With all of this talk of new media, and jumping on the podcast bandwagon, I can't help but be reminded of my strange affair with broadcasting. Today, I present to you, the elongated, unabridged journey of one boy and his radio.
I remember clearly the ceremony where I was presented with a great radio award. It was sort of the culmination of my work, and everything sort of went down hill from the point on. It was some sort of major, hey you wrote and produced these great things, and we your peers think you are just the bee's knees, or possibly the cat's pajamas, or maybe even the hooker's.....uhmmmm something or other.
I was interviewed for a trade publication after the award and was asked the predictable question. Why did you get in to broadcasting?
It isw one of those expected, inane questions that really requires no thought at all, but since I am not overly bright, I took a few moments to reply. In that time, this is what flew through my head.
Clearly I can remember not wanting to be in the living room with my parents. They would drink and smoke pot and say stupid things, or do things that made me uncomfortable. I needed a place to go so I could be away from them.
It was at that point in my life where toys were having less and less meaning that I discovered something wonderful and magical.
I was routinely breaking in to my uncle's room while my parents drank the night away. My uncle was rarely home, and he was a coke fiend at the time, so he would never really notice anything.
I discovered so many wonders in his room. One of those wonders was a short wave radio. While it had two sw bands, it also had fm and am bands.
I started to play around with the nobs and dials until something incredible happened. I heard hockey. You mustn't misunderestimate the joy this can bring a Canadian boy.
I discovered that there was a place to find hockey games that weren't on the television. This of course neing the dark ages before 24 hour sports networks, when not every game was televised.
What I found out was that while not every game was televised, every game was on the radio. I was over joyed. I started listening every chance I got.
Eventually I realised my clock radio would also pick up these wonderful sounds.
This is when I first fell in love with radio. It would get worse before it got better. As winter gave way to spring, something else happened. Baseball season. Turns out, ever damn baseball game was on the radio. Ever night, and weekend afternoon, I could escape to my room, read a book and listen to the radio. Listen to Tom Cheek and Jerry Howerth, Tom and Jerry, call the blue jays games.
I found refuge. A found a place where I could be myself, and not have to worry about my parents, not have to be frightened. I could enjoy the world of my books, and be entertained at the same time.
Then something even crazier happened.
One Sunday night, I was scanning the dial, looking for something desperately because I couldn't sleep. Then I heard something. Laughter. Bill Cosby. George Carlin. It was the Sunday Funnies on CHUM FM, with that weird dude from the morning show, Rick something. Oh man this was sweet. The best comedians of all time doing some of their signature bits. A whole hour of comedy just for me when I couldn't sleep on a Sunday night. For the first month or two I would fall asleep to Bill Cosby talking about his brother, George Carlin talking about how stupid we all are, Howie Mandel would actually go out on stage and make fun of people.
One week though, it wasn't enough to put me to sleep. I was still wide awake when it was over, and I thought my life was gonna suck. I was going to have to listen to Katrina and the Waves, or some sort Egyptian calisthenics tune.
I was so very wrong.
Right after the funnies came a show called Theater of the Mind. It was old time radio, from back when TV didn't exist. It was the lone ranger, The Shadow, Suspense, The whistler, Mysteries of the Unknown, X Minus 1. And sometimes even the funny ones, like Jack Benny, or some other misogynistic, racist show.
I was enthralled. It truly was theater of the mind. It was my books come to life. I could close my eyes and watch the show. Escape to whole new worlds.
For me, radio became a whole new world. An exciting place of magic, mystery, and appearent wife beatings.....seriously, in the 40's if a woman annoyed you, you could slap her around. I am glad we are not in the 40's.
This was a strange world where there were no parents to make me feel small, no kids to make me feel weak or ashamed of being so disfigured. There were no teachers calling me stupid, no girls laughing at me.
There were funny people to make me laugh. Great athletes to make me Cheer. Wicked men and women to make me jeer. Hot dames. Smooth talking gents. Fast skaters, home run hitters. There were monsters and demons, pussycats and caped avengers.
All of this was being piped in to my head, where I could smile, close my eyes and drift to sleep, confident that I could dream sweet dreams of justice, and peace, where everyone laughed and got the girl.
I never had a nightmare on a Sunday night, I never felt alone on a Saturday afternoon.
Of course, while all of this zoomed through my head, I couldn't say any of it. I couldn't tell her I wanted to be part of the magic box team.
All I said was....
I got in to radio to meet hot chicks.
I am really excited to try and bring some of that magic box to the new technology, so while you may not be jazzed about my podcast, or think it is all that cool, let me tell ya mister, or missy, I am proud to carry on the tradition of making great things come out of the magic box.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
A Sad Tale
In the sense that one needs to place blame for everything in their life so that they don`t have to take any personal responsibility for their actions, or the consequences thereof, I blame Alison for this mess.
Last week she felt the need to probe the depths of my knowledge on a subject which I am not the least bit qualified to discourse, let alone dispense sage like advice, even if I am doing it in Yoda voice.
She wanted to know what love is. I will give you a moment to get foreigner out of your head.
Ok, all better now?
I am the last person you want to make to think about love. Mainly because I have either never truly been in love, or, more succinctly, never had anyone in love with me, in any sense of the word.
I am not going to get sucked down the rabbit hole of talking about my parents and their lack of whatever. This isn`t about that. This is a love story, in so much as it is full of hate, anger, jealousy and death.
Picture if you will, a young headstrong boy. He has been on his own for a little but, unless you count his roommate. They have created a thriving little enterprise in pharmaceuticals distribution.
One day, the young man, we will call him Dave Notme.....ok fine, we will call him me. Anyway, so I am hanging out at home when I should be at school. It`s a warm day in May, so I am just chillin`with my homies, as they say.
In walks an unfortunately named girl, Martha. Martha is heroin skinny. She is tall and lanky, and she has small boobs and a big nose. The one thing she has going for her is that she is a twin, and neither Ian, nor myself had climbed that mountain. We had done several favours for her in the past in hopes that she and her twin would show back up to the spot to get it on in the Barry White sense.
I was clumsily dating Kristina at the time. She was just trying to piss her mom off by dating the guy from the wrong side of the tracks, and it would not last much more than a month after this day. She cheated on me with a stocky guy named Chris. I gavce him a pass because of the irony factor.
Where was I? Oh yeah, so Martha comes in and says her sister wants to meet us. Ian and I are immediately at attention, in more ways than one, assuming our day had finally come. Instead she tells us that it is not her twin, but her older sister that we have to meet. She wants to buy weight.
Normally, this is one of those discussions that makes a person feel uncomfortable. A pretty usual trick of the police is to catch a little fish and get them to introduce the big fish to their "cousin" from out of town. We told her to invite her sister to a party we were having on friday night. She did.
Now we had to spring in to action. First, we had to get a party together for friday night. Then we dispatched Little Big Bill to Martha's place, he had been having the sex with the other sister for a bit, so he could get in and find out if there was a big sister. Turns out there was, and we owed Bill big time, cause he didn't really want to admit he was having the sex with the sister. I think we loaned him the town crotch, and some anti biotics.
Ok so friday night came and Ian and I were nowhere to be found. Josh handled the party cause he was a mainstay in that area. He told us all went well, but she was disappointed that she didn't get to see us. We promised to meet with her the next day.
The next day I remember like few other days. The first thing that happened was that our apartment, the shack in the alleyway, instantly smelled like peculliu. I was kind of upset because that was hippy smell.
She did not disappoint either. She was wearing an olive green tank top, and ripped jeans. Her hair was in a pony tail, and she was beautiful. Brown hair, green eyes, and perfect. Not skinny, not fat, just right. She had boobs, unlike her sisters, and her nose was appropriately sized for her face.
Ian knew me very well, and knew that I didn't have to pee on her to mark her as mine. He backed off. She bought a quarter pound of pot. To this day, I have no idea what the hell she did with it, but frankly, I don't really care. It was the first, and last time she ever bought drugs from us.
She was a year older than myself, so that made it all naughty and fetishy.
I'd like to say she succumb to my wilds immediately, but that isn't the case. She did start talking with me on a regular basis. She would come over, hang out, get high and shoot the shit.
Eventually that didn't cut it, and we started hanging out away from the others. One of our favourite things was to go to the park off Augusta and Baldwin and hang out on the swing set and just talk, especially at night.
We flirted. A lot. Not that cheap little teenage flirtation of two people who don't know how to close the deal, but that flirtation of two people who would rather be making the love.
It's that type of flirting that dares you to create that awkward moment. That one moment in time where you look at each other and dare each other to kiss. That flirting where you play fight and touch each other in hopes of it turning into heavy petting.
Thing is, I never closed the deal. At first it was because of Kristina. Then Chantelle. Then one of the Jens. Then it was because of Odie.
Odie was a friend of the family you might say. He had been away for a time because of a botched robbery with one of Josh's brothers.
When he came back, we initiated him, and he became one of us. A huge mistake.
This was about a year after Joanne was in our little group. He came out and immediately went for her. Noone else had. Nonone else was stupid enough. They all knew she was marked, but he didn't give a shit.
He was also almost twice her age. Seriously. She was 17 he was 31.
I wanted to hurt him very very badly, but I owed the Fish family, so I let him be. Then he did something I will never be able to forgive. He cheated on my beloved. In front of me. With a 16 year old girl.
Joanne, never a stupid one, came to me with her suspiscion. We were sitting on the swingset about maybe 2am. I was shifty at that point. Trying to find a way out of the conversation. Big Bill came running over to tell me there was a problem at Raoul's. This was heaven sent, despite the fact Dale had hit someone with the butt end of a shotgun.
I told Bill my dilemma, he said, Jesus, what a dick for putting you in this position, you should do something. So I slept with the 16 year old. Odie's roommate, a dirt bag known only as weasel threatened to stab me. Apparently Odie and him had done a little time in the slammer.
I laughed at him. He walked away. Two night's later, he crushed a guy's skull in on the sidewalk in front of my place. Weasel disappeared after that. Odie went with him.
At this point, I finally told Joanne that I loved her. She was too distraught over the disappearance of Odie to listen.
We stayed friends. I would hold her when her dad beat her. I would comfort her when she was sad, I would laugh at her bad puns. I even let her use my shower, even though she used somehippy shampoo.
She would spend a lot of nights at my place. And we were the bestest of friends.
Then these fools we were beefing with destroyed her. They found her out late one night and took their time, and turns, on her.
There are some sights that are forever etched on to the back of a person's eyelids. Some sights that you cannot drink or drug away. Some memories that will be with you for the rest of your life.
The look in her eyes that night when I opened my door is one of those images.
I have always loved Joanne's eyes. They sparkled with a light that just read mischief and fun. Despite all of the beating she took for her sisters, the men who mistreated her, and the system that forgot her, she had a fire in her eyes. She was a fighter, a w2inner. This sparkle was dead that night. Her eyes were vacant, dead. They lacked emotion. She looked as much through me as at me.
It would take several hours to find out what had happened. Several days to get the full picture. I spent every moment of the next two weeks with her. Holding her, feeding her, listening, or just letting it be silent.
It was decided that she should move away. Go somewhere safe. My heart was crushed. The woman I loved was leaving me.
In an ironic twist, she was moving down to florida to be with an aunt, or was it an uncle in Atlanta. I can never remember these things. Anyway, after everything died down, say about two weeks, she called me.
I remember the life in her voice. I thought she would be sad, but the truth is, she wasn't. At first this hurt me, to think that getting away would have saved her and made her happy. How could she be happy without me?
Turns out, she couldn't/
She told me she loved me and she wanted to come home to be with me. She said she was leaving right away.
My love was coming!
She never made it. Her ride, a drunk had crashed the car. She died then and there. My love was gone.
Those two days were the happiest two days of my life though. The time between when she called, and when we got the message.
I spent those two days in love, and loved.
You see kids, this is why I am not qualified to tell anyone anything about love. I waited so long that I lost it. Had I grabbed it when I could, there would have been no Odie, no bad men, no drunks. There would have been love.
When you think you have it, you go for it. You don't wait to be sure.
There is tremendous risk in putting yourself out there for love, but what of the risk of waiting for the sure thing?
I doubt many will ever experience the pain I did, but even at half the price, can you afford to wait, or worse yet, let it walk on by like I did?
Last week she felt the need to probe the depths of my knowledge on a subject which I am not the least bit qualified to discourse, let alone dispense sage like advice, even if I am doing it in Yoda voice.
She wanted to know what love is. I will give you a moment to get foreigner out of your head.
Ok, all better now?
I am the last person you want to make to think about love. Mainly because I have either never truly been in love, or, more succinctly, never had anyone in love with me, in any sense of the word.
I am not going to get sucked down the rabbit hole of talking about my parents and their lack of whatever. This isn`t about that. This is a love story, in so much as it is full of hate, anger, jealousy and death.
Picture if you will, a young headstrong boy. He has been on his own for a little but, unless you count his roommate. They have created a thriving little enterprise in pharmaceuticals distribution.
One day, the young man, we will call him Dave Notme.....ok fine, we will call him me. Anyway, so I am hanging out at home when I should be at school. It`s a warm day in May, so I am just chillin`with my homies, as they say.
In walks an unfortunately named girl, Martha. Martha is heroin skinny. She is tall and lanky, and she has small boobs and a big nose. The one thing she has going for her is that she is a twin, and neither Ian, nor myself had climbed that mountain. We had done several favours for her in the past in hopes that she and her twin would show back up to the spot to get it on in the Barry White sense.
I was clumsily dating Kristina at the time. She was just trying to piss her mom off by dating the guy from the wrong side of the tracks, and it would not last much more than a month after this day. She cheated on me with a stocky guy named Chris. I gavce him a pass because of the irony factor.
Where was I? Oh yeah, so Martha comes in and says her sister wants to meet us. Ian and I are immediately at attention, in more ways than one, assuming our day had finally come. Instead she tells us that it is not her twin, but her older sister that we have to meet. She wants to buy weight.
Normally, this is one of those discussions that makes a person feel uncomfortable. A pretty usual trick of the police is to catch a little fish and get them to introduce the big fish to their "cousin" from out of town. We told her to invite her sister to a party we were having on friday night. She did.
Now we had to spring in to action. First, we had to get a party together for friday night. Then we dispatched Little Big Bill to Martha's place, he had been having the sex with the other sister for a bit, so he could get in and find out if there was a big sister. Turns out there was, and we owed Bill big time, cause he didn't really want to admit he was having the sex with the sister. I think we loaned him the town crotch, and some anti biotics.
Ok so friday night came and Ian and I were nowhere to be found. Josh handled the party cause he was a mainstay in that area. He told us all went well, but she was disappointed that she didn't get to see us. We promised to meet with her the next day.
The next day I remember like few other days. The first thing that happened was that our apartment, the shack in the alleyway, instantly smelled like peculliu. I was kind of upset because that was hippy smell.
She did not disappoint either. She was wearing an olive green tank top, and ripped jeans. Her hair was in a pony tail, and she was beautiful. Brown hair, green eyes, and perfect. Not skinny, not fat, just right. She had boobs, unlike her sisters, and her nose was appropriately sized for her face.
Ian knew me very well, and knew that I didn't have to pee on her to mark her as mine. He backed off. She bought a quarter pound of pot. To this day, I have no idea what the hell she did with it, but frankly, I don't really care. It was the first, and last time she ever bought drugs from us.
She was a year older than myself, so that made it all naughty and fetishy.
I'd like to say she succumb to my wilds immediately, but that isn't the case. She did start talking with me on a regular basis. She would come over, hang out, get high and shoot the shit.
Eventually that didn't cut it, and we started hanging out away from the others. One of our favourite things was to go to the park off Augusta and Baldwin and hang out on the swing set and just talk, especially at night.
We flirted. A lot. Not that cheap little teenage flirtation of two people who don't know how to close the deal, but that flirtation of two people who would rather be making the love.
It's that type of flirting that dares you to create that awkward moment. That one moment in time where you look at each other and dare each other to kiss. That flirting where you play fight and touch each other in hopes of it turning into heavy petting.
Thing is, I never closed the deal. At first it was because of Kristina. Then Chantelle. Then one of the Jens. Then it was because of Odie.
Odie was a friend of the family you might say. He had been away for a time because of a botched robbery with one of Josh's brothers.
When he came back, we initiated him, and he became one of us. A huge mistake.
This was about a year after Joanne was in our little group. He came out and immediately went for her. Noone else had. Nonone else was stupid enough. They all knew she was marked, but he didn't give a shit.
He was also almost twice her age. Seriously. She was 17 he was 31.
I wanted to hurt him very very badly, but I owed the Fish family, so I let him be. Then he did something I will never be able to forgive. He cheated on my beloved. In front of me. With a 16 year old girl.
Joanne, never a stupid one, came to me with her suspiscion. We were sitting on the swingset about maybe 2am. I was shifty at that point. Trying to find a way out of the conversation. Big Bill came running over to tell me there was a problem at Raoul's. This was heaven sent, despite the fact Dale had hit someone with the butt end of a shotgun.
I told Bill my dilemma, he said, Jesus, what a dick for putting you in this position, you should do something. So I slept with the 16 year old. Odie's roommate, a dirt bag known only as weasel threatened to stab me. Apparently Odie and him had done a little time in the slammer.
I laughed at him. He walked away. Two night's later, he crushed a guy's skull in on the sidewalk in front of my place. Weasel disappeared after that. Odie went with him.
At this point, I finally told Joanne that I loved her. She was too distraught over the disappearance of Odie to listen.
We stayed friends. I would hold her when her dad beat her. I would comfort her when she was sad, I would laugh at her bad puns. I even let her use my shower, even though she used somehippy shampoo.
She would spend a lot of nights at my place. And we were the bestest of friends.
Then these fools we were beefing with destroyed her. They found her out late one night and took their time, and turns, on her.
There are some sights that are forever etched on to the back of a person's eyelids. Some sights that you cannot drink or drug away. Some memories that will be with you for the rest of your life.
The look in her eyes that night when I opened my door is one of those images.
I have always loved Joanne's eyes. They sparkled with a light that just read mischief and fun. Despite all of the beating she took for her sisters, the men who mistreated her, and the system that forgot her, she had a fire in her eyes. She was a fighter, a w2inner. This sparkle was dead that night. Her eyes were vacant, dead. They lacked emotion. She looked as much through me as at me.
It would take several hours to find out what had happened. Several days to get the full picture. I spent every moment of the next two weeks with her. Holding her, feeding her, listening, or just letting it be silent.
It was decided that she should move away. Go somewhere safe. My heart was crushed. The woman I loved was leaving me.
In an ironic twist, she was moving down to florida to be with an aunt, or was it an uncle in Atlanta. I can never remember these things. Anyway, after everything died down, say about two weeks, she called me.
I remember the life in her voice. I thought she would be sad, but the truth is, she wasn't. At first this hurt me, to think that getting away would have saved her and made her happy. How could she be happy without me?
Turns out, she couldn't/
She told me she loved me and she wanted to come home to be with me. She said she was leaving right away.
My love was coming!
She never made it. Her ride, a drunk had crashed the car. She died then and there. My love was gone.
Those two days were the happiest two days of my life though. The time between when she called, and when we got the message.
I spent those two days in love, and loved.
You see kids, this is why I am not qualified to tell anyone anything about love. I waited so long that I lost it. Had I grabbed it when I could, there would have been no Odie, no bad men, no drunks. There would have been love.
When you think you have it, you go for it. You don't wait to be sure.
There is tremendous risk in putting yourself out there for love, but what of the risk of waiting for the sure thing?
I doubt many will ever experience the pain I did, but even at half the price, can you afford to wait, or worse yet, let it walk on by like I did?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Big Time Hapy Fun Hour Jump Sing Watch
Anyone who has watched Japanese tv will get a kick out of that title.
Anyway, so someone suggested I should go ahead and discuss happy music.
It is clear from my extensive research, and according to something my music appreciation teacher (yes that is an actual college course people) said, that music is key to most people's lives. In many ways, we all live a life underscored by a soundtrack.
There is one thing George Lucas continues to get right and that is, music makes everything else better. It defines the emotion of a scene, and it certainly does the same for us in our lives.
I think there is a certain theory that states we react to music viscerally based on what we were doing when we first heard it. There are many songs in the world that remind me of many things, but here is a brief examination of some good thoughts and feelings.
Keep in mind, I just opened my itunes and went down the list of 5000 songs, so not only will it be alphabetical, it will also be somewhat longish. The links, if I do them right, should open a new tab or window and play the song while you read my blurb.
ACDC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap This song always reminds me of F Jay. He was a mentor of mine, and it really makes me laugh to think of him. He taught me how to drink Jack Daniels. He taught me about wrestling, getting knifed, and he gave me my first porno. He also had the coolest tattoo. It was Yosemite Sam with two guns firing and in his mouth a joint. Very cool. If you would like to see him you can, he was in several of the Police Academy movies. Believe me when I tell you, those are real bikers in that gay bar.
The Barenaked Ladies - If I had A Million Dollars This song is great for so many reasons. It makes me smile whenever I hear it because it is so much fine. You can white boy dance to it. It also reminds me of the time I went in to the planned parenthood place in Toronto and emptied their entire condom bin into a trash bag and asked them to refill it....then dumped the whole thing in to the bag again. Then me and this hot chick I was trying to bang walked out went to school and started throwing them at whores. It was awesome.
Beastie Boys = Rhmin and Stealin This song always reminds me of my best friend growing up, Chris Alison. Dude was a lot of fun and he was way in to the urban musics. He and I used to mess around with all his cool recording equipment. We even tried to make a movie that was star wars related on one of those camcorders that recorded on the audio cassettes, and then you played it back on the tiny 7 inch black and white tv. It never worked out, but damn did we have a great time. I had a casio, you know with the four little sound effect buttons; but, he had a CASIO! Thing had like 75 different fart noises. Chris was also my comedy partner. He and I explored the frantics and Monty Python together. We shared a love of the funny. Last heard he was a leading seaman in the US Navy.
Belinda Carlisle - Heaven is a Place on Earth Let me begin by stating, I can still kick your ass, so perhaps you might wanna not say anything about this song, k? I am sure I have told this story but, I ram reminded of collecting comics and hanging out with a cool nerd dude when I was around 10-11. It was pretty cool because up until that point I had never had real friends, they had always been older and picked on me, but now I had a real friend. Anyway, we used to collect comics together and stuff. He made fun of me for liking G.I.Joe, but I don't care. Snake Eyes is still one of the best comic book characters of all time, despite the shit Hollywood did to him.
Bowling For Soup - 1985 This song is just fun. I am not really nostalgic for the 80's, but it is kinda of fun to remember them from time to time, and realise it's all over.... and that is a good thing.
Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain Really all of Cypress Hill reminds me of all the good things about my time on the streets. It reminds me of big bill trying to get laid. It reminds me of teaching Taxman to forge high school id's so we could crash dances. It reminds me of me and josh swaggering through the streets of toronto with our flannel shirts open and just daring people to take us on. It reminds me of summer days, sitting around the backyard sippin on gin and juice smokin a fatty and hitting on shorties. God I miss the Fishman.
Dierks Bentley - What was I Thinking This is a great fun song about young love, and the stupid things we do. It also has a great line about hood slidin like Bo Duke! I think I like it so much because I secertly wish I had had a teenage romance like this.
Fatboy Slim - Praise You This always reminds me of my favourite time in radio. I was working at a sports radio station. I had been doing colour commentary for sports, was producing Senators games and making all-stars cry. I used this song in the first ever piece I did that made it on commercial radio. It was awesome.
Incubus - Drive This song just always lifts my spirits when I hear it. It is very empowering.
Jonathan Coulton - Re: Your Brains The day I found out there was a dude making music for geeks was glorious Choosing just one of his songs was hard, they all make me gloriously happy.
Nirvana - Dumb Hey, he says happy in the chorus. Truth be told, Nirvana is just a happy maker for me. I like the music, and it reminds me of E. He and I had some great times listening to Nirvana.
Smashing Pumpkins - Bullett With Butterfly Wings This song always reminds me of Jay and Kim. It occurs to me that I never talk about them. These two people saved my life and nursed me back to health...and then tried to kill me, and yet I doubt anyone I know has any idea who they are. I lived with them on and off for two years, but it was in a time I never talk about. Interesting thought. I loved those two people with all my heart. This song reminds me of talking music all baked.
Anyway, there is a good cross section of some of the music and thoughts I have when I am happy and whatnot.
Music is really important in my life, and it serves as a touchstone, a series of memory triggers and emotional re animators.
Never let the tunes stop.
Anyway, so someone suggested I should go ahead and discuss happy music.
It is clear from my extensive research, and according to something my music appreciation teacher (yes that is an actual college course people) said, that music is key to most people's lives. In many ways, we all live a life underscored by a soundtrack.
There is one thing George Lucas continues to get right and that is, music makes everything else better. It defines the emotion of a scene, and it certainly does the same for us in our lives.
I think there is a certain theory that states we react to music viscerally based on what we were doing when we first heard it. There are many songs in the world that remind me of many things, but here is a brief examination of some good thoughts and feelings.
Keep in mind, I just opened my itunes and went down the list of 5000 songs, so not only will it be alphabetical, it will also be somewhat longish. The links, if I do them right, should open a new tab or window and play the song while you read my blurb.
ACDC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap This song always reminds me of F Jay. He was a mentor of mine, and it really makes me laugh to think of him. He taught me how to drink Jack Daniels. He taught me about wrestling, getting knifed, and he gave me my first porno. He also had the coolest tattoo. It was Yosemite Sam with two guns firing and in his mouth a joint. Very cool. If you would like to see him you can, he was in several of the Police Academy movies. Believe me when I tell you, those are real bikers in that gay bar.
The Barenaked Ladies - If I had A Million Dollars This song is great for so many reasons. It makes me smile whenever I hear it because it is so much fine. You can white boy dance to it. It also reminds me of the time I went in to the planned parenthood place in Toronto and emptied their entire condom bin into a trash bag and asked them to refill it....then dumped the whole thing in to the bag again. Then me and this hot chick I was trying to bang walked out went to school and started throwing them at whores. It was awesome.
Beastie Boys = Rhmin and Stealin This song always reminds me of my best friend growing up, Chris Alison. Dude was a lot of fun and he was way in to the urban musics. He and I used to mess around with all his cool recording equipment. We even tried to make a movie that was star wars related on one of those camcorders that recorded on the audio cassettes, and then you played it back on the tiny 7 inch black and white tv. It never worked out, but damn did we have a great time. I had a casio, you know with the four little sound effect buttons; but, he had a CASIO! Thing had like 75 different fart noises. Chris was also my comedy partner. He and I explored the frantics and Monty Python together. We shared a love of the funny. Last heard he was a leading seaman in the US Navy.
Belinda Carlisle - Heaven is a Place on Earth Let me begin by stating, I can still kick your ass, so perhaps you might wanna not say anything about this song, k? I am sure I have told this story but, I ram reminded of collecting comics and hanging out with a cool nerd dude when I was around 10-11. It was pretty cool because up until that point I had never had real friends, they had always been older and picked on me, but now I had a real friend. Anyway, we used to collect comics together and stuff. He made fun of me for liking G.I.Joe, but I don't care. Snake Eyes is still one of the best comic book characters of all time, despite the shit Hollywood did to him.
Bowling For Soup - 1985 This song is just fun. I am not really nostalgic for the 80's, but it is kinda of fun to remember them from time to time, and realise it's all over.... and that is a good thing.
Cypress Hill - Insane in the Brain Really all of Cypress Hill reminds me of all the good things about my time on the streets. It reminds me of big bill trying to get laid. It reminds me of teaching Taxman to forge high school id's so we could crash dances. It reminds me of me and josh swaggering through the streets of toronto with our flannel shirts open and just daring people to take us on. It reminds me of summer days, sitting around the backyard sippin on gin and juice smokin a fatty and hitting on shorties. God I miss the Fishman.
Dierks Bentley - What was I Thinking This is a great fun song about young love, and the stupid things we do. It also has a great line about hood slidin like Bo Duke! I think I like it so much because I secertly wish I had had a teenage romance like this.
Fatboy Slim - Praise You This always reminds me of my favourite time in radio. I was working at a sports radio station. I had been doing colour commentary for sports, was producing Senators games and making all-stars cry. I used this song in the first ever piece I did that made it on commercial radio. It was awesome.
Incubus - Drive This song just always lifts my spirits when I hear it. It is very empowering.
Jonathan Coulton - Re: Your Brains The day I found out there was a dude making music for geeks was glorious Choosing just one of his songs was hard, they all make me gloriously happy.
Nirvana - Dumb Hey, he says happy in the chorus. Truth be told, Nirvana is just a happy maker for me. I like the music, and it reminds me of E. He and I had some great times listening to Nirvana.
Smashing Pumpkins - Bullett With Butterfly Wings This song always reminds me of Jay and Kim. It occurs to me that I never talk about them. These two people saved my life and nursed me back to health...and then tried to kill me, and yet I doubt anyone I know has any idea who they are. I lived with them on and off for two years, but it was in a time I never talk about. Interesting thought. I loved those two people with all my heart. This song reminds me of talking music all baked.
Anyway, there is a good cross section of some of the music and thoughts I have when I am happy and whatnot.
Music is really important in my life, and it serves as a touchstone, a series of memory triggers and emotional re animators.
Never let the tunes stop.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Crazy Italian Restaurant.
I have been in a foul mood for some time now. I think it is because I am slowly starting to realise who I am and it sucks balls. Large hairy monkey balls.
I am a fat, lonely guy in a wife beater and boxer shorts, eating a frozen dinner and watching tv alone.
This is not something that I would have ever wanted for myself. I am in a dead end job, where creativity and intellect go to die.
I am horrible at decision making. All of my decisions led me to this point and it blows.
I know this is not happy, nor is it particularly creative. It just is.
I remember thinking to myself that I wanted to die when I was 19. I had a very bad year, full of pain and despair. I lost everyone and everything. I remember thinking to myself that I did not belong in this life, and the only reason I stuck it out was to fulfil someone else's wishes; someone else's dreams.
I drank, snorted, smoked my way to near death, but at the last minute something stopped me. I am not sure what it was any more, and I certainly don't give a rat's ass any more.
I went through the next ten years living someone else's dreams of what I shoud, would or could be. None of it mattered to me. I think that is why I ruined it all.
I think that is why I decided to marry someone I wasn't really in to. It is kind of sad that she was the only one ho ever really decided to be with me for any length of time, despite the fact I was only in it for the comfort of it.
I thought I was making a real change two years ago. I went to school and worked my ass off....ok that isn't true. One of the curses of not having to try at anything and still succeed is that you never really gain an appreciation for working at it, and for the thing itself. The curse of an electric mind is that it means you never ever have to do anything, shit just hapens and you roll with it.
The ability to interpret, extrapolate and then bullshit is not good. I never have to actually learn anything or try hard. The results are always the same. Information comes in, and it just sticks there, as long as the power is on.
Despite this gift, I find myself in such a horrible place. The other day a person said to me that it must be nice to be so smart. What makes you think thatÉ Being smart has not led to any benefit. In fact, I am in a worse place than they are. I have the same dead end job, but I am aone and eating microwave dinners.
My brain has not managed to land me anything awesome or worthwhile. This person has a fiance, is making more money than me and has fun things they like to do. I go to work, I come home, I microwave a burrito, I watch the daily show, I go to bed, and then I do it all over again.
I stand on the outside looking in and like what I see, but haven`t the foggiest idea how to achieve it. Maybe it is because I am lazy, maybe it is because I never like to do anything for the sake of doing it, and thus without tangible results, or the promise of tangible results, I just sit and do nothing.
I never wanted this life. I never really wanted any life. I wanted to be dead by now. I wished it so hard it almost came true, but those doctors were full of shit.
I know this is the lament of the lonely, and in so lamenting, I further cement my loneliness, but you see, there is nothing left for me to do but lament.
Reaching for the stars, going for broke, or trying that crazy Italian restaurant was never my thing. In a life where torment and despair was always the end resut of everything »I tried, of every risk taken, you learn to not touch the fucking stove, you dumb ass. How many time do you have to be burned before you stop touching the goddammed thing?
In a certain way I greive for the boy who lost it all, but to me, what good is it? How long can a person ive life in the way of an observer? How many times can I watch some other douche get the girl, some suit wearing tool bag get the job, some mediocre wit surpass my accomplishments before I just say, fuck it?
That was and is my greatest fear. How long before I settle again? How long before I just say, oh well and be satisfied with my dead end job that allows me to come home, watch a little daily show, eat a Jamaican patty and play a little madden?
How long before I give up?
How long after that before I realise life can't work that way for me?
How long before I wake up and realise I wasn't meant to be this way; wasn't meant to live past 20, or 25, or 30.
How long before I stop marking time?
I am a fat, lonely guy in a wife beater and boxer shorts, eating a frozen dinner and watching tv alone.
This is not something that I would have ever wanted for myself. I am in a dead end job, where creativity and intellect go to die.
I am horrible at decision making. All of my decisions led me to this point and it blows.
I know this is not happy, nor is it particularly creative. It just is.
I remember thinking to myself that I wanted to die when I was 19. I had a very bad year, full of pain and despair. I lost everyone and everything. I remember thinking to myself that I did not belong in this life, and the only reason I stuck it out was to fulfil someone else's wishes; someone else's dreams.
I drank, snorted, smoked my way to near death, but at the last minute something stopped me. I am not sure what it was any more, and I certainly don't give a rat's ass any more.
I went through the next ten years living someone else's dreams of what I shoud, would or could be. None of it mattered to me. I think that is why I ruined it all.
I think that is why I decided to marry someone I wasn't really in to. It is kind of sad that she was the only one ho ever really decided to be with me for any length of time, despite the fact I was only in it for the comfort of it.
I thought I was making a real change two years ago. I went to school and worked my ass off....ok that isn't true. One of the curses of not having to try at anything and still succeed is that you never really gain an appreciation for working at it, and for the thing itself. The curse of an electric mind is that it means you never ever have to do anything, shit just hapens and you roll with it.
The ability to interpret, extrapolate and then bullshit is not good. I never have to actually learn anything or try hard. The results are always the same. Information comes in, and it just sticks there, as long as the power is on.
Despite this gift, I find myself in such a horrible place. The other day a person said to me that it must be nice to be so smart. What makes you think thatÉ Being smart has not led to any benefit. In fact, I am in a worse place than they are. I have the same dead end job, but I am aone and eating microwave dinners.
My brain has not managed to land me anything awesome or worthwhile. This person has a fiance, is making more money than me and has fun things they like to do. I go to work, I come home, I microwave a burrito, I watch the daily show, I go to bed, and then I do it all over again.
I stand on the outside looking in and like what I see, but haven`t the foggiest idea how to achieve it. Maybe it is because I am lazy, maybe it is because I never like to do anything for the sake of doing it, and thus without tangible results, or the promise of tangible results, I just sit and do nothing.
I never wanted this life. I never really wanted any life. I wanted to be dead by now. I wished it so hard it almost came true, but those doctors were full of shit.
I know this is the lament of the lonely, and in so lamenting, I further cement my loneliness, but you see, there is nothing left for me to do but lament.
Reaching for the stars, going for broke, or trying that crazy Italian restaurant was never my thing. In a life where torment and despair was always the end resut of everything »I tried, of every risk taken, you learn to not touch the fucking stove, you dumb ass. How many time do you have to be burned before you stop touching the goddammed thing?
In a certain way I greive for the boy who lost it all, but to me, what good is it? How long can a person ive life in the way of an observer? How many times can I watch some other douche get the girl, some suit wearing tool bag get the job, some mediocre wit surpass my accomplishments before I just say, fuck it?
That was and is my greatest fear. How long before I settle again? How long before I just say, oh well and be satisfied with my dead end job that allows me to come home, watch a little daily show, eat a Jamaican patty and play a little madden?
How long before I give up?
How long after that before I realise life can't work that way for me?
How long before I wake up and realise I wasn't meant to be this way; wasn't meant to live past 20, or 25, or 30.
How long before I stop marking time?
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Canadian History X
People have grown very cynical about the media. Not cynical enough. I am starting this off by pulling back the curtain on something. I have never really spoken of this technique before, though it is accepted practice to do this. Some of you may have guessed this is being done.
Whenever you have something controversial to say, you line up someone to bring credibility to your argument. Usually this is done either in the form of the expert guest or one uses a streeter. A streeter is a caller or video of an average citizen.
The point is to soften the blow of what you are about to say, esspecially if it is politically incorrect or sterotypical, or even downright racist, by having someone from the group you are about to bad mouth either start the topic or agree with your assessment of the topic. It gives you free reign to say whatever it is you want. It is the media equivelant of saying "some of my closest friends are black."
I am sure you have seen it many times over the last few years. After the break we are going to talk to Ahmed, professor of Arab Studies at stuff university A, he'll tell us why it is a good idea to strip search every arab looking person who tries to board a plane. Oh ok, if Ahmed is cool with it, then it must be ok to talk about it.
Now, what happens if we replace Ahmed with Allan?
Think back a few years when the Dean of Harvard tried to bring light to the fact that women consistantly test low on math and science based testing. Rather than discussing this real issue, which has nothing to do with brain power, and possibly finding some solutions, all we talked about was how wrong it was for HIM to say it.
Flash forward two years, a famous female professor says the exact same thing, and for weeks we heard about socialization, focused teaching and tutoring issues in the middle school levels. It took us nearly two years to address the subject, merely because of the messenger.
So while I call it a cynical action on the part of the press, it is also a necessary delivery system....in some cases. It is necessary to have a discussion on some issues to bring them to light. In other cases it is merely window dressing for racism.
Now that we have laid a bit of groundwork, maybe I should get to the point.
This morning, on old white guy radio, a douche....errrr competant host, decided that it would be a great idea to bring light to the problem of gang violance in parts of Toronto. This has become, in his words of course, a serious problem in the black community. Shockingly, his first caller was obviously a black man with a heavy Jamaican accent.
Here;s the problem. He is way off base.
I am about to go out on a limb here and reveal a lot of information. Some of it could actually get me in some serious trouble, but I think it is important.
Toronto has had a gang problem for more than twenty years. I should know. I was part of the problem for 8 of those years.
Back in the late 80's and early 90's, the problem was mainly because of white sepremisist gangs. Three of them were running wild in Toronto. They were being supplied by biker gangs and the Italians. The big concern was the influx of certain cultural influences from the United States. You see, this was the New Jack City era. The time of Juice. The time of the glorification of gang culture.
In order to push back from what they feared, the organized criminal groups supported a bunch of diaffected young men and women.
These young white folks turned their hatred outwards. The worst offenders were the White Knights. They controlled a lot of territory in downtown. They were carved out a bunch of hoods by the Italians and the bikers. The Italian group wanted them to push the black gangs in the west end out, and the bikers wanted the core and harbourfront back.
Stuck in the middle of all this was the artist area. A bunch of laid back musicians and whatnot were stuck in the middle.
Violance was bound to happen. Several beatings and two murders happened in 1990. I was there for one of these. My friend Andre was killed by one of these groups. They decided to let me live because I was white. As you may understand, this pissed me off.
In the summer of 1990, and leading in to the fall, several houses and warehouses began to be burned to the ground. Suddenly the white surpremisists were getting beat something fierce. Their territory was shrinking. Two street level crews came to prominance downtown because of this. The DK and the Vanally Park Boys. The DK w2ere a bunch of pissed off disaffectedd youth influenced by a coupe of cultures. One was of course the NWA, public enemy sort of thing. The other was a punk culture. This anarchy laiden thing.
Anyway, violance insued as they fought each other for dominance. When things looked like they could not be controlled, the Italians stepped back in and Backed the Boys. The DK went the way of the bikers, which was a bit natural given the family ties some members had.
Everyone was fighting with the Triads. The Triads had the entire heroin trade sewn up. The bikers had amphetemines and the Italians had coke.
By 1998 things had exploded. The Italians had nearly wiped out the DK. The two survivors...well three, scattered to the winds.
Most of the violance west of Yonge street was blamed on the Vanally Park Boys because they were always getting caught jacking grandma.
The ineter gang violance though was always between the surrogates, the Italians rarely got dirty. The bikers took a hands off approach, offering only cheap product and all the wweaponry an army needed.
Anyway, my knowledge of what happened between 1998 and 2008 is somewhat sketchy. Bits and pieces.
What I can tell you is that, anyone who thinks gay people are pussies is an idiot. Anyone who thinks serbian gangs are acting on their own knows nothing about who actually controls things.
Flash forward to today. I assure you scarborough is not controlled by black gangs. They are the tools of two people fighting it out on a national level.
The bikers and the Italians are at it again. My brother is a victrim of this to some extent. You see he was living a lie. A lie he couldn't live with anymore. He was playing both sides. No one knew he was old school biker tool. Her was partnered with the mob on his business ventures and the old school ties might have gotten him killed if anyone found out.
The point I am making is that the violance has a source. It rarely is what you think it is. The thing that causes this behaviour is always poverty, family disorder, abuse, and drugs. The players on the street level change, but it is always the poor and disaffected. They are used and abused by the organizedd crime factors in any given environment, just as they are in the military.
How many rich people do you think are infantry grunts? Same thing on the front lines of urban warfare.
The problem I had with what doucheman had to say is that he blamed all the violance on the lack of black fathers. Seriously, I am not kidding.
What hurts is that he is correct to a certain extent. Positive, strong male role modeling is one cause of the problem. Remove the need to prove oneself, to medicate oneself, the define oneself in a way that provides some center of control and esteem and you remove the canvas chicken hawks have to paint on.
It is the people who get rich of the crime of the streets; the ones who provide the set with the moral authroity to break the rules are the real problem.
There is no way to treat this problem by attacking the source of this misuse of our youth. The powerful will always protect themselves. What we need to do is remove the incentive and motivation of the youth.
We are far beyond blame at this point. Saying it is the fault of boys having children is to deny the reality that we as a society have the power to correct this.
If we provide the proper rolemodeling, we make a difference. Yelling at those who are not doing the job merely allows those that are providing it to continue to steal our youth. We say to a deadbeat dad, or an absentee, or abusive parent. We tell them that it is their fault. We tell them to step up. We rarely provide them the tools needed. All we do is make them feel worse.
While our eyes are diverted to a symptom of the problem, the chicken hawks swooop in and become the role models. The chicken hawks whisper in the ears of our youth that they can be strong and powerful, they just have to do everything they are told. Then daddy gives them some new toys to play with.
Where are the role models. Where are the real men and women who can step up? Where are the people who can give their time, their experience to our kids. They are our kids. Like it or not, we have them, and we need to do something with them.
All I heard this morning from a frightenedd little man was we need to blame bad parents and punsih the kids more harshly. At no point did this person take any responsibility for perpetuating a system the creates the poverty and socia disease that ferments in our youth. At no time did he step up and say, we need to do something. He merely said we need to blame everyone who doesn't look like us.
I suppose you can try treating cancer by cutting it out. Sooner or later it comes back. Until we develop a cure for it, we need to irradiate it, and we need to reduce carcinogen consumption.
We need to treat our kids as if they mkatter, and we need to step in front of them and show them there is a way; a better way.
Or we can just get a black man to say other black men are to blame. This should make us feel better until we can move out of the neighborhood.
Whenever you have something controversial to say, you line up someone to bring credibility to your argument. Usually this is done either in the form of the expert guest or one uses a streeter. A streeter is a caller or video of an average citizen.
The point is to soften the blow of what you are about to say, esspecially if it is politically incorrect or sterotypical, or even downright racist, by having someone from the group you are about to bad mouth either start the topic or agree with your assessment of the topic. It gives you free reign to say whatever it is you want. It is the media equivelant of saying "some of my closest friends are black."
I am sure you have seen it many times over the last few years. After the break we are going to talk to Ahmed, professor of Arab Studies at stuff university A, he'll tell us why it is a good idea to strip search every arab looking person who tries to board a plane. Oh ok, if Ahmed is cool with it, then it must be ok to talk about it.
Now, what happens if we replace Ahmed with Allan?
Think back a few years when the Dean of Harvard tried to bring light to the fact that women consistantly test low on math and science based testing. Rather than discussing this real issue, which has nothing to do with brain power, and possibly finding some solutions, all we talked about was how wrong it was for HIM to say it.
Flash forward two years, a famous female professor says the exact same thing, and for weeks we heard about socialization, focused teaching and tutoring issues in the middle school levels. It took us nearly two years to address the subject, merely because of the messenger.
So while I call it a cynical action on the part of the press, it is also a necessary delivery system....in some cases. It is necessary to have a discussion on some issues to bring them to light. In other cases it is merely window dressing for racism.
Now that we have laid a bit of groundwork, maybe I should get to the point.
This morning, on old white guy radio, a douche....errrr competant host, decided that it would be a great idea to bring light to the problem of gang violance in parts of Toronto. This has become, in his words of course, a serious problem in the black community. Shockingly, his first caller was obviously a black man with a heavy Jamaican accent.
Here;s the problem. He is way off base.
I am about to go out on a limb here and reveal a lot of information. Some of it could actually get me in some serious trouble, but I think it is important.
Toronto has had a gang problem for more than twenty years. I should know. I was part of the problem for 8 of those years.
Back in the late 80's and early 90's, the problem was mainly because of white sepremisist gangs. Three of them were running wild in Toronto. They were being supplied by biker gangs and the Italians. The big concern was the influx of certain cultural influences from the United States. You see, this was the New Jack City era. The time of Juice. The time of the glorification of gang culture.
In order to push back from what they feared, the organized criminal groups supported a bunch of diaffected young men and women.
These young white folks turned their hatred outwards. The worst offenders were the White Knights. They controlled a lot of territory in downtown. They were carved out a bunch of hoods by the Italians and the bikers. The Italian group wanted them to push the black gangs in the west end out, and the bikers wanted the core and harbourfront back.
Stuck in the middle of all this was the artist area. A bunch of laid back musicians and whatnot were stuck in the middle.
Violance was bound to happen. Several beatings and two murders happened in 1990. I was there for one of these. My friend Andre was killed by one of these groups. They decided to let me live because I was white. As you may understand, this pissed me off.
In the summer of 1990, and leading in to the fall, several houses and warehouses began to be burned to the ground. Suddenly the white surpremisists were getting beat something fierce. Their territory was shrinking. Two street level crews came to prominance downtown because of this. The DK and the Vanally Park Boys. The DK w2ere a bunch of pissed off disaffectedd youth influenced by a coupe of cultures. One was of course the NWA, public enemy sort of thing. The other was a punk culture. This anarchy laiden thing.
Anyway, violance insued as they fought each other for dominance. When things looked like they could not be controlled, the Italians stepped back in and Backed the Boys. The DK went the way of the bikers, which was a bit natural given the family ties some members had.
Everyone was fighting with the Triads. The Triads had the entire heroin trade sewn up. The bikers had amphetemines and the Italians had coke.
By 1998 things had exploded. The Italians had nearly wiped out the DK. The two survivors...well three, scattered to the winds.
Most of the violance west of Yonge street was blamed on the Vanally Park Boys because they were always getting caught jacking grandma.
The ineter gang violance though was always between the surrogates, the Italians rarely got dirty. The bikers took a hands off approach, offering only cheap product and all the wweaponry an army needed.
Anyway, my knowledge of what happened between 1998 and 2008 is somewhat sketchy. Bits and pieces.
What I can tell you is that, anyone who thinks gay people are pussies is an idiot. Anyone who thinks serbian gangs are acting on their own knows nothing about who actually controls things.
Flash forward to today. I assure you scarborough is not controlled by black gangs. They are the tools of two people fighting it out on a national level.
The bikers and the Italians are at it again. My brother is a victrim of this to some extent. You see he was living a lie. A lie he couldn't live with anymore. He was playing both sides. No one knew he was old school biker tool. Her was partnered with the mob on his business ventures and the old school ties might have gotten him killed if anyone found out.
The point I am making is that the violance has a source. It rarely is what you think it is. The thing that causes this behaviour is always poverty, family disorder, abuse, and drugs. The players on the street level change, but it is always the poor and disaffected. They are used and abused by the organizedd crime factors in any given environment, just as they are in the military.
How many rich people do you think are infantry grunts? Same thing on the front lines of urban warfare.
The problem I had with what doucheman had to say is that he blamed all the violance on the lack of black fathers. Seriously, I am not kidding.
What hurts is that he is correct to a certain extent. Positive, strong male role modeling is one cause of the problem. Remove the need to prove oneself, to medicate oneself, the define oneself in a way that provides some center of control and esteem and you remove the canvas chicken hawks have to paint on.
It is the people who get rich of the crime of the streets; the ones who provide the set with the moral authroity to break the rules are the real problem.
There is no way to treat this problem by attacking the source of this misuse of our youth. The powerful will always protect themselves. What we need to do is remove the incentive and motivation of the youth.
We are far beyond blame at this point. Saying it is the fault of boys having children is to deny the reality that we as a society have the power to correct this.
If we provide the proper rolemodeling, we make a difference. Yelling at those who are not doing the job merely allows those that are providing it to continue to steal our youth. We say to a deadbeat dad, or an absentee, or abusive parent. We tell them that it is their fault. We tell them to step up. We rarely provide them the tools needed. All we do is make them feel worse.
While our eyes are diverted to a symptom of the problem, the chicken hawks swooop in and become the role models. The chicken hawks whisper in the ears of our youth that they can be strong and powerful, they just have to do everything they are told. Then daddy gives them some new toys to play with.
Where are the role models. Where are the real men and women who can step up? Where are the people who can give their time, their experience to our kids. They are our kids. Like it or not, we have them, and we need to do something with them.
All I heard this morning from a frightenedd little man was we need to blame bad parents and punsih the kids more harshly. At no point did this person take any responsibility for perpetuating a system the creates the poverty and socia disease that ferments in our youth. At no time did he step up and say, we need to do something. He merely said we need to blame everyone who doesn't look like us.
I suppose you can try treating cancer by cutting it out. Sooner or later it comes back. Until we develop a cure for it, we need to irradiate it, and we need to reduce carcinogen consumption.
We need to treat our kids as if they mkatter, and we need to step in front of them and show them there is a way; a better way.
Or we can just get a black man to say other black men are to blame. This should make us feel better until we can move out of the neighborhood.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Hate Tastes Like Victory?
Note: This is going to seem much more like a position paper than a blog entry. This is also the internet so I am going to spice it up with some multi media, a few musical interludes and a you tube or two. BTW, I also learned how to do html coding so that the links either open a new browser window or tab depending on your browser settings, so feel free to click away without losing your place in my wonderful soapbox sandbox.
There are a few issues which really get my motor running, tee me up, and make me get out a pen and write up a list (nsfw). Those issues, in no particular order are, abuse of women and children, the dh rule, and racism.
There are many reasons for racism, and I will touch on some of them, but what I really want to speak about is how far off the path we have strayed.
There is a theory in social psychology that talks about in groups and out groups. We strive like hell to become a part of the in group, and once there, fight to stay. We develop mores, and expected behaviours.
Many philosophers, psychic bunny rabbits, and holy rollers believe that human beings have this thing inside them that makes us strive to belong. In fact, strive may not be a strong enough word. We NEED to belong. We need families, peer groups, swinger circles, geekapolooza thursday nights at the local coffee shop. Some of us do the most ridiculous things in order to belong.
People will dress up in funny costumes, wear make up, and chant slogans just to belong to the in group. So I tend to agree that yeah, everyone has it coded in their dna somewhere that they need to belong; that without belonging life has little meaning.
Sometimes these are healthy groups, like say the boy scouts, and sometimes they are just evil and wrong, like say the Nazis.
The inescapable truth about belonging is that in order to belong, you need to not belong as well. In order not to belong, and to make you feel like you have chosen the right group to be a part of, you can do one of two things. Make your group stronger or make the other group weaker.
Here's another inescapable truth about human beings. We are friggin lazy. If you think pride is the route of all sin, I got one thing to say to you. This:
Sloth, laziness leads to us cutting corners in everything we do, that includes thinking. We develop schema just so things will be easier. In many respects, our eyesight is even based on memory instead of actually working. We see what we expect to see. I am sure many of you have taken that little reading test where the letter are all jumbled inside the words, and yet you were able to read it alright. This isn;t an example of the wondrous brain and how it can decode things, it is actually an example of how lazy the brain is. It sees what it expects to see and then makes things conform to those thoughts and ideas.
This is how we live our lives, and this is how we strengthen our groups. Not from the inside, but rather from the outside.
In a nutshell, what I am trying to get at is, groups use an external locus of control over the esteem of the group.
This can be harmless, or mostly so. Take for example the boy scouts. Here;s a little known fact about me, I was in the boy scouts....heck, I was super scout. Like always, when I actually get off my lazy ass, I do everything to the fullest. I actually achieved the highest honour in Canadian Scouting. I was the shit. I was also in Air Cadets. I know, geek rightÉ You try saying no to a hot 16 year old girl when you are 13 and she is saying, you wanna come hang out with me, learn self defense, shoot guns and learn to fly? Uhmmm no get away from me chick....yeah right. I signed up, immediately.
Anyway, the point to this trip down memory and mammary lane is that those two groups made fun of each other. When each found out I was a member of the other, they made it very hard on me. They would try everything to make me not want to belong to the other group. They did this instead of extolling the virtues of their own group. One would say the other is mean, and one would say the other was a bunch of pansies.
Sure, they could have just felt safe in that I belonged to the group and just tried to make my experience better in the group, but nah, that was a lot like work.
The problem arises when the outgroup hazing becomes destructive. Nothing bad has ever come out of projecting your fears and prejudices outward right?
Eventually it isn't enough just to denigrate.
What I am talking about is the difference between prejudice and discrimination.
Prejudice is unavoidable. We all have prejudices. We all feel things about other people and other groups. Some of it is based on fact, and some of it is based on stereotyping. Some of it is because of experience, and some of it is because we just want to feel better about ourselves.
Take the example of the NPR firing Juan Williams.
What this dude sad was that prejudice is a fact of life. Stereotyping is what we do. If you continue to listen to everything he said, you will notice he was saying it needs to stop at prejudice and not make it in to the realm of acting on it.
It is easy for us to say, when we see a muslim person we immediately get uneasy. It is much more difficult for us to examine the reasons why and to discuss how we can bridge that understanding with a little good old fashioned rethinking. It is also important to break the habit of acting on it. This is the crux of his position.
It was brave of him to admit his fear and prejudice.
It is a fear that has been reinforced time and again by north American media. It is a prejudice that we are fed constantly. To admit that you have fallen prey to this is not weakness, nor is it racism.
You see we all have prejudice, be it about the dirty bum on the streets, the guy who doesn't like star wars, or the muslim family that just moved in down the street. The difference comes when we decide how to act on it.
I mentioned Andre, and here's the thing. A group of douche bags decided that their group was put down and put upon by black people. They decided it would be good to rid the world of this scourge. Thus, they killed him, in front of me.
This was a mistake on their part because it led to me finding my own voice, and my own prejudice. It led to this attitude.
This is sort of like the epitome of what I am talking about when I say out group rage. An in group created out of anger and hate that devolves in to violence on both sides. Does it really matter if one group is righteous in their anger or not? The result is still the same.
So I think about a line from the good batman. It kind of sums up the idea that prejudice is in us, but what we do with it matters.
So in the end, we see that actions speak louder than words. Racism is about actively spreading hate. It is about actively seeking to destroy or weaken the out group. Racism is not about thinking someone is bad because of stereotypes.
I would love to be able to change the hearts and minds of everyone who has prejudice in this world for people based on ridiculous notions. I would like to be able to help people understand that in order to progress and become a more perfect society we need to shed all those things that cause fear and hatred to bring us down.
I can't. I can't make you see that people are just people. Some are good, some are bad. Some are white, some are black. Some believe in Jesus and some don't. I can't make you see the inherent value in all people....you know, until they prove themselves douches.
What I can do is change the way we act on these thoughts and feelings. We can all say it is not ok to mistreat people because of our feelings towards them, no matter what those feelings are.
We have come a long way since the caves, but there are still miles to go before we sleep.
We no longer club things over the head and drag them back to our cave when we want them. This is progress.
We still need to realise that we don't have to fight with each other to make the world a better place for our group. I am not sure what the perfect solution is, but carving out a niche for our group, being free to practice whatever strange rituals we wish to that do not harm others is a start. Not being mistreated because of this is essential.
You don't have to like me, or what I do, but that doesn't mean you should spread hatred for me. And it sure as shit doesn't mean we have to put up with that kind of behaviour.
Yet we do. We do it all the time. We ring our hands, shake our fists and say, wow that sucks big time, yet we do nothing to change it. We give acceptance that the behaviour is ok by not speaking out against it.
We hide from things we don't like because...wait for it....we are all lazy. We cannot sit idly by and let people spread hatred and fear, no matter why they are doing it.
We can accept in our hearts that people will always fear, distrust, and even sometimes hate the outgourp, but that doesn''t mean we have to sit by and let them do their thing, even if it isn't to our group.
We do each other a disservice when we don't act.
To paraphrase greatness, with free speech comes great responsibility.
We shouldn't make it so they can't say what they want. We need to make it so that they don't want to say what they want. Make them such an outgroup that they can't stand not to be in our group. The group of the sane, rational individual.
Join my group. The group of the normal average everyday person who is just trying to make their way in this world while trying not to hate on others.
Don't let hate or discrimination in to your group please.
Well that went to a different place than intended...so much for a position paper, though it did get a little technical. Oh well.
There are a few issues which really get my motor running, tee me up, and make me get out a pen and write up a list (nsfw). Those issues, in no particular order are, abuse of women and children, the dh rule, and racism.
There are many reasons for racism, and I will touch on some of them, but what I really want to speak about is how far off the path we have strayed.
There is a theory in social psychology that talks about in groups and out groups. We strive like hell to become a part of the in group, and once there, fight to stay. We develop mores, and expected behaviours.
Many philosophers, psychic bunny rabbits, and holy rollers believe that human beings have this thing inside them that makes us strive to belong. In fact, strive may not be a strong enough word. We NEED to belong. We need families, peer groups, swinger circles, geekapolooza thursday nights at the local coffee shop. Some of us do the most ridiculous things in order to belong.
People will dress up in funny costumes, wear make up, and chant slogans just to belong to the in group. So I tend to agree that yeah, everyone has it coded in their dna somewhere that they need to belong; that without belonging life has little meaning.
Sometimes these are healthy groups, like say the boy scouts, and sometimes they are just evil and wrong, like say the Nazis.
The inescapable truth about belonging is that in order to belong, you need to not belong as well. In order not to belong, and to make you feel like you have chosen the right group to be a part of, you can do one of two things. Make your group stronger or make the other group weaker.
Here's another inescapable truth about human beings. We are friggin lazy. If you think pride is the route of all sin, I got one thing to say to you. This:
Sloth, laziness leads to us cutting corners in everything we do, that includes thinking. We develop schema just so things will be easier. In many respects, our eyesight is even based on memory instead of actually working. We see what we expect to see. I am sure many of you have taken that little reading test where the letter are all jumbled inside the words, and yet you were able to read it alright. This isn;t an example of the wondrous brain and how it can decode things, it is actually an example of how lazy the brain is. It sees what it expects to see and then makes things conform to those thoughts and ideas.
This is how we live our lives, and this is how we strengthen our groups. Not from the inside, but rather from the outside.
In a nutshell, what I am trying to get at is, groups use an external locus of control over the esteem of the group.
This can be harmless, or mostly so. Take for example the boy scouts. Here;s a little known fact about me, I was in the boy scouts....heck, I was super scout. Like always, when I actually get off my lazy ass, I do everything to the fullest. I actually achieved the highest honour in Canadian Scouting. I was the shit. I was also in Air Cadets. I know, geek rightÉ You try saying no to a hot 16 year old girl when you are 13 and she is saying, you wanna come hang out with me, learn self defense, shoot guns and learn to fly? Uhmmm no get away from me chick....yeah right. I signed up, immediately.
Anyway, the point to this trip down memory and mammary lane is that those two groups made fun of each other. When each found out I was a member of the other, they made it very hard on me. They would try everything to make me not want to belong to the other group. They did this instead of extolling the virtues of their own group. One would say the other is mean, and one would say the other was a bunch of pansies.
Sure, they could have just felt safe in that I belonged to the group and just tried to make my experience better in the group, but nah, that was a lot like work.
The problem arises when the outgroup hazing becomes destructive. Nothing bad has ever come out of projecting your fears and prejudices outward right?
Eventually it isn't enough just to denigrate.
What I am talking about is the difference between prejudice and discrimination.
Prejudice is unavoidable. We all have prejudices. We all feel things about other people and other groups. Some of it is based on fact, and some of it is based on stereotyping. Some of it is because of experience, and some of it is because we just want to feel better about ourselves.
Take the example of the NPR firing Juan Williams.
What this dude sad was that prejudice is a fact of life. Stereotyping is what we do. If you continue to listen to everything he said, you will notice he was saying it needs to stop at prejudice and not make it in to the realm of acting on it.
It is easy for us to say, when we see a muslim person we immediately get uneasy. It is much more difficult for us to examine the reasons why and to discuss how we can bridge that understanding with a little good old fashioned rethinking. It is also important to break the habit of acting on it. This is the crux of his position.
It was brave of him to admit his fear and prejudice.
It is a fear that has been reinforced time and again by north American media. It is a prejudice that we are fed constantly. To admit that you have fallen prey to this is not weakness, nor is it racism.
You see we all have prejudice, be it about the dirty bum on the streets, the guy who doesn't like star wars, or the muslim family that just moved in down the street. The difference comes when we decide how to act on it.
I mentioned Andre, and here's the thing. A group of douche bags decided that their group was put down and put upon by black people. They decided it would be good to rid the world of this scourge. Thus, they killed him, in front of me.
This was a mistake on their part because it led to me finding my own voice, and my own prejudice. It led to this attitude.
This is sort of like the epitome of what I am talking about when I say out group rage. An in group created out of anger and hate that devolves in to violence on both sides. Does it really matter if one group is righteous in their anger or not? The result is still the same.
So I think about a line from the good batman. It kind of sums up the idea that prejudice is in us, but what we do with it matters.
So in the end, we see that actions speak louder than words. Racism is about actively spreading hate. It is about actively seeking to destroy or weaken the out group. Racism is not about thinking someone is bad because of stereotypes.
I would love to be able to change the hearts and minds of everyone who has prejudice in this world for people based on ridiculous notions. I would like to be able to help people understand that in order to progress and become a more perfect society we need to shed all those things that cause fear and hatred to bring us down.
I can't. I can't make you see that people are just people. Some are good, some are bad. Some are white, some are black. Some believe in Jesus and some don't. I can't make you see the inherent value in all people....you know, until they prove themselves douches.
What I can do is change the way we act on these thoughts and feelings. We can all say it is not ok to mistreat people because of our feelings towards them, no matter what those feelings are.
We have come a long way since the caves, but there are still miles to go before we sleep.
We no longer club things over the head and drag them back to our cave when we want them. This is progress.
We still need to realise that we don't have to fight with each other to make the world a better place for our group. I am not sure what the perfect solution is, but carving out a niche for our group, being free to practice whatever strange rituals we wish to that do not harm others is a start. Not being mistreated because of this is essential.
You don't have to like me, or what I do, but that doesn't mean you should spread hatred for me. And it sure as shit doesn't mean we have to put up with that kind of behaviour.
Yet we do. We do it all the time. We ring our hands, shake our fists and say, wow that sucks big time, yet we do nothing to change it. We give acceptance that the behaviour is ok by not speaking out against it.
We hide from things we don't like because...wait for it....we are all lazy. We cannot sit idly by and let people spread hatred and fear, no matter why they are doing it.
We can accept in our hearts that people will always fear, distrust, and even sometimes hate the outgourp, but that doesn''t mean we have to sit by and let them do their thing, even if it isn't to our group.
We do each other a disservice when we don't act.
To paraphrase greatness, with free speech comes great responsibility.
We shouldn't make it so they can't say what they want. We need to make it so that they don't want to say what they want. Make them such an outgroup that they can't stand not to be in our group. The group of the sane, rational individual.
Join my group. The group of the normal average everyday person who is just trying to make their way in this world while trying not to hate on others.
Don't let hate or discrimination in to your group please.
Well that went to a different place than intended...so much for a position paper, though it did get a little technical. Oh well.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Random is as Random does.
I was trying to decide between one blog entry and a few smaller ones. Since I am an attention whore I am going to just throw everything out there, so this is going to be very very random.
For starters, cooler heads only half prevailed yesterday. I am of course speaking about the US election. Now one might wonder why I am so interested in this. Two reasons really. The first being, my favourite person lives in the US. The second is that too many people here want to emulate the US in everything, including politics.
So, the big deal is, that none of the real crazies won, and that is good. Some of the minor crazies did. That is a shame. I was really buying in to the rall to restore sanity, and was hoping it might actually take hold some.
Anyway, my thoughts are that it would be a terrible thing for us to import the american way of doing such business, that's all.
So, yesterday I was writing about living each day as if it mattered. The thought occuredd to me that what s the definition of a good day. I immediately began to download the entire discography of Joe Satriani. Sometimes it's just the small things that matter, and the big things can just show when they show.
I was also thinking about being shot. Part of a live each day like it might be your last is thinking about some of those close calls. I almost never tell the story of what happened that day, and never what happened before and after. The reason I don't tell the story is that it always begs the questions of why we were there and what happened after. Also, I tend not to tell it because it makes me look good. The one thing you might notice from my stories of yesteryear is that I rarely tell any that make me look good or in which I am the sympathetic character. I prefer to tell stories about others in that way.
Anyway, for those who think I misspelled my fb entry yesterday, you may want to google sabe, and you will find that it is an incredibly poignant star wars referrence in relation to the story of how I took a bullet meant for someone else.
I have also been thinking about why I do this. I recently read through the entire archive on this site and found what I want to be dong with it.
Every writer wants to do two things. The first is to entertain. If you don't enjoy your time reading what I write, then I have failed. Writing is not a noble cause, or a divine calling. It is a form of entertainment, unless you are writing a technical manual, but that isn't really writing, that's more spewing forth useless information that works better than ambien. Writing is about understanding that we all lead incredibly busy, complicated lives, and that when we take the time to read something, we want to be entertained. We want a break from the workaday world. Even if that break is in the form of psuedo philisophical pretentious ramblngs from a crazy dude. There is nothing special about a writer, apart from the fact that they have a chance to help people relax and immerse themselves in to something, if even for just a little while.
The other reason is to make people think. I like having that effect on people. It doesn't particularily matter if they agree with me or not. I just like the discussion. I like to know they are paying attention and that we are progressing n the world, and not just stagmating and letting life walk past us while we are driving the kids to schooll or hussling to that meeting.
Again, some random stuff. I don't really have anything profound today, but I am working on it. By frday I will have part 3 of the story online. I am going to take some more time with it, because I rushed the last one out, and it felt weak to me.
I just wanted to share a few small things today and remind you of what to expect from me. A little less self discovery and a little more free for all fun.
For starters, cooler heads only half prevailed yesterday. I am of course speaking about the US election. Now one might wonder why I am so interested in this. Two reasons really. The first being, my favourite person lives in the US. The second is that too many people here want to emulate the US in everything, including politics.
So, the big deal is, that none of the real crazies won, and that is good. Some of the minor crazies did. That is a shame. I was really buying in to the rall to restore sanity, and was hoping it might actually take hold some.
Anyway, my thoughts are that it would be a terrible thing for us to import the american way of doing such business, that's all.
So, yesterday I was writing about living each day as if it mattered. The thought occuredd to me that what s the definition of a good day. I immediately began to download the entire discography of Joe Satriani. Sometimes it's just the small things that matter, and the big things can just show when they show.
I was also thinking about being shot. Part of a live each day like it might be your last is thinking about some of those close calls. I almost never tell the story of what happened that day, and never what happened before and after. The reason I don't tell the story is that it always begs the questions of why we were there and what happened after. Also, I tend not to tell it because it makes me look good. The one thing you might notice from my stories of yesteryear is that I rarely tell any that make me look good or in which I am the sympathetic character. I prefer to tell stories about others in that way.
Anyway, for those who think I misspelled my fb entry yesterday, you may want to google sabe, and you will find that it is an incredibly poignant star wars referrence in relation to the story of how I took a bullet meant for someone else.
I have also been thinking about why I do this. I recently read through the entire archive on this site and found what I want to be dong with it.
Every writer wants to do two things. The first is to entertain. If you don't enjoy your time reading what I write, then I have failed. Writing is not a noble cause, or a divine calling. It is a form of entertainment, unless you are writing a technical manual, but that isn't really writing, that's more spewing forth useless information that works better than ambien. Writing is about understanding that we all lead incredibly busy, complicated lives, and that when we take the time to read something, we want to be entertained. We want a break from the workaday world. Even if that break is in the form of psuedo philisophical pretentious ramblngs from a crazy dude. There is nothing special about a writer, apart from the fact that they have a chance to help people relax and immerse themselves in to something, if even for just a little while.
The other reason is to make people think. I like having that effect on people. It doesn't particularily matter if they agree with me or not. I just like the discussion. I like to know they are paying attention and that we are progressing n the world, and not just stagmating and letting life walk past us while we are driving the kids to schooll or hussling to that meeting.
Again, some random stuff. I don't really have anything profound today, but I am working on it. By frday I will have part 3 of the story online. I am going to take some more time with it, because I rushed the last one out, and it felt weak to me.
I just wanted to share a few small things today and remind you of what to expect from me. A little less self discovery and a little more free for all fun.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
My brother's keeper.
I am not my brother's keeper, nor am I his executioner either.
In two weeks, my brother will be dead for a whole year. I have not progressed.
I thought I was over it, but as it turns out, I am neck deep in the shit he left behind.
I want to tell you about my brother.
I guess for starters, he really isn't my brother. I am an only child and always will be, and that I suppose is sad.
I first met the E in the fall of one of those 90's years. Anj had friends at this one school, and The fishman and I wanted to sell there, so we decided to go hang out at the smoking area.
There was this dork there. He was gangly, pale and had not realised he needed to start shaving. A fatherless sort. He didn't actually smoke, but the nerds had cut him loose, for though he was in the gifted classes with them, he was too dark and disturbing for them. He was lost adrift in a sea of pony tails and leather jackets. He had no idea where he belonged and so he just started going places to see if he fit in there. I had been street bound for just over 7 months when I saw him there.
At first the fish and I thought he looked like a mark, but he rejected the ffish straight up. That was when John the idiot spoke up. He told us to forget the kid and just move on. That was sort of like flagging him as cool for me, that was how much I respected John the idiot. If the idiot didn`t like him, then he was my kind of people.
Less than a month later E was living with me and we were crackin skulls, smokin bowls and breaking hearts.
It was right around the time he showed up with a giant hockey bag full of every kind of sharp object you can imagine that I knew he and I were meant to be.
We were nigh on inseperable for years. We always shared the same living space and we did everything together. We experimented with everything short of buttsecks.
It`s kind of funny looking back now, realising how messed up we were, yet how we clung to each other`s friendship for dear life.
He killed his first man at 16. I think he did it so I wouldn`t have to. Sad really. The violence was much easier for him.
I saved his life at 17.
Long story short, I was led to believe he had been killed. I was at a funeral in the us when it happened...suppoisedly.
He was told that I was killed coming back.
He took off and I took off.
That all changed just before my birthday last year. In a story that no one would believe if they saw it on tv (which by the way pretty much sums up my life) we ran in to each other. We were both visiting the dead fish.
Anyway, we had a rough go of it. The hard part was that when we saw each other, it was like old times. It was like nothing had ever changed, but alas it had. I was no longer the G I used to be....god I am white.
I was trying to find meaning and direction. A purpose with which to live life by. Some semblance of normalcy after what had been a decidedly unnormal life.
We both got in to each other`s heads. He trying to convince me I was and always would be me, and me to convince him he could change and roll with me.
The guilt caught up to him. You see, he had killed a lot of people, and he couldn`t face what I offered. He couldn`t ignore the past and let it wash away as easily as I had apparently done. People tried to convince me I could be saved and reborn, and he knew in his heart it wasn`t true.
I told him no more. I told him we was through, and well, he took it like a champ. After the gun waving and the hired goons, he said ok.
Then he called me and said it wasn`t going to happen, he couldn`t deal.
Two weeks later he was dead.
I am not sure why I am writing this. Maybe it is just to say that the kids arren`t alright. That the world isn`t all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.
There are deep dark places in this world full of deep dark people. But that doesn`t have to be the world we live in.
I feel like I have been in this soul rending struggle for over a year now. This struggle of self exploration and definition. Like any of it matters.
No definition can capture the gestalt of a person. No single volume, or trilogy can really capture the essence of the human experience as manifested in any individual.
Yet we all struggle to define ourselves. Some of us do it narrowly. We choose a single or a few small definitions, and some go all Meredith brooks on themselves and classify themselves diametrically opposed to themselves.
For me the struggle is over. I am finally at peace with who and what I am. I am no longer bothered by the me of yesteryear, the me of today or the me of tomorrow.
I am no longer attempting to narrowly define myself or my service to this world.
I am born free, born in blood, reborn, and unborn.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the world is enough. We may or may not have some kind of hereafter. What I am sure of is that we have a here. We have this lifetime. We have now, and maybe tomorrow.
We can`t live for anything else, and we can`t waste one more day.
We can`t wallow in our own shit, and we can`t let each other fall victim to the shit.
We need to rise up and change the world...no wait that is a different blog entry.
We just need to take the wheel and steer. We need to stop just pretending the world might be good and make it so. We need to live each day that we have to its fullest, with no regrets, no guilt or undone crap trailing behind us, doing the albatross thing.
When we go to bed, we need to dream big, and when we wake up we need to move. We need to do stuff to make it happen, and we need to make sure we never leave unfinished business.
E and I had unfinished business, but there`s no time for that now.
What are you leaving undone?
What are you forgetting, pretending to forget, or allowing to hold you back from achieving who you can be?
Do not let anyone tell you how to behave and how to think, always judge and question the value of your own behaviours and thoughts, and those that other try and hoist on you.
Always live for life, not for death.
Just let it all hang out.
In two weeks, my brother will be dead for a whole year. I have not progressed.
I thought I was over it, but as it turns out, I am neck deep in the shit he left behind.
I want to tell you about my brother.
I guess for starters, he really isn't my brother. I am an only child and always will be, and that I suppose is sad.
I first met the E in the fall of one of those 90's years. Anj had friends at this one school, and The fishman and I wanted to sell there, so we decided to go hang out at the smoking area.
There was this dork there. He was gangly, pale and had not realised he needed to start shaving. A fatherless sort. He didn't actually smoke, but the nerds had cut him loose, for though he was in the gifted classes with them, he was too dark and disturbing for them. He was lost adrift in a sea of pony tails and leather jackets. He had no idea where he belonged and so he just started going places to see if he fit in there. I had been street bound for just over 7 months when I saw him there.
At first the fish and I thought he looked like a mark, but he rejected the ffish straight up. That was when John the idiot spoke up. He told us to forget the kid and just move on. That was sort of like flagging him as cool for me, that was how much I respected John the idiot. If the idiot didn`t like him, then he was my kind of people.
Less than a month later E was living with me and we were crackin skulls, smokin bowls and breaking hearts.
It was right around the time he showed up with a giant hockey bag full of every kind of sharp object you can imagine that I knew he and I were meant to be.
We were nigh on inseperable for years. We always shared the same living space and we did everything together. We experimented with everything short of buttsecks.
It`s kind of funny looking back now, realising how messed up we were, yet how we clung to each other`s friendship for dear life.
He killed his first man at 16. I think he did it so I wouldn`t have to. Sad really. The violence was much easier for him.
I saved his life at 17.
Long story short, I was led to believe he had been killed. I was at a funeral in the us when it happened...suppoisedly.
He was told that I was killed coming back.
He took off and I took off.
That all changed just before my birthday last year. In a story that no one would believe if they saw it on tv (which by the way pretty much sums up my life) we ran in to each other. We were both visiting the dead fish.
Anyway, we had a rough go of it. The hard part was that when we saw each other, it was like old times. It was like nothing had ever changed, but alas it had. I was no longer the G I used to be....god I am white.
I was trying to find meaning and direction. A purpose with which to live life by. Some semblance of normalcy after what had been a decidedly unnormal life.
We both got in to each other`s heads. He trying to convince me I was and always would be me, and me to convince him he could change and roll with me.
The guilt caught up to him. You see, he had killed a lot of people, and he couldn`t face what I offered. He couldn`t ignore the past and let it wash away as easily as I had apparently done. People tried to convince me I could be saved and reborn, and he knew in his heart it wasn`t true.
I told him no more. I told him we was through, and well, he took it like a champ. After the gun waving and the hired goons, he said ok.
Then he called me and said it wasn`t going to happen, he couldn`t deal.
Two weeks later he was dead.
I am not sure why I am writing this. Maybe it is just to say that the kids arren`t alright. That the world isn`t all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.
There are deep dark places in this world full of deep dark people. But that doesn`t have to be the world we live in.
I feel like I have been in this soul rending struggle for over a year now. This struggle of self exploration and definition. Like any of it matters.
No definition can capture the gestalt of a person. No single volume, or trilogy can really capture the essence of the human experience as manifested in any individual.
Yet we all struggle to define ourselves. Some of us do it narrowly. We choose a single or a few small definitions, and some go all Meredith brooks on themselves and classify themselves diametrically opposed to themselves.
For me the struggle is over. I am finally at peace with who and what I am. I am no longer bothered by the me of yesteryear, the me of today or the me of tomorrow.
I am no longer attempting to narrowly define myself or my service to this world.
I am born free, born in blood, reborn, and unborn.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the world is enough. We may or may not have some kind of hereafter. What I am sure of is that we have a here. We have this lifetime. We have now, and maybe tomorrow.
We can`t live for anything else, and we can`t waste one more day.
We can`t wallow in our own shit, and we can`t let each other fall victim to the shit.
We need to rise up and change the world...no wait that is a different blog entry.
We just need to take the wheel and steer. We need to stop just pretending the world might be good and make it so. We need to live each day that we have to its fullest, with no regrets, no guilt or undone crap trailing behind us, doing the albatross thing.
When we go to bed, we need to dream big, and when we wake up we need to move. We need to do stuff to make it happen, and we need to make sure we never leave unfinished business.
E and I had unfinished business, but there`s no time for that now.
What are you leaving undone?
What are you forgetting, pretending to forget, or allowing to hold you back from achieving who you can be?
Do not let anyone tell you how to behave and how to think, always judge and question the value of your own behaviours and thoughts, and those that other try and hoist on you.
Always live for life, not for death.
Just let it all hang out.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Solid State Dreams
I have finally figured out what is wrong with me.
I'll give you a minute to recover from your laughing fit over jokes you just made at my expense while I am attempting to pour my heart out to you on the internets.
All better?
Great, let's move on.
At first glance one might say trauma. That's bullshit. Emotionally speaking, I put trauma in its rightful place and am not really phased by that sort of thing, in fact I don't think I have been phasedd by it in some time. Any douche who says being able to shut of emotionally when bad stuff is going down is a tool. Here's why.
There are many different types of people in this world who deal with many different types of things. Some handle stress and pressure weell, some do not. The same thing that causes a firefighter to run in to a building that everyone else is running out of, is the same thing that causes a police officer to walk in to a domestic disturbance, is the same thing that makes an ER doctor calm enough to save a life. It is the same thing that allows me to be who I am in times of stress and or pressure.
It is an asset.
These people are not insane, nor do they not care about others. Far from it. They actually do what they do because they care....or because they are stupid. Either way, I would be glad to be compared to that kind of stupid.
So trauma is a joke to me. Can't be that.
Some say guilt. I have tried to make that the issue. Guilt over what I have done, who I have been. It never felt, smelled, tasted, sounded right. It may look like the right thing to be, but it really isn't. Sometimes, you play the hand you are dealt. It is easy for a person to never be faced with tough decisions to think I made the wrong ones. It is easy to judge and to put value on certain cultural situations when you have never been faced with them.
I did the best I could with what I had. I never hurt anyone who didn't choose to be hurt. That may seem odd to you, but it is, in a sense true. Our decisions help to define where we are at any given time. If we choose to harm others, choose to be a bad person, and bad stuff happens, then we in fact choose to put ourselves in a situation where bad things can happen.
I know this is partly justification, but in the end, we all do what we need to get by, and sometimes the world isn't perfect. I am not now, nor have I ever been a bad person.
I have made bad decisions, mistakenly hurt people I care about, but never out of being a bad person, and never out of a desire to inflict pain on anyone.
I have some minor shame over some of the people I have hurt. That is not cripiling guilt, and if they can forgive me, so can I.
Ok, so not guilt, not trauma. That leaves fear.
People do things out of fear all the time. They also don't do things. We all have fears, and I am not exception. I learned long ago not to let them drive me, but that is a lie we all tell ourselves. There is one fear I cannot master, and that is the fear of failure. Sometimes, it keeps me from doing stuff, but not all the time, and I have rarely failed at that which I try for. That really isn't the problem.
The real problem is that I never dare to dream. I have no dreams. No great desires.
I have wants and needs like any other human being, but nothing that drives me forward in a manner that befits a human.
I think this is true of far too many of us. We rarely set the bar high enugh, and then work ourselves to get there. We become complacent and sedddentary in our lives simply because it is easier.
I have never really had any dreams since I was 16. I remember clearly the day I decided I weould be on the radio. My best friend Ian and I devised the plan. We were idiots. We figured we could just start one, no problem. We were very wrong.
I eventually made it on the radio. I wanted to do play by play for sports. I did this. In fact, the name Chris Parker will be forever remembered in the annals of time as the first person to do colour for professional women's hockey on the radio.
That was the last time I had a dream.
I think it is time to dream again. I think we all need dreams. We need things to drive us forward, or we stagnate.
We all need things to strive towards and to achieve...or die trying.
That is what is missing in my life, no real dreams. Everything I desire is achieveable in my current state, or I can justify not getting because I am punishing myself because I am not worthy.
How many times have you said this to yourself? I do not deserve it, or I am not good enough.
Maybe I am the only one, but I doubt it. There are things out there, big things, nice things,, hapy things that we all deserve. We don't deserve them because we were born in to it, but because we work to get them.
I told a friend today she could have all of her dreams come true if she just figured out what they were. The same is true of all of us.
You can have more than you have now. You do not need to settle. You do not have to go at this half assed, and neither do I.
I think it is time for me to dream, and more importantly time for me to really go get those dreams.
Now if I could only figure out what to dream about.....
I'll give you a minute to recover from your laughing fit over jokes you just made at my expense while I am attempting to pour my heart out to you on the internets.
All better?
Great, let's move on.
At first glance one might say trauma. That's bullshit. Emotionally speaking, I put trauma in its rightful place and am not really phased by that sort of thing, in fact I don't think I have been phasedd by it in some time. Any douche who says being able to shut of emotionally when bad stuff is going down is a tool. Here's why.
There are many different types of people in this world who deal with many different types of things. Some handle stress and pressure weell, some do not. The same thing that causes a firefighter to run in to a building that everyone else is running out of, is the same thing that causes a police officer to walk in to a domestic disturbance, is the same thing that makes an ER doctor calm enough to save a life. It is the same thing that allows me to be who I am in times of stress and or pressure.
It is an asset.
These people are not insane, nor do they not care about others. Far from it. They actually do what they do because they care....or because they are stupid. Either way, I would be glad to be compared to that kind of stupid.
So trauma is a joke to me. Can't be that.
Some say guilt. I have tried to make that the issue. Guilt over what I have done, who I have been. It never felt, smelled, tasted, sounded right. It may look like the right thing to be, but it really isn't. Sometimes, you play the hand you are dealt. It is easy for a person to never be faced with tough decisions to think I made the wrong ones. It is easy to judge and to put value on certain cultural situations when you have never been faced with them.
I did the best I could with what I had. I never hurt anyone who didn't choose to be hurt. That may seem odd to you, but it is, in a sense true. Our decisions help to define where we are at any given time. If we choose to harm others, choose to be a bad person, and bad stuff happens, then we in fact choose to put ourselves in a situation where bad things can happen.
I know this is partly justification, but in the end, we all do what we need to get by, and sometimes the world isn't perfect. I am not now, nor have I ever been a bad person.
I have made bad decisions, mistakenly hurt people I care about, but never out of being a bad person, and never out of a desire to inflict pain on anyone.
I have some minor shame over some of the people I have hurt. That is not cripiling guilt, and if they can forgive me, so can I.
Ok, so not guilt, not trauma. That leaves fear.
People do things out of fear all the time. They also don't do things. We all have fears, and I am not exception. I learned long ago not to let them drive me, but that is a lie we all tell ourselves. There is one fear I cannot master, and that is the fear of failure. Sometimes, it keeps me from doing stuff, but not all the time, and I have rarely failed at that which I try for. That really isn't the problem.
The real problem is that I never dare to dream. I have no dreams. No great desires.
I have wants and needs like any other human being, but nothing that drives me forward in a manner that befits a human.
I think this is true of far too many of us. We rarely set the bar high enugh, and then work ourselves to get there. We become complacent and sedddentary in our lives simply because it is easier.
I have never really had any dreams since I was 16. I remember clearly the day I decided I weould be on the radio. My best friend Ian and I devised the plan. We were idiots. We figured we could just start one, no problem. We were very wrong.
I eventually made it on the radio. I wanted to do play by play for sports. I did this. In fact, the name Chris Parker will be forever remembered in the annals of time as the first person to do colour for professional women's hockey on the radio.
That was the last time I had a dream.
I think it is time to dream again. I think we all need dreams. We need things to drive us forward, or we stagnate.
We all need things to strive towards and to achieve...or die trying.
That is what is missing in my life, no real dreams. Everything I desire is achieveable in my current state, or I can justify not getting because I am punishing myself because I am not worthy.
How many times have you said this to yourself? I do not deserve it, or I am not good enough.
Maybe I am the only one, but I doubt it. There are things out there, big things, nice things,, hapy things that we all deserve. We don't deserve them because we were born in to it, but because we work to get them.
I told a friend today she could have all of her dreams come true if she just figured out what they were. The same is true of all of us.
You can have more than you have now. You do not need to settle. You do not have to go at this half assed, and neither do I.
I think it is time for me to dream, and more importantly time for me to really go get those dreams.
Now if I could only figure out what to dream about.....
Sunday, October 24, 2010
One Monkey - The Musical
So, yesterday I made a throw away line on my facebook about wanting a soundtrack to my life, and the more I think about it, the more I like the idea.
Since I needed to organize my music anyway, I decided to populate my soundtrack.
I am breaking it down in to two parts. The first is my life up to this point, the second is my life from here on forward.
Pt 1.
Chronological order from birth to today.
Live - Lightening Crashes
Everclear - Wonderful
The Five Tairsteps - Ooh Child
And now to my teen years.
Guns N' Roses - Welcome To The Jungle
Tool - Prison Sex
Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal
Beastie Boys - Rymin' and Stealin'
Boy Meets Girl
Barenaked Ladies - What A Good Boy
Girl Dies
Drowning Pool - Bodies
Breaking Benjamin - I Will Not Bow
Disturbed - Down With the Sickness
Boy Meets A Lot Of Drugs
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Alice In Chains - Down In A Hole
Time To Sober Up
Stone Sour - Zzyzx Rd.
Seether - Rise Above This
This is the story of my twenties. Aimless wandering.
Metallica - Wherever I May Roam
Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey
Boy Meets short person.
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
I was married once
Nirvana - All Apologies
Redifining purpose is depressing. Nothing seems to work.
Soundgarden - Fell On Black Days
Pt 2.
Meh, whatever order I see fit to place them in. Ok, by that I mean alphabetical.
3 Doors Down - Here Without You
Alter Bridge - Rise Today
Audioslave - It Doesn't Remind Me
Ben Taylor - I Try
Breaking Benjamin - Away
Creed - My Own Prison
Disturbed - Land of Confusion
Incubus - Drive
Lost Prophits - Rooftops
Nirvana - Lithium
Papa Roach - To Be Loved
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow
Seether - Fine Again
Staind - Mudshovel
Three Days Grace - Riot
Three Days Grace - Wake Up
Tool - Hush
Weezer - Pork and Beans
Stone Sour - Zzyzx Rd.
Ok, that`s all I got. I am kinda bored of this....and mildly depressed by it, so enough.
Since I needed to organize my music anyway, I decided to populate my soundtrack.
I am breaking it down in to two parts. The first is my life up to this point, the second is my life from here on forward.
Pt 1.
Chronological order from birth to today.
Live - Lightening Crashes
Everclear - Wonderful
The Five Tairsteps - Ooh Child
And now to my teen years.
Guns N' Roses - Welcome To The Jungle
Tool - Prison Sex
Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal
Beastie Boys - Rymin' and Stealin'
Boy Meets Girl
Barenaked Ladies - What A Good Boy
Girl Dies
Drowning Pool - Bodies
Breaking Benjamin - I Will Not Bow
Disturbed - Down With the Sickness
Boy Meets A Lot Of Drugs
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Alice In Chains - Down In A Hole
Time To Sober Up
Stone Sour - Zzyzx Rd.
Seether - Rise Above This
This is the story of my twenties. Aimless wandering.
Metallica - Wherever I May Roam
Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey
Boy Meets short person.
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
I was married once
Nirvana - All Apologies
Redifining purpose is depressing. Nothing seems to work.
Soundgarden - Fell On Black Days
Pt 2.
Meh, whatever order I see fit to place them in. Ok, by that I mean alphabetical.
3 Doors Down - Here Without You
Alter Bridge - Rise Today
Audioslave - It Doesn't Remind Me
Ben Taylor - I Try
Breaking Benjamin - Away
Creed - My Own Prison
Disturbed - Land of Confusion
Incubus - Drive
Lost Prophits - Rooftops
Nirvana - Lithium
Papa Roach - To Be Loved
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow
Seether - Fine Again
Staind - Mudshovel
Three Days Grace - Riot
Three Days Grace - Wake Up
Tool - Hush
Weezer - Pork and Beans
Stone Sour - Zzyzx Rd.
Ok, that`s all I got. I am kinda bored of this....and mildly depressed by it, so enough.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Good Medicine
I see her standing there in my mind. I close my eye and I picture it, and the picture becomes so vivid I can smell it, taste it, hear it.
All my senses become electrified as I open the door and see her standing there.
She is wearing a brown track suit. It clings to her because it is raining outside. Slung over her shoulder is a fine purse, I don't know the make because I am a dude, but I can see it, it almost matches her track suit. It definitely matches her large rubber boots.
In her hands is a toaster. I have no idea what she plans to do with it, but it probably isn't natural.
My eyes get lost in hers. Their is mischief in there, and the light of a thousand lives, and the darkness of lost souls who had the misfortune to get lost in there.
This is not a nightmare, it is a dream. Sweet dreams are made of these.
I think I may have found a cure for the blahs and I am calling it good medicine, and no, I am not referring to this.
For the past few days I have been looking for a silver lining or a bright ray of sunshine. I have said that life needs purpose a reason, a redeeming quality and factor to it.
My life has been rough. I have had some of the worst things imaginable done to me, and have done some to others as well. Sitting alone with my thoughts, which some people know is a terrible idea, I find myself wondering what positive effects I have. Am I worth this blazingly wonderful thing called life?
Generally, I have never felt so. I can blame other people for that, and I would be right to do so. I can blame myself for that, and I would be right to do so.
Blame never solved any problem, but understanding cause can be helpful in the long run. I mean really, who do we blame for this. Though satisfying as it might be to rip someone apart for that, and punish them by doing this. In the end, that helps no one. So instead just think of the reason, and if you want to know the reason for Beiber, simply follow these steps.
1. Go to the nearest bathroom.
2. Look in the mirror.
3. Repent.
Ok, I am getting off track here, the important thing is, I almost never feel like anything I do matters. I have always felt that I am an easy person to cast aside and that there is nothing of value in me to other people. This used to depress me in many severe ways. That has passed for the most part as I am now able to really distinguish between flawed thinking and reality.
That being said, it is still a not fun thing.
Today, I learned something new about myself, and about someone I cherish deeply. I need to take some medicine from time to time.
Sometimes we all need to be reminded that despite all of our flaws, we are worth being around, even in the bad times where we need someone else to lean on.
The story doesn't end here though folks. It never does with me. I want to tell you about my medicine.
Cute as a button and yet that could not even begin to describe my medicine.
There is something about the way it is shaped that is just appealing. Some drug addicts talk about how appealing the package is, and while that i important, it is not enough in my good medicine.
Don't get me wrong, the reality is, my medicine is no Megan fox, but in a way, my medicine is so much better looking than Megan fox will ever be. Classic beauty is overrated and frankly leaves something out...I think it is the human equation. When I look at a Megan Fox, I can appreciate it in the same way I can appreciate a beautiful flower. tructuraly speaking it is perfect. That perfection is not beauty though, that perfection is a technical thing. Real beauty is about looking at omething that may not be perfect, but seeing it that way. My medicine may not be perfect, but my medicine is so damn beautiful that perfection is a leser thing.
My medicine's eyes contain a spark of life that is unlike any I think I have ever seen. It just seems like my medicine is there and real, never a placebo, never a low dosage, but always full and the perfect amount.
My medicine is smart. Not because my medicine can explain the theory of relativity, but because my medicine knows what to say, when to say it, and more importantly how to say it. So many people ssay the wrong thing at the wrong time, or merely get lost in their own mind and blurt out what seems to be the right thing based on their world view, but rather, my medicine knows what I need.
The remarkable thing about the intellect of my medicine is that my medicine knows what my medicine doesn't know. My medicine seeks out knowledge, eats it for breakfast lunch and dinner, and then asks for seconds. My medicine also doesn't accept crap answers.
My medicine is a special snowflake. Unique in the fact that it can do so much and yet cost so little. Nothing acts like my medicine. Frankly, nothing should, yet my medicine makes it work.
Sometimes I have to be strong for my medicine, and sometimes my medicine has to be strong for me. I am not sure why my medicine is strong for me, but I do know why I am strong for my medicine.
I once forgot that, and some jerk changed my prescription, but I have finally found the right doctor who is willing to prescribe the right medicine, the good medicine.
When I am feeling blue, my medicine makes me red.
When I am red, my medicine makes me blue.
Good medicine is what I highly recommend to anyone who is struggling with anything, because good medicine can make all the difference. Good medicine can motivate, satiate, aggravate, and just plain immolate the senses.
I am thankful for good medicine, because in some strange way I am comforted by the fact that my medicine is there for me when I need, in good times and in bad.
What can I say about my good medicine that I have not said before
Good medicine is beautiful, smart, kind, funny, short, and worth every penny.
My hope is that I will be paying for my medicine for the rest of my life, because once you have the right medicine, you never let go, you just ride it out and hope for the best.
Thank you for being there medicine.
Disclaimer:
Good medicine may cause
Drowsiness
headaches
heartaches
diarrhea
delusions of world domination
a burning sensation (only if good medicine has matches)
smiles
laughter
nasal leakage
The desire to put things in sterlite containers
a new found appreciation for track suits
sunny days
pathetic adoration
Consult a doctor if good medicine causes heartache that lasts for longer than 10 seconds, you get an erection for more than 4 hours, or if you experience sadness while on good medicine, cause something is not working.
I love my good medicine, and my good medicine loves me back, cause otherwise, good medicine wouldn`t work.
PS, I guess I am thankful for something after all. Must be the thanksgiving miracle charlie brown.
All my senses become electrified as I open the door and see her standing there.
She is wearing a brown track suit. It clings to her because it is raining outside. Slung over her shoulder is a fine purse, I don't know the make because I am a dude, but I can see it, it almost matches her track suit. It definitely matches her large rubber boots.
In her hands is a toaster. I have no idea what she plans to do with it, but it probably isn't natural.
My eyes get lost in hers. Their is mischief in there, and the light of a thousand lives, and the darkness of lost souls who had the misfortune to get lost in there.
This is not a nightmare, it is a dream. Sweet dreams are made of these.
I think I may have found a cure for the blahs and I am calling it good medicine, and no, I am not referring to this.
For the past few days I have been looking for a silver lining or a bright ray of sunshine. I have said that life needs purpose a reason, a redeeming quality and factor to it.
My life has been rough. I have had some of the worst things imaginable done to me, and have done some to others as well. Sitting alone with my thoughts, which some people know is a terrible idea, I find myself wondering what positive effects I have. Am I worth this blazingly wonderful thing called life?
Generally, I have never felt so. I can blame other people for that, and I would be right to do so. I can blame myself for that, and I would be right to do so.
Blame never solved any problem, but understanding cause can be helpful in the long run. I mean really, who do we blame for this. Though satisfying as it might be to rip someone apart for that, and punish them by doing this. In the end, that helps no one. So instead just think of the reason, and if you want to know the reason for Beiber, simply follow these steps.
1. Go to the nearest bathroom.
2. Look in the mirror.
3. Repent.
Ok, I am getting off track here, the important thing is, I almost never feel like anything I do matters. I have always felt that I am an easy person to cast aside and that there is nothing of value in me to other people. This used to depress me in many severe ways. That has passed for the most part as I am now able to really distinguish between flawed thinking and reality.
That being said, it is still a not fun thing.
Today, I learned something new about myself, and about someone I cherish deeply. I need to take some medicine from time to time.
Sometimes we all need to be reminded that despite all of our flaws, we are worth being around, even in the bad times where we need someone else to lean on.
The story doesn't end here though folks. It never does with me. I want to tell you about my medicine.
Cute as a button and yet that could not even begin to describe my medicine.
There is something about the way it is shaped that is just appealing. Some drug addicts talk about how appealing the package is, and while that i important, it is not enough in my good medicine.
Don't get me wrong, the reality is, my medicine is no Megan fox, but in a way, my medicine is so much better looking than Megan fox will ever be. Classic beauty is overrated and frankly leaves something out...I think it is the human equation. When I look at a Megan Fox, I can appreciate it in the same way I can appreciate a beautiful flower. tructuraly speaking it is perfect. That perfection is not beauty though, that perfection is a technical thing. Real beauty is about looking at omething that may not be perfect, but seeing it that way. My medicine may not be perfect, but my medicine is so damn beautiful that perfection is a leser thing.
My medicine's eyes contain a spark of life that is unlike any I think I have ever seen. It just seems like my medicine is there and real, never a placebo, never a low dosage, but always full and the perfect amount.
My medicine is smart. Not because my medicine can explain the theory of relativity, but because my medicine knows what to say, when to say it, and more importantly how to say it. So many people ssay the wrong thing at the wrong time, or merely get lost in their own mind and blurt out what seems to be the right thing based on their world view, but rather, my medicine knows what I need.
The remarkable thing about the intellect of my medicine is that my medicine knows what my medicine doesn't know. My medicine seeks out knowledge, eats it for breakfast lunch and dinner, and then asks for seconds. My medicine also doesn't accept crap answers.
My medicine is a special snowflake. Unique in the fact that it can do so much and yet cost so little. Nothing acts like my medicine. Frankly, nothing should, yet my medicine makes it work.
Sometimes I have to be strong for my medicine, and sometimes my medicine has to be strong for me. I am not sure why my medicine is strong for me, but I do know why I am strong for my medicine.
I once forgot that, and some jerk changed my prescription, but I have finally found the right doctor who is willing to prescribe the right medicine, the good medicine.
When I am feeling blue, my medicine makes me red.
When I am red, my medicine makes me blue.
Good medicine is what I highly recommend to anyone who is struggling with anything, because good medicine can make all the difference. Good medicine can motivate, satiate, aggravate, and just plain immolate the senses.
I am thankful for good medicine, because in some strange way I am comforted by the fact that my medicine is there for me when I need, in good times and in bad.
What can I say about my good medicine that I have not said before
Good medicine is beautiful, smart, kind, funny, short, and worth every penny.
My hope is that I will be paying for my medicine for the rest of my life, because once you have the right medicine, you never let go, you just ride it out and hope for the best.
Thank you for being there medicine.
Disclaimer:
Good medicine may cause
Drowsiness
headaches
heartaches
diarrhea
delusions of world domination
a burning sensation (only if good medicine has matches)
smiles
laughter
nasal leakage
The desire to put things in sterlite containers
a new found appreciation for track suits
sunny days
pathetic adoration
Consult a doctor if good medicine causes heartache that lasts for longer than 10 seconds, you get an erection for more than 4 hours, or if you experience sadness while on good medicine, cause something is not working.
I love my good medicine, and my good medicine loves me back, cause otherwise, good medicine wouldn`t work.
PS, I guess I am thankful for something after all. Must be the thanksgiving miracle charlie brown.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
casey jones- The Ungrateful Dead
So this weekend is thanksgiving, at least it is here in the Frozen North. That usually means people are scrambling to find family to torture or pathetic friends to save. It also usually means people will comb the surface of their brain like an over zealous stormtrooper on the sands of tatooine looking for droids.
If you expect me to do either of those things, this is not the blog you are looking for.
So many people are so thankful for all their gifts in this life, and try as I might, I am not one of them. I rarely if ever consider anything in my life a gift. This is almost exclusively to do with the yin yang of everything in my life.
Many people are thankful for their parents. I could try and be, but when your parents both love and hate you at the same time it isn't easy to be thankful.
Many people are thankful for love. I simply am not one of those. My love for others has always been misplaced or blown up real fast. Those who have professed to love me have simply dissipated. Ok not so simply in some cases but frig that, invisibility is invisibility.
It is at this point a normal person would scream out I am unlovable. I ain't gonna do that. First of all, I am not normal, and second of all, I am lovable in my own way.
Sure I am fucked up, but at least I have the balls to admit it, and the ridiculous lack of shame to blog about it on the internet.
Many people are thankful for their job. HAHAHA!
Moving on.
Many people are thankful for their friends. In a way I should be, but I am not. I am no longer comfortable with any of them. I may never have been simply because I am never able to be fully and truly me with any of them save 3. One dissapeared, one lives in another country and one expects more from me than I can deliver.
The vast majority of people are thankful for life. I am not. Like all yin tang situations, my life has been extraordinarily blessed and cursed. Yet those great joys seem hollow and empty now as I look back on them because they were never what I wanted. All those little victories were tainted by the fact that they could have been much more.
The pain. The pain was real.
Someone foolishly said to me today I should not rest on my laurels. I would like to gut him like a fish right now, and I hate fish.
No quarter given, no respect for the distance traveled so far, merely penalizing me for not having reached the finish line as posted by him.
Few know enough about me to actually say to me, I know you well enough by now.... in fact I think only two living souls have a right to say that...maybe three. That third is most likely not smart enough to actually know me.
At some point pride is valuable. Self esteem is valuable. Self worth is valuable.
To all those who climbed out of the gutter to stand on the side of the road I salute you, and welcome to the club.
There are gutters in life, and not those shiny ones in your bowling alleys that simply spit your ball back out when you slide it in there by accident. There are gutters that consume. Gutters that are full of quicksand and tar, with dirty needles for rocks and dead bodies for bumpers.
There are gutters full of the diseased, the sick the abandoned, the lonely.
This is the gutter of the abused. This is the gutter of the guilty. This is the gutter of the forgotten and the downtrodden. The gutter of the traumatized. The gutter of the addict. The gutter of the poor. The gutter of the misbegotten.
When someone crawls out of that gutter, stands up, looks around and says, can anyone help me find the way back home, you don't tell them find it yourself. You do not tell them hey I see you got yourself out of the gutter, why can't you find your way home?
My story is not that different from others.
Abused by 3.
Broken so badly that the vast majority of people with my injury can't feed themselves let alone think for themselves.
Scared, stalked and alone.
Abandoned and mistreated.
Lost and found in a place not for the weak of heart.
Abandoned again.
Guilty of so much hate and hurt.
Abandoned again.
Left to addiction, and almost lost.
Freed through willpower and inner strength, only to make the same mistakes again because my roadmap is shit.
Broken down and misguided.
Foolish in love to the point it breaks him again.
Lost and alone.
Reinvents himself and begins a wicked journey of self discovery that he hopes will lead him home.
Lost a drift. Begging for a light and help with the map.
Fuck you if you think I haven't done enough. Fuck you if you think it is so easy to get this far.
Ahh what have I done? Laid bare my angst and anger over everything. So be it. Feel free to judge me all you want. I am strong enough to withstand your opinions, it is myself that is the true harsh critic.
Personal savior indeed. Look for your strength in others if that warms you at night. I like the cold.
Go ahead and tell me again how I like the inner strength to make change. Go ahead.
Yay me for being stupid enough to share this with you all. The fact is, maybe you can learn from my mistakes, and even if you don't, I can still be a cautionary tale.
What I will not do is be thankful for all this shit.
It never really amounted to much, after all, I haven't amounted to jackshit. But, I have managed to accomplish something few do, I got out, and I breathed clean air for a bit. It was kinda fun, in a messed up sort of way.
Now, go forth children and be thankful. Be thankful you are not me, since I am weak and pathetic and not worth anyone's kudos.
If you expect me to do either of those things, this is not the blog you are looking for.
So many people are so thankful for all their gifts in this life, and try as I might, I am not one of them. I rarely if ever consider anything in my life a gift. This is almost exclusively to do with the yin yang of everything in my life.
Many people are thankful for their parents. I could try and be, but when your parents both love and hate you at the same time it isn't easy to be thankful.
Many people are thankful for love. I simply am not one of those. My love for others has always been misplaced or blown up real fast. Those who have professed to love me have simply dissipated. Ok not so simply in some cases but frig that, invisibility is invisibility.
It is at this point a normal person would scream out I am unlovable. I ain't gonna do that. First of all, I am not normal, and second of all, I am lovable in my own way.
Sure I am fucked up, but at least I have the balls to admit it, and the ridiculous lack of shame to blog about it on the internet.
Many people are thankful for their job. HAHAHA!
Moving on.
Many people are thankful for their friends. In a way I should be, but I am not. I am no longer comfortable with any of them. I may never have been simply because I am never able to be fully and truly me with any of them save 3. One dissapeared, one lives in another country and one expects more from me than I can deliver.
The vast majority of people are thankful for life. I am not. Like all yin tang situations, my life has been extraordinarily blessed and cursed. Yet those great joys seem hollow and empty now as I look back on them because they were never what I wanted. All those little victories were tainted by the fact that they could have been much more.
The pain. The pain was real.
Someone foolishly said to me today I should not rest on my laurels. I would like to gut him like a fish right now, and I hate fish.
No quarter given, no respect for the distance traveled so far, merely penalizing me for not having reached the finish line as posted by him.
Few know enough about me to actually say to me, I know you well enough by now.... in fact I think only two living souls have a right to say that...maybe three. That third is most likely not smart enough to actually know me.
At some point pride is valuable. Self esteem is valuable. Self worth is valuable.
To all those who climbed out of the gutter to stand on the side of the road I salute you, and welcome to the club.
There are gutters in life, and not those shiny ones in your bowling alleys that simply spit your ball back out when you slide it in there by accident. There are gutters that consume. Gutters that are full of quicksand and tar, with dirty needles for rocks and dead bodies for bumpers.
There are gutters full of the diseased, the sick the abandoned, the lonely.
This is the gutter of the abused. This is the gutter of the guilty. This is the gutter of the forgotten and the downtrodden. The gutter of the traumatized. The gutter of the addict. The gutter of the poor. The gutter of the misbegotten.
When someone crawls out of that gutter, stands up, looks around and says, can anyone help me find the way back home, you don't tell them find it yourself. You do not tell them hey I see you got yourself out of the gutter, why can't you find your way home?
My story is not that different from others.
Abused by 3.
Broken so badly that the vast majority of people with my injury can't feed themselves let alone think for themselves.
Scared, stalked and alone.
Abandoned and mistreated.
Lost and found in a place not for the weak of heart.
Abandoned again.
Guilty of so much hate and hurt.
Abandoned again.
Left to addiction, and almost lost.
Freed through willpower and inner strength, only to make the same mistakes again because my roadmap is shit.
Broken down and misguided.
Foolish in love to the point it breaks him again.
Lost and alone.
Reinvents himself and begins a wicked journey of self discovery that he hopes will lead him home.
Lost a drift. Begging for a light and help with the map.
Fuck you if you think I haven't done enough. Fuck you if you think it is so easy to get this far.
Ahh what have I done? Laid bare my angst and anger over everything. So be it. Feel free to judge me all you want. I am strong enough to withstand your opinions, it is myself that is the true harsh critic.
Personal savior indeed. Look for your strength in others if that warms you at night. I like the cold.
Go ahead and tell me again how I like the inner strength to make change. Go ahead.
Yay me for being stupid enough to share this with you all. The fact is, maybe you can learn from my mistakes, and even if you don't, I can still be a cautionary tale.
What I will not do is be thankful for all this shit.
It never really amounted to much, after all, I haven't amounted to jackshit. But, I have managed to accomplish something few do, I got out, and I breathed clean air for a bit. It was kinda fun, in a messed up sort of way.
Now, go forth children and be thankful. Be thankful you are not me, since I am weak and pathetic and not worth anyone's kudos.
Friday, July 23, 2010
At the crossroads of memory lane and wtf? blvd
I have to tell you, I truly enjoy when two seperate conversations line up just right and you end up with one of those moments where you just can't help but go....Oh wow man, that is weird.
This happened to me recently. It started with a conversation about my current living arrangment which can only be summed up by This!
Yep that is how I roll.
Sorry about that, it was necessary to make me happy! I promise the next link will be more fun for you.
Anyway, so I was describing my current living conditions and the question came up, is there really any good rooming houses out there? I thought about this for some time, bringing up past thoughts on places I have lived and really came up with no.
Yesterday I got an email from the person reading my manuscript. There was one question and only one question. Where do you come up with these assinine character? I thought about saying that they were charactures of aspects of my own personality, but that would make me look like an ass, so instead I said...why, I used to live with most of them.
So for you entertainment, here is a listing of every single rooming house I have ever lived in and why they indeed sucked.
The Central Clearing House. Bathurst and College, Toronto. I lived here for only a short time. I was dealing PCP, Meth, XTC and pot out of the top floor room. This place wasn't so bad...apart from the Russian LAN parties. Seriously, all night long these two russians who lived there would curse at each other in russian and play some sort of Quake, Duke Nukem thing. I call it the central clearing house because it was half a block from Central high school, one of the toughest schools in town, and well, everything was priced to move.
The Minagerie. Augusta St, Toronto. Technically E and I had our own apartment in the basement but, with 15 people living in what was essentially a 7 bedroom house, this was insane. We rented out the upstairs kitchen as a room...seriously. Also, a hooker stole our rent money and ran away to Vancouver. We had an awesome outdoor living room though...until the rains came...then we learned about tarping. The problem, other than the mass of smelly humanity was the fact that we also had 17 animals living in the house. Cats, dogs, mice, rats, some kind of snake.... The smell was....If you walk through the neighborhood now you will notice the house was torn down right after we moved out.
The Enterprise. Near the Corel Center, Ottawa. At first glance, this was a nice place. It was in a nice little gated type community of row houses and such. What went wrong? The guy in the room next to me, apart from being a real ladies man, was also...an amway salesman...who incidentally looked exactly like This!
Ok I know I said I would not do that, but it is true, he looked like that. There were a bunch of other weirdos in and out of there, and that story I like to tell about being kicked out of the National Art Gallery for making out with my roommates sister on an exhibit...yeah this was the place where I met that roommate and that sister. It is called the enterprise because anouther roommate had his entire system set up with noises from star trek. You know when your computer makes a sound to tell you it is turning on or off or a program closes? Right, he had all sounds changed to mimick the computer of the enterprise D. Oh and it spoke to him.
The Lesbian House. Convieniently Located for like ten minutes, Ottawa. What can I say, me and 5 lesbians. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this place....right up until one fo the girl's girfriends started humping my foot. Seriously. Oh and also, when a lesbianish woman is spurned by anouther, she may in fact show up at your door with a shopping bag full of lesbian porn and sex toys. I make no guarantees, but it is my experience that this will happen. I complain because I moved here to be within a five minute walk of work, and then a week later my station was sold and moved to the middle of nowhere...seriously, a twenty minute drive...or an hour and forty five minutes by bus.
The Alabama Slammah! Port McNicholl Ontario. This place was fine, apart from the 500 dollar a month phone bills and 500 dollar cab bill to get to and from work. Also, everyone there drank and was married to their sister. It was interesting to say the least.
The Crack House. Peterborough. Renting from a devout man seemed like a good idea. He made me sign a morals clause...which by the way included me not plagiarizing any of my college papers, and I thought this will be a relaxing place to get some work done. A half a dozen visits from the cops later (they were looking for the homeless woman who lived in the basement, and the drunk guy who kept breaking everybody's stuff) and I was sure this was hell.
The Den of thieves. Current domicile. Really, you stole my ketchup and margerine? I get using some of it, but taking the whole frigging thing...twice... and not leaving me anything? WTF? My favourite was the graduation card from my parents. You see, for some reason they thought it would be nice to congratulate me for my hard work by sending me a card, which for some reason one of my roommates decided to open, just in case there was some cash inside. There wasn't, so said roommate came to my door and said she "found" the card in the basement, ya know all open and without the envelope. This amused me for some time...right up until someone ate my frigging hot dogs. The part that amuses me the most is, everyone here complains about people stealing their stuff, that is why they all have mini fridges in their rooms. So wait, someone who doesn't like their stuff getting stolen so much that they bought their own fridge is stealing my stuff? DUDE! Oh and someone stole my cold water. Seriously, I had a bottle of TAP WATER! in the fridge cooling off, and they took it. They took my tap water man.
Well there you have it, my odesy through rooming houses. I left out two places that were sort of rooming houses but not really. The hiipy love farm and the steroid happy funtime hour house. This was more me living with a family...neither lasted long.
That is all for now, unless you want more of This!
As soon as know about my manuscript I will let you know.
This happened to me recently. It started with a conversation about my current living arrangment which can only be summed up by This!
Yep that is how I roll.
Sorry about that, it was necessary to make me happy! I promise the next link will be more fun for you.
Anyway, so I was describing my current living conditions and the question came up, is there really any good rooming houses out there? I thought about this for some time, bringing up past thoughts on places I have lived and really came up with no.
Yesterday I got an email from the person reading my manuscript. There was one question and only one question. Where do you come up with these assinine character? I thought about saying that they were charactures of aspects of my own personality, but that would make me look like an ass, so instead I said...why, I used to live with most of them.
So for you entertainment, here is a listing of every single rooming house I have ever lived in and why they indeed sucked.
The Central Clearing House. Bathurst and College, Toronto. I lived here for only a short time. I was dealing PCP, Meth, XTC and pot out of the top floor room. This place wasn't so bad...apart from the Russian LAN parties. Seriously, all night long these two russians who lived there would curse at each other in russian and play some sort of Quake, Duke Nukem thing. I call it the central clearing house because it was half a block from Central high school, one of the toughest schools in town, and well, everything was priced to move.
The Minagerie. Augusta St, Toronto. Technically E and I had our own apartment in the basement but, with 15 people living in what was essentially a 7 bedroom house, this was insane. We rented out the upstairs kitchen as a room...seriously. Also, a hooker stole our rent money and ran away to Vancouver. We had an awesome outdoor living room though...until the rains came...then we learned about tarping. The problem, other than the mass of smelly humanity was the fact that we also had 17 animals living in the house. Cats, dogs, mice, rats, some kind of snake.... The smell was....If you walk through the neighborhood now you will notice the house was torn down right after we moved out.
The Enterprise. Near the Corel Center, Ottawa. At first glance, this was a nice place. It was in a nice little gated type community of row houses and such. What went wrong? The guy in the room next to me, apart from being a real ladies man, was also...an amway salesman...who incidentally looked exactly like This!
Ok I know I said I would not do that, but it is true, he looked like that. There were a bunch of other weirdos in and out of there, and that story I like to tell about being kicked out of the National Art Gallery for making out with my roommates sister on an exhibit...yeah this was the place where I met that roommate and that sister. It is called the enterprise because anouther roommate had his entire system set up with noises from star trek. You know when your computer makes a sound to tell you it is turning on or off or a program closes? Right, he had all sounds changed to mimick the computer of the enterprise D. Oh and it spoke to him.
The Lesbian House. Convieniently Located for like ten minutes, Ottawa. What can I say, me and 5 lesbians. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this place....right up until one fo the girl's girfriends started humping my foot. Seriously. Oh and also, when a lesbianish woman is spurned by anouther, she may in fact show up at your door with a shopping bag full of lesbian porn and sex toys. I make no guarantees, but it is my experience that this will happen. I complain because I moved here to be within a five minute walk of work, and then a week later my station was sold and moved to the middle of nowhere...seriously, a twenty minute drive...or an hour and forty five minutes by bus.
The Alabama Slammah! Port McNicholl Ontario. This place was fine, apart from the 500 dollar a month phone bills and 500 dollar cab bill to get to and from work. Also, everyone there drank and was married to their sister. It was interesting to say the least.
The Crack House. Peterborough. Renting from a devout man seemed like a good idea. He made me sign a morals clause...which by the way included me not plagiarizing any of my college papers, and I thought this will be a relaxing place to get some work done. A half a dozen visits from the cops later (they were looking for the homeless woman who lived in the basement, and the drunk guy who kept breaking everybody's stuff) and I was sure this was hell.
The Den of thieves. Current domicile. Really, you stole my ketchup and margerine? I get using some of it, but taking the whole frigging thing...twice... and not leaving me anything? WTF? My favourite was the graduation card from my parents. You see, for some reason they thought it would be nice to congratulate me for my hard work by sending me a card, which for some reason one of my roommates decided to open, just in case there was some cash inside. There wasn't, so said roommate came to my door and said she "found" the card in the basement, ya know all open and without the envelope. This amused me for some time...right up until someone ate my frigging hot dogs. The part that amuses me the most is, everyone here complains about people stealing their stuff, that is why they all have mini fridges in their rooms. So wait, someone who doesn't like their stuff getting stolen so much that they bought their own fridge is stealing my stuff? DUDE! Oh and someone stole my cold water. Seriously, I had a bottle of TAP WATER! in the fridge cooling off, and they took it. They took my tap water man.
Well there you have it, my odesy through rooming houses. I left out two places that were sort of rooming houses but not really. The hiipy love farm and the steroid happy funtime hour house. This was more me living with a family...neither lasted long.
That is all for now, unless you want more of This!
As soon as know about my manuscript I will let you know.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Justification is a river in.....somewhere
I am not a big enough geek. Wait let me rephrase that.... I do not show how big of a geek I am very often, and that is a shame. For peace and happiness to abound one must embrace who and what they are and throw caution out the airlock.
My good friend Becky has spent a tremendous amount of time reminding me I am not that which I was. This is true, but right now I am immersed in that culture. I am swimming around in my own pensieve, pulling at random spaghetti strings of misbegotten youth. Oh this is fun to be sure. I get to relive the time I stole a pregnancy test for a girl (it was negative, and not mine to begin with) or the time I opened a gym bag full of ancient melee weapons handed to me by my street brother or the time I ran in to 15 dudes with machine guns. All of these stories are funny to me and they bring a smile to my face and remind me that there were good times.
Problem incoming, intensify forward fire power!
I am also reminded of harshness. I remember the time I was stabbed over Pantera, and I remember the time I was watching a dude die for being black, and I remember the time....well you know what, you get the friggin picture. This is a rerun by the way, and only contains like 30% new material, sorry to have waited this long to tell you.
all that being said, I think I made a bad decision on what project to work on next. I recently blew my emotional wad on a story (which I no longer have a copy of) that explained all of my feelings surrounding a certain crazy street chick. This was very hard for me and when it was done I felt so very content. But reliving those terrible moments of her darkest hours, and my own, were enough for a while.
I think my personal story is one of those project I need to pick up and put down from time to time. Not unlike Stephen King and his epic Dark Tower deal. He never really wrote that story, or any of them in a targeted manner with deadlines and pressure. He picked them up, put them down, worked, ignored, worked some more, then walked away, then sauntered back in the room.
I think about this guy, one of the best modern writers of fiction and I can't help but think about the fact that he has his way and George Lucas has his.
You see George had two different styles of writing the two different trilogies. The first three movies were written over several years. He had notebooks full of crap. Thoughts that occured to him from time to time while he was writing other crap. Every now and then he would sit down and go at a piece of the original trilogy and work with purpose, but he never really had a deadline. The result was fabulous.
Those three movies are a fantastic tale of family, love, triumph, tragedy, perseverance, rebellion, and laser swords.
Now, flash forward to the 90's. George had one month to write each of the new movies. No massive notes, no weird ideas in the shower, no collaboration, no narrative styling. He just pounded out whatever came in to his funny little head.
What resulted was a stinted, bloated story that needed to be rewritten on the fly and required more laser swords than acting talent.
I want my story to read like the first trilogy....with a few less muppets, not the new trilogy, with no chemistry and cgi friends to play with instead of the real thing.
For that reason I am shelving my personal saga. I want it to mean something when it comes out. I want it to really matter to me and those close to me....and I want a break from the ghosts.
Last night I slept like a baby for the first time in...well months really, maybe even two years. Some might credit the new bed....and I do as well, but it is something else as well. I banished the demons, cast a neato spell from my d and d handbook of how to be a devil worshiper in three easy steps, and all of the sudden....sleep...and inspiration came knocking.
I am geek here me roar. As geek I am going to write a story that will appeal to geeks and girls....cause as I have learned from two other writers, hook the females and well, you get to print money in your basement.
Character is the key, and right now, I don't want to focus on me, I would rather focus on a simpleton waging war across the afterlife for his soul, and that of his one true love. This is the story I have in me right now, and this is the story I am going to tell.
If you don't like it you can have your money back....but since you haven't paid yet, we're even. You can walk away now and we're all square, or you can hang out a little while longer and see what the monkey has for you. It's a funny little dance and in the end you will laugh, and if you have female parts I will try really hard to make you cry, and if you have geek parts, I promise large abyssal creatures that would make Bruce Campbell run.......for the shotgun/chainsaw hybrid...I mean come on, not even I can scare Ash!
My good friend Becky has spent a tremendous amount of time reminding me I am not that which I was. This is true, but right now I am immersed in that culture. I am swimming around in my own pensieve, pulling at random spaghetti strings of misbegotten youth. Oh this is fun to be sure. I get to relive the time I stole a pregnancy test for a girl (it was negative, and not mine to begin with) or the time I opened a gym bag full of ancient melee weapons handed to me by my street brother or the time I ran in to 15 dudes with machine guns. All of these stories are funny to me and they bring a smile to my face and remind me that there were good times.
Problem incoming, intensify forward fire power!
I am also reminded of harshness. I remember the time I was stabbed over Pantera, and I remember the time I was watching a dude die for being black, and I remember the time....well you know what, you get the friggin picture. This is a rerun by the way, and only contains like 30% new material, sorry to have waited this long to tell you.
all that being said, I think I made a bad decision on what project to work on next. I recently blew my emotional wad on a story (which I no longer have a copy of) that explained all of my feelings surrounding a certain crazy street chick. This was very hard for me and when it was done I felt so very content. But reliving those terrible moments of her darkest hours, and my own, were enough for a while.
I think my personal story is one of those project I need to pick up and put down from time to time. Not unlike Stephen King and his epic Dark Tower deal. He never really wrote that story, or any of them in a targeted manner with deadlines and pressure. He picked them up, put them down, worked, ignored, worked some more, then walked away, then sauntered back in the room.
I think about this guy, one of the best modern writers of fiction and I can't help but think about the fact that he has his way and George Lucas has his.
You see George had two different styles of writing the two different trilogies. The first three movies were written over several years. He had notebooks full of crap. Thoughts that occured to him from time to time while he was writing other crap. Every now and then he would sit down and go at a piece of the original trilogy and work with purpose, but he never really had a deadline. The result was fabulous.
Those three movies are a fantastic tale of family, love, triumph, tragedy, perseverance, rebellion, and laser swords.
Now, flash forward to the 90's. George had one month to write each of the new movies. No massive notes, no weird ideas in the shower, no collaboration, no narrative styling. He just pounded out whatever came in to his funny little head.
What resulted was a stinted, bloated story that needed to be rewritten on the fly and required more laser swords than acting talent.
I want my story to read like the first trilogy....with a few less muppets, not the new trilogy, with no chemistry and cgi friends to play with instead of the real thing.
For that reason I am shelving my personal saga. I want it to mean something when it comes out. I want it to really matter to me and those close to me....and I want a break from the ghosts.
Last night I slept like a baby for the first time in...well months really, maybe even two years. Some might credit the new bed....and I do as well, but it is something else as well. I banished the demons, cast a neato spell from my d and d handbook of how to be a devil worshiper in three easy steps, and all of the sudden....sleep...and inspiration came knocking.
I am geek here me roar. As geek I am going to write a story that will appeal to geeks and girls....cause as I have learned from two other writers, hook the females and well, you get to print money in your basement.
Character is the key, and right now, I don't want to focus on me, I would rather focus on a simpleton waging war across the afterlife for his soul, and that of his one true love. This is the story I have in me right now, and this is the story I am going to tell.
If you don't like it you can have your money back....but since you haven't paid yet, we're even. You can walk away now and we're all square, or you can hang out a little while longer and see what the monkey has for you. It's a funny little dance and in the end you will laugh, and if you have female parts I will try really hard to make you cry, and if you have geek parts, I promise large abyssal creatures that would make Bruce Campbell run.......for the shotgun/chainsaw hybrid...I mean come on, not even I can scare Ash!
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