinated me. So on a jaunt over to Barnes and Noble to birthday shop for Ms. Falk I came across a book in the bargain bin arguing some of the points in the Warren Commission report. This was the first real book, (according to it) that discussed the potential of a conspiracy ("with over 1 million copies sold!") and was a catalyst for some of the scenes in Oliver Stone's film. So I read the introduction where the author pretty much talks about why he thinks the movie is bullshit. I won't mention the name of the book or the author, partially because after looking him up it is possible alot of what he cites could be out context, and maybe partially because he's already sold a million books and I haven't so what does he need me plugging him for.

Anyway, I read the first couple chapter and the shit is just too heavy. Too many ghouls involved. Too much talk of bullet trajectories and shadowy men and cover-ups and it's too much to have dancing on your head on a Sunday night. I'm convinced there's a team waiting to take me out downstairs disguised as drunks.
I have more immediate problems like complete and utter lack of money, lack of stamina for doing anything to change that, and the decreased tolerance of being around any one else I know so I doubt trying to enlighten myself on a 50-year old alleged national mystery is really something that should be at the top of my to-do list.

But anyway, this really has nothing to do with that. I've put that book down in favor of something more fun like Notes From the Underground. The main gist is that I can't sleep. Not at midnight, or half-past midnight as it appears to be, so all this leads me to the perfect blog post.

I got an email from a writing site that I enlisted with a while back that sends you "Daily Writing Tips". Some of them are helpful some of them are useless, last week I got the "10 Tips to Creating a Perfect Blog Post" email.

Now, we here at Bleak.Blogspot do not have a strong following, sure if we link a post to Facebook or Twitter we'll get some extra hits, but to be honest 12-20 hits is a lot here so we are certainly not above taking some advice on how to get our numbers up. So think of how happy I was to find that I now had in my possession the ten ways to create a perfect post. Think of all the followers I can gain after I employ these tips with my own winning brand of neurosis!

Well I'm not going to go ahead and list every point they gave me because for one I would be giving away all the tips and then how would my perfect blog post stand out from all the rest? But I can reveal that a good, ahem, perfect title was key. So after shooting down several serene sounding handles, I chose what I chose because I can see there being more entries like this if the old apartment is going to be lights out this early.

I was also advised to add a video, to give the whole thing a "multi-media" feel to it.
So, in honor of Mr. Horgan moving his children's car seats out of the back of his Dodge Ram in order to watch a burned disc of the Bobby Heenan Show in the back of his truck in the parking lot of the Orange Lantern. So here is a video for your viewing pleasure.

Now, this was probably not the perfect blog post, I can be self critical, but I think I'm on my way and once I compile all my notes of what the drunks fumbling their way down the street to diner are saying I think I might even have a few masterpieces in me.

From the Heat Outside.

2011-06-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

I saw this girl I used to date walking across the street towards a baseball field, large duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
She wasn't a girl anymore.
She'd filled out into an adult.
Someone who looked like someone's mother.
At a baseball game.
None of this is true.
I just thought it was her, but it wasn't.
I don't really think about her at all.
I certainly don't miss her.
It's just strange thinking about how quietly the world swallows people up.

I Doubt They'd All Notice If We Never Arrive

2011-05-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

Hey man, back off. I'm having a bad day.
A bad week.
I'm exhausted from nothing.
Staring at the blue glow screens.
Making plans/Hoping for things to happen.

No one ever announces the future is here.
I don't want to believe I'm only some giant pile of mush; soft enough to get bug-stomped and squashed or rotted out from mounds of cells turning on each other.

No, no, no. I don't want to believe that.
Not now. Not while I'm about to start doing things.
No for real this time.
I've been all talk for so long that it's hard not to feel some sense of foreboding doom now that things are quietly starting to move on.

Those black thoughts don't wash out so easy though, you know?

Maybe you don't.

I've been dropping my stock by diagnosing every ache as a death sentence. One day it will be something but being on guard for an eventual blood-piss is an easy way to wear everyone out and corkscrew yourself deeper into the crazy tunnel.

So I'm going away from the ocean.
No more cool, salted, midnight breezes that remind you of all those hopeful, teenage nights; enough to make you think maybe everything isn't over yet.

Part Three: bourbon street

2011-04-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

No matter what day you set off to come home it always feels like Sunday. Life beckons around the corner. The world, your world kept rotating while you were gone and now you’re going to have to catch up and re-assimilate. Sure you could stay in New Orleans walking around town with a paper-bag-wrapped bottle in your fist, but sooner or later that gets old.
Driving home the list of things you have to do starts flashing in your head and you start wondering why the hell you thought it would be okay to disappear for a week and blow a ton of money. To get away from a girl? To get away from yourself? I wanted to think there was a chance I wasn’t going to come back. Like there’d be a dramatic moment where I’d say “You know what guys, you go, I’m going to stay here,” like some cowboy movie where one of them mixes with the natives in the village and decides to live among them. But I’m not that kind of guy I guess.
A night in Virginia and few more uncomfortable restaurant stops peppered the dismal ride home. O’Leary drove almost the entire way back. He enjoyed it, and I think he wanted to get home and two nights later we were. My ears hadn’t stopped ringing but now I was standing in the house. Alone. Quiet. I thought this is what had been missing the last week: a moment to myself. It was 8p.m. on a Friday and I had to get the hell out of here.
I started making calls: Anyone was an option. Is anything going on tonight? Anything at all? There had to be one last weird drunken night I could squeeze out of the universe. I’d make up for it tomorrow , once I had some proper sleep and a day to re-adjust I’d be fine. But not now. Not the first night back in Jersey. I knew she was out there with big plans and there was no way I was staying home and the panic of staring at four walls, inside my head for an entire evening made for a terrifying reality.
I got in the car and drove south. I just had to be out. The radio blasting, windows open anything to try and summon the faint enthusiasm that somehow, mystically, everything was going to be alright.
Elliot Krause called back. He and his girlfriend were meeting some of her friends. An hour later I was sipping a beer at a bar called Bourbon Street in Westwood New Jersey, barely able to hear myself think. Finally burned out.

the regroup

2011-03-31T20:34:00.000-07:00

already an uremitting failure.
we'll get somewhere, just never thought it would take this long.
wasting youth on more ammo for the great big whatever.

Part Two: nola

2011-03-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

We arrived on Bourbon Street for prime time. Televisions were set up outside of a few shops and stores showing the firey footage of the freshly uncoiled Iraq War. Occasionally people would stop stare at the screen for a moment then resume tossing beads at anything resembling a girl. And I was no better, trying to squash the dread of potential generation-long foreign offenses on top of the already screaming head creeps I brought down here with me.

The swirl of the night started quickly at the Blacksmith Shop which claims to be the oldest bar in America. I remembered this place well from the first time I was in town, we stopped in during a ghost tour and were advised to try the Voodoo Daiquiri which tasted like a grape slushy with the faintest hint of alcohol which turned out to be everclear. The place was candle-lit except for behind the bar and the flood light shining on Robert Duval playing piano and singing songs on a P.A. system filtered through hell.

We worked our way up and down, in and around, the street. The Shim-Sham Club was gone, so we found other stops -A bright-blue lit jazz club for a few minutes (“hey man, you fuck with coke?”), then lured into a strip club across the street where the girls ride the brass pole upside down 10 feet in the air, outside again into the fresh air until a 7-foot silhouette in a ratty cocktail dress and musk-smelling perfume is pulling me into the direction of another bar until O’Leary swooped in and pulled me in the opposite direction (“That’s a drag bar, that was a guy”) until finally we arrived and parked ourselves at the Dungeon; three chambers of goth-bar. The outside resembled a haunted house, fake steel gates and castle doors, the few windows were covered in red gels keeping out the horrible horrible day light to all the vamp dwellers brooding inside.

I walked in with a drunken chip on my shoulder: there were places like this in Jersey and all I could think about was how much she liked them. She went to them a few times and gushed about how weird and wonderful it all was. Strobe lights and smoke machines, leather and heavy makeup, can’t get a drink or hear anything except the bass speakers blowing your ear drum out. Everyone is thin and pretty and impressed with their own supposed weirdness and I’m sitting at the bar, fat and jealous sipping watered down whiskey at $10 a cup, un-ironically watching Oprah.

That is what I expect this place to be and at first, it looks like it is.

It’s not. With the exception of one shaved headed, black eyelinered, leather and chains pirate bouncing around in his own private mosh-pit (to fucking Disturbed of all things) the place is pretty relaxed but it’s too late, I’m in a foul mood. Now I’m wondering what she is doing back in Jersey. What kind of pale-faced, coke-eyed demons are chatting her up in between songs, pushing up against her and sweating their vampire-DNA onto her. Of course she is pushing back. She is absorbing it all, squeezing out all but the faintest memories of me, until I just become some guy she used to date. And suddenly the trip is a failure. Maybe I thought she’d be wondering if I was doing these horrible thing the whole time I was gone: What kind of trouble I could be getting into gliding down the country with a madman and Irishman. But here I was shrinking inside a little plastic cave booth.

The night goes on and shifts as it does and suddenly I don’t give a fuck about ex’s or if I ever go back to New Jersey. Paul is upstairs (chamber #2) talking up a blond visiting from North Carolina. O’Leary and I are leaning over the bar downstairs (chamber #1) talking to two of the bartenders who were technically on duty, but the place was empty, it was after all, a Tuesday and who the hell knew what time it was.

Finally it was closing time. The bartenders told us they were going to Johnny White’s, we started slowly shuffling towards the door when I realized there was a spotlight shining brightly in from outside. This turned out to be the sun. It was 6:30 in the morning. We followed them over to Johnny White’s the bar the bartenders went to when they got off. The streets were prettying themselves up for work, shop owners hosing all kinds of evidence away from their building and into the gutters. The smells of garbage ran across the air; it was enough to sober a man up. Johnny White’s was dark but not dark enough, we had a beer or two, the bartenders all knew each other and we quickly became bleary eyed, word slurring afterthoughts. Soon we were in a cab heading back to the hotel with O’Leary in the front seat talking to the driver and the two of them going back and forth cracked me up until the point of a headache. We made it back in time for the continental breakfast which was held in an empty office with microwaved pancakes and waffles and several varieties of cereals. I sipped a coffee and went back to the room. Turned the air-conditioning on full blast, pulled the drapes closed and wrapped myself in a blanket on the floor, having lost the drawing for a bed. I needed to sleep. It almost felt like being home.

Part One: The Nashville Demolition Derby

2011-03-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

Whatever you do never get back into town on a Friday night without plans for the evening. I didn’t realize this until the car dropped me off and pulled away.

“Wait, you guys want to go somewhere and get a drink or anything?”

I forgot to ask.

I thought I wanted to get home, drop my bags, sleep on my bed for a day or two and brace myself for the upcoming reality of having, at some point, to go back to work. I was already in trouble with them; supposed to be back on Wednesday, but driving can be an inexact science, especially in the spring, especially when you’re young and drunk and still have some money left in your bank account. So I called in from outside the Best Western and talked to Rob. “Listen, the weather down here is insane, we can’t drive in this. I’m probably not going to be back until Friday, maybe Monday, I’ll make the time up or I can lose two sick days or however you want to do it.”

This was the second call I’d made to work on this trip, the first was outside the Waffle House in Alabama while a cop followed me slowly in his cruiser as I crossed the parking lot to buy cigarettes at a gas station, and then back towards the restaurant. I was dressed strangely, partly out of habit and partly out of necessity (not being able to dig too deep into my bag from the backseat) - a black pullover, long navy cargo shorts and black boots. I was not from Seattle and it was not 1991 but a strong case could be made for a man living in denial of those facts. I pulled out the cell phone and called in to shoot the shit with Rob, until the cop accepted I wasn’t going to spray paint the lyrics to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on any nearby walls or cars and moved on.

Ramone and O’Leary were in the Waffle House ordering. I walked in, and I swear “Sweet Home Alabama” was on the jukebox. Maybe I just remember it that way, but I’m fairly certain it’s also true. The waitress, an older gal, walked over and was as sweet as a slice of peach cobbler, until we ordered; maybe our gruff Yankee accents betrayed us as her demeanor soured shortly after we started ordering. We stopped in Nashville for a night. One of these days I’ll have to make time to actually go to Nashville instead of stop there on the way to somewhere else. We got into the hotel - sitting on the bed, ordering room service and getting hammered while watching TV seemed like a good idea but eventually I was dragged out.

We drove into what looked like the heart of the town during a fantastic lighting show that never produced any rain. The rest of the night plays like a film strip running off the reel: bright yellow lights, the electric blue Bell South sign, and Printers Alley with dozens of faces, bars and shops whirling by. We stopped in a bar called Bourbon Street and slunk our way up to the balcony to watch some guitarist wail away. We nodded at each other “ehhh…pretty good, pretty good,” but in truth we wanted to like everything and it made little difference if guy was channeling Hendrix or was just some guy who tried learning the live versions of Allman Brothers songs so he could look like a genius every Friday and Saturday night, this was the beginning of our little odyssey and everything had a positive shine about it.

The place was dark and blurry, like walking around in a vague memory. We left because we couldn’t hear each other and there were too many places to go for us to get bogged down in one for too long. The next place to register anything upon playback was an underground pub, which was very, well, pub looking; brass and wood everywhere, Kelly green walls, but the lights were far too bright to hide blemishes or bloodshot eyes betrayed by overconsumption. There were girls in this bar, but unlike most bars the devil resided at the end of this one- in a pin striped suite, complete with walking stick and a round bowler cap.

He was slightly heavy but not fat, a strand of black hair occasionally escaping from out of the hat and a thin goatee painted around his mouth. Had we been in Brooklyn I would have written him off as a hipster creep on his way to a jazz bar but this gentleman fancied himself the unofficial mayor of these here parts. “You might say I’m kind of a big deal ‘round here,” he said in his slow southern drawl. In no condition to judge age at that moment I’d guess he was slightly older than us, which is to say late-20’s, maybe, maybe early-30’s. The suit was sharp, there was no denying that, but there was something slightly pathetic about this fellow: he was hanging on at the end of the bar with a slight buffer between him and a throng of girls, and lucky us as it proved to be the only section of the bar we could slide up to and order drinks. We nodded politely and made small talk with him for a few minutes:

“Hi. Jersey. Just got in. Only tonight. Bourbon Street. New Orleans….”

“Well you boys might want to check out Legends Corner over on Broadway, they got some good bands, good food,” he started but it was too late.

Paul Ramone was already chatting up the nearest girl. Shane O’Leary quickly followed. It was a contrast of styles- Ramone was neatly pressed- all blond-blue-eyed buttoned-up thrift store charm. O’Leary on the other hand had a black AC DC shirt draped over his hulk-shoulders, family-crest tattoos pouring out from under the sleeves. He was polite and witty. Personable.

Within ten minutes the devil had been boxed out of his section and was leaning hard against the wall. Eventually he left, presumably to go back to the mayor’s mansion, though I have no idea- maybe he was a big deal who, with one phone call could have had our brains beaten in, but you don’t think about such things when you’re chasing a good time.

After a quick stream of relief off a nearby bridge we ended up at a pool hall. It was late. Club music. Blue and purple neon lights. More girls. Maybe they were the same girls; at this point their faces were spinning carousels. Then finally it hit the point when you know the night is over. Things are closing/people are leaving. A pool game ends and maybe a friend throws a look at you that they want to leave. However it hit, it did – a record scratch of a moment that was obvious to all involved.

“Well if you want, we’ll be here tomorrow night.”

“Baby, we’re leaving tomorrow.”

Oh.

Well in that case- it was nice meeting you. I hope you have a good time in New Orleans, or good luck with law school, or I hope your surgery goes well. Whatever glad tidings need a bow put on them at the end of a night of casual conversations full of lies and unnecessary honesty in the hopes of deeply connecting with someone it’s very unlikely you’ll ever see again, just because it makes for a good sad story to tell the next time you meet someone.

Eating Thunder/Crapping Lightning

2011-02-10T16:44:00.000-08:00

It's time for a long overdue rant fest about the Rocky Franchise. I feel like I might have already done this before so forgive me if I'm repeating myself. Blame AMC they're marathoning the entire series, sans Rocky Balboa from a couple of years ago.
But don't worry I saw that one.

I have this theory and I feel pretty good about it: There's only really 3 Rocky movies.
-Rocky 1 & 2 are pretty much the same movie except Rocky wins in part 2.
-Rocky 3 & 4 are pretty much the same movie - in 3 Rocky loses and Mickey dies then Rocky wins. In 4 Apollo loses and dies then Rocky wins.
Oh yeah spoiler alert.
-Rocky 5&6 are about Rocky being broke and not fighting anymore but returning at other peoples urging to take on someone much younger which he eventually does for various reasons.

The last two are actually the murkiest. It's like post boxing life and then post-post boxing life. I guess it's supposed to be post Adrian life. Adrian is dead in the last one yet Paulie has beaten the odds and is still around. They own or work at a restaurant. They must own it because Rocky gives one of his old opponents a job in the kitchen. That whole thing bothers me because I refuse to believe that no network would hire an ex-champ, who essentially ended the Cold War to call fights for them. And who wouldn't want to watch a movie about Rocky calling fights on TV? But whatever. As of Rocky V he is broke, (thanks Paulie) and back to wearing his old leather jacket and fingerless gloves which is a far cry from part 3 when his hair is feathered and he's draped in matching beige overcoats and gloves and silk pajama pants.

I don't really have the problems with V that everyone semms to. I mean it's bad, don't get me wrong, Tommy Morrison isn't much of thespian (in fact if you want to read something nuts http://tinyurl.com/4zkuzty) Mickey's a ghost, and the fighting promoter is so over-the-top (speaking of which I might drag Over The Top into this.) it's embarrassing and the soundtrack is so drenched in bad early 90's hip hop that I remembered what my 8th grade classroom smelled like, which brought on a whole slew of other issues but that's beside the point. V is bad but it's sort of watchable and the last movie goes a long way fixing what was wrong with it. In the last film Rocky isn't getting beat up by Mr. T or Drago or even crazy ol' Tommy "the Machine" Gunn. (Or even his opponent in the movie Mason "the Line" Dixon who has the dumbest name out of all of them) . Nope, life is kicking the shit out of Rock in this one, and it's kind of a sad movie, and you kind of expect him to die in it, (though having two fighters die in exhibition fights in one franchise would suggest that it is an epidemic, which, you know, as far as I know, it's not) . But Rocky doesn't die which opens up the possibility for yet another one but I hope Stallone just makes 6 more Expendables movies. If for no other reason than at least we know some one is keeping an eye on Dolph Lungren.

Now, let me get the first two out of the way; Rocky is Rocky. I have nothing bad to say about it. It looks a little dated but it sucks you in and you kind of get hooked on it. All of them do really but this started it all and it was good movie. It wasn't corny. Apollo Creed was a great character and that made it even better. In fact I think Apollo was the linchpin in the whole series. Once he got his head caved in everything lost it's steam. Apollo was insecure but he showboated, he was multi-dimensional for a boxing movie, you were rooting for Rocky because he was humble, and simple, an underdog and for all those reasons but if Apollo was fighting anyone else you'd be rooting for Apollo. At least I'd be. So while I don't really like II that much I get that there was no point in making it unless Rocky was going to beat him. It had some good moments, but the tone is pretty much the same as the first one. which, isn't a bad thing, it just makes it very indistinct. It should also be noted that Rocky is already talking retirement in II.

Which brings us to III and IV
I watched some of III last night and realized that Eye of the Tiger is playing throughout at least 45 minutes of that movie. It's at the beginning it's at the end it's in the training sequences. It's everywhere. This might account for why I like this movie and why it might be my second favorite in the series. Mick dies and that's a bummer but you know, I don't want to wash it off to he was old, but he was old. Burgess Meredith however lived until 1997 which means he could have been in all the sequels up until Balboa . I mean he was a ghost in V but c'mon. Mick in Russia? That could have been it's own movie. Of course if Mick doesn't die then Apollo can't train Rocky, if Apollo doesn't train Rocky then we, the audience don't have the greatest cut-off-at-the-belly-shirted-high-socked-short-shorts-running-into-the-ocean-for-a-splash-fight-man-hug in the history of cinema. Let us not forget a young pre-Hulkamania Hulk Hogan as Thunderlips wearing lifts on his boots and calling Rocky "meatball" and beating up cops and fans until the ref finally calls the match. Then he poses for a Polaroid. There's Mr. T in his feathered earring/gold chained/felt vest pinnacle. In fact Mr. T, ahem, Clubber Lange, yelling "Hey woman, hey woman" at Adrian is one of the funniest scenes in any movie ever. Mickey should have had Adrian call him up one night and tell him she was up for it, just as a distraction if he was so worried that Rocky wasn't ready. Ah, but Mick was tired by this point and was ready for retirement. And let us not forget the real star of the film, a 1000 foot statue of Rocky in front of the museum where he so famously ran up those steps. It's amazing that the mayor of Philadelphia knew about that and that the high school marching band knew to play "Gonna Fly Now" because Rocky was listening to it on his I-pod when he was training.
Anyway,
III is the end of the serious Rocky stuff from the first two films. They try to account for it by showing Rocky glamming it up on the cover of magazines and doing magazine ads and hanging out with the Muppets but the whole series really just went Hollywood, baby. Which was fine. It was the 80's. Have a good time. And it was a dumb fun movie.
Then there was IV . It's too bad no one is going to read this because I'd love to have the Four-debate. I like watching it because it's fucking hysterical. And I have another theory that is entirely possible: If Eye of the Tiger is on the IV soundtrack instead of III maybe it's a better movie. I can't be sure. I suppose I could cue it up the next time I watch IV (tonight?) and listen to it over the training montage instead of that Survivor sequel (it's called Burning Heart I'm listening to it now, it's describing the plot of the movie, in fact here treat yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL3lJfpenAc or there's always this gem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oDTNEEu3Rw&feature=player_embedded if you can't get enough).

Now to be fair Adrian probably looks best of all in IV and of course we get the Stallone training beard to point out that while Dolph Drago is getting pumped full of shit and has the full power of the government making him into a T-800, Balboa is just using a few piles of a rocks as weights and jogging in the snow up mountains to train. And there's another weird thing about this movie that I'm probably going to fumble and fuck up but let's give it a shot: Obviously it's a giant spoonful of propaganda and whatever, every bad guy in the 80's was Russian, but they were trying to show that Rocky, training on his own, was an individual and fighting to avenge the death of his friend, not necessarily national pride. Drago only fought for his country, or so you think. For some reason the crowd turns on him half-wary through the fight, probably because he didn't put the 40-year-old 5"5 man away in the first or second round and the Reds start liking this spunky little American southpaw. At some point the Premier or whatever they were calling the thinly veiled Gorbachav looking fellow comes over and wants to know why he hasn't won yet and Drago picks him up by the throat and says something like "I fight for me!" which completely turns the crowd on him, which makes sense, he's supposed to be fighting for Mother Russia in their eyes, but then shouldn't we like him more? He's like "Fuck y'all I'm doing this for me now" he is no longer aligned with our common enemy but somehow that just makes him worse. Meanwhile Rocky who was doing it for himself all of a sudden becomes the fucking ambassador from the United Nations. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsJnxlXepsY)

So there you have it. Rocky goes from breaking fingers for local loan sharks on the streets of Philadelphia to ending the Cold War.
And Apollo dies. Maybe that's why I hated it. I used to not like Empire Strikes Back when I was a kid because Han got frozen in the carbon freeze and I thought he was dead, so maybe it's just leftover childhood trauma. But couldn't Apollo have just been hurt bad? Couldn't he have been in a coma, and then at the end he comes out of it? Eh. That's the 80's for ya. Avenging friend-death was big.

Plus, and lastly, almost every fight these days, and especially ones that split, get a trilogy. How was there no rubber match in the Creed/Balboa or Clubber/Balboa fights. Maybe even especially that one. I get that fine, you couldn't have another movie dedicated to Apollo and Rocky fighting and Apollo retired, fine. But Clubber knocked Rocky out in 2 rounds. Rocky knocked him out in 3 rounds in the rematch. Now, if Clubber has a training staff worth a fuck, they're going to look at the film and realize that Rocky's plan was to tire him out and Clubber is going to hang back in the third fight. Unless Rocky starts taking his shots and yelling "Ain't so bad, ain't so bad" repeatedly. That's hard to put up with after a while and Clubber might just go off. Though I have to say, a third match in a neutral building, with Rocky training to Eye of the Tiger and not some bullshit retread, he might be unstoppable. I guess we'll never know. Although I guess that could be another sequel. Rocky Balboa II? Is that how that would work?

MOre Snow For Your Brain

2011-01-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

And over and over again, the worst of it's past now. The internet said.
But it still looks pretty bad.
We're out of candles and matches.
Waiting for the roof to leak.
Holy shit I'm tired.
Hypochondria is exhausting.
All the symptoms of bleary eyes and numb limbs.
Resolutions down the drain.
Too many zeros in your future.
You're on the clock.
And digging out is the immediate future.
I'm not trying to do anything here.
I'm just a man indoors and underslept during the 57th snow storm of the season.
Pretty soon we'll be equipped for this kind of living.
Like in Minnesota or Canada where they don't even use roads anymore.
No, they're all Fifth Element'd out up there in the North.
FLying burrito stands and hover-cars.
They only see the ground in July and that's usually just to pick up anything they may have dropped throughout the year.
Then it's back to North American Hover-Living.
The air is a little cleaner.
And it's quieter.
Everyone's a Stranger.
and everyone is sort of okay with that.

and when you get through that

2011-01-10T21:43:00.001-08:00

Another cup of cold coffee out of the World's Greatest Grandma mug that's been in out of these cupboards for the last 30 years.
I am not the World's Greatest Grandma but I use the mug anyway. It holds just the right amount of coffee.
One day we'll look back at all this and laugh.
But for now lose another layer of stomach lining driving yourself nuts during the quiet hours.
the small hours.
I need quiet. I need quiet and I need to be pissed off.
Or upset.
Or paranoid.
Don't get up, I'm not staying.
Eventually you realize you have to keep killing the same demons over and over again.
They don't die.
Their heads grow back.
You're still a big pile of insecure nerves.
You've never been anywhere.
You've never done anything.
And it never goes away.

Richard Nixon never got over being made fun of by rich kids.
Someone should write that book.
Richard Nixon, after resigning from office, becomes principle at a prep school and gives detention to the rich kids everyday. But one of their father's is a distant Kennedy cousin and he gets Richard fired and he ends up teaching US History at Public School #48 in the Bronx with a terrible pension and no dental plan.

And of course Nicolas Cage plays Nixon.
Nicson.

When you can't seem to get over the fact that the world never opened up it's arms and took you to it's bosom the best life raft is a giant heap of nonsense. It's all nonsense anyway, might as well make it your own.

A Little Song For New Years

2010-12-30T18:38:00.000-08:00

So yeah. Here we are as in olden days.
What a fucking year.
Death Fear.
Love and sickness.
I feel a million pounds with lead and blood in my chest.
Wine Veins.
I'm in love with my girl and sometimes I get all Jim Morrison about it.
Yeah Jim Morrison about it, like I say things like "love my girl" and "yeah my girl is looking good". Stuff like that.
Of course that whole thing has paralyzed my ability to write moody, alcohol drivel about longing and wanting girls and being nervous and paranoid and lonely and depressed about girls who were too busy with whatever.
That's quite alright.
All that shit was boring anyway.
I mean I'm still nervous and paranoid and occasionally depressed.
But not about that shit.
No no no that column is checked off.
Now I get to work on the internal shit.
It's weird.
It's perspective and I'm new to it.
Nicolas Cage is pulling people out of a burning plane on tv.
And I'm wine drunk.
Sort of.
Sort of sick sort of drunk.
A new stack of books waiting to be read.
A new blue idea in my head I want to spill out one night in pages and pages of frantic electric nonsense.
I want it all down.
I have no idea how to exploit any of this.
I try.
Sort of.
But it's okay for now.
I don't have to worry bout things
In the new year.
We'll all be better off.
We'll all get around to it.
We'll all figure out where we went wrong.

Manic on Election Night; Set Adrift in the Red Sea.

2010-11-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

Oh Lord another Election Night.
Election Night always reminds me of Hunter Thompson. I blame him for getting addicted to politics. Books and books of articles on Nixon and eventually Bush and Clinton and Baby Bush before the big brain blast to the head after we green lit 4 more years for W.
People like Thompson and George Carlin had been through the brutal years of the late 60's and early 70's and watched the hippies become yuppies and Reagan Democrats and realized the whole thing was a joke or at best a sport. It's hard not to wonder what ol' HST would have had to say about Katrina, or the financial meltdown, or Obama, or the Tea Party. There are some fine writers (Matt Taibbi in particular) doing great work but it's not the same. It's not through the same prism of weirdness that gave you a little wink into how ridiculous it all was. Even if the bastards won you felt like it was a fluke and that we all knew it and sooner or later sanity would be restored, eventually. But apparently eventually has come and gone.

It was a weird feeling the night Obama won two years ago.
It seems like a hundred years ago and people on both sides, in retrospect seemed to have made too much of it. Sure there was the historic relevance of a minority holding the most powerful office in the world, but Obama was held up to be such a super hero to the people who supported him that there was bound to be a letdown no matter how much he achieved. No matter who ran on the Blue ticket in '08 they were likely to end up in office if for no other reason than the great collective sigh of relief that the Bush reign of terror was over. I think where some of us were mistaken, or at least where I was mistaken, was that we were flipping the script over and that the dominoes of the last 30 years of Right Wing Christian businessmen looting the economy and spouting their morals had finally all fallen down.
But this is a monster that grows it's head back no matter how many times you cut it off and often that head is something more hideous than the one before it.
Nixon became Reagan became Bush Jr. became the Tea Party.

The results aren't in yet. The Republicans already have the House, and supposedly, (according to CNN.com so it could have just been one of their i-Reporters texting it in) the Democrats who have managed to win or retain have gone directly against Obama. The Senate is close 47-43 for the Dems last I checked. I don't really feel like checking again.

I'm getting a cold. I had a horrendous cold a decade ago and didn't make it to the polls but I managed to stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. wrapped in a quilt slugging from a sticky bottle of NyQuil when the news couldn't decide on a winner in the mess that was the 2000 election. I was so convinced that Gore would win, if for no other reason that it seemed so obvious Bush was caricature. Of course we didn't find out until weeks later that it was official George Bush was our President. I was at a Diner with Evan Toth, (the Empress I believe) when the court finally announced there would be no more recounts in Florida. I was a little dumbfounded waiting for some kind of 11th hour miracle that never came.

I was at Toth's house in 2004 for the election results; a complete set up of maps, multiple televisions and an ample supply of victory booze, but was again caught off guard when Bush repeated in stunning fashion. Deep down you knew the dirty tricks and fear-mongering were going to pay off, and they did, though W. as with most twice-elected Presidents had a rocky 2nd term and it almost seemed like John McCain was served up in 2008 because Republicans knew they had no shot at winning and why waste a viable candidate when they could offer up an old lion to take his turn in the spotlight and go down swinging against the fresh new face of the Democratic Party.

Most reasonable people would probably agree it's easier to tear things down than it is to build them back up, literally, metaphorically, whatever. Obama had a short honeymoon, but he went after a lot of what he wanted in his first two years. How he was supposed to fix the mess he was left with in such a short time while trying to build bridges with an opposition that questioned everything from his religion to his status as a citizen, while supported tepidly by his own party, some of whom though he wasn't Progressive enough, is beyond me. It's amazing he got anything done at all.

There are plenty of things Obama has done wrong, the worst of which is keeping the war in Afghanistan going but at least it felt like, for a little while, the boat was getting steered in a different direction, but now the Tea Party has mutated from the psychotic-fringe to legitimate players. How a movement comprised of "average Americans" in what's left of the middle class can consistently bark mantras and back candidates who support the interests of billionaires is fucking mind numbing. But this is their moment. Eventually the balance will snap back the other way and every time it does things get uglier and more contentious.

I can't help but thinking back to 2000; being immersed in the debacle of that election and listening to Kid A on a loop. That set the general tone of the early part of the 00's. Paranoia and uncertainty. No happy endings. The 00's eventually ended and here we are again staring at a fresh decade that looks like it's going to get driven until the wheels come off. Right is Center and they dress it up and call it the Left so they can pull it further Right.

Toth asked me "Who's even watching?" when I told him I was disgusted Rand Paul won. Two hours later he texted me to remember that "38% of the people voted for Carl Paladino". He can't help it, this stuff is addictive.

The Rocktober Post: The Depths of Self Important Mental Health and Whatever Else May Come Up

2010-10-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

It's 100 degrees in Bricktown on this late October evening. 100 degrees, I promise. Sure there's a cool breeze blowing in off the water but there's always a cool breeze blowing in off the water. It's October and it turns out the weather is haunted. We had 247 feet of snow down here last winter (a new record as it was recently proven the 253 feet of snow from the winter of 1959 were all due to Dr. Laurelton's weather machine which promptly disqualified '59 from the record books) but now here it is on the cusp of another grizzled old Halloween and I'm questioning my logic in having taken my air conditioner out.

So it's warm for October (Hotober?) but it still sort of autumn-y out. I'm flaking out on seeing Back to the Future in the theater as we speak which should feel like more of a shameful failure on my part but the thought of leaving the house right now just feels like an exhausting waste of time. Not that writing about it isn't a waste of time, just not exhausting.

and man is it easy to keep the bullshit coming when you're pissed off and not really in any mood to try and claw yourself out of the mundane miseries of everyday 30's-dom.

There's a real a sense that the days of the great wide open are closing up fast and I'm too old and fat and slow to squeeze under the door before it slams shut. And fuck all that. I don't subscribe to little hints about bowing to certain aspects of getting older. Not that there isn't some truth to it but I reject the idea that it's just crankiness or the aforementioned exhaustion that slows you down and takes you off the field chasing weird nights. I'm still up for a good night of ending up on a hammock a stranger's back yard in Elmwood Park at 4 a.m. while a house filled with half eaten orange and black cake and fading masking tape holding up streamers and decorations hung with good intentions for a night that blasted apart hours ago and lead everyone involved into a hollowed-out, bleary-eyed state, sleeping in any dark quiet corner of the house hoping they wake up early enough to sneak out before someone asks them what the hell happened the night before, or worse asks them for help cleaning up.

Anyway....and enough about all that shit. I've spent far too many paragraphs waxing about romantic drunk evenings and all the hollow feelings and headaches that pop up afterwards. No, I'm done fuck it. Occasionally you hit an evening that just ends up being a lot of weird devilish fun, and sometimes you don't realize it until later. So good luck in your quest trying to catch one should you in fact be chasing one.

Onto other business: I'm writing a book. I've been writing a book for about a year. Somehow it seems to be a little sci-fi-y which I guess was kind of inevitable. I guess it's kind of Back to the Future-y (shit have I mentioned Back to the Future twice in this thing? That's bad writing. Of course this is just a blog, not some polished piece of work I'm submitting to the Paris Review) in that it's not really about science but it plays a part in it. And it does go back in time. And it goes back to the 80's but but but but there's not a lot of "HEY WHERE CAN I PLUG MY CELL PHONE IN.....OH YEAH IT"S THE 80's" kind of shit. It's really more about isolation and displacement and happy stuff like that. So I'm almost done with the second draft (I've been saying this for about 4 months by the way) which is painfully slow because I'm starting to genuinely hate it. Once that happens I'm going to send it out to a few savvy friends and find out of if there are any gaping holes in the plot which I'm fairly sure there probably will be, and I may start posting it in chunks either here or some NEW AND IMPROVED BLOG sorta site.

Yes it's time to get this money machine moving. I'm either poor or disinterested in most other endeavors in this life so I figure it's time to try to get myself in some kind of position to have more than a few kind souls read whatever bullshit falls out of my head at late hours. So I don't know there may be some kind of new blog and possible even ranting podcast that might take the place of posts like this, coming in the future. Actually there will probably always be posts like this no matter how ill-advised they might be.

I'm starting to think this version of "Dead Man's Party" is a cover. The music is spot on but the voice is a little non-Elfman. That drives me nuts. Fucking Blip. Always has what you're looking for until you click on it and realize it's some creep turning on their web cam so they can play you THEIR amazing acoustic version of Tears in Heaven or whatever. My favorite are the ones who sing over the song while it's playing through their computer speakers while they stare all glass eyed right at the camera. I usually watch those to see if they end with a pistol in the mouth. They usually don't. I don't understand the end game on those: I can ALMOST get the guitar ones because sometimes they're instructional. FINE. It's annoying but I kind of get it. But what the fuck is the point of singing over a song and posting the video? What are you hoping someone stops you in the hall before Botany class the next day and says "Yo Phyllis, I saw you singing that Cindy Lauper song on You Tube last night. It was amazing, you're really good"? Ugh. Go watch Glee and hang yourself. I should start re-writing my own versions of famous books and selling them online for free (we'll call them Book Covers!!!!!! Actually fuck it I might just do that anyway) Anyway enough on that. Sorry for yelling. I don't really hope anyone watches Glee and hangs them self.

Of course I suppose it's no worse than writing a self important blog.

I kind of like that Book Covers idea.

And in closing let's get to another pet peeve shall we? People who block a letter out of a bad words on Facebook. F*ck. Sh*t. That's usually it. It's usually when people are angry about something like traffic, or the weather or something that happened on Grey's Anatomy. They're so angry but they just can't in good conscience let that vowel slip in there and have that whole bad word staring back at you. Drives me nuts. If you're angry enough to convey the sentiment then write it.....oh what do I care really? In fact the more I think about it the I think I hate the Facebook Status about cancer that pretty much calls you a pussy if you don't repost it as your status. Those people are weird. Like Tea Party weird.

Further Down

2010-10-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

It's damp and cold and dark and all the things I start worrying about the great hereafter being like start creeping into my head. It's not quiet. This is worrisome. What if there's just as many distractions when you're dead? Of course you can't really do anything about them then can you? And what is this little cycle of thoughts about? Sounds like bad high school poetry. I start fiddling for my flash light because I hear that high-pitched whail bellowing. The one that sounds like Thom Yorke on "How to Disappear Completely" a quick shitty copy of which is jammed into my walkman. I fear that I left it playing and that the batteries will eventually die. But no, the tape's not playing and I realize it's just one of the rotten sounds that permeates out of this place. They have CD's for these things. Women screaming and men howling, sounds of random violence. Ghosts and goblins and black cats. All that shit.

It's dark down here. They actually dug holes this year. Right into the ground. It's OCtober and it's freezing. It feels like it hasn't stopped raining in two weeks. It's cold but not winter cold. Just the kind that tackles you out of your illusion of warm summer nights. October is cold and weird. It's weirder in an artificial graveyard. It's important to drink enough to make all the weird and scary things look level.

They bring groups through and it's fun for a few seconds: the guide brings them up to the exit and gives them a speech about this being a haunted graveyard. I actually no the whole speech because I've heard it at least 50 times already this evening. And there's been a lot these kind of evenings over the past 4 Octobers. I pull myself out of the hole, through the flaps of turf that make it look like an open grave. I crawl slowly at the people and then I quickly claw at them and hiss and pull myself upright. This isn't always the best strategy as a girl freaked last week and gave me a reflex kick right in the head. But I think it looks kind of cool, and it usually scares people a little bit. Which is much better than having them just stare at you while you wait for the guide to take them out. Then I go back to the hole or if it sounds quiet I sift through the black plastic tarp mazes and head to the dining room where some pseudo pagan ceremony is usually going on.

Ryan and BLumes are there doing their act and I hang behind one of the tarps and get behind the line and when they notice me they jump a little bit. Ryan and Blumes and I do a little banter, full of inside jokes that no one really gets but no one is really listening anyway. They just see a man caked in blood and makeup carrying a big metal post that he repeatedly slams into the table. Eventually they scatter out and we talk about groups that went through or what we're going to do later.

And the girl is gone. She took off with a bottle of vodka and later I find her passed out behind my tombstone looking like a dead angel. I sigh a disgusted sigh and throw a jacket over her. She'll disappear back to whatever movie she came from in a few days and in the end all I'll remember about her are strange little scenes like this.

It's the last night. Halloween. Busy with fratboys trying to prove that no one working here is really a zombie and girls who don't stop screaming from the second the lights go down. There's parties going on and bars with costume contests but we'll probably just go to a diner and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes until 7am like we do every weekend this month. It's easier that way. The last night, last chance for all this nonsense. It's like going to high school in a nightmare. An acid-trip down memory lane. But it's over.

Alright, Nobody Freak Out Or Anything

2010-08-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

The jitters.
I have the jitters. I'm jittery.
I feel like some kind of fire breathing alien is about to uncoil itself in my chest.
Not literally.
I'd go to a doctor if it was that bad.
I'm anxious and it appears the older I get the worse I am equipped to deal with it.
I'm awake in a dark bedroom.
It looks like a hotel.
There's a little bit of blue morning light peaking in.
The sheets are cold and the air conditioner is humming.
My head hurts.
I'm a little confused.
I'm kind of hoping I'm in New Orleans.
That I can slide out of this bed, throw something on and crawl into any bar and it will be roaring like it's just after midnight.
The drunks don't go to sleep in New Orleans, they just take cigarette breaks.
At least that's kind of how I remember it.
The scenesters are tourists and treated as such.
Everyone who talks to you eventually wants to borrow a few bucks.
Yeah I hope I'm in New Orleans.
Nope. I'm not in New Orleans.
I wake up again. It's cold.
The windows are open.
I hope it's winter.
I hope it's snowing out and it's Sunday.
I hope there's nowhere to go and watch tv all day.
I want to make the conscious decision to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, or go Star Wars happy or even plow through the entire series of Deadwood again just because I know there's too much weather outside to do anything besides maybe scrape a shovel against the pavement.
It's not winter, and it's not snowing.
I wake up again.
There's some sun screaming in from the shades.
I hope I'm in California and still stoned with no particular agenda.
I want to start noticing all the little things and wondering if I can deal with them. I want to take little mental pictures of the skylines and remember them every time things go to shit that I can fantasize about some sunny Eden that I can slip off to and be a new slick and silver version of myself.
And then I wake up and it's 1968 and there is vinyl spinning and crackling on some old player.
Outside in the gazebo. In Paterson.
Winedrunk.
It's October. It's autumn and the night is haunted.
There's people hiding behind the trees.
And fake plastic goblins streaming up and down the sidewalks.
The sky is red and someone drew black trees on it with crayon.
Breathe in a thousand pounds of smoke and gasoline and fog.
And then I'm in Manhattan in some decrepit staccato building vines crawling up the side. Bass thumping through the walls of some piss smelling bathroom. "how the fuck'd I get here?/ This is awesome" fight for prominence in my head.
And then I'm awake in a dark bedroom.
Just the blur of a television glow.
Tense and death obsessed.
Not that it's really that deep.

spawts

2010-08-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

Sports are dumb. There. I'm glad that's out of the way. I kind of hate them. I hate the fact that for some of my formative years I allowed the outcome of sporting events to alter my mood. I hate the fact that when I think about the year 2004 it feels all weird and disgusting because I remember the Red Sox beat the Yankees after being down 0-3. That never happened before. Oh yeah, I root for the Yankees. Those evil capitalist pigs who outspend everyone in the game and win because of it. I used to root for them just because they were my team, I think in later years I started rooting for them because everyone else hated them. Don't get me wrong; Yankees fans are some of the worst slime you will ever meet. They strut around like they are responsible for the 26 World Championships. No, they're terrible and I don't really associate myself with them. However, there is a far worst beast out there in the realm of sports fandom and it's the whiny "Why Not Us?" fans. If there is anything that can take the charm out of an underdog it's a fan base that whines about teams like the Yankees making it impossible for their poor team to catch a break. This reached it's crest with the '04 Red Sox who were riding a wave of sentiment like "My father may live his whole life without ever seein' the Sawks win the Series" or of course the aforementioned "Why Not Us?" Well they finally won it. My life wasn't ruined. In fact the deciding game was pretty much decided by the first inning, and as I sat there sucking down a six pack at my pal Horgan's house we knew before hand it was over. You can feel these things coming sometimes. But our lives certainly weren't ruined. If you flipped the calendar back a year the two teams were in the same situation and the Yankees wound up winning on little Aaron Boone's home run in extra innings. It was a fun moment, it was exciting; I was with friends at a diner and we got caught up in it and hurumphed and whatever else. And then an hour later we were still drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes talking about something else. Didn't change my life, it was just a nice memory.

Now, I assure you I'm not really trying to make any point here, if anything I'm really just trying to get to the bottom of this here rant where I countdown my personal top three most embarrassing moments in sports, but I feel like I want to get this out of my system. There is a long held belief in certain circles that competition is a good thing, and maybe that's true. That it brings out the best in people, that it motivates and drives people and that its a good thing for kids to learn. But it's not really competition any more is it? At least on a professional level? It's a bunch of millionaire jocks playing each other, and while there are certain exceptions of players who are driven mad by the idea of what their legacy might be for the most part these fucking guys are going out, playing their game and hitting clubs with each other afterwards. Meanwhile Charlie from Queens on the carphone is calling up WFAN because his world is falling apart because the Mets aren't going to make the playoffs this year.

I love sports radio. I listen to it on late night drives to keep myself awake. Oh man, the hosts are mostly hyper-active man-boy-snobs; quick to shoot down callers points or condescending if they have a differing opinion. And the callers are mutants straight out of science fiction novels. My personal favorites are the ones who can't get the question out. They're too busy saying weird shit like: "Hi Mike first time caller, long time listener". Who in their right mind gives a shit how long Elmer from the Bronx has been listening or how frequently he calls? And those are always the creeps who spit out gems like "Do you think the Yankees are going to sign Derek Jeter to an extension?" Real stupid shit. The thing that drives me nuts, that makes me question my sanity the most is the guys, and occasional gal, who call up and talk about their team in the first person: "Do you think WE got a shot at Super Bowl this year?" I'm not going to insult your intelligence, dear reader or poor lost soul, with a cheap, "Oh yeah what position do you play 'Marv' from Paterson?" joke. No, no, no. I'll just let the sadness that comes with someone diluting themselves so much that they need to verbalize some kind of connection between them self and the group of millionaires playing a children's game like they're all in the same club, linger out there for a while.

So anyway what's all this about? Nothing really. I just kind of realized I'm sick of sports insofar as being a fan. The Yankees won the World Series last year and while I was glad, I really don't give all that much of a shit. They spent an insane amount of money after missing the playoffs the year before. Got all, ALL, of the best free agents and they won. They were supposed to win. And they did. Good. No, I think I'm kind of enjoying sports more from a combative standpoint now. If you're upset about teams like the Yankees then how bout this: If your poor team (oh let's just say the Mets, who had the highest payroll in the National League for years and managed to do nothing with it) can't afford to keep up with they Yankees then you should stop going to the games, stop watching the games, stop buying merchandise and demand whomever owns your team to sell it to someone with more money. A Russian BILLIONaire just bought the New Jersey Nets for Pete's sake. Someone out there with enough money can use the Yankees as a business model and overpay for excellence until everyone is priced out of the game. By then you'll have a whole line up full of players with size 10 heads because they'll be pressured to live up to their billion dollar contracts and shoot HGH until they're dragging their foreheads on the ground. It'll be wonderful.

Now, anyway, that you've indulged me in that misguided rambling nonsense let's get down to business. This was supposed to be the meat of the piece with a little bitching about sports at the top, but it appears I got carried away. Must be in a bad mood.
So anyway, IN ORDER, my top three most embarrassing sports moments.

#3. I don't know what year it was but I know it was the first year I played soccer as I tried my hand at Football and well it didn't' fit. (see #1) Anyway I was on the dark blue team. We were good. Well, our team was good. It seemed like every team had at least one Latin American or European kid on their team who was the only one who can control a ball. Now before you accuse me of being a racist I'm only saying that because they introduce soccer at a younger age, so calm down and stop point your finger you reactionist. So anyway, the kids who really had no idea what they were doing and weren't fast were defenders. I was a defender. I knew that if the ball came to me I could kick it (toe ball) pretty far, or at least I thought it was far. But for the most part I was the kid who was pretty terrible but had to play at least five minutes because, you know, there are participation rules. So I should mention that my all time grade school crush was on this team. Her father was an assistant coach and the head coach was my 2nd all time grade school crush's father. They were both laid back and as chill as a 10 year old could want a soccer coach to be. So anyway a ball comes rolling up to me with no one around it, I get ready to kick the hell out of this thing, really make an impact in the game. GET THAT THING AWAY FROM MY GOAL! and then maybe throw a wink at one of those two gals; "Hey, see what I did?" But instead I was called off by the goalie who shall remain nameless. A good guy and more importantly a good goalie, who would scoop the ball up and punt it away, presumably further than I would have. So, dejected I let the ball roll by, I turn to watch him kick my chance at soccer immortality away and like a black and white checkered comet the ball lands right in my head. The next thing I remember people were standing over me. My mother slapping me lightly in the face (her "if it's not bleeding I don't want to hear about it" policy in effect) I was helped off the field to light applause by the coaches while their daughters giggled to themselves.

#2 Ok this took place in my second year in minor leagues. In Little League you had to play one year in the minors and then you could get drafted to the Majors or linger in the minor leagues until you were 12 presumably playing like a star against kids younger than you to boost your esteem. So I didn't make the majors my first year.....or wait shit, did I? I can't remember. No maybe I did. This isn't even like an ego thing I just can't remember. Well let's just say I know I was either 10 or 11. Probably 11. I was catching. I always wanted to catch and it was the first full year I did. There was a girl on the other team. She was tall and pretty and I think older. There were a few girls who played Little League but most of them played in the completely un-sexistly titled Princess League right behind the Little League field. So this girl was already attractive because she was good. Anyway, somehow she ends up in a rundown between third and home. I chase her up the line and dump the ball off to the third baseman, the pitcher covers home, I get behind the 3rd baseman to take the next throw if she decides to change directions again. The pitcher dumps the ball to me and she stops and takes off for home no one is covering, so I decide to do what any self respecting Thurman Munson type would do and I lunge at her with the ball in my glove. I missed. Probably by a lot. But I did manage to land on the glove with my stomach knocking the wind out of myself for the first time. I could breathe out but not in. "I can't breath, I can't breath" I yelled frantically. Everyone freaked and ran over. Again I'm on my back with parents and coaches and classmates looking over me. Well I was ok in about 2 minutes. But I came out of the game anyway, and I spent the rest of the evening trying to explain how freaked I was and that I wasn't being a baby. but I might have been. Anyway, somehow I ran into that girl after the game, in street clothes she was all glamoured up and she gave me a peck on the cheek which was sweet, but I think of what would have happened if I would have caught her, and I lunged at her; probably would have either bruised her back or knocked her over or God knows what, and how do you live that one down? So there was a good chance this could have been #1. But it's not.

Ok so we had my first black out and potentially harming a girl with a baseball glove, but those both pale in comparison to the heavy weight champion of embarrassing sports stories:

#1 I was 7. Pee-Wee football. Almost everyone on the team hates me. The coach is the father of my arch nemesis from school. (We'll omit his name because he is no longer with us which will probably be the topic of a future rant but lets stay on topic here). I've been beaten up in school by some of these kids. We scrimmaged against the older kids (the terrifying 8 year olds) And I kept getting knocked down from one kid in particular and he stepped on my hand with his cleats. I didn't know anything about football then, and I didn't even particularly like it, I had no friends there, I really have no idea what the hell I was doing there. (I should also mention that this spurned me to embark on my soccer career which, after #3 I did go on to be a fairly decent goalie, sorry I'm trying to keep a smidge of dignity here). We were finished practicing one day. It was kind of hot and I was slamming through Gatorade even though I'm sure I probably didn't deserve it. We didn't have our pads on, I had my jersey, (Green with yellow numbers #25) and green sweatpants on. The coach get all Vince Lombardi and starts giving an intense speech about our "road game" against Oakland. I had to pee. There was no way I was going to interrupt this speech. This man was going for an Oscar. He transcended football, fuck Lombardi he was Patton leading his troops into battle, and you do not interrupt a general while he's giving marching orders to ask if you can go pee. So I held it. And I held it. And I held it, and then I stopped holding it because it was running down the front of my pants. These were "light" green sweats by the way so there was no mistaking that something was amiss in the front of my pants. I did what any 7 year old would do when put in an impossible social situation: I raised my hand, stood up and started crying in front of the whole team. Holy shit my spine is shivering just thinking about this. It was almost a quarter of a century ago. (alright I just scared the shit out myself with that math) So anyway, the coach, to his credit, was great and lead me over to the wooded area to dry out and went to find me another pair of pants. I stood there, grabbing the warm, wet waistband and tried to find a way to maybe "air them out". One of my fellow teammates went over to pee against a tree and asked "You alright?" and I, now relaxed, "oh yeah, they're starting to dry out a little now," like this kind of thing happens all the time. Oakland wound up kicking the shit out of us that weekend. Needless to say that was it for me and football.

and in a weird moment of terrifying clarity.......

2010-07-27T16:43:00.001-07:00

see the thing is I think I'm trying to figure out if I've already missed the chance to do what I want to do or if I'm still taking my swing. not sure. scary stuff.

on the upside

2010-07-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

the 1990's live on a video tape in my New Milford bedroom.
Dusted up and put in some kind of order that made sense to me back then.

How's About Now, Steve?

2010-06-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

I don't really like Steve. We're related and all and I guess I like him enough in that sense but there are things that he's done, that it's just hard to get over. I don't know him that well and I guess that has something to do with it. He seems to have two distinct characters that he plays well: Selfish Prick and Poor Schlub. Schlub? Is that even a real word? Well even if it isn't we'd have to coin it for Steve.
Steve gave me a hug on Christmas Eve last year to thank me for a DVD box set of Ice Road Truckers I got him. "Hey thanks bud," he said and came in and gave me a guy hug. You could tell he really wanted to have a 'moment' but he was so awkward he hardly got out the 'thank you' part before I was wrapped up and getting hard pats on the back. Before I could say "No problem Steve" he was off to his bedroom.
And whatever. I don't really need any moments with Steve. I accept his presence as a fact of life and occasionally we'll get along alright but seldom is it not tinged with a similar uncomfortableness. Hanging around Steve is kind of like going out for a beer after work with your boss, you can never really relax and say what you want to say because Steve will try to find some way to relate to it and then you're left in the wonderful position of deciding whether or not you want to try to explain what you were actually trying to say or just let him think you're a moron.
Example:
Oil Spill.
Me: "Oh look BP's prices are lower than everyone else's, guess they're trying to do some PR control."
Steve: "Yeah well, don't forget they had that big oil spill in the Gulf."

I pause for a moment when things like this happen: Does Steve really not think this is what I am referring to? Oil Spill in the Gulf Stever? What spill? Oh is that what all that hullaballoo on the news has been for the last FOUR FUCKING WEEKS? Oh maybe you're onto something.
It would probably be easy enough to say: "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about." Except I know that to continue down this line will ultimately just lead to more little hiccups like this, so I just settle on a "oh yeah". Steve can think I'm an idiot. I am ok with this.

I've found sports to be a reliable weapon in this area. I'm familiar enough with sports to carry on a conversation that will take up the bulk of a car ride. This works on two levels: 1. It eats up a lot of time. Especially during baseball season. I can steer the conversation to weeks worth of news just from random tid-bits I pick up from stray headlines in newpapers or blab I hear on sports radio when I need a good laugh. I've filled up damn near an hour just talking about how bad the Mets' starting rotation is, a subject I couldn't give a fuck about. 2. It steers the conversation away about talking about anything real. Like family problems, the future, what he thinks of so-and-so. I don't want to know. Because sooner or later it's going to lead to a big heated argument. Which I might add is long overdue between Steve and I. Plus I guess it creates a fake sense of male bonding. Guys talking about sports. This does backfire every once in a while when Steve decides he wants to take me out for a beer.

I don't want to go out for a beer. It's Sunday morning, well I guess afternoon, but I'm hungover. I need a ride because I had too much to drink the night before, I don't really want to go and have another one. I don't feel good. I don't want to keep pouring booze on things. But Steve is adamant. One beer won't kill ya. Well alright Steve, I guess I'm in debt to you for the ride so lead away. We end up at a biker bar. Steve is wearing short cargo shorts and sandals. He apparently frequents this bar because he always mentions people that go there or work there like I went to high school with them, this is the only reason I don't fear we will be beaten upon sight once entering. Steve enters and is welcomed with something less than a giant "Norm" cheer. It's more of a "hey Steve" followed by the patron staring back down at their beer. It's an older set. One guy looks distinctly like Santa Clause if he was altered for some douchey Harley Davidson shirt. He's wearing a red shirt which makes me think he's aware of the comparison, almost inviting it so he can smash a bottle over someones head for mentioning it.

There are a couple of younger, less distinct bikers sipping beers around the small bar. The woman behind the bar recognizes Steve right away. He makes some crack at her and she smiles in a way that suggests she's tolerating the joke, not participating in it. Steve is an outsider here and he seems to be the only one who is unaware of it. He introduces me to everyone but he does it like he's in a shitty action movie where the Colonel introduces his elite-squad of daredevils: "This is Johnson Killjoy; you need something blown up he's your guy".
"Hey this is Larry, what is it early Larry? You're usually onto shots by now, haha," he pats Larry on the back and Larry looks slightly amused by the fact that he's not punching Steve in the face.

He goes around the bar in this fashion and I, not wanting to be there but resigned to the fact that I am, politely nod or raise the tip of the bottle towards them. I don't talk much just gaze back and forth between television sets. No games on yet. That would make life easier. No just Fox News. I hope no one is watching it ready to spew off about how great Palin or Beck is or how Obama is submerging America into a Communist cesspool or whatever else. But the talk eventually gets around to politics. Some colorful adjectives get shot around and Steve looks uncomfortable but doesn't do anything to counter them. And neither do I for that matter. What's the point? I stopped arguing politics a long time ago and I figure this isn't the best place for a spirited debate.
Besides these guys aren't bad people as far as I can tell; they buy rounds for everyone (which Steve initiates in a move that smacks of desperation) I just don't agree with anything they say.

Mercifully the conversation steers elsewhere, about other locals, Steve without hesitation jumps in even though it seems rather obvious he hardly knows the people in question. Maybe I'm reading the whole thing wrong, but I don't think I am. The whole longing to belong here makes me feel kind of bad for him, it makes me think that maybe when he was kid he didn't really fit in anywhere and it just kind of stuck and maybe that's responsible for some of his more bitter moments. Then I snap out of it, like I'm becoming too desperate to humanize this guy. Maybe things are fine with these people, maybe it's just an early Sunday afternoon and everyone is sitting back, maybe on a Saturday night if Steve showed up he'd be sitting center rattling off stories about how he got drunk last weekend and told some cop to go fuck himself, and high fiving everyone. How do I know? I don't want to know.
We leave a little while later, 6 beers in and I'm just starting to get comfortable.

A few hours later dinner is ready. Nothing fancy, chicken and noodles in lemon pepper sauce, green beans. I'm sitting with a tray watching TV and then Steve goes and does that thing. Dinner is literally just off the stove. He is notified of this but chooses to finish his game of Spider Solitaire on the computer, which admittedly is addictive, but c'mon STeve, it's dinner. He meticulously picks his food and then places it in the microwave. I find this infuriating.

At first I wanted to believe that there was a story behind it; like when he was in the Army he always had lukewarm meals so he decided if he ever got home he would make sure all his meals were HOT. Then I remembered Steve never was in the Army, so I made up a story where his mother was never home for dinner and used to just heat him up leftover in the oven, and that's just how he got accustomed to eating dinner. It made him seem a little less like an alien. But that was bullshit. He makes a show of it, as if to say "You don't cook things hot enough for me" he pulls his plate out and then curses because he burns his hand on it. He turns the ceiling fan off even though the air is warm and thick from the oven because he insists that it cools off his food. He walks to the table and trips over his own sandle, the plate spills onto his foot and he curses and throws an angry fist at the wall denting the drywall in a what looks like a perfect circle. He curses some more and cleans up the mess. He takes some more food but this time he doesn't heat it up. He goes into his bedroom and returns to his game of Spider Solitaire. He comes out to inform us he wasn't mad or cursing at us, it was just that the food was hot.
Yeah no problem Steve. Relax man. Have a beer.

Here Comes Nothing

2010-06-09T08:40:00.001-07:00

Oh man I had that little bubble of energy this morning. I was going to get things done today. I've really seen too many movies in my life because I'm waiting for some upbeat number to slowly fade in from the speakers in the sky and motivate me to start cleaning, building, writing or whatever else I should be doing. I want a montage that ends with me rolling in a pile of money laughing hysterically. In a tuxedo with tails. And a top hat.
And it's not about the money really, it's about not having to worry about money. I assure you I will find other things to worry about.
It sometimes seems I am incapable of accomplishing anything without a gun to my head, or a serious case of the miseries. The everyday hum-drum shit is just enough to get me to bitch about but not enough to actually every do anything about. And here is where the big fuck up comes into place. The big fuck up is anyone who tries to give off an air of normalcy. Now I'm not getting into some punk rock thing about normalcy, that's just as much bullshit as barbecues and ballgames, I'm not talking about hating the guys wearing pressed slacks and polo shirts on a Sunday afternoon just because I can't feel comfortable in anything other than old t-shirts and baggy jeans. No way sir, I'm past all that garbage. I'm talking about the idea that things level off. Adulthood comes and you have a job and you get married and have kids and things are swell. Things slow down. Goals are apparent. Because, I think, for most people that is not only not the case, its never the case. THere's always more time around the corner. THings are going to change, if I can just get past...eh.
SO yeah.
Here comes more stress and anxiety wheeling itself around like a moving landscape. But whatever. THis is life I guess. I guess I guess.

Everything Grim on a Sunday

2010-05-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

Hung up in the quiet apartment, I feel like a stranger in some one's hotel room hoping the door doesn't suddenly open. Keeping myself occupied with old magazines, random Internet checks and the bracing flinch that reality is beginning to settle in under me. We're beginning our landing. Friday night blazing at a thousand miles an hour, in full stride on Saturday, now I just want to enjoy the peace.
The town swings by outside.
Breezes blow by.
The fan hums.
Her boots are thrown on the floor, her dress hangs over the doorknob. This is her place.
I make the bed. I'll do some dishes and try to straighten up, a little penance for hanging around all weekend.

A Long Overdue Blabfest About the Cultural Trainwreck/Genius of St. Elmo's Fire From the End of the World

2010-05-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember I've had a touch of insomnia. I think I blame Miami Vice. I remember sneaking the television on once when I was no more than 6 or 7 and seeing Crockett and/or Tubbs violently blow some guy away or maybe it was Salazar or whoever the big drug dealer was kill an informant. Something like that. Either way I remember not being able to sleep and it kind of stuck. I also now can not hear "In the Air Tonight" while in my car and not pretend that I'm driving towards some kind of extremely dangerous drug bust showdown.
But the point is that recently, knowing that I had to wake up early to catch a train recently I attempted to find a movie to fall asleep to. No Con Air or Rock, no Nic Cage at all, then I came upon it. St. Elmo's Fire. This movie has always fascinated me. Furthermore I have warm and fuzzy moments of being 12-ish, and watching that movie in my old living room late at night after a 4th of July party while fireworks crackled down the street and the industrial powered air condition blared away. But little 12 year old Shaun didn't really understand all the insanity that was going on in this film at the time. No, he just thought coked-up, crimped-hair Demi Moore was hot and you know, I wanted to hear the theme song.
I guess, and this is only a guess, that the concept of the movie is supposed to be like a post-high school Breakfast Club dealing with shit. And there they are a few Breakfast Club stalwarts (Judd Nelson as the former party animal who's getting all Republican and shit, Ally Sheedy as his girlfriend who has no discernible personality and Emilio Estevez as a sociopath, more on that later) and a few other Brat Packers, actually the only ones who would go on to any kind of career Rob Lowe and aforementioned coked out Ms. Willis-Kutcher. And Mare Winninham though I'm not sure what the hell she's doing here and I don't think she knows either. And of course Andrew McCarthy, pre Weekend At Bernie's. He's a writer who everyone thinks is gay because he's apparently told everyone he knows he hasn't had sex in a year. I'm glad these people aren't my friends.
Anyway, so the movie is about how all these friends are dealing with life after graduating college. Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy (I'm not doing character names because 1. I don't remember and, well no, that's all) seemingly are at the top of the food chain of this group. Oh but there's trouble in paradise: Judd Nelson (I just realized I do remember some of the character names but that would just make this more confusing than it probably already is) is cheating on poor Ally Sheedy. Rob Lowe can't hold a job down because he's a party animal, and props to Lowe for rocking the Mel Gibson-Martin Riggs-Almost-Mullet almost a year before Lethal Weapon came out (I think. I'm not fact checking this thing) Anyway he's got a wife and a kid, but he's a drunk and sort of a coke head but he's got a heart of gold, sort of, etc. Demi Moore is pretty much Girl-Rob Lowe. You figure they're going to get together but that would be too obvious for high concept shit like this. No no no, Demi is doing her boss and has a coke problem and is just overall a fabulous woman of the 80's who talks about sex frankly.
Everyone else treats both of them with rock star worship one minute: "Oh Rob Lowe and Demi Moore you guys are so out of control, I wish I didn't have to go to work in the morning or else I'd have that shot with you" and the next minute are pulling the righteous indignation card "Rob Lowe and Demi Moore are out of control they need help." I'm paraphrasing of course.
Who else is there, Mare Winningham plays a 22 year old virgin which I don't know, doesn't seem like a big deal to ol' prude McGann except for the fact that she looks like she's 35. In fact she almost looks like the librarian at the beginning of Ghostbusters. Rob Lowe is supposedly in love with her and she him, ya know because they're complete opposites, but he keeps getting drunk and pissing off her strict father.
There's Andrew McCarthy who is a writer who can't get published ( I hear ya buddy) and is stuck doing obituaries, while Demi tries to hook him up with her gay neighbor because she is convinced he's in love with Judd Nelson. But wait SPOILER ALERT, no sir, he's actually in love with Ally Sheedy. Amazing no on considered that. There's a real tense scene where Ally tricks Judd into confessing that he's been sleeping around and goes home with Andrew McCarthy, he confesses he's in love her, they sleep together, and tell Judd Nelson. It's all very silly. It results in a scene where Ally Sheedy comes to the apartment to get her stuff and they divide up the record collection (NO SPRIGNSTEEN IS LEAVING THIS HOUSE) it might be a good scene but it feels like it's there so someone in the audience automatically goes "Oh my God I've been through that". Of course the scene ends with an awesomely awkward moment where Judd throws a football across the room and yells "WASTED LOVE" and, what I am convinced was completely improvised, "I just wish I could get it back," there's some hammy Brando-esque arm gestures as he delivers this line that really tickles me.
Who am I missing? OHHHHHHH
King Emilio steals this fucking movie.
Sure Rob Lowe wears a cool jacket in it and he blows his 80's sax in such ridiculous fashion that I'm sure John Coltrane was would have beat him to death had he ever seen that scene, but Emilio Estevez is really the star of this movie.
I might have mentioned earlier that he plays a sociopath and I wasn't kidding. I don't' really know what the hell he does in the movie, he works for a Japanese business man I think, I guess he's an assistant or something. I do know his name is Kirby Keeger which already screams psycho. He falls for Andie McDowell. She's a doctor and she gives ABSOLUTELY NO HINT THAT SHE IS INTERESTED IN HIM. None. She's polite that's about it. He throws a party at the Japanese Businessman's house (he's conveniently out of town) because he wants her to think he's successful. Which you know, is a great plan because should she fall for him I'm sure she'll take the fact that he's not rich just some fucking nut hackey assistant very well. Anyway he tells her he's having the party and invites her. She doesn't show, she is a doctor after all, and he fucking freaks. He keeps calling her apartment, he shouts at the operator when she tells him that his SECOND EMERGENCY BREAKTHROUGH on the line was unsuccessful. He announces that he threw this party in her honor and she didn't even show up, which sends him to her apartment where her roommate yells down to him that Andie is out of town. Well where? Why should I tell you, you're nuts. (I'm paraphrasing up until here) "Because I'm not responsible for what I'll do to ya if you don't." That's an actual line delivered with a cold death stare of a man who will kill. I guess it was supposed to get a laugh cause the roommate has annoying voice and is kind of frumpy looking so ya know she's blocking true love from happening.
Turns out ol Andie is up in the mountains skiing and this fucking lunatic drives up there in the middle of the night shouts at the cabin and realizes: Uh oh she's there with a guy. He freaks and goes to leave but gets stuck in the snow. They let him spend the night. He does and the next day Andie's boyfriend not only digs him out and lends him a pair of clothes, but for some strange reason decides to take a picture of Emilio and Andie. Little does he know, while he went in to get the camera Emilio gave the mouth business to his woman. I can only imagine this guy was so supremely confident in his relationship with Andie that he was just messing with this crazy kid with a crush. But wait, when he takes the picture there's a gleam in Andie's droopy southern belle eyes. So whatever. Emilio pulls away farewelling them with "later dudes" and does a rally cry as he drives down the snowy mountain road.
In the end nothing is settled. Ally Sheedy is going to take time to make up her mind between Judd Nelson and Andrew McCarthy who are both fine with that. Demi Moore tries to kill herself by wearing nothing but a shirt and leaving all the windows open because ya know it's cold and windy outside and she'll freeze to death. Eventually. (I think they're in Chicago so it probably is really cold and windy but it's still fucking stupid). Rob Lowe, her male version, explains some life lesson and goes all Carrot Top with a bottle of hair spray and a lighter and talks about St. Elmo and she's ok and they close the windows and everyone is happy. At the end they decide not to meet up for a drink at their favorite bar, St. Elmo's, because there's too many kids there, they'll just go to brunch on Sunday. Get it they're grown up now.
Joel Schumaker directed this movie and he killed the first run of the Batman franchise. I mean turned it into a rubber fetish, neon comic book for either dumb children or men with adult baby complexes. I guess for an 80's movie he goes pretty Hughesian here, and it's kind of fun in a dumb 80's way. And of course there's the song. Who could forget the song? John Parr you fantastically mulleted bastard. I hung in there for the whole movie just to hear GONNA BE A MAN IN MOTION ALL I NEED IS A PAIR OF WHEELS.
Yup. I was doomed. No sleep for me that evening.

Broken Windows

2010-05-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Ahh, new experiments in sleep deprivation, lack of oxygen, anxiety drenched breaths. Blood pressure spikes and anger rushes turn into quick cut flash backs of every one who's ever wronged you. Any slight and put down and cruelty. Well I can do that better than you can.
And I often do.
All those slick muthafuckin hipsters who don't have a care in the world. The way they dress, and smoke, and look. Make it look easy. Good for you.
I can't dress like that or smoke like that or look like that or fuck like that or whatever. And I'm getting ok with that. They're not even really there anyway, Cardboard cut outs for the scenery. I got pains and aches and fears and nerves and panic and all that good shit, so I don't have any time to sweat all that. I got other stuff too. I mean let's not get too negative here. There's other stuff. I think there's other stuff.
Ohh, but this is getting bitter-ranty elitist.
And the shadows are crawling on the air.
Things are falling over.
Some guys are out at a club in expensive clothes, grasping fancy drinks throwing sharp eyebrows at every pretty thing that walks by.
Other's are 80miles away from where they'd rather be, spaced out on a couch, instead of staring at a screen, listening to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and alarmed at the potential of what every tap, rattle and scratch was.

At The End (Dead Flowers Practice)

2010-05-08T00:32:00.000-07:00

So if I'm a creep I can't help it. Somtimes late at night after the booze has settled into your brain and you're sitting on the dead-green plastic benches, you can't help but stare at the copper lights drenching the night all the way to the city while you wait for a metallic box to arrive and slither down coast, getting you closer to the safe bubble of home and the hope of thinking quiet thoughts for a few hours before it all starts again.

Sometimes the air is just the right mix of the warm promise of summer and the cool blanket of fall. You can smell it/you can feel it.
And you don't want to stare at it alone anymore, you want some there to lean on, to grasp hands with, even to tell you that she doesn't see what the big deal about it all is.

You want it to be her, but right now it isn't. So you suck in that beautfiul New Jersey night-air cocktail, gaze out over the city and make up your own story as another train screams by.

All the Sick Ones Sing Along

2010-05-04T09:03:00.001-07:00

All the cards are turned over.
Worrying about no more late-night,hazy-eyed,rooftop,stare-downs with the moon.
Sweating through the sheets, mired in bleak memories and all the chances we never met and things we don't regret and awkward moments that carry us to the next morning.
Then you sit back and wait for someone to tell you it's all a joke. Some weird invitation setting you up for the big reveal: everyone was in on everything. Every strange moment, coincidence, gentle nudge of de-ja-vu, and night filled with panic and desperation that you were doing everything wrong was just one big practical joke but now they're letting you in on it. And as angry as you'd be when the floor drops out, wouldn't it be a relief?

Everyone's a stranger.

Cling to the nights when you're in it with someone else. When there's someone there to hold onto while everything falls apart. Nothings going to fix the glitches or stitch those old scars that won't close.
"Doesn't it ever get better?" she said, not really asking.
I don't know.
Probably not.
It's not always bad though, is it?
It's just lonely when the walls creep closer and closer and everyone is staring in to see what you do about it.
So stay up late, and smoke and drink and burn. Blasting and singing songs about how sad it all is, giving you little flecks of hope that you might find someone to help you claw your way out of the box that's closed in around you.

Friday Tries Too Hard

2010-04-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

So I was already pissed off by the time I walked into the place and saw this rust colored Wayne Newton clone sipping what I had to guess was an apple martini and cackling a fingernail/blackboard death-shriek of a laugh while sitting in my usual spot.
Well, I don't really come in that much to really claim it as "my spot" but the three or four times I've been in here that's where I sat so to me it's my spot.
Whatever.
I let it go and find a spot in the corner booth where I have little doubt the waitress will not visit frequently enough to keep up with my pace.
The bar was about half full, it was late, I guess, I kind of expected the lights to come up at any minute. but the band was still playing.
The band was called Back to the Future, and I instantly hated them for sullying my fond memories of their namesake while they pumped out ironic, punked-up covers of "Walk Like an Egyptian".
Wayne Newton and his date stood up and started dancing cheek to cheek like some old Sinatra song was being sent directly to their heads only.
Paul and Calro slunk into the booth.
I was probably drunk.
Legally speaking.
I felt safe believing that I was still sober enough to acknowledge that I might be drunk.
I drove over separately from them because I was fairly certain that Carlo was drunk. I did my honorary human duty to try and finagle his keys away but there was no point. He was 14 years older than me and he wasn't going to let me show him up. Of course, the rational thing to do would have probably been to call a cab, but I was out of rational thoughts.
When I pulled in I realized I had a head light out which would pretty much make me a magnet for the hornets nest of hungry officers just waiting to hand out some tickets and throw some one in the clink.
I don't really use words like "clink" unless I'm in a certain mood.
I sat back and reviewed the groin-kick of a day it had been.
From the ice water shooting at me in the shower after the handle fell off to accidentally throwing a red pillow case in with the rest of my laundry morphing my wardrobe into a wonderful cascade of pinks and purples.
Stupid, pithy shit, but enough to annoy you. Enough to make you sling some whiskey and drop $20 in the jukebox on songs you have in your car.

The night is dead.
It's over.
I'm just hoping one of these two don't suggest going to a diner.
I'm done, just trying to summon enough energy to get up and slip past any road blocks so I can hit my bed hard, wake up and try again tomorrow.
I'm staring an uncomfortably long time at Wayne Newton again.
Don't know why he just seems to be having a good time and I guess I'm envious.
He notices and comes over.
I'm not much of a fighter.
I mean in the wrong head I'll talk shit, but I'm not really a fighter.
But here comes Wayne.
I look around the bar.
It looks like they want it to have a saloon vibe when the lights are turned up. Old barrel tables and wood paneling.
It looks old.
Wayne looks like the sheriff coming over to ask if 'we got any problems here fellers?'
How does he know I won't kick over the table and come out blasting?
I mean I won't, but how does he know that?

"Hey guys how you doing tonight?"
"Good," we all grunt in various levels of audibility (think I just made that word up).
"Mitch Prescott, I own this place. You having a good time?"
"Yeah, a fine time," I answer with as much sincerity as I can muster.
"Look you guys look a little tired, you fellas drive here?"
"Yeah," I looked down shamefully.
"Well how bout this I'll get Joe at the bar over there to call you guys a cab, we're closing up in about ten minutes so it should be here by the then."
I looked at the other two. No one seemed to be inclined to make a decision.
"Sounds good. Thank you. Really like the place by the way, Wayne."
He looks confused but rolls with it, " Oh well thanks, anything else I can help you guys with?"
"Yeah, I think I'd lose this band."

doom beckons from around the corner

2010-04-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

Walks out the door; still smiling, smelling of her. cigarettes and perfume. Still can do no wrong.

Still smiling, blasting that October song like a soundtrack on the breeze, down the street, hoping it creeps in through her window for a second. (moron teenage misfit)

Driving, still smiling, shaking off the sleeplessness and alcohol grip you find yourself in, hoping for a minute of invincibility.
Sleep- after the adrenaline dies and soft goodbyes. Dragging out digital volleys just to see if you can still stand me.

Still smiling.
Soul slowly sinking. Not sure why.
Fast foward to the end in my head of a girl filled with sympathy/regret but bored to death. of me.

Still smiling while doom sings it's siren song just around the bend.
Relax.
And hope she's still smiling when you talk to her again.

The Long Forgotten Prom Queen of Ridgewood High Class of '79

2010-04-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

Another new, Sunday morning stare down with that old judgemental sun burning back at me like it's asking "what are you doing up so early?"
But I'm not alone standing on the platform while I wait for a train to drag me away from the same old stupid suburb and slither down the coast line.
First there's a nice, young couple dressed in perfectly neat jogging gear, surely on their way to do nice, young things. For a minute I wonder what I could have done differently to end up looking so nice and fresh on a Sunday morning instead of an unkempt mess who looks like he just crawled out of an ashtray.
Then a group of Mexicans ride up on their bicycles. They're laughing and rapidly shooting insults in Spanish at each other. I start wondering if it's racist to think that they're probably going to work. Then I feel like a shit because they probably are going to work while a brat like me is just trying to get home to sleep off the contamination of the night before.
Then a few small groups of people in black coats and baseball caps start filling up the scenery.
But there's one woman who sticks out in the forefront of the shot. You can tell she's pretty but she looks like she's been losing rounds against time. She's decked out in a short brown dress with black stockings, peppered with runs and a stray hole, that go all the way down to a worn looking pair of black leather boots that were probably expensive when they still had a tag on them. She's shivering a little and bringing her long painted fingertips to her fading red lips to take a drag off her cigarette. I make a bet with myself that it's menthol, I don't' know why. Then she runs the other hand through her black/grayish Brillo hair and flips on a pair of dark glasses that seem to cover half her face.
So the joke is that I may look the mess, hair tossed in ten directions, clothes wrinkled, and of course the stale taste in my mouth of a few drinks the night before. But otherwise I feel fine. I feel good. For once I'm waiting for an AM weekend train without any hangover or lingering doubts about things I might have done or said the night before. No frantic scrolls through the SENT MESSAGES menu on the phone to make sure I didn't accidentally end a friendship or scare off a girl. Nope, my conscience is clear.
Don't know about hers.
0

Drowning in the Atlantic (DeadFlowersPractice)

2010-04-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

"So what's her name again?"
"Anne," I answered flatly.
"Anne Kennedy?" Calvin sprung up.
"Yes, it's Anne Kennedy, the girl you took the prom ten years ago who moved to Nebraska with her girlfriend, she came back and now works as a hostess at the diner, is somehow, miraculously three years younger than she was when she left, is straight now, and I'm trying to get a date with her, but I didn't bring up the fact that we went to school together for nine years because I figured it would freak her out."
"Oh yeah she moved."
"Yeah she's gone."
It was late and I was tired. I was always fucking tired.
Calvin couldn't sleep and he wanted to talk.
He was smoking and the blue plumes of smoke made their way over to me and all I could think about it how much I missed cigarettes.
"So what are you going to do?"
"Yeah, look I don't really want to talk about this because I'm going to think about it, over-analyze it, or it's going to sound stupid out-loud or whatever and I'm going to get embarrassed, so can we please just leave it alone?" I pleaded.
"Well I just want to ask one question," Calvin pleaded back.
"Fine, what?"
"I mean is this like something you just are thinking about doing, like asking her out or does it seem like she's into you?"
"Um," I had to stop and think about that for a minute. There's something to be said for living in your own little bubble where the only questions that surface are ones born of your own neurosis, "I don't know, man, can't we just drop this? What's going on with you? How do we always end up on me?"
"Well let me just ask you this.."
"No, no more just asking me this, let's just change the subject."
"Did you get her number?"
At this point I realized there was no point in arguing with him and the only defense I could think of was to be completely childish: "Well let's just say I'll never kiss a gun street girl again."
"What?"
"The minister's daughter's in love with a snake."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm just going to talk in lyrics until you change the subject."
Calvin retreated back to his cigarette and a creepy grin crawled across his stubbly face, 'Hey buddy, it's gonna be alright."
It was then that I came to the conclusion that from here on in I will only deal with people I know after first achieving a proper buzz.

six or seven

2010-03-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

Chasing down the man in the rose colored glasses, lungs filled with smoke and random aches and pains.
"Hey man," he says "have a seat," and he sits down on a bench in the park.
Dim blue neons crawl across our faces.
"I can't sleep anymore. I feel like I've been awake for a month,"
"Yeah?"
"I think I'm hallucinating,"
"Hallucinating what?"
"Hallucinating everything. Seeing things, hearing things, feeling things."
"Feeling things?"
"Yeah, like aches and pains I think I'm dying."
"That's kind of weird."
"Yeah I know, and I can't tell if it's real or not."
"Well what do you want from me?"
"I want you to leave me alone."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with this?"
"I'm angry all the time, I cant' sleep, I'm afraid of everyone and everything, I think that is covered under your umbrella."
"I suppose that's fair."
"So if you would please leave me alone."
"I wouldn't worry about it."
"Why?"
"Well the old time thing."
"What old time thing?"
"Time is all relative, so this has all happened already, everything has already happened and is happening right now. You're alive in your best moment and your worst moment and being born and dying all at once. So none of this really matters. If it's even happening at all."
"Oh." I didn't really have anything to say after that.

and on and on and on

2010-03-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

I feel like fashioning a giant stake to drive through the heart of this week. Rotten Sunday bastard bleeding slow. March. Warm enough to give you a little hope on the breeze but it's still cold.
I want to hire October to kill march.
I feel draining-ly miserable. It's like fucking exhausting.
I also realize I've been trying to describe misery off and on for the last 10 years.
It always feel like a brand new gut shot. Like there's something lurking and you spend the day trying to distract yourself from it but you know it's there but if you don't acknowledge it maybe it'll go away. Of course it's like trying to get through the day ignoring a gunblast to the shoulder, but maybe if you drive around or go for a walk or take off in the middle of the night it'll somehow magically evaporate.
But there's nowhere to go.
I don't want to be here but I can't really think of anywhere particularly better to be. Everything kind of seems sad everywhere I can think of. Can drive around the same old streets or highways sit and stare at the ocean or fantasize about that old midnight jailbreak airplane that'll land me somewhere far away and quiet. Where all the noise will be new. But it's all a fantasy.
I almost did it this week.
Almost.
It's always almost.
Freaked.
Yikes is this turning into a 17-year old's angst-ridden live journal?
I don't' know.
It's a rotten thing being constantly aware of how you sound or what you think or how you feel. Especially when you need to foolishly spout off about it.
Oh Jesus sometimes I can't keep it to myself.
Fucking weak willed ninny.
And sometimes you just aim for tearing everything down in one swing.
Wrecking ball.
Like somehow everything is going to be better on the other side of it.
But it's not. It's not yet anyway.
This'll all fade.
Sooner or later.
It feels like forever right now. I'm at least smart enough, now, to know this moment will get blurrier and there'll be fresh new hells on the horizon.
But that doesn't do a shit ton for me now.
Ugh and then it gets worse.
Then you try to verbalize it or relate it and it just sounds like the most boring minutia that's ever been spun and you realize you're living in some kind of glue trap lined with miserably grim pop songs and you can't tell anymore if they're helping you deal with something or if they're actually dictating how you feel.
But now I gotta figure out how to pull myself out of it.
I don't know how to do that, I thought working on something madly, all through the night would help, but it's still there.
At the very least I think I'm probably done trying to spew nonsense and drivel that sounds like a rational thought about how to climb out of this dizzy sludge pit.
and so on and so on.

Suffer All the Walrye

2010-03-02T19:12:00.000-08:00

So I got home from nowhere in particular. It was late and I wanted to go to bed but my ears were ringing and my head had slipped into that weird desperation where every nerve is vibrating and your brain is sunk in some blue cocktail of frustration, confusion and love and whatever other deliberate emotions rear themselves when you can hardly tell if you're awake anymore.
Wow that bed looks good. I just want to drop my head into a pillow and wake up sometime in the future, and I don't mean tomorrow. Who wants to wake up tomorrow to daylight where the world slows down with enough time to analyze and compute and wonder. No not tomorrow, I mean some other era, where all these things have already passed. Some futuristic future world that looks like the future is supposed to look like. Where David Bowie is a prophet and walruses play an important role in everyday life. Maybe they have an ambassador. The Walrus Ambassador. Or maybe people just ride walruses around, maybe the world has sunk into the ocean and the only way to get around is hop on the walrus saddle and glide from glacier to glacier. Maybe the walruses can fly. A future of flying walruses. Maybe it's their time to shine all ruby eyed and white fanged. A world full of red-eyed Walrye gliding underwater, slashing through the skies and worshiping David Bowie.
Or whatever.
RIght now it sounds better than tomorrow.

Past Newark and Already Drunk

2010-02-17T11:30:00.001-08:00

It's too late now pal.
I already feel like I'm made of glass and I'm just waiting for the inflated sense of self confidence to kick in.
No point in making this trip if I just came here to see sights.
The same old songs blasting in my ears.
Trying to stay interested in a book while the guy sitting across from me with the small kids flashes me a dirty look every time I lift the can shielded in a paper bag to my lips.
LIke somehow his kids are going to watch me sipping a beer and remember that "really cool guy on the train" and raid the liquor cabinet.
Fuck him, I put the book away and go back to the window.
I pick out a song: Fairytale of New York
There's still some Christmas lights out on some of the apartments and stores so it almost feels appropriate.
Like the end of a movie or something.
Or maybe the down turn before the happy ending.
I guess that's kind of what I hope it is.
Nah, this is too dramatic.
Something else.
Eh, just shuffle.
Any Dylan, Tom Waits or Nick Cave murder ballad about scary women and roaming will do at this point.
And I'll just keep watching the lights streak by and hope I don't get too tired before the night even gets started.
And just when everything feels right.
"Hey buddy, last stop you got to get off" the ticket ripper says slowly and deliberate just in case I don't speak English.
Oh well.
Maybe I'll get it right on the way back.

Agent Crowley and the Mailman

2010-02-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

I knew something was wrong because I couldn't stop calling everyone "Agent Crowley" and I had no idea why. The mail man, Gene or Pat or something, I can never remember his name was the biggest victim of this curse. He'd hand me the mail and I'd say "thanks there Agent Crowley" and shoot him with my forefinger like pals do. I don't think he found it amusing but I couldn't really help myself. I also started referring to my cats as Agent Crowley: "Wattsamatta Agent Crowley? You hungry?" stuff like that, I figured I'd just picked it up from some television show or movie that I fell asleep to and didn't really think about it.

About a week later I went out to get the mail, and I should probably explain that I hate the mail because it's usually bills or some kind of bad news. Maybe, occasionally, like when Netflix comes, I'm looking forward to it, but usually it's just a credit card or a phone or car insurance or the town or the hospital looking for money from me. However, today I wasn't really thinking about it. Somehow my trip to the mailbox perfectly coincided with Agent Crowley arriving in his mail truck.

"Hey there pal" he greeted me sunnily, "you know that Harry Potter book and Richie Tennenbaum sunglasses you ordered are sitting by the doorstep over there," he motioned with his head, "they've been there for like two days surprised you didn't notice 'em since you've been waiting for them for two weeks."

"Oh yeah" I said casually noticing the small box drenched with melting snow, "huh," I turned back to Gene or Pat or whatever, "what you got for me?"

He handed me a heavy stack of envelopes, no junk mail in here, just envelopes that said things like 'Geico' 'Meridian Health' 'At&t' and 'Chase'. I rolled my eyes: "That it?" I asked.

"No, actually" he leaned out of his truck a little to get a look behind him and then cautiously whispered: "just to let you know, there's a monster roaming around down the street."

I looked at him for a moment waiting for the punchline: "A monster?" I finally asked.

"Yeah, keep your voice down, just so you know, be careful Agent Crowley" he shot his finger at me and drove off.

I thought little of this, too distracted by the bills and that sinking feeling of impending poverty that leads to other sunny thoughts like "Where did I go wrong?" and "How come my friends seem to be able to get on in this life so easily?" so I sat around and sulked until noon happened, and then I made myself a sandwich and read yesterday's sports page. The winter is a bleak time for sports. Writers ringing out every boring story from the last week of football like a slimy dishrag and trying to drudge up any possible stories from spring training. I didn't' even bother finishing any stories, I just chewed my sandwich and glanced over some story about job creation.

It started snowing. Again.

Everything was already covered in white, and it was the kind of grey-day that looked like it might start raining or snowing again, but this was a heavy snow, one that the trusted weather center at weather.com told me not expect until Saturday. "Well, they're just lucky I don't have anywhere to go today or they'd be getting a slice of my mind in their inbox" I thought.

I dropped the paper and gazed outside, there's something peaceful about heavy snow as long as you're not driving in it or walking in it, or outside in general I guess. Through the windows of the warm confines in a house you didn't pay for with a nice heat floating through the air though it's quite lovely.

Then I saw something. A giant black figure pass by the window on the street. It made my stomach sink because as soon as I saw it I knew there was something unnatural going on. I sprung from my seat and tried get a better view from another window but I saw nothing. So I sat back down and assumed it must have been a car or anything else. Then I saw a shadow float on the floor from the window behind me. I turned around to see a giant, and I mean like 12 feet high giant, hooded figure looking in the window. Well I'm assuming it was looking, I couldn't make out a face.

I sprang from my chair and out the back door, bathrobe wildly flailing in the wind, work boots ready to fall off my feet. The heavy snow dusting the ground the made it slippery and I fell and banged my knee on the cold ground. I thought about the cats I'd left behind in the house, but they were on their own, they were cunning enough to get out of sight for hours on end when the vacuum came out so I would assume they could fall into their emergency hiding spots now that an honest to God monster had presented itself in the middle of the day.

I made it to the woods behind the house and stopped behind a tree to evaluate if the monster was still coming after me.
"Agent Crowley?" a low voice droned behind me.
"Oh God" I turned around slowly, too panicked to take off again, "Yes?"
"hello," he pulled his hood back slowly to reveal a balding head with a shock of white hair towards the back of his skull, it was Gene or Pat or whatever, the mailman.
"How did you get 12 feet tall?"
"Nevermind that now, I'm here for a reason," he smiled, but in a way that told me he had regrettable news.
"what? What is it?"
"I'm here to take you to see AVATAR," he said somberly.
"But, but I don't' really want to see AVATAR" I answered nervously.
"I know that, but you really should see it on the big screen or else you'll never be able to properly judge it," he reached out his hand, "now c'mon let's go I'll buy."
"But, can't we, I don't' know, can't I just wait for cable? I'll make sure I watch it on an HDTV, I may even have one by then ya know?"
"I'm afraid that won't do, and besides we both know you'll still have that little shit box you're watching now until it breaks. No you have to see it in the theater I'm afraid, though, don't worry you may like it, you see it's about a primitive culture, you know like Native Americans."
We started walking off, the snow stopped falling but everything was painted white by it.
"Can't we just go to something else? Even that Mel Gibson movie that looks like shit? Just until after the Oscar buzz has died down at least?"
"Nope.Sorry Agent Crowley."

Porno Winter

2010-01-28T19:53:00.000-08:00

I just deleted everyting. I'm kind of sick of the sight of my voice. (get it? clever right).
Sallinger is dead which is kind of weird because I figured 1.He's been dead for 15 years and it would just never be announced as to enhance his already bizarre legacy. or 2. He was never actually going to die.
But he did, at least according to his agent or publicist, probably agent I don't think he's ever needed a publicist, and let's hope this doesn't mean that we're going to see Catcher in the Rye, or any of his other works for that matter, rushed into production with whatever glossed over fleeb they can pluck from the Twilight cast to skulk through Holden Caufield and dillute it for future generations.
Oh but what the fuck do I care really?
I've got all kinds of other worries about the future.
Wait. Let's just no bother about all that, aye?

ok.
Yeah the present is just as scary a place.
My friend texted me today something to the extent of "not having any luck with ladies lately" and he might as well have been speaking for me.
Yep.
It's a porno winter.

Might as well ride it out and wait for the spring.
I hate to optimistic about anything as cliche-drenched as a season change, but usually around this time of year you can start to smell a little spring in the air, and I get a little anxious for nights that I can hope to spend drunk and listening to vinyl while a thunderstorm starts kicking up beyond the screens.
That's what I'm aiming for right now.
The present is a scary place.

Post Holiday Depression/(Getting Over Sex)

2010-01-05T13:35:00.000-08:00

There is a moment after the holidays when I decide I am going to leave certain Christmas lights up all year. Not so much for the festiveness but just because I like falling asleep to yellows and blues and twinkling white lights. Maybe my parents were staring into space or at the sun while I was conceived, though I'd rather not think about such things.
I bet two of my friends on New Years Eve in 1999 that one of us wouldn't survive the decade. Well so much for that,not that I didn't come close a few times, though I think that whole morbid idea spawned out of the fact that a few people my age had died rather suddenly around that time, not so much out of any attunement to the spirit world.
Nope everyone for the most part is still on the ride and I'm starting to adjust myself to the idea that 2000 is no longer part of the modern era, that sitting at home and watching Netflix on a Saturday has become just as common as going out getting drunk and ending up at a diner until 6am, or, in better cases, creeping out of some girl's house as the sun comes up with an overtired, disheveled feeling of invincible excitement. Been a while since that feeling has popped up.
And that feeling isn't really rooted in sex, well maybe but it's not all about sex because I've had just as many times driving home afterwards cursing myself as an idiot. So let's agree that's some of it is the sex but some of it, most of it I think, is the naivete of thinking that you met someone you're going to cling to for an extended chunk of your years.
But as you get older and the number in the decade turns over yet again that all dissolves, and maybe it bubbles up every once in a while in the right state of delirium but now it's easier to squash should things go south.
And there's other considerations now that I'm older, grossly out of shape, and off my first overnight hospital stay. The fact is that for the foreseeable future I feel like it would probably be better for my state of mind that if I have to have sex I should probably save it for someone I'm not all that in to.
Now this really has nothing to do with any veiled attempt to spare my feelings or the old, tired cliche of "not wanting to get hurt". I actually did say something like that to a girl once and if I could travel through time and kick myself in the temple to spare myself that cringe inducing memory I certainly would. No, my reasoning here, behind having sex with someone I don't like, would be that there is a fair chance I might drop dead the next time I do take that deep sea saltwater plunge and while I know it's popular for guys to say that that is the way to go but I certainly don't want to leave someone I care about with the lasting image of me clenching up and going into a death gaze while I stiffly collapse on them and they spend half an hour screaming hoping the maid or the police can break down the door and pull this stiffening behemoth off before she suffocates. No sir, that's the kind of thing you want to save for someone you could care less about.

But in the end that's the trick. Getting over sex. Choosing tv or books over bars or clubs or bookstores or wherever the fuck people meet. I almost put "wherever the fuck people meet nowadays" but I think I'll hold off on that language until I have to take my teeth out at night and soak them and ask people to scratch my back because I can't reach it. Getting old is fucking weird, but you don't really get old, things just change. I mean physically yes your hair gets thinner, your ass gets bigger your skin starts to sag like Obama's popularity (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA TIMELY HUMOR!!!) but who gives a shit? According to several reliable sources there's always someone out there who will fuck you, which I'm not completely sold on but I'm getting closer to believing it. So once the panic of that is taken out of the equation what else is there to sweat? Money,health, happiness I guess? I don't know. Right now it looks like 2010 will be the year I burn out my DVD player from over use and line my pockets with money I saved from not jumping at every chance to dive into some evening chasing every elusive bird who ever sent a kind eye my way.
We'll see.

Michael Jackson, History

2009-12-29T21:32:00.001-08:00

So I was going through some old folders on the hard drive and found this thing I wrote the night Michael Jackson died. I never posted it because it's self serving garbage, but I re-read it and I kind of like it through the scope of 6 months. So I'm posting it.

Michael Jackson is dead.
That cute as a button kid who danced in front of his brothers and kicked out some funkiest shit known to earth in the 70's, the young man with a scowl, moon-walking in a red leather jacket and studded glove through the 80's, the increasingly pale fellow who started donning masks, married Elvis' daughter, dangled his baby off a balcony, and had painfully uncomfortable encounters with children whether he touched them or not, all those guys are gone.
There is surely an avalanche building as we speak of horror stories that will start coming out over the weeks, months and years to come. Books by those close to him. Lawyers, Doctors, Agents will all have stories about the complexities of this man as well as tales of weirdness on an epic scale.
I mean the stuff that got out while he was alive, like the Jesus juice, the oxygen tanks, and bigger than life Peter Pan complex, was weird enough, but there is surely some buzzard just waiting to expose the dirty secrets of this poor bastard after the initial grieving period is over.
Right now everyone fondly remembers Thriller-era Michael.
Michael Jackson was the 80's just as much as Elvis was the 50's. In the end the King of Rock'n Roll and the King of Pop might have turned out to be a little more alike than originally thought. While Elvis might have been more extroverted, even in his declining years playing shows and making light of his appearance, Michael amidst court cases,controversies and mutations, hid in his ranch/amusement park until the government took it away. Both of them were on top of the world, and indisputably the best, and most innovative in their field in their prime, and both saw their creativity and popularity wane in later years and began showing signs of erratic behavior. Elvis shot television sets and filmed young girls in their underwear having pillow fights, Michael had slumber parties with kids and fed them wine. And of course was accused of other daliances.
So why are there people crying in the streets doing bad accapella versions of his songs? Leaving flowers outside of the Apollo Theater? Why has a cynical bastard like me, who can't remember the last time I even thought about Michael Jackson beyond maybe blasting Billie Jean or Thriller should I hear it on the radio care? (I should also confess that I always really liked The Way You Make Me Feel off Bad too, that would probably be my Top 3 not including Jackson 5 material Michael Jackson songs). Alright maybe I might have done the Thriller Dance (badly) at Halloween parties.

I think some of it comes down to age. I can remember 1984 a little. Not vividly but enough to know that certain things burned themselves into my psyche: Ronald Reagan was President, and Michael Jackson was the biggest musician in the world. It's why, even though I later learned shitty things about Ronald Reagan I felt a little sad when he died. It wasn't so much being sad for the man, maybe just a sick realization of "that was fucking 20 years ago". Some people suggest it might have something to do with a part of your childhood being gone, and I think I bought into that for about 10 minutes, but in the end that is probably just neurtoic armchair psychiatric bullshit. I think I do buy into the "realization of one's own mortality" neurotic armchair psychiatric bullshit much more.
So I don't want to watch the news or any of the entertainment shows that will surely keep this feeding frenzy going for the next 20 years, beating us over the head with unearthed EXLCUSIVES. Surely the following sentence will be uttered in the next week: Michael Jackson "What you didn't know!" And who would be suprised if this turned out to be some kind of elaborate hoax? It won't be long before the "Michael faked his own death and is living as a waffle maker in Belgium" rumors start spinning.
But there's bigger things going on in the world than the death of a pop star. Iran is shooting protesters and North Korea is claiming they want to reign down hellfire on everybody. There's big things going on.
But Michael Jackson was big. Big enough for the networks to clear their schedules for the evening, big enough to block out news that Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon died this week too. I mean the title of this thing is a lyric from a U2 song. That's pretty big.
Ultimately he was a great entertainer who turned into great entertainment. He morphed from the biggest pop star in the world into a rolling punchline for hack comedians and an endless blood supply for vampiric pseudo-journalists and while I'm sorry he died I have no intention of drinking a beer or lighting a candle or spouting some kind of over-earnest sentimental garbage about the man. He was a singer who was also a weird queer who may have had the best of intentions but couldn't help but come off creepy over the last 15 or so years. The real sad thing is that he may have never even realized it.

NIc Cage is the Best Medicine

2009-12-06T19:44:00.000-08:00

Nicolas Cage is in a new movie called Bad Lieutenant: Port Of New Orleans, or something like that. Now if you've ever seen Bad Lieutenant, with Harvey Kietel you know it was a weird, violent, insane little movie whether you liked it or not. So you can imagine my queasiness at finding out some remake with Cage and his Ghost Rider flame Eva Mendes is about to come out, produced by no less an eternal spring of creative integrity than MTV. Even the fact that Val Kilmer was lending his Jim Morrisoness to the project did little to make me think it was going to be any good.
Well I haven't seen the movie, but I read Ebert's review, and beyond what he thought of the movie (he gave it four stars) he told a few things Cage's character does in the film: namely robbing drug dealers, shooting heroin (I think it was heroin), and raping a suspects girlfriend, which pretty much convinced me that at the very least we weren't dealing with some crisply shot, shoot em' up "This guy is a BAD Lieutenant" remake or reimagining or whatever scummy designation they want to give it to cover up the fact that it's a regurgitation. To be honest I don 't know why they needed to pull the name off Kietel's little gem from almost 20 years ago, but whatever, I'm not here to talk about franchising rights. Maybe there'll be Bad Lieutenant combo meals at Arby's; that's none of my business.

However, it did remind me to a point, this movie that I haven't seen only read a review about, that when he wants to, Nicolas Cage can act. This is a lesson I re-learn every once in a while when I notice the dusty copy of Adaptation sitting in my DVD shelf. "Oh yeah" I'll think as skip right by it and pop in a George Carlin disc yet again.

But whatever, that's not the point either I'm not here to shit on Nicolas Cage or call him a sellout or say he's wasted his talent and has been secretly controlled for the last 12 or 13 years by an alien that lives in his hair piece. Oh no. I'm here to sing his praise and thank him.

Perhaps I should preface this. I've probably written something along these lines before but bear with me. Actually hold on for a minute I have to cancel an appointment with my eye doctor tomorrow morning.

Ok. So I have a whole criteria for movies that can render them a second chance in my life as a "Going to Bed Movie". It took a while for me to find exactly what made a good movie to act as white noise while I drift off into the terrible terrible dreams that haunt my sleep. Early movies that didn't make the cut were films that I really enjoyed "Seven" "Rushmore" "Taxi Driver" "The Royal Tennenbaums" nothing worked. I'd hit a certain point in the film and I'd be hooked.

But then I found the Muhammad Ali of Sleep Movies, Roland Emmerich's beautiful gift to mankind: Independence Day. My comprehension and near obsession with this film could probably be seen as one of the reasons why I usually don't have a girlfriend, but fuck that these things need to be studied and if I have to sacrifice some hoo-hah so that future generations have a better understanding of art, then so be it.

I fucking hated Independence Day when I first saw it. Great they blew up the Empire State building. The Capital and Capitol Records (what devious irony). Will Smith provided a nice, safe black man, a RAPPER, for white children to look up to and emulate. Jeff Goldblum showed how funny Jewish people can be, and as far as I can tell Randy Quaid played himself.

But let me tell you something, no film, none, has ever felt like a warm blanket protecting me from the evil night like this shit bomb. In the last 5 years I wouldn't be surprised if I've seen this movie, in pieces, at least a hundred times. If they took this show to Broadway, and stayed to true to the source material, I guarantee I could handily win either Robert Loggia's or Judd Hirsch's role over the most seasoned of thespians.

I can fall asleep at any point in the film, however if it's just started I prefer to be out by the time those poor bastards in the helicopter with the flashing lights get blown out of the sky by that menacing turquoise light, because I tend to find myself trying to decipher exactly what those flashing lights could possibly mean.
Otherwise, they could replace every actor, every special effect, every moronic piece of dialogue, with digitally enhanced sheep jumping over a fence because it has the same effect on me, but that is only because I can turn it on at any point and either watch it all the way through, or fall asleep because I know the biggest thrill I'm likely to get out of it is the feeling of an ice cold cringe starting in my ass and shooting to the back of my neck when Randy sacrifices himself to save the dullards who managed to survive and yells "Alrigth you alien assholes, in the words of my generation UP YOURS"

So yes, I'm simultaneously shitting on this movie and praising it, because somehow, Emmerich, who has never before or since shown any capability of doing much of anything, has here managed to make a film that finds the exact balance of something that is just entertainingly shitty enough to pay attention to, and a garbled, cliche-drenched mess that can be ignored.

Independence Day may be the all time heavyweight champion but Nicolas Cage is the pope of sleep movies. His early ground breaking work in this genre would be his late 90's/ early 00's Trilogy of "The Rock" "Con Air" and "Gone in 60 Seconds". Now, I know what you're thinking: No National Treasure? No National Treasure: Book of Secrets? No, no, no my friend, I haven't forgotten about these mud covered diamonds. But I think we all know there will be a third National Treasure, assuming that Helen Mirren didn't smother Nic, and the rest of the heroes to death with her tits at the end of Book of Secrets, since I have yet to make it to the end of that one I can't say for sure. But there's no way that happened. If I even sensed that there was a chance of Mirren-tit I would have hung in there.

So surely National Treasure: The Secret of Thomas Jefferson Bastard Children can't be far off. So I'm not getting into that right now, though they are important films in the Cage Canon.

Yes, it took a 4 day jag in the ICU for me to re-appreciate the original Cage-Trilogy. But being, unnecessarily confined to a bed on a Saturday night, knowing there is a world out there that doesn't include an old man in the next room, who only seemed to wake up at night, yelling "help" in a wheezy gasp, gave me some perspective.

You can imagine my excitement finding out that USA was going CAGE CRAZY (my words not theirs) with all three films, and even though bastardized with edits and commercials I couldn't really ask for more.

Gone in 60 Seconds started it off, this is a movie I would go as far to say I kind of like. Sure it's really nothing more than a group of guys confusing cars for pussy (admittedly "confusing cars for cunts" was a nice alliteration, but I'm trying to be classy here). There is a lot of soft porn dialogue about classic cars, they even name the cars with stripper names, and no less than Angelina JOlie, fresh off an Oscar, and pre-raising a small African Village in West Hollywood, is the only thing not gas powered that can get ol' Nic's dick stiff. But it's even got Robert Duvall, and I have a hard time hating anything he's in. It's kind of a happy little ridiculous movie.

I almost have the same synopsis of the Rock. I saw it in the theater and I liked it. It's completely stupid but I like it. Everyone has a friend that's an idiot and this is mine. I've seen the Rock alot. I owned it on VHS;stolen from West Coast Video in New Milford from the $7.99 bin. But it is a stupid movie. The first scene we meet Cage's Dr. Stanely Goodspeed in he's uber-excited about the $600 original pressing of Meet the Beatles he's ordered and this really sets the tone. He even goes as far to overstate the point when questioned about the lavishness of this purchase: "I ordered it for two reason, 1. Because I am Beatle Maniac and 2. because these (LPs) sound better". This is supposed to make him instantly likable to us. "HEY THIS GUY LIKES THE BEATLES! HE PREFERS LP'S! HE'S AN OLD FASHIONED KIND OF GUY TRYING TO AVOID BEING SWALLOWED UP BY MODERN TECHNOLOGY! I IDENTIFY. I FIND THE MUSIC OF THE BEATLES AUDIBLY PLEASING AS WELL! I AM GOING TO ROOT FOR THIS FELLOW NO MATTER WHERE THIS ADVENTURE TAKES HIM!" Yes, thank God Sean Connery shows up and says things like "Losers try their best, winner's go home and fuck the prom queen". Ed Harris broods for an hour and half before getting his guts blown out and in what I honestly believe must be a Michael Bay penned line passes through the mouth of the man who took home the Best Actor Oscar the year before: "how in the name of Zeus' butthole did you get out of your cell?" Yes. This one is magic. I liked it. Fuck Transformers, fuck Bad Boys and really fuck Armageddon, (it's actually amazing that I haven't included that fucking dumpster sludge of a movie in this conversation, but it isn't really a going to bed movie, I tried to do that twice and both times I stayed up and watched the whole 2 hours plus and listened to Aerosmith cry all over the credits and stayed up the rest of the night questioning life.)

And then there is Con Air. I probably should have started here because I feel like I might have burned myself out. Ok, this might be all I have to say about Con Air: "Why wouldn't you put the bunny down?". Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Dave Chappelle. Never before has such talent been assembled for whatever the hell happens here. For starters it's the only movie John Cusack has ever been in that he isn't longing over a woman. He also wears sandals and socks throughout. Steve Busemi plays the voice of reason/child killer and we're supposed to get all happy because he gets away at the end because he managed to cure himself by having a tea party with a little girl without skinning her. I guess I could go on but who gives a shit? The real star of this movie is Nicolas Cage's one-chromosome-short-of-drooling-on-himself slow southern drawl. It wears on you almost immediately, as the opening sequence unfolds he's reading his fucking crayon scribbled letters to his stupid daughter, slinging cliche ridden drivel in his borderline Forrest Gump accent. And the aforementioned bunny line. That was like his tough guy moment? However, the fact that someone watched that and went "Perfect! We got it. Great take Nic" makes me think maybe I'm beng too harsh. Then there is my favorite moment at the end, no not when Cyrus "the Virus" somehow gets thrown from the main drag of Las Vegas to a rock quarry that is apparently somewhere between Cesars and Ballys, no that's perfectly fine, I mean when Cage tells Cusack that "now there's three men I trust" and they shake hands. This is a callback to an earlier scene where Cage tells him there are only two men he trusts: "One's me the other's not you" so now at the end, after all they've been through, there are three men he trusts: Himself, Not John Cusack and John Cusack. I think that about sums it up.

So as I lay in my hospital bed, turning down the nurse's offer for a Xanax to help me sleep and trying forget about the insane tab one accumulates while being hooked up to heart monitors and brought drugs every hour you might ask: did I make it through all three? You bet Helen Mirren's sweet tits I didn't.

Somewhere in the Future with Bob Dylan

2009-11-23T21:26:00.000-08:00

In the future somewhere, there is a funeral parlor with a closed casket and Bod Dylan's voice creaking over what will likely be an inferior speaker for such an event, while a professional man with a white carnation on his lapel checks his watch to see how much time until he has to start ferrying people out so they can prepare for the next service.
It's all very depressing this death anticipation that tends to grab me from time to time, and it's not in the sense that I was in the hospital for a four day jag, listening to the man in the next room, who only seemed to wake up in the middle of the night to cry out "help" in a dry voice and wondering if all the monitors I was hooked up to would suddenly scramble into some kind of electronic, bleeping anarchy just as the lights fade and all the sounds get warped and whatever happens after that happens. Whether that's an angry, vengeful God waiting there with numchuks to beat me into oblivion for being a skeptic, or some kind of eternal reward, or maybe even the worst: inky, black nothingness, I don't know, and to be quite honest I don't really want to think about that right now.
And I don't really want to think about any of it, but I once again find myself over tired and my "shuffle song" playlist seems to be leaning towards the morbid.
I thought I was over this whole thing, but then "In My Life" kicks on.
Supposedly they played that at Cobain's service, so of course I've insisted in some shoddily written, non-leagally binding will I scribbled down that probably won't be found until 4 years after I'm dead, that it be played at mine.
Anyway, I'm sick of waiting around with nervous energy wondering which internal organ will start spouting blood, or where the tumor is going to pop up, or if my heart is going to slow down or just explode this time. Or you know the insane fear that somehow I'm going to be crushed or trapped, or murdered, or the immediacy of a car accident that leave the steering wheel crushed in your chest. I can hear how that sounds, just the crunch of the metal and plastic bending. It sounds fake, but the next thing you realize once you get your wits is that it actually did happen.
Yeah all that.
All that is never too far from getting prime time slots in the frontal lobe.
Brutal miserable thoughts. The kind of thing miserable teenagers who can't get dates should be thinking about before they go to college and realize they're really good at science.
Well I'm not good at science, so maybe that's why I never shed some of this teen angst bullshit.
Of course, it comes and goes. Other times I don't really give a fuck. Whatever will be will be.
The story gets ugly on all sides. I'm afraid of the future which is stupid because I don't even know if I'm going to be in it.
I'm afraid of living on an overheated rock with the oceans in my living room while President Palin is on television letting me know that she's going to lob some cruise missles all over the globe because being America means doing whatever the fuck you want and never having to say sorry, while dozens of people you see at the super market pump their fists and chant USA, USA. But of course she does it in a cute, folksy way.
It'll be serious times in the future.
They'll be no music, or expression, or fun.
That's what the future looks like to me some days.
That's what it looked like to me today.
I guess there's always tomorrow.

everything quiet on the long trail outside

2009-11-18T16:17:00.000-08:00

at 9:30 he decided to stop. he couldn't remember the last time he put this amount of effort into a singular project without blaring distractions about other things pecking away at him. Some jazz quietly waffled across the breeze running through the house. His hands were stained with marker streaks, a bi-product of the drawings he unleashed on the poster boards in front of him. He wasn't an artist, never had any real propensity to draw, or create, but he found the package of poster boards, someone must have left them in the house, and he had the magic markers, and he couldn't think of a whole lot else to do with his time.

The girl would have been proud of him but she was gone now and probably not coming back. Something felt funny about having her around constantly so he started an argument. At first she thought he was kidding when he complained that she must have eaten all the Kosher Dill pickles he enjoyed on his sandwiches. He griped about this for several minutes before he began violently pulling items from the refrigerator and throwing them to the floor in between shouts of calling her "selfish" and a "liar". It didn't take long for the girl to leave, promising to return when he wanted to "call to say he was sorry". As of now he hadn't called and had no intention of doing so. He liked the girl but it seemed like he got more done without her there.

Now that the squeaks of the markers had ceased the silence in the house was in stereo. He peered his eyes back and forth as if to make sure he had been alone the whole time. He looked down at his new works spread out across floor amidst full ashtrays, plates of dried up food and dirty laundry. He was working with three colors, green, black and red. When he'd first started making these lines across the white paper he wasn't sure what he was trying to get, and now that he was done, now that he realized he put such effort, such focus, into it he felt that there must be something to it. He studied the wild lines, the shapes, the circles, the boxes he filled in with vicious streaks. He even looked at the quiet spots on the paper, where nothing was filled in. Maybe all this summed him up in some surreal, abstract way, maybe he was just a bundle of noise trapped inside a box, shooting around trying to get into the quiet. Of course it was equally just as possible that he just needed to get outside for a little while.

and finally the truth

2009-11-07T13:55:00.000-08:00

"So you just came back to me because you realized there was nothing better out there?" she asked.
"Actually no, I realized there is a lot better out there than you but I just can't get any of it."

The New Milford Exploding Sewers

2009-10-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

Been that kind of week, where you feel half nuts and scared that whatever shitty mood you're in is going to last the rest of your life. Blood pressure spikes and drops. Old memories stirring the pot. Teenage Angst. Jesus. How fucking old am I?Everyone knows everyone some how, and everyone had it together long before I learned that being a prick was my favorite hat to wear.
Maybe I'm just tired or in failing health, trying to mainline the fall, and build momentum up to some kind of explosively creative breakdown that'll sum up all the shit I've been trying to say for last 20 years. All the God bargains and fresh starts and do overs and new waves of ambition that take you around in long circles until you run back home and try to disappear.
At least there's deep sleep and dreams of fire blasting out of the sewers on the streets of New Milford.

Rocktober Rarrives: Las Vegas, The Batman, and a Slew of Self Indulgent Nonsense I Want to Spew if I'm Ever Going to Contribute Anything to Society

2009-10-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

Ahh. Thank you October for driving a stake through that rotten Indian Summer we were having. Sure I'll miss the 65-70 days and nights that were so beautiful I'd dedicate significant portions of the evening kicking myself for not thinking of better ways to spend them. But I won't miss those occasional 85 degree blasts during the ass-end of September, long after the air conditioner has been disassembled and I've just gotten used to dressing in my super-hero costume of three or four layers and a sweatshirt zipped up to keep it all tucked in just to find out, no it's going to be warm tonight and you're going to look like a nervous pervert sweating and uncomfortable and probably drunk. Not that I can blame the drunk thing on the weather I guess.

No no no, October came running through the gate with a nice cool blast that seemed to come out of nowhere, like someone just fixed the weather machine. Had it been working we would have eased into this. I love the fucking fall. I love all the peripheral bullshit that comes with it: dead leaves, baseball playoffs, football, layers of clothes and blankets, Halloween all of it. I love everyone's dumb facebook status complaining about how cold it is.

But enough of that shit. This whole thing was to purge all the rottenness that's been building up the last month or so. So let's get into some random bullshit and see what sticks to the wall. Starting with:

-I don't know if I like the Germs. I'm listening to them right now, and I'm wondering if that movie "What We Do Is Secret" kind of ruined them for me. I was never huge on them to begin with, but that movie seemed to be doing the same douchey thing they did in the Doors movie with the "Wow man, that is so amazing. It's like you copied your lyrics off God's tongue". You know making the dead guy look like some prophet who just couldn't handle the fame, he just wanted people to like his words. And maybe that's true for all I know, but that doesn't mean it makes a good movie. Of course having said that I loved the Doors movie when I was in my teens and probably even ruined a few bands and friendships by doing stupid drunk shit because I thought Jim Morrison would have done it. But I never claimed that I wasn't a fucking moron. Maybe the Germs cult following will blow up and in 10 years they'll be on Classic Rock radio once an hour, but I kind of doubt it. Anyway the song is over now and I kind of don't care anymore.

-Speaking of Classic Rock Radio and what not I kind of am having a rekindling of my love affair with the Rolling Stones. This happens about once every two years where I listen to Exile on Main St. and for some reason get surprised at how good it is. Or maybe listen to Goat's Head Soup or Some Girls or any of those 70's records and want to start looking for plutonium or try harnessing a bolt of lightning to take my Pontiac back to 1973. Sticky Fingers, however remains the money Stones album in my opinion.

Moving along.

- I am desperately trying to beat this fucking Batman Arkham Asylum game. It's doing serious damage to my psyche, beyond the fact that I'm a 31 year old man, well past his prime, staring at screen for three hours, cursing the batteries in my controller once every 10 minutes, trying to outsmart the fucking Riddler. I will solve all of his puzzles and I'm at the point where I'll use the online walkthroughs if I have to because he must stopped and, perhaps more importantly, I have to stop playing this game. I sometimes find myself unable to sleep wondering what I would have to do to set up my own crimefighting operation here in Brick. The safest town in New Jersey. Of course you never can be too safe can you? I mean I already have a black car and a back entrance to my house. I have a lot of black clothes, and even though I'm far too fat to be taking out 'city criminals' I'm sure I could handle whatever lowball crimials pollute Brick. Especially if I'm sneaking up on them in the dark. I guess I'll have to give it some thought. Either that or beat the game and hopefully never think of it again.

-Las Vegas. The show. NBC ran it for several years this decade, it starred James Caan and bunch of models most who had an acting range that went from smile for "happy" and furrowed brow for angry, confused, or anything that falls under "not happy". The premise of the show is kind of a take off of Casino but trying to look like Oceans 11. It's a pretty terrible show, it's a sexed-up Love Boat in a casino with ridiculous storylines, mostly lame guest stars and shitty effects. James Caan beats the shit out of someone every episode and all the models take turns fucking each other. It's become the preferred show around dinner time in the ol' McGann homestead and having said everything I just did I really can't stop watching it. It's not good, it doesn't get better, I don't particularly like any of the characters, though Vanessa Marecel's "Sam" is getting close to melting my ice-heart, I don't give a shit what happens but I can't stop watching it. Part of this is surely just laziness on my part, another part of this is that I know it got cancelled so I'm somewhat curious to see if it actually got worse, or maybe it started getting good and alienated the audience. And the other reason I watch is that one day, and I know it will happen, when somehow the show comes up in conversation and someone goes: "Oh my God I used to LOVE that show" I have a carefully researched opinion to politely argue the other side with.

What else is bothering me.
Writers' block.
Career
women
life
$$$
Yeah all that shit I guess
but that's nothing new.
I feel better actually.
Purged.
Thanks Blogger page that no one reads.

everything weird/quiet

2009-09-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

There's an alien coming out of the speakers. It sounds like it anyway.
I'm trying to figure out if two characters are going to fuck.
I say fuck not to cheapen it or whatever, if you're more comfortable with terms like "making love" then you're probably an asshole but that's besides the point, because if these two were to have sex it would be fucking, there would no love involved, it would be dirty and very little emotion at all with the possible exception of mutual disgust.
But while I'm trying to figure this out there's an alien crawling through the speaker.
It's actually not your run of the mill slimy, green, wide eyed alien, it's just a sound. My alien is a sound. And it's in the speaker and it wants out.
I think I figured out my little "fucking" problem.
It's coming out weird because it is weird.
There are aliens in the room.
No more shadow faced maniacs grabbing at the doorknobs.
Just weird sounds.
Just aliens.

The ever-evolving funeral setlist

2009-08-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Stevie Ray Vaughan- Little Wing
Nothing against Hendrix's version but this one is longer and instrumental. There's live ones that Hendrix and Vaughan did that would certainly qualify, but they're mostly bootlegged stuff and this is after all a formal session here. I don't want some hackey-low-fi copy burned off Limewire hissing during MY thing.

Here's a few that I really don't feel like I have to say anything about; just kind of dark songs, and you know, it'll be a funeral not a FUNeral. Well maybe it'll be a FUNeral, but there must be a proper amount of misery or hauntings will happen.

Rolling Stones-Moonlight Mile
George Harrison Isn't It a Pity?
Alice in Chains- Nutshell/Rotten Apple
Tom Waits -Anywhere I Lay my Head
Nick Cave-hmmmmm-Lay Me Low? ehhhhhh, nah, how bout Hold Onto Yourself
Radiohead- Life in a Glasshouse
There are probably better examples of songs that sound like a funeral march and kind of get a little eye wink in there about it actually being a funeral but I don't give a fuck. To me this is particularly forceful and should drag some tears out of some of you pricks, especially the second time through the refrain at the end.

U2-Exit
Well maybe just the intro section. Not that there's anything wrong with the rest of it, but it's a little too U2 80's for a funeral, I will not encourage random bursts of standing and clapping and call and response at my fucking funeral.
well maybe I will.

Pearl Jam-Oceans It was kind of between this and Release and then I remembered something.....

Pearl Jam-Release it's my fucking funeral and I can have as much Eddie Vedder as I want. In fact...

Pearl Jam-Yellow Ledbetter 6/26/08 MSG well maybe the studio version would be better, this was from a show I went to with Blumes and while it was really great and all the national anthem at the end is a little not my speed for a death march. I mean I wasn't in the military or anything.

Nirvana-hmmm I guess All Apologies It's kind of a cliche, and maybe I'll think of something better or, RARER so I can show off my Cobain-IQ but album-wise I guess it would be easier to pick something off the Unplugged, maybe Oh Me but that's not even a Nirvana song and I always remember it from one of those weird tribute videos. Ditto for Jesus Don't Want Me For a Sunbeam. Where Did You Sleep Last Night was always my favorite from that show by a mile but that's a little, I don't know, I guess lets go with.....

Nirvana-Where Did you Sleep Last Night? but you can keep the In Utero All Apologies in there too.

I feel like I'm getting a little too easy here.
What's next The End?
When the Music's OVer? (maybe)

The Doors-Shaman's Blues Now this song starts off with the line "there will never be another one like you" and well that might come off as some kind of self gratifying bullshit, but I don't want it because of that, it's just a cool dark-ish Doors kind of song. Probably one of the last ones that they got right with that vibe.

In My Life-The Beatles Just because. It's a cliche but then again so are funerals.

Sally Sings Sweetly @ Ophelia Street

2009-08-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

http://opheliastreet.com/2009/08/11/sally-sings-sweetly/#more-1295

tHERE iS nOTHING i wANT TO sAY tO yOU (sUNDAY)

2009-07-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

So let's wind this shit down shall we? Sunday came like a hangover. I couldn't sleep Saturday night, things felt good, outdoors in the middle of a strange town, smoking cigarettes in a parking lot overlooking a dimly lit parking lot. It was a nice scene for some 16 year old over-hormoned and neurotic. I was wired all night, I got home and felt like writing a book or an opera or just doing something, anything to keep the weird rush of energy I had going.
But I eventually just watched the Doors movie on TBS and got really depressed and fell asleep just before the sun came up.
Sunday was a bigger show, the biggest show as far as I was concerned, The St. Joseph's elementary Battle of the Bands.
This event had been going on the last few years and always had a pretty enormous turn out. Some youth organization ran it and did a great job promoting it.
Battle of the bands, if you don't know are pretty much just a bullshit way to get you to beg as many of your friends to come out to a show. Any organized Battle of the Bands I've ever been involved in the organizer has always said: "remember the more people you get out the more likely you are to win" which is kind of a defeatist attitude to go in with; like you won't convert anyone. Everyone is coming here to see their friends bands and even if you whip out some kind of wizardry not yet known to this planet it won't make any difference because they're not here to see you.
This was different. Apparently there were judges. I never figured out who they were and maybe that was the point, but they were the governing body as far as who won.
And what do you win?
Well normally it would be something like a free hour at whatever rehearsal studio was sponsoring the event. Or maybe a free package of Blue Steel guitar strings. Nice, helpful things to have, but not exactly a gold medal.
The St. Joe's thing was giving away $200, which seemed a lot better.

A few years back when I was probably 12 or 13 I remember very vividly being a giddy as a the schoolboy I was when the last band that played finished off with Enter Sandman. By the time the next year rolled around, I was kind off Metallica and got really into the second to last band who looked more like a reality show than a band. One kid had a mohwak and was punked out like it was 1976 London. The singer looked like 90's Bon Jovi. The girl playing bass looked like she probably took piano lessons. The Drummer might have been in Slayer orginally. They even had someone playing trombone.
I'll call them "Daft" for the simple reason that I'm taking a few liberties with their personnel and I don't want to eat shit on the details. So now they've been fictionalized, and with this comes a new name.
So Daft comes out and they are great, for what I knew at that age they were the best thing I ever saw in my life. They were weird and funny and scary and loud it was everything you want when you're wallowing around unfuckable and awkward in the muck of early teen angst. They played for a about a half an hour and every one was stomping around in half assed attempts at mosh pits while getting dirty looks from the off duty police that volunteered to help.
At the end of the night Daft didn't win the competition, that distinction went to a band that did a fairly terrible version of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Well we weren't going to stand for that and we booed those bastards and started a little "Daft" chant. It was a nice little moment.
But fuck them now. They were back, and likely had the biggest audience in the place. There were only four bands this year which was down from the two times I'd already been there.
It was a weird night over all.
I just realized I can't really finish the story.
I fucked up.
I wasn't in this band the day before this show.
I was going to the show to see Zack's band play, and to be honest I was jealous, but as luck would have it Zack's bass player had to study for his SAT's and wasn't allowed to attend the show. This became my short term gain, he eventually went on to a lucrative career and I think lives in Miami, while I sit in a basement and scratch stories off my Swiss cheese memory.
So I was in, but I didn't know any of the songs.
I had to make notes on the back of the setlist so I knew what to play for which songs.
I was learning how to play half the set on the playground in the back while the other bands played or smoked cigarettes with pretty impressionable girls.
So we played.
And I think it went pretty ok.
Zack went nuts, jumped on my back and brought me down.
There was also a guitar swinging incident in which he swung a guitar at someone in one of the other bands.
There is a video of all of this somewhere but I never felt much like watching it because I'd hate to be disappointed if the reality of it wasn't as vivid as I remember it.
So anyway, Daft won.

wHEN aLL tHEY hAVE IS mENTHOL (sATURDAY)

2009-07-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

Zack Thompson knew what he was doing. He still does. He was probably would have been more comfortable a few decades earlier when instead of starting a band he would have been "breaking into show business".
Zack played guitar and piano and dabbled with a few other instruments. He was 'really good' maybe not a virtuoso type, he couldn't break out some solo he'd spent four and a half hours learning like Kevin could, but that was mainly because it wouldn't occur to him to do something like that. He rather spend the time writing new songs.
He also managed to get shows and have decent equipment, he was however one of us, so we'd never let him know any of this was impressive.
We'd rehearse in the music room after school since he was in the good graces with the music director, constantly offering up guitars, piano, or vocals for any school function.
Things were different in Zack's band, the Delinquents, if you didn't know what you were playing he'd tell you, and if you didn't know after that he'd let you know that not only were you playing it wrong but that you were also a fucking asshole.
But the songs were easy, catchy, hook-y, poppy even. They were pop songs drenched in distortion. So sooner or later everyone kind of got everything and it clicked.
Zack got us on a show in Ridgefield Park at the Elks Club.
Now, the Elks shows were a little bit of an institution, or least had the reputation as such probably due to the high volume of fliers that seemed to find their ways into school. There were always stacks of poorly photo-copied pictures on colorful paper going around in the hallways or lunchroom, so this particular show seemed to have some extra prestige attached to it.
Zack told us we had 40 minutes and wanted to throw a few in a cover amongst the originals, but it had to be the perfect cover song. Not something that would be on the radio after you packed up and left the place. No, this had to be something rare, something that the regular bands at this show would hear and go "whoa, who are these guys, how do they know this song?" Or maybe it was to have a song that no one was quite sure was ours or not. Hard to say.
The song we wound up settling on was Spank Thru by Nirvana, which was hardly an unknown song in our little group of friends since it was on an import compilation that Zack started taking orders for every time he went to the Red, White, and Blue in Paterson.
But that was the song. And we were all into it and thought it would probably go over well if these shows were anything like we heard they were.
We pulled into the lot at dusk. Steven,the drummer, convinced his father to let us load everything into his van. His father was an electrician or something of the like and was what can only be described as "super-encouraging".
"Alright right guys, you guys are going to rock tonight right?" he'd say in his smooth jazz radio voice.
"Yes sir, we plan to rock," I didn't know him well so I just kind of mumbled whatever I could get out.
Zack on the other hand had been around the Grace household for a long time had no such hang ups: "That's right Mr. Grace, you bet."
We hopped out and quickly noticed the familiar sight of the pack of smokers, dressed mostly in black, most of them with their heads slung to the ground, and of course some of them, not really smoking at all, just puffing.
It was comforting to know that at least there were some people there already, it was early. Zack's girlfriend Jess (not her actual name yet again, I did know several Jess' in this era, but she wasn't one of them) decked out in her ripped jeans and Doc Marten's was a weird image to adjust to after getting used to seeing her in the standard Catholic school uniform.
We hung out in the front of the place for a few minutes, smoking, I bummed one off of Jess who, unfortunately, only smoked Newports. I could swear I felt the menthol tearing out sections of my throat on the way to my lungs. I figured I had an hour or so before I started coughing up blood.
An hour later there was no blood, and perhaps of more concern, there weren't very many people either. We were ready to go on, second behind some other band we felt very confident we were much better than.
We set our gear up and were pretty much ready to go. The hall was dark, and there were a few regulars of the Club, old grizzled men smoking cigarettes and pipes, looking at the television aggravated they couldn't hear what was going on.
The stage was an empty section of the bar with the dull bluish neon the only thing lighting us besides the TV and whatever glow was coming in through the windows from the flood lights outside.
I was set up right against the deep brown panelling and just below the plaque with gold plastic elk antlers sticking, out for Joe Trulugio, the Elks President from 1973-1975. Old Joe looked uncomfortable in his picture; stuffed into a tuxedo with tinted glasses and oily black hair that was starting to gray a little in the front. He a thick black moustache, and his smile showed off his impressive set of choppers. I wondered if maybe Joe was sitting at the bar smoking a pipe, I played a little scene out in my mind where somehow I wound up knocking off the plaque somehow, violating an ancient Elk law and was beaten unmercifully by a bored group of drunk war vetrans who were pissed off they couldn't listen to the World Series because a bunch of high school brats were giving them a few hundred dollars to rent out the hall on a Saturday Night.
I should also probably mention that we did have a tendency to dabble with some make-up. Nothing serious, I mean we weren't fucking Kiss or anything like that, but it wouldn't be uncommon for some, or all of us, to throw on some eye-liner, or maybe even some nail polish every once in a while. In fact, somewhere in the universe there is a video tape, probably buried in a box in someones garage, or hopefully disintegrating at the bottom of some Bergen dump, that contains footage of Zack, Elliot and I performing for probably close to an hour in dollar store house dresses Zack picked up for us at his beloved Red, White and Blue. If memory serves there was also an impromptu wrestling match that took place afterwards, as well as some bonus footage of Elliot and Zack getting tossed from the Bergen Mall. That will all be on the Special Features section once the tape is recovered and converted for a Fall 2011 DVD release.
Anyway, yeah, so I had some eye liner on. Not much, just enough to look kind of silly. Well, I say silly, I think the guys sitting at the bar had some other words for it, but they, for the most part kept it to themselves.
We started the set, some of the kids from outside started to filter in. Now you had about 25 or 30 kids crowding around us. They started bumping into each other a little, just kind of swaying, and then slowly it started to build until a few kids in the middle were throwing hockey checks. Well that was it for the bartender.
"HEY! YOU TELL THOSE GUYS TO KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF OR YOU'RE ALL OUTTA HERE!" he yelled in our general direction.
We kind of looked up for a minute.
Zack, always the professional took charge; "Hey guys, just be cool, no need to knock each other over or anything let's just have a good time."
Well, the guy freaking out might have startled a few of them and they headed out for another cigarette, since of course they weren't allowed near the bar to smoke, and after that probably wouldn't be interested in going anywhere near it even if they were. So the audience had thinned out a little when we broke into what was supposed to be our show stopper. Zack started the first few chords to Spank Thru, which, is a cute little song about the end of a relationship and the act that the American Heritage Dictionary (Third Edition) describes as "exciting oneself or another's genitals by means other than intercourse".
Needless to say the folks at the bar didn't really take kindly to the song even with Zack warbling up some of the lyrics.
So this on top of the makeup and the junior grade mosh pit did not put us in the best of regards with the proprietors.
We ended the show early, after the Nirvana song, and quickly tore down our gear and stacked it outside. Most of the kids were still there, in fact it looked like more had shown up for the next band. We talked a little while and most of them knew that the guys inside were miserable old codgers, but for some reason they kept agreeing to let them rent the hall out each month. I asked one of them for a cigarette. Another menthol. It was that kind of show.

i CAN'T REMEBER IF IT WAS aWESOME (fRIDAY)

2009-07-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

I have fond memories of a weekend in 1996, though I kind of prefer to think of it as 1995 so that I'm a little younger when it happened, and to be honest it probably wasn't a weekend, it was probably a few random weekends over the span of a year and half or maybe even more, but for the sake of this nonsense, let's just say it was a weekend in 1995 and let's agree that it happened in a cool autumn setting of early October.
There were shows back then, I mean there are shows now and there have been the whole time, but nobody really gives a fuck anymore. Occasionally you run into a good, or dare I say great one, but for the most part you know what you're going to get, and it's really more about having a night out with some friends as opposed to congregating with a similarly fashioned pack of brats clustering themselves together and seeing no reason why the rest of their lives won't be spent like this.
But to be honest we always hated those people anyway. Anyone who was too up on the idea of a scene, impressed with the numbers of leather jackets and lit Marlboro's dangling out of pierced lips in front of Paramus Park was probably a social class elitist and likely just wasn't any good at sports or else they would have been flipping over cafeteria trays and demanding lunch money. The more people hanging around the more likely little sub-groups of a certain snobbery will pop up dictating who gets to sit at the cool kids table.
Of course I may just be looking back with bitter eyes because no one ever bothered to ask me to sit at said table and thus splintered off into a group of hateful little bastards.

But enough on the evolutionary theory of social groups eating their own, we're back in 1995 and there were shows and they used to feel like a big deal. Even if there was one every week or three crammed into a weekend, they all felt like a big deal and occasionally they were.
Now, to protect the identity of anyone who may not want to associate themselves with my spouting off at the mouth on a late night caffeine fixed tirade I'll take some precautions with bending people's names since I've already decided to cram a few events that I feel very certain did happen, into one little weekend during October 1995 even though I know that's not when they happened. If they even happened, which you know, I'm pretty sure that they did.

So Simon had a car. He was older than us but he was dating a girl we all knew from school, Kelly Foster. (Again not her real name cause God knows what she would think if she was bored at work one day and Googled herself only to find her name tangled up in this mess.) Kelly was the prototypical cool girl, she was so cool in fact that you kind of didn't even realize how pretty she was. She was kind of tomboyish and she hung around all the timeand she was dating Simon for as long as we knew her so maybe that's why it was easy not pay attention to her, because we were all impressed with her boyfriend who was both driving and in a band that actually got shows and had pretty decent equipment. So to a select few of us he might as well have been a rock star.
Simon told us we could open up for him at a showcase his band was having at Backstage Studios.
I should also probably mention since I'm having a little fun with the timeline here that I was in two bands at the time. Sometimes I wasn't but there was definitely a period of overlap. That was the curse of playing the bass. Everyone played guitar, and there were certainly a few drummers out there, but the only bass player I knew when I got to high school kept getting sent to Bergen Pines and eventually got tossed out of school. So there was a void, a vacuum if you will, and I figured that it would be better to suck at something almost nobody else did then suck at something every schmuck was doing.
So there was the metal band and the punk band or at least that's how I categorized it in my early-mid teen ignorance. The metal band included Kevin Riley on guitar and vocals and the great Eliot Krause on drums. Elliot actually was the utility drummer for a while and he and I were the rhythm section for both bands for a few weeks. We played covers; mostly Metallica and Pantera with some Alice in Chains and Nirvana sprinkled in probably to keep me happy. Kevin wrote songs but they were epics and he only brought one song to practice which was about 10 minutes long, so with that pace we stuck mostly to the covers.
And to be honest I didn't know what the fuck I was playing half the time. He had books and magazines with guitar tabs and would lend me them but most of the time I would just try to play what he was playing. I was probably a mile away from the drums and who knows if the notes were right but I thought I knew what I was doing so it all seemed to make sense. I mean we weren't' playing funk, the whole thing probably sounded like a loud glob of unmixed noise but most of your friends at that age don't really have a rigid grading scale. They're just impressed hearing something that sounds like a song they might know coming out something you're doing.
So anyway, Simon got us a show opening for his band in West Paterson at a rehearsal studio in West Paterson.
Elliot's mother drove us to the show because her car was big enough to fit all our stuff. When we got there the usual platoon of smokers were camped outside. We didn't know any of them and immediately nerves crept up our teen aged spines. "What if we really suck? Are these guys going to beat us up?" Kevin was already there with Simon and he was on the stage tuning his guitar.
"You guys are late"
We weren't but we played along.
"Oh sorry". We set up quickly. Simon's bass player was hanging around onstage convinced that there must be an automatic camaraderie between us he asked me a technical question.
"What kind of rig you got man?"
I know nothing about gear, at all. To this day I still know very little. This particular amp I got because it was big and loud and affordable for someone who might just be dabbling in music on his way to a long career in the US Congress.
"Um, a Peavy" I answered somewhat dim-wittedly. He looked at me and immediately sized up that this would not be the tech savvy sparring session he had craved so he just nodded and started scanning the rest of the stage.
"Hey man, you want your amps miked up? Guys? We miking the drums and the amps tonight?" this slick sounding son of a bitch in casual goth regalia jumped up onto the stage with a bunch of laminates dangling from around his neck (just in case anyone doubted his access to all areas) and a white knuckle grip on some cables he was just dying to run into or out of something.
"Sure," I answered but I immediately wasn't so sure "We're miking the drums right?"
Yeah. Sure. We're miking the drums right? Because I've done this a thousand times.
"Yeah," Elliot answered as if he actually had done this a thousand times.
"Cool you got it," he disappeared like a gnome doing invisible silent work.

I plugged in my $10 tuner that very clearly had BASS written on it lest I become confused, and fiddled with my rusting strings until the needle lined up on all them.
Then the most important piece of equipment was the last to add: The Setlist.
We all knew what we were playing, we only had five songs we could do because three of them were 7 minutes but every band has set lists taped down amongst a nest of wires and speakers and why should we be any different, this was after all a professional rehearsal studio.
I carefully wrote out all the songs with a big black marker and handed them out to the other two. While that was going on the room, which if I was any good I would have already described as long and narrow, started filling up. There were couches and a few old upholstered chairs randomly scattered and the lights were down except for a bright red glow that came off a few of the gel lights from the stage.
I felt like an asshole. We were standing there and we could hear everyone talking but could only see a few people and we had no idea if we should just start. We stared at each other for a moment waiting for someone to maybe introduce us, and then decided to just let Elliot count us off. Which he eventually did and BAM the drums were fucking miked. And wow. Miked drums were incredible. Loud. Loud. Loud.
Every hit sounded crisp and perfect. Elliot could have been playing a different song than us but it wouldn't have mattered because the drums sounded so cool to us that we would have taken the blame for not following him.
About half way through the first song the effect kind of wore off on me though and I started getting flushed with nerves. First I thought maybe I was too loud. I couldn't hear Kevin's guitar at all, and what if I was drowning him out, so I turned down a little. But who the hell could hear anything over the drums? Then I started thinking "fuck that I practiced these fucking songs I want to be heard even if I am fucking them up". So I turned up the volume on the bass. Once we got to the Nirvana song, which I think was Drain You, I felt pretty confident and even went over to the amp and turned up, when I swung around with a smirk I caught the face of Simon's bass player huddled in the corner making a face like he just noticed he had shit in his mouth and he made the universal sign for "turn down" while shaking his head "no". But it didn't look he was only saying "no" it looked like he was saying "Oh Lord please destroy whatever that horrible inhuman frequency is at the source".
There is nothing like a disgusted look telling you you're doing something wrong that you thought was right to instantly deflate a freshly ballooned ego. I turned way down and played the rest of the show in full shoe-gazer mode letting my self go deaf at Elliot cracking his China Boy cymbal a dozen or so times.
After we finished the last song a stereo kicked in and Simon's band seemed to jump onstage in unison to get their gear set up. We quickly unplugged and dragged our amps and drums off to the side, occasionally stopping for the ol': "hey you guys were good" slap on the back. At that point I knew it was probably bullshit but at that point in my life self delusion wasn't a problem I realized I had, so I kind of figured these were good honest folk and that we had in fact just rocked.

my eyes are turning to glass and other lines from old Irish ballads

2009-07-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

It's kind of quiet outside for all demonic shadows crawling all over the ground.
Oh how I wish it was a decade ago so I could light a cigarette and enjoy this little moment.
But it's not and now I only inhale the warm moisture drenched breeze and listen to some sad Irish bastard sing some ballad about a faraway girl.
And what the hell does he know?
They're all faraway.

I Should Have Met You in Virginia

2009-07-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

Yeah it's too bad you're gone now, but I guess it's better than wondering if there'll be any more purple drenched nights waiting to see what you're in the mood to do. Playing around in some speed-driven game of head chess that I'm no good at.
I'm out of motives and other things like sincerity.
But I guess most of all interest.

to watch what the hell I was doing from a different set of eyes

2009-06-24T22:00:00.001-07:00

I couldn't think of anything else to do.
There was no sleep on the horizon, but it wasnt' late anyway.
Who really wants to go to bed?
There's a pool hall down the street, I haven't been in a pool hall in six years.
I used to go with my girlfriend once or twice a week. We'd enter hands clapsed, and warm eyed at each other, and somehow we'd be in some kind of competitive hellfire by the end of the night.
I have to stop to think for a minute or two if we broke up over a pool game.
I don't think so.
It was probably something else, but she's gone now. Off into some other movie just a foggy memory in things I'm not even sure really happened.
But here's this pool hall, and it sounds great. a low hum of chatter and a juke box creeking out some loud saxaphone.
I wish I knew more jazz off the top of my head. I used to get haunted by old, grainy footage of black and white jazz artists, but I've since moved on to other highly irrational fears.
And that's part of the reason why I'm at this pool hall shooting a game by myself finding out how bad I really am at this game.
I can't hang around waiting for every magnificent blend of neurosis to creep into my head, waiting to be acknowledged for ten minutes so that I can form some kind of super cock tail of crazy.
No thanks. I'd rather scratch on an 8 ball in public for a few hours until I can't see straight.
The jazz is over and someone put on Public Enemy.
That's cool with me.
I like to fancy myself a bit of a late 80's early 90's hip hop afficianado.
Even though I'm probably not.
I wish I knew how to play pool well.
I can play a little.
Occasionally I'll hit a shot, very loud, very convincingly, and glide across the table to the next one that I'll pretend I have some natural ability to see before the other player does. But in the end I'm not very good, and that's too bad because the life of a pool hall hustler, or at least a pool hall hustler in the movies, appeals to me.
If I won at this point, I probably wouldn't be able to supress a grin, and the next thing I'd know is I was getting my head cracked open with a stick or a cue-loaded fist.
And before I can sink my last ball the lights come up and to let us know that the night is over.
At least for billiards.

and you get so worked up you can hardly see straight.

2009-06-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

Motion detector lights are what finally snapped me in the end. The sting of failures in life and love and goals and horrible memories amplified and magnified through various vices, that all was manageable. But a few motion detector lights burning bright shadows across my back yard are what finally sent me spinning into a nervous frenzy hoping that the loony bin wasn't booked up for the summer.

Initially a few lights getting set off in dark isn't a big deal. No, there are stray cats and various woodland creatures scurrying around, not to mention the water a few yards down the road. Maybe some missing-link-type-mutant pulled itself out of the water and crawled its way into my back yard looking for the nearest WaWa so it could pull the classified section and look for employment or reasonable rents.

Most of this is my own fault; I was reading a string of "real crime" books, that delved into the horrible, gruesome murders by serial killers and mobsters. Ritualistic and random, all the kind of details that get your mind gears spinning in the middle of the night and wonder what kind of weapons you could stave off an attack by some 9ft hooded phantom.

This was all elevated by the dreaded "Horn Incident" of early 2009. To explain this properly would require a knowledge of automobiles that I just don't possess but suffice to say, through various incidents of road rage that resulted in my fist being pounded into the steering wheel apparently damaged the interior circuitry of the horn, the full extent of which revealed itself just after midnight on a cold February night while I was engaged in one of my eerie murder books. The unrelenting, constant whale of a car horn is unsettling enough, but when you don't realize why it's happening your brain gets flooded with panic.

My first thought was that it was a neighbors car, then I realized the sound was too loud to be far away, my next thought was the maniac who'd been stalking the back yard was revealing himself; ready for a showdown, holding the horn down until I came out, startled and unready to meet this demon head on.

Well I wasn't ready. And there was no demon. Just a broken car horn which required a flash light, and the frantic yanking of fuses, while the deafening siren began to erode my hearing. Finally, the right fuse was pulled and the horn was gone, but the ringing was still there, it felt like every nerve was vibrating, and I couldn't quite shake the feeling that somebody was snickering out there in the dark watching me turn into a nervous, trembling pile of jelly.

A few months passed by and the lights stayed off, and my paranoia levelled off. Must have been a stray cat or some rabid possum. Then the warmer weather came and the light started going back on. I played this off, it's spring and things are popping up and exploring. Then a week straight of lights going off. Just once a night. But at the same time every night. Those old creaky paranoid gears started turning again. It was time for some serious action.

I decided a stake out was in order. I'd sit outside in the daylight, and then go prone after the sun had gone down. I had on all black, even the ski mask I pulled over my face once I got into my "combat ready" position. I was armed with a roll of quarters I'd forgotten to take to the bank and a slightly dull knife that I'd found in an old tackle box. I took my position with the vigilance that a man protecting his home must have. I was determined to find out the cause of the disturbance even if it was something as silly as a cat, or a squirrel, or even the wind.

Unfortunately I underestimated the amount of patience one must possess in order to be successful in such an operation. Self doubt began to creep in. "This is awfully silly" I thought to myself.

I headed back inside and threw the ski mask to the ground, I turned around and out of my peripheral I caught the image of the light stabbing my eyes with its shine. That was it. Now I was just being mocked, I flew out the door, towards the light, and started covering every possible route someone could have taken, but there was nothing. No answers. No small animal scurrying away, no missing link mutant, no long gusts of wind, no weapon wielding maniac. But it didn't matter anymore. I'd had enough. All I would be thinking about now is whether or not that fucking light would go off again.

I packed my bags and headed to the Ocean County Medical Center. In Bergen County they used to have a place like this called Bergen Pines. I don't live in Bergen County anymore but when I did I didn't worry about random maniacs kicking open my door. Or maybe I did and I've just blocked it out since. I asked before admitting myself for "chronic fatigue": "You guys have a security system right? Like in case anyone tries to break in?" The nurse looked at me somewhat puzzled,"uh, yeah we've got that".
"Good," I thought, "now it's their problem."

A Painfully Long Rant to Rid Myself of whatever

2009-05-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

Well, a nice little rush of nerves, or blood pressure has seemed to putter out already and I feel like I have nothing left to say. WHich may be true, and lucky you if it is, because all I really feel like doing is pissing all over this lovely October weather we're having in middle of May. And I mean that. I'll take whatever cold gusts of wind I can get before the air gets thick with mosquitoes and the smell of sweat from every vacationing ninny in the tri-state area.
Oh the boardwalk just ain't what it used to be, I used to like the warning signs of summer but now kicking around the seaside just seems like some sad old re-run, the soundtrack to a nightmare I keep thinking I'm going to have where I run into my seven year old self and have to force a smile through some "don't worry everything will be fine" kind of speech.
And fuck him for asking.
But no, summer doesn't hold any kind of mystery anymore, it just means it's going to get hot and the girls will be drunker and the police will be cracking down on any reports of fun breaking out. A good time to stay indoors and crank the air conditioning until the power goes out and catch up on some kind of self improving endeavor. See you in the fall.
But of course it never works out like that aye? No no no, there's always one last shot up north or trip to some club where they eye you up a little more each time: "You sure you want to come in here?"
"Well, no friend I'm not, but this is where the few people who still go out on school nights seem to be so I may as well wander through it so I can get drunk and aggravated and bitch about how much I hate places like this. Here's my $10."
Long gone are the days of Craig Porr busting my door down with bootlegged movies, pizzas, and fresh supplies of cheap beer and probably for the best, I'd probably call the police on the poor bastard if he tried that shit today.
And then there is that old California Dreamin that gets in my spine every once in a while. Those commericals where Arnold beckons you to come out and party with the movie stars. And that all sounds great, and really Arnold I do want to stop by out there but I just don't think, financially we'd be running in the same circles. No I'd probably be in the roach infested two-room that smelled like stale, leaking water, while I hid under thin sheets at night praying not be home-invaded.
We're only a few weeks away from stories of crime being on the rise, since the economy is shit. That tends to go hand in hand and I can't imagine it not becoming a story sooner or later. I'll have to start arming the house from predators, these motion detector lights won't scare them off for long. No. We're going to need some serious security measures, even here in safe old Brick Township. Don't let the coast line fool you folks, five miles inland Central Jersey might as well be North Virginia. Shooting ranges are everywhere, Gun clubs, and the recent alarming trend of bumper stickers that say "Bricktucky" I've been spotting on pick ups. Whatever the fuck that means. That's not even clever.
The box is closing in. It might be time to set the Pontiac on fire and drive west with Benny and Jets crackling through the stereo on a loop and see how far I can get before the whole thing shoots into a fireball. Pretty soon I'll be surrounded by gun nuts, home invaders and vacationing yuppies sucking up the thick summer air and taking all the parking spots while they blast their dumb sub-woofers, and I sink further into the fist-shaking, get-off-my-lawn curmudgeon I knew I'd always be.

Escape From Facebook

2009-04-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

Escape From Facebook

Obama On the Defensive

2009-02-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

Obama On the Defensive