I have hit a wall as far as writing goes. Normally I have an endless amount of bullshit that I rant about, but for right now I'm stuck and fucked.
The one thing I really want to do is continue that short story, "To Hell", but I have no idea where to go from there, not too mention I fucking hate the title now too and want to change it. It seems my creative spring has dryed out.... or there was an oil spill or something in it, at least.
So, instead of my normal stories, I will put up this ranting list about Myspace.com. Don't sign up. Please. There's enough fucktards on there that I think should off themselves already.
On Myspace:
1. If I see one more motherfucker that "TyPeS LyKKE dIs!!!" I will punch someone in the cunt. This doesn't make you cool- it makes you a fucking idiot. Learn to spell, and whatever thing you're doing that makes the capitals turn on and off, stop it. If I could, I would break all the fingers on your left hand so you would have to type normal, like the rest of us.
2. Bitch, you ain't a diva. Know what a diva is? A woman who is eccentric but can sing really well, and so we put up with their bullshit because they can create beautiful sounds. Sorry, you're a nineteen-year-old girl from some shithole town in Jersey who wears too much makeup and has an accent that sounds similar to the noise a cat makes if you stuck a blowtorch up it's ass. On top of that, you think the fact that you are stuck up makes you a diva? No, it makes you a bitch.
3. Hats off to the one dude I saw who just had a picture of him shirtless puking in a toilet, and his display name simply said, "I DRINK GIN". Fuckin right you do, buddy.
4. If you're a woman, and you are so damn insecure that you have to steal another woman's pictures and claim that it's you in the hopes of men thinking you are cool before they find out you're ugly, then you got problems lady.
5. Your band sucks. Seriously. You will never be my friend.
6. I like it when women put up damn near naked pictures of themselves on their profiles. Why? Cause I like naked women. However, don't wonder why men don't respect you after you have a picture of your ass in pink panties pasted all over the internet. Even better is when you have the tramp stamp tattoo right above it, and it says, "Daddy" with a little rose or something. Yes, I bet he's proud of you for that one.
7. Guys who 1) go tanning, 2) get their eyebrows waxed, 3) have steroid acne all over their shoulders, 4) wear sunglasses at night or 5) use umbrellas, you must immediately find an egg slicer, put your balls in it, and be rid of them. We are ugly, mean, and unclean, and once you start using wax to remove your hair, you don't deserve your boys anymore.
8. My song does not run right. It's choppy as hell, and it really takes away from the aura of my page. This pisses me off more than I can tell you.
9. Don't complain about how much your boob job hurts on a bulletin. I have to scrape together quarters tomorrow morning so I can buy a pack of smokes, but you've got enough money that you can get huge fake cans? Yea, your life sucks... I wish my life sucked that much. Give me a break.
***(The only time this is admissible is if you post before and after pictures. Naked. While wearing a cowboy hat.)
10. No, I don't want free ringtones. I hope every one of you that steals my password for that garbage gets ass cancer.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Free Beer from Perverts
I've got nothing really to write about, so I'll put this comic up that my buddy Harry made. It's a bastardized version of "Peanuts" where the characters are actually me and my compatriots. They're pretty funny...especially considering he does all this with just Paint...no photoshop.
"Free Beer from Perverts" -This comic came to me after watching a program on TV with a buddy of mine. The program focused around Cops who pretend to be little kids looking to get funky with weirdoes from the Internet. I took it one step further figuring with my buddy we that can get these Perverts to show up with beer in tow... the rest became Legend.
"Free Beer from Perverts" -This comic came to me after watching a program on TV with a buddy of mine. The program focused around Cops who pretend to be little kids looking to get funky with weirdoes from the Internet. I took it one step further figuring with my buddy we that can get these Perverts to show up with beer in tow... the rest became Legend.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Wino...Soon you got to choose
I call him three times on the way to the house to find out if we need beer. Three fucking times. I figure that being as he said we could pregame there, he'd have beer, but I just wanted to make sure. Fuck it.
I walk in the house, and see him empty handed at his computer.
"Motherfucker, don't even tell me you don't have beer."
"I thought you were getting it."
"I called you three times to ask you dick, and you didn't pick up."
"Oh. I lost my phone..."
I light a cigarette and pace around the room, because I really don't want to drive back out to get beer, even though the place is only maybe five minutes away.
"Well, I got a lot of wine."
"I hate wine."
"Yea, but it's free...and it's here."
I grimace...but it's free, and it's the only thing that we have. "Alright. Fine. Get a fuckin bottle."
He goes into the garage. "What kind you want?"
"I don't know. Red stuff. Who cares?"
He grabs a bottle, and then goes unpstairs to find a corkscrew. Like the pictures of absolute class that we are, he pops it open and takes a huge swig, then hands it to me. I do the same, and shake my head after it to
"Man, I fucking hate red wine."
"We got white, too."
"I hate that more."
We've got to get a ride to the bar, which is a little over a half hour away, because neither of us will be in any shape to drive later on and we're both cruising for #2 on DWI's if we take the chance. Of course, we've actually got to be already drunk to get any sympathy from anybody. Eventually a girl I know tells me she'll give us a ride in a half hour, and suddenly it dawns on me that we're not drunk like we've been telling everyone.
"Paul, if we're telling her that we're wine drunk, then we better be drunk when she gets here."
"Shit, you're right." He looks at the clock. It's 9. "Damnit, we better get moving."
In between pounding this stuff, somehow James Joyce comes up. We agree that Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man is one of the best books around, and also that though Finnegan's Wake was complete bullshit, we both wish that we were 1) smart enough to write a book in half Latin, half French, and half Gaelic, and 2)famous enough that people would study the book for years trying to decipher our bullshit like scholars do with that fucking book.
By 9:15 the first bottle is gone. He looks at another one on the table, then looks at me.
"Shall we?"
"But of course."
He pops the second bottle, and we're both feeling a little...merry.
The girl gets there with her compatriot, who is having a tough time believing that me and Paul are 1) on our second bottle of wine in fifteen minutes or 2) arguing about literature of the Irish Renaissance period because neither of us look like we're all that educated, and you certainly can't tell from our vocabulary that revolves around the words, "Fuck" and "You".
Paul's eyes are bloodshot when he hands me a medicine bottle. "Take some of these."
"What are they?"
"B12. It'll make you feel better tomorrow when you're hungover." He looks at the empty bottles. "Cause we're gonna have a hell of a hangover."
I take a few and wash them down with wine. Ten minutes later this bottle is gone. As we get up to walk to the car, I light another smoke and feel my stomach twisting into a knot.
"Paul, I think that B12 is bothering my stomach."
"It's probably the wine."
"Nah, it's definitely the B12."
Later on, we will add this bar to the growing list of those that the NJBA is banned from after we almost get into a Braveheart-esque brawl with the bouncers, who threaten immediately to call the cops because they're outnumbered heavily (although the odds are they would have killed us, because I watch my two of my buddies yell at the bouncers, screaming and threatening...and then just fall down because they're hammered).
Anyway, I don't want to get into specifics, but certain people (the bouncers) are fucking cocksuckers at this certain bar in North Jersey (Park City Bar in Rutherford). Don't go there.
I walk in the house, and see him empty handed at his computer.
"Motherfucker, don't even tell me you don't have beer."
"I thought you were getting it."
"I called you three times to ask you dick, and you didn't pick up."
"Oh. I lost my phone..."
I light a cigarette and pace around the room, because I really don't want to drive back out to get beer, even though the place is only maybe five minutes away.
"Well, I got a lot of wine."
"I hate wine."
"Yea, but it's free...and it's here."
I grimace...but it's free, and it's the only thing that we have. "Alright. Fine. Get a fuckin bottle."
He goes into the garage. "What kind you want?"
"I don't know. Red stuff. Who cares?"
He grabs a bottle, and then goes unpstairs to find a corkscrew. Like the pictures of absolute class that we are, he pops it open and takes a huge swig, then hands it to me. I do the same, and shake my head after it to
"Man, I fucking hate red wine."
"We got white, too."
"I hate that more."
We've got to get a ride to the bar, which is a little over a half hour away, because neither of us will be in any shape to drive later on and we're both cruising for #2 on DWI's if we take the chance. Of course, we've actually got to be already drunk to get any sympathy from anybody. Eventually a girl I know tells me she'll give us a ride in a half hour, and suddenly it dawns on me that we're not drunk like we've been telling everyone.
"Paul, if we're telling her that we're wine drunk, then we better be drunk when she gets here."
"Shit, you're right." He looks at the clock. It's 9. "Damnit, we better get moving."
In between pounding this stuff, somehow James Joyce comes up. We agree that Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man is one of the best books around, and also that though Finnegan's Wake was complete bullshit, we both wish that we were 1) smart enough to write a book in half Latin, half French, and half Gaelic, and 2)famous enough that people would study the book for years trying to decipher our bullshit like scholars do with that fucking book.
By 9:15 the first bottle is gone. He looks at another one on the table, then looks at me.
"Shall we?"
"But of course."
He pops the second bottle, and we're both feeling a little...merry.
The girl gets there with her compatriot, who is having a tough time believing that me and Paul are 1) on our second bottle of wine in fifteen minutes or 2) arguing about literature of the Irish Renaissance period because neither of us look like we're all that educated, and you certainly can't tell from our vocabulary that revolves around the words, "Fuck" and "You".
Paul's eyes are bloodshot when he hands me a medicine bottle. "Take some of these."
"What are they?"
"B12. It'll make you feel better tomorrow when you're hungover." He looks at the empty bottles. "Cause we're gonna have a hell of a hangover."
I take a few and wash them down with wine. Ten minutes later this bottle is gone. As we get up to walk to the car, I light another smoke and feel my stomach twisting into a knot.
"Paul, I think that B12 is bothering my stomach."
"It's probably the wine."
"Nah, it's definitely the B12."
Later on, we will add this bar to the growing list of those that the NJBA is banned from after we almost get into a Braveheart-esque brawl with the bouncers, who threaten immediately to call the cops because they're outnumbered heavily (although the odds are they would have killed us, because I watch my two of my buddies yell at the bouncers, screaming and threatening...and then just fall down because they're hammered).
Anyway, I don't want to get into specifics, but certain people (the bouncers) are fucking cocksuckers at this certain bar in North Jersey (Park City Bar in Rutherford). Don't go there.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Winter and Not working
When your job is nearly completely dependent on the weather, it can make for some boring times. Right now, there is a blistering ice storm outside that is raining BB's on New Jersey, and I, again, am out of work for the day. When you only work for three days a week to begin with, and you've been going stir crazy for the last couple days anyway....
Winter is like jail. I have little to do except eat, sleep, and lift. While this might not be a bad thing for me, I can't wait until Spring.
Did I ever tell you fuckers that I hate winter?
Winter is like jail. I have little to do except eat, sleep, and lift. While this might not be a bad thing for me, I can't wait until Spring.
Did I ever tell you fuckers that I hate winter?
Monday, February 12, 2007
The Return from Montreal
Sometime in January
We were an hour into the thick New York state night when I began hallucinating. I hadn't done any drugs in at least three days, but I had been drinking heavily and not sleeping more than four hours at a time, and so now, here, I leaned against the cracked window of Chud's terrible smelling Hyundai SUV with a cigarette dangling from my mouth listening to the comedy station on Sirius. He is half awake in the passenger seat, and he's already driven for four hours, three and a half of them being through customs because Canada sucks.
He burps, and a tremendous wave of nuclear gas rolls out of his stomach, and now I know how the people that lived next to Chernobyl felt. I look at him, and I'd be glaring if I could open both bloodshot eyes at the same time. My kids will have three legs and four fingers because I breathed that in.
"If you do that again, I swear to Christ I will run us right into a tree and kill everyone in the car. You don't want to be responsible for that, now you do you, Chud?"
"Sorry dude." He makes a funny noise, then settles back into his disgustingness.
I am trying to focus on the road. Chris Rock is making fun of white people and some crowd made up of mostly white people is eating it up. I love Chris Rock, but hate the people that think he's funny. It's exactly the opposite with Dane Cook.
The sign ahead is green, glaring, and large; a city is coming. I want to look, but if I look it will take me four seconds to focus on the road again, and that means we may all die when I miss the lines. I t's 8:30...FUCK I looked at the clock, I may as well look at the sign because if we're going to die, it's going to happen anyway now.
Albany. 136 miles from New York City. We live about 30 miles from New York city, so that means it's 106 to where we live. If I go 60 miles an hour, it will take around two hours and we will have traveled 120 miles. Fuck, that means we overshoot home.
- Dumbass you wouldn't overshoot home
- Oh.... right.
If I do seventy, it will take less time, but the math is too complicated for me to figure out and all I know is that we may be back by 10 if I can keep going 70 but if I go 80 we may somehow end up in Atlantic City (don't argue). I look at the clock and it's 8:32. FUCK.. LOOK AT THE ROAD! NOT THE CLOCK, THE ROAD! Damnit now you can't see anymore.
Four seconds later my eyes refocus. Good. We're still on the road. I really don't want to kill all of us. Chud wouldn't care, but the two in the backseat would and I, for one, would be mortified.
Chud wakes up and burps again, and I start yelling and swerving.
"What the fuck did I tell you motherfucker? Do you want to die? Is that what you want? Because I will drive this motherfucking car right into that motherfucking tree. See that one?" I'm pointing at a big dead thing that towers over the highway. "Yea, that one."
Fuck, I looked away and now I can't see the road again.
"Sorry dude."
I light another cigarette.
This must be what acid is like, minus the green leprachaun that I am sure would be hanging out with me if I was on it. He'd be a better conversationalist then Chud.
By the time we make it home at 11 o'clock (I have no idea how this happened, because my math and ETA's were flawless), I had drove for three hours, my eyes circulating between the clock, the road markers, and the chalkboard in my head figuring out how long till we got home.
Eventually, I can't see the signs anymore and pull over, and make one of the other guys drive, telling them that if they like living they will get my exhausted ass out of the driver's seat.
We were an hour into the thick New York state night when I began hallucinating. I hadn't done any drugs in at least three days, but I had been drinking heavily and not sleeping more than four hours at a time, and so now, here, I leaned against the cracked window of Chud's terrible smelling Hyundai SUV with a cigarette dangling from my mouth listening to the comedy station on Sirius. He is half awake in the passenger seat, and he's already driven for four hours, three and a half of them being through customs because Canada sucks.
He burps, and a tremendous wave of nuclear gas rolls out of his stomach, and now I know how the people that lived next to Chernobyl felt. I look at him, and I'd be glaring if I could open both bloodshot eyes at the same time. My kids will have three legs and four fingers because I breathed that in.
"If you do that again, I swear to Christ I will run us right into a tree and kill everyone in the car. You don't want to be responsible for that, now you do you, Chud?"
"Sorry dude." He makes a funny noise, then settles back into his disgustingness.
I am trying to focus on the road. Chris Rock is making fun of white people and some crowd made up of mostly white people is eating it up. I love Chris Rock, but hate the people that think he's funny. It's exactly the opposite with Dane Cook.
The sign ahead is green, glaring, and large; a city is coming. I want to look, but if I look it will take me four seconds to focus on the road again, and that means we may all die when I miss the lines. I t's 8:30...FUCK I looked at the clock, I may as well look at the sign because if we're going to die, it's going to happen anyway now.
Albany. 136 miles from New York City. We live about 30 miles from New York city, so that means it's 106 to where we live. If I go 60 miles an hour, it will take around two hours and we will have traveled 120 miles. Fuck, that means we overshoot home.
- Dumbass you wouldn't overshoot home
- Oh.... right.
If I do seventy, it will take less time, but the math is too complicated for me to figure out and all I know is that we may be back by 10 if I can keep going 70 but if I go 80 we may somehow end up in Atlantic City (don't argue). I look at the clock and it's 8:32. FUCK.. LOOK AT THE ROAD! NOT THE CLOCK, THE ROAD! Damnit now you can't see anymore.
Four seconds later my eyes refocus. Good. We're still on the road. I really don't want to kill all of us. Chud wouldn't care, but the two in the backseat would and I, for one, would be mortified.
Chud wakes up and burps again, and I start yelling and swerving.
"What the fuck did I tell you motherfucker? Do you want to die? Is that what you want? Because I will drive this motherfucking car right into that motherfucking tree. See that one?" I'm pointing at a big dead thing that towers over the highway. "Yea, that one."
Fuck, I looked away and now I can't see the road again.
"Sorry dude."
I light another cigarette.
This must be what acid is like, minus the green leprachaun that I am sure would be hanging out with me if I was on it. He'd be a better conversationalist then Chud.
By the time we make it home at 11 o'clock (I have no idea how this happened, because my math and ETA's were flawless), I had drove for three hours, my eyes circulating between the clock, the road markers, and the chalkboard in my head figuring out how long till we got home.
Eventually, I can't see the signs anymore and pull over, and make one of the other guys drive, telling them that if they like living they will get my exhausted ass out of the driver's seat.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Keep on keepin on
Well we started shooting hoops,
Now we're sipping Black and Tans
From the park to the pub
Was the course we ran.
The times have changed, but friends remain
My heart and soul's with you
Cause one thing's for sure, i always swore,
I'd never turn my back on you-
Never turned our backs,
Stuck together through and through,
The times have changed,
But my heart and soul's with you
Wouldn't turn your backs
And you didn't walk away
We'd never run,
We'd stand as one,
And this is what we'd say:
Times were tough,
But the memories remain
Situations rough,
But we overcame.
Side by side, one for all,
Together we grew
Cause when it's said and done,
I'll look back on friends like you
When I was down and I was out
And no one liked my games,
One too many fights and bloody night
For which i was to blame
But you wouldn't turn your backs
And you didn't walk away
Cause we'd never run We'd stand as one
Until this very day
Never turn our backs
Together through and through
The times have changed,
But my heart and soul's with you
Wouldn't turn your backs
And you didn't walk away
We'd never run, we'd stand as one
Until this very day
I just watched the Green Mile for the first time in a long while, and am stunned by it. The first time I saw it, I may have been too young to truly appreciate what was going on, or maybe I didn't want to hear the message.
That message was that no matter what happens, there is hope. Hope for everything. For happiness. For freedom. For strength. For humanity...and for me. There are times when life beat me down so much I didn't know if I'd ever be the same. And I wasn't... but then that's the trick. I'm not supposed to be the same, I'm supposed to learn, and take away things, hard lessons that I would not have learned or taken to heart if I hadn't been hurt so badly.
There are some out there that are seriously worried about me. Don't be. Like anything else, I will put my head down and keep on going. I fuck up a lot, and hurt a lot of people when I do, but I'm learning. I'm much weaker than I thought I was, and the fact that I'm still alive now is a testament to the strength of those around me, and the indominable spirit that has been infused into me in the last few years.
We fight the good fight.
NJBA- Never Alone.
Yes, I'm getting very sentimental lately. I must be on the rag or something...don't worry, I will get over it soon.
Now we're sipping Black and Tans
From the park to the pub
Was the course we ran.
The times have changed, but friends remain
My heart and soul's with you
Cause one thing's for sure, i always swore,
I'd never turn my back on you-
Never turned our backs,
Stuck together through and through,
The times have changed,
But my heart and soul's with you
Wouldn't turn your backs
And you didn't walk away
We'd never run,
We'd stand as one,
And this is what we'd say:
Times were tough,
But the memories remain
Situations rough,
But we overcame.
Side by side, one for all,
Together we grew
Cause when it's said and done,
I'll look back on friends like you
When I was down and I was out
And no one liked my games,
One too many fights and bloody night
For which i was to blame
But you wouldn't turn your backs
And you didn't walk away
Cause we'd never run We'd stand as one
Until this very day
Never turn our backs
Together through and through
The times have changed,
But my heart and soul's with you
Wouldn't turn your backs
And you didn't walk away
We'd never run, we'd stand as one
Until this very day
I just watched the Green Mile for the first time in a long while, and am stunned by it. The first time I saw it, I may have been too young to truly appreciate what was going on, or maybe I didn't want to hear the message.
That message was that no matter what happens, there is hope. Hope for everything. For happiness. For freedom. For strength. For humanity...and for me. There are times when life beat me down so much I didn't know if I'd ever be the same. And I wasn't... but then that's the trick. I'm not supposed to be the same, I'm supposed to learn, and take away things, hard lessons that I would not have learned or taken to heart if I hadn't been hurt so badly.
There are some out there that are seriously worried about me. Don't be. Like anything else, I will put my head down and keep on going. I fuck up a lot, and hurt a lot of people when I do, but I'm learning. I'm much weaker than I thought I was, and the fact that I'm still alive now is a testament to the strength of those around me, and the indominable spirit that has been infused into me in the last few years.
We fight the good fight.
NJBA- Never Alone.
Yes, I'm getting very sentimental lately. I must be on the rag or something...don't worry, I will get over it soon.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The one quote that is keeping me going right now:
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. - Rocky
I'm just trying to get back up I guess.
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. - Rocky
I'm just trying to get back up I guess.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Lullabies and Bloodshot Eyes
Don walks into China P, heads over towards me. I'm so drunk I can't see straight.
I look at him through bloodshot eyes, try to focus for a second. I already gave up trying to go outside for a cigarette because I know that if I get off the barstool I will fall over, and then get thrown out. I clench my jaw, as I've been doing all day to keep myself from losing it.
"I'm in a bad way."
"You here alone?"
"Yup."
"How long?"
"Since 8:30."
"Christ, you been sittin here for two hours alone?"
"Well, there's those guys," I say, pointing to the two drunks that are always here. "We been watchin MASH. Alan Alda's my fuckin hero."
He's ignoring me. "Where'd Kathy go?"
"Don't know."
Don just nodded, took a seat, and ordered a drink. He knows that it's a woman that is killing me, and he also knows when it's time to circle the wagons; that if he doesn't help me I very well may not make it through the night. We talked about high school memories, as we always do when something horrific happens in either of our lives. We've both done this before, and he has pulled me out of the gutter and off of the side of the road more times than I can count.
I don't remember anything else.
He gives me a ride home at some point, and I try to drink a beer in my living room but pass out and knock it over. The next day my mother will talk to me about how I'm self-destructing, and how I need to fight this darkness in me. I will nod in agreement, and do a terrible job masking the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing.
Tonight when I take a piss, I watch the blood trail around bowl, rolling over itself like a cloud pouring through the water.
I look at him through bloodshot eyes, try to focus for a second. I already gave up trying to go outside for a cigarette because I know that if I get off the barstool I will fall over, and then get thrown out. I clench my jaw, as I've been doing all day to keep myself from losing it.
"I'm in a bad way."
"You here alone?"
"Yup."
"How long?"
"Since 8:30."
"Christ, you been sittin here for two hours alone?"
"Well, there's those guys," I say, pointing to the two drunks that are always here. "We been watchin MASH. Alan Alda's my fuckin hero."
He's ignoring me. "Where'd Kathy go?"
"Don't know."
Don just nodded, took a seat, and ordered a drink. He knows that it's a woman that is killing me, and he also knows when it's time to circle the wagons; that if he doesn't help me I very well may not make it through the night. We talked about high school memories, as we always do when something horrific happens in either of our lives. We've both done this before, and he has pulled me out of the gutter and off of the side of the road more times than I can count.
I don't remember anything else.
He gives me a ride home at some point, and I try to drink a beer in my living room but pass out and knock it over. The next day my mother will talk to me about how I'm self-destructing, and how I need to fight this darkness in me. I will nod in agreement, and do a terrible job masking the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing.
Tonight when I take a piss, I watch the blood trail around bowl, rolling over itself like a cloud pouring through the water.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Rage rage against the dying of the light...
Life used to throw knuckleballs at me when I wasn't paying attention, and most times I would swing wildly and miss because...well, that's what I do. I've never been good at this game called Life, and I fuck or have fucked up many things in my time, and for the most part it's been because of a combination of an overactive mind and a whole lot of booze.
This time, instead of a knuckleball that I simply missed, I got a high fastball that's hit me in the temple and knocked me clean out of the game. It's not something that I'm going to go into here, but it seems that I've lost yet another who I would call a best friend, and it fuckin hurts.
And so.... I will hold it in, drink a lot, and then explode at the most inopportune time causing probably a great deal more pain to the parties involved than the initial actions. Cause that's what I do. If you don't like it, then fuck off, cause that's the only way I know how to deal with things anymore.
This time, instead of a knuckleball that I simply missed, I got a high fastball that's hit me in the temple and knocked me clean out of the game. It's not something that I'm going to go into here, but it seems that I've lost yet another who I would call a best friend, and it fuckin hurts.
And so.... I will hold it in, drink a lot, and then explode at the most inopportune time causing probably a great deal more pain to the parties involved than the initial actions. Cause that's what I do. If you don't like it, then fuck off, cause that's the only way I know how to deal with things anymore.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Gyms
I found this on a lifting website I'm on. American capitalism can just be downright fuckin evil.
I work out on a pretty shitty piece of equipment (bench, dumbbells, and barbell) in my garage at home. My wife suggested that we join this gym that's new in town and asked that I "check it out". I'm speaking about Planet Fitness.
So I go to their website. First, they have a policy that is totally descriminatory against weightlifters. Period. You grunt, you are out. No deadlifts allowed. You will be banned. Dumbbells are limited to 80lbs. Seriously!? I was shocked. This supposed to be a gym, right?! RIGHT?! Then....I found THIS gem on the "About Us pages:
Fun Facts!
We give away 35000 free t-shirts every month!
Have you seen PF's famous candy jars filled with purple and traditional Tootsie Rolls?? We go through over 750,000 each month!
On Pizza Nights (the first Monday of every month) we go through 3000 pizzas. That's 24000 slices per year!
The second Tuesday of every month we serve up free bagels to our club members! Come on by and get your own! Only at PF! More like Planet Fatass....
You might never see so much of a disparity between places of business than in the gym industry. I'm a guy that has only worked out at two places: my basement, and in school gyms of some sort, be it high school or college. Both of these places are not for pussies. My basement has only a bench, a whole lot of weight, a jump rope, and a piece of metal tied to the cieling for pullups. There is nothing more that I need there. The school gyms I have lifted at are the kind that many football players and other athletes trained at, so the incline benches were always used, guys actually did squats once in a while, and the biggest guy in the gym was always in the corner doing snatches and clean and jerks. There was a fair share of runty frat boys doing curls in the squat rack, but it wasn't that bad.
Maybe I've been spoiled, because when I read the above, I was shocked. How do you have a gym where you can't grunt? I've been around guys that howled like banshees on their last set of Hammer tricep extensions, so I understand keeping it in line, but seriously...no grunting? No deadlifts? Like, ever? So for my legs, I have to do one legged, one arm overhead squats on your swiss balls with those little pink dumbbells? I know, I know, it "hits the core hard".... I hope the next person that says that to me has a very large oak tree fall on them.
The dumbells only go to 80? I'm not a strong guy, but this is nearly the only reason I may join a gym in the near future: things like my DB bench are going past the point where I can use 65's in my basement, so if I want to use lower reps, I need the 80's. And that's me...I can't imagine the guys who are actually strong. I'd burn the building down.
So basically, this place doesn't want you lifting heavy, doesn't want you being loud, and doesn't want you to do the lifts that benefit you the most.... but goddamn, they got jars of candy everywhere! And they give away pizza. Loads of it. And bagels. If you fat fucks don't want to work out, or it gets a little to tough for you, there's always pizza night!
This is the gym industry, and I know that. They want a thousand people to sign up, knowing that five hundred will never show up at all, three hundred will go for two weeks and then quit, and one hundred will come but barely break a sweat, and the gym will stay nice and clean and their machines will last for twenty years. Of course, it's the less than one hundred like me that will go in there and bang shit around and nearly give ourselves aneurysms going for one rep maxes on squats or make ourselves puke from doing too many dips at the end of our workouts that they seriously don't want even applying to their beloved gym. Or they hope we apply, but then our car blows up so we can never make it, or our job transfers us to Seattle and we forget to cancel the membership (in which case we'd commit suicide, because that's what people in Seattle do, and then the gym could continue charging our credit card for long after we're dead.)
Dissapointing to say the least. It makes me want to go in there and miss a jerk on purpose because I'm grunting, flinging the Olympic bar right into the squat rack (killing the guy who's curling there), making chalk fly everywhere (because I hid it in my ass to get it into the place), puking on the floor (because it was my last set), fall into the dumbell rack (that only goes up to fifty pounds), and cleaning myself up in the bathroom all the while being a gentlemen while there (which means pissing on the toilet paper holder).
Fuckers.
I work out on a pretty shitty piece of equipment (bench, dumbbells, and barbell) in my garage at home. My wife suggested that we join this gym that's new in town and asked that I "check it out". I'm speaking about Planet Fitness.
So I go to their website. First, they have a policy that is totally descriminatory against weightlifters. Period. You grunt, you are out. No deadlifts allowed. You will be banned. Dumbbells are limited to 80lbs. Seriously!? I was shocked. This supposed to be a gym, right?! RIGHT?! Then....I found THIS gem on the "About Us pages:
Fun Facts!
We give away 35000 free t-shirts every month!
Have you seen PF's famous candy jars filled with purple and traditional Tootsie Rolls?? We go through over 750,000 each month!
On Pizza Nights (the first Monday of every month) we go through 3000 pizzas. That's 24000 slices per year!
The second Tuesday of every month we serve up free bagels to our club members! Come on by and get your own! Only at PF! More like Planet Fatass....
You might never see so much of a disparity between places of business than in the gym industry. I'm a guy that has only worked out at two places: my basement, and in school gyms of some sort, be it high school or college. Both of these places are not for pussies. My basement has only a bench, a whole lot of weight, a jump rope, and a piece of metal tied to the cieling for pullups. There is nothing more that I need there. The school gyms I have lifted at are the kind that many football players and other athletes trained at, so the incline benches were always used, guys actually did squats once in a while, and the biggest guy in the gym was always in the corner doing snatches and clean and jerks. There was a fair share of runty frat boys doing curls in the squat rack, but it wasn't that bad.
Maybe I've been spoiled, because when I read the above, I was shocked. How do you have a gym where you can't grunt? I've been around guys that howled like banshees on their last set of Hammer tricep extensions, so I understand keeping it in line, but seriously...no grunting? No deadlifts? Like, ever? So for my legs, I have to do one legged, one arm overhead squats on your swiss balls with those little pink dumbbells? I know, I know, it "hits the core hard".... I hope the next person that says that to me has a very large oak tree fall on them.
The dumbells only go to 80? I'm not a strong guy, but this is nearly the only reason I may join a gym in the near future: things like my DB bench are going past the point where I can use 65's in my basement, so if I want to use lower reps, I need the 80's. And that's me...I can't imagine the guys who are actually strong. I'd burn the building down.
So basically, this place doesn't want you lifting heavy, doesn't want you being loud, and doesn't want you to do the lifts that benefit you the most.... but goddamn, they got jars of candy everywhere! And they give away pizza. Loads of it. And bagels. If you fat fucks don't want to work out, or it gets a little to tough for you, there's always pizza night!
This is the gym industry, and I know that. They want a thousand people to sign up, knowing that five hundred will never show up at all, three hundred will go for two weeks and then quit, and one hundred will come but barely break a sweat, and the gym will stay nice and clean and their machines will last for twenty years. Of course, it's the less than one hundred like me that will go in there and bang shit around and nearly give ourselves aneurysms going for one rep maxes on squats or make ourselves puke from doing too many dips at the end of our workouts that they seriously don't want even applying to their beloved gym. Or they hope we apply, but then our car blows up so we can never make it, or our job transfers us to Seattle and we forget to cancel the membership (in which case we'd commit suicide, because that's what people in Seattle do, and then the gym could continue charging our credit card for long after we're dead.)
Dissapointing to say the least. It makes me want to go in there and miss a jerk on purpose because I'm grunting, flinging the Olympic bar right into the squat rack (killing the guy who's curling there), making chalk fly everywhere (because I hid it in my ass to get it into the place), puking on the floor (because it was my last set), fall into the dumbell rack (that only goes up to fifty pounds), and cleaning myself up in the bathroom all the while being a gentlemen while there (which means pissing on the toilet paper holder).
Fuckers.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
On Writing
In my boredom at work today, I picked up Chuck Klosterman's book, Killing Yourself to Live. It's a decent book, although he is about as whiny as you'd expect a rock critic to be...he's kind of like Dave Eggers if he was a fifteen year old in a freshman seminar on creative writing.
There was a section in the book that struck me as, "Worth the Read", though. On pages 117 through 121, he is having an imaginary conversation with the four women he's been in love with during his life, and they're all in a car. Most of the time they're bitching at him for the way he deals with women, how insecure he is, and other assorted things...but one thing stood out to me. At one point, one of them says to him that it's hard for her not to feel like a character where he inserts different women and he is still the star. Eggers mentioned something similar to this in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, about someone getting angry at him for treating them like a character and trying to make them fill a spot in his life.
As a writer, you get caught in the strangest situation possibly in all of humanity. And I don't really mean a blogger, because most folks who have these things can't write worth a shit anyway, and either way it's hard to fuck a story about your kid puking on the carpet and how cute it was. No, I mean serious writers, people who write because they can't sleep if they don't and have metaphors and images exploding around their heads all the time like helium balloons held over a candle... those people.
Why, you ask? Well, for the same reason that Klosterman and Eggers say: everyone becomes a character. Writing this blog started out as a way for me to put together essays about humanity, politics, or other things I thought inspired. What it has turned into over the last few months is a chronicle of my life, which has become more intense than I thought it would (for the two or three of you that I don't know that read this fucking thing, I'm even leaving out huge chunks of my life that I can't exactly talk about at the present time.) Everyone I know has become a character for this endeavor, which may never go anywhere past a couple of computer screens in faraway states. However, if it does, or if I used this as a basis for something else, then things explode.
Everything that I remember happening has two or three different versions depending on who was there and how drunk I was. Someone recently told me that it seemed like I lived in a cartoon or a movie, because "shit like this doesn't happen to normal people."
I guess it is a little ridiculous, and more than a little cliched. A father figure dying at a young age, the resulting pyshological tailspin that resulted from it, the best friend dying just as I was coming out of the ten year semi-depression, the breakup with the long-term girlfriend, the fights, the arrests, the strippers, the whores, the drunken rage and anger and hatred and fear. A girl who I can't stand told me the other day, "You know, you're good when you're drinking for the first two hours. I mean, you're funny and everything, and it's fine. And then you get pissy, and then by the end of the night you're very... depressed." It is kind of like a movie in a way, a fucked up movie that I don't know the ending of. It is self perpetuating, I guess- I'm fucked up because of the things that have happened in the past, and I do fucked up things because of them that only end up fucking me up more. Even Ryer's (ex)girlfriend told me that I have to start letting go. Letting go of what? Of him? Memories are memories, they ain't going anywhere. Letting go of the anger? Well, that's not just Ryer, although he has played a big part in it- it's watching your family members die, watching their caskets get lowered, and then watching the repercussions of this, which, in my family, means more self-destructiveness then you could imagine, with painkillers and drinking and cocaine and addiction. Let go? How? It's still going on... like Faulkner said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
Everyone is the star of their own life, we all know that. Most people don't write volumes about it though, volumes that could potentially harm the very friends that they're writing about, the girls that they love, or the people they work with. The pen is not only stronger than the sword, it's more painful to deal with because flesh wounds heal, but like Chaucer, I am laying everyone out naked for eternity (or at least until some hacker comes around and fucks my page up.) It's a strange kind of power to have.
Honestly, I am surprised that people like Egger or Klosterman are willing to lay all this out when they themselves are so young. I used to think that people wrote memoirs late in life because until then, they didn't have enough to talk about to fill a book... Now, I think it's because they know most of the people they're writing about are dead, and they won't have to deal with the repercussions.
I saw a question on a dumb Myspace survey that asked, "Are you more in the past, the future, or the present?" The most common answer among the Myspace crowd is, "pREseNt!! LOLZZZ", but then they're fucking retards so I'm not surprised (and if you're one of the broads that writes like that, can you please post a shirtless pic so your page is worth looking at?)
For me, it's undoutedly the past. I'm too busy thinking about what's happened before to worry about what's happening now, and I'm so fearful of the future that I can't even comprehend the fact that I may be alive next week and yet my life will be different. All I can write about is the past, and what I write may make people feel like I'm using them for my own purposes.
Furthermore, where is the line drawn between writing and character? I create a character here on this page even though I don't mean to, and everything I write here is the honest truth (aside from the couple short stories that I wrote a couple months ago). Yet, there are things that I leave out, things I stress more, lines that I change around, incidents that I blend together simply because my memory sucks to begin with and I drink a lot on top of that. There are things in here that I couldn't say in real life, and there are things I say in real life that I would never put in writing no matter how big the contract. It's like being scizophrenic in a way, and trying to figure out where I stop and my writing begins. Sometimes they blend together, and sometimes they are completely seperate...
It's funny because Klosterman says at one point, "Artists who believe they have any control over the interpretation of their work are completely fooling themselves."
No shit.
There was a section in the book that struck me as, "Worth the Read", though. On pages 117 through 121, he is having an imaginary conversation with the four women he's been in love with during his life, and they're all in a car. Most of the time they're bitching at him for the way he deals with women, how insecure he is, and other assorted things...but one thing stood out to me. At one point, one of them says to him that it's hard for her not to feel like a character where he inserts different women and he is still the star. Eggers mentioned something similar to this in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, about someone getting angry at him for treating them like a character and trying to make them fill a spot in his life.
As a writer, you get caught in the strangest situation possibly in all of humanity. And I don't really mean a blogger, because most folks who have these things can't write worth a shit anyway, and either way it's hard to fuck a story about your kid puking on the carpet and how cute it was. No, I mean serious writers, people who write because they can't sleep if they don't and have metaphors and images exploding around their heads all the time like helium balloons held over a candle... those people.
Why, you ask? Well, for the same reason that Klosterman and Eggers say: everyone becomes a character. Writing this blog started out as a way for me to put together essays about humanity, politics, or other things I thought inspired. What it has turned into over the last few months is a chronicle of my life, which has become more intense than I thought it would (for the two or three of you that I don't know that read this fucking thing, I'm even leaving out huge chunks of my life that I can't exactly talk about at the present time.) Everyone I know has become a character for this endeavor, which may never go anywhere past a couple of computer screens in faraway states. However, if it does, or if I used this as a basis for something else, then things explode.
Everything that I remember happening has two or three different versions depending on who was there and how drunk I was. Someone recently told me that it seemed like I lived in a cartoon or a movie, because "shit like this doesn't happen to normal people."
I guess it is a little ridiculous, and more than a little cliched. A father figure dying at a young age, the resulting pyshological tailspin that resulted from it, the best friend dying just as I was coming out of the ten year semi-depression, the breakup with the long-term girlfriend, the fights, the arrests, the strippers, the whores, the drunken rage and anger and hatred and fear. A girl who I can't stand told me the other day, "You know, you're good when you're drinking for the first two hours. I mean, you're funny and everything, and it's fine. And then you get pissy, and then by the end of the night you're very... depressed." It is kind of like a movie in a way, a fucked up movie that I don't know the ending of. It is self perpetuating, I guess- I'm fucked up because of the things that have happened in the past, and I do fucked up things because of them that only end up fucking me up more. Even Ryer's (ex)girlfriend told me that I have to start letting go. Letting go of what? Of him? Memories are memories, they ain't going anywhere. Letting go of the anger? Well, that's not just Ryer, although he has played a big part in it- it's watching your family members die, watching their caskets get lowered, and then watching the repercussions of this, which, in my family, means more self-destructiveness then you could imagine, with painkillers and drinking and cocaine and addiction. Let go? How? It's still going on... like Faulkner said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
Everyone is the star of their own life, we all know that. Most people don't write volumes about it though, volumes that could potentially harm the very friends that they're writing about, the girls that they love, or the people they work with. The pen is not only stronger than the sword, it's more painful to deal with because flesh wounds heal, but like Chaucer, I am laying everyone out naked for eternity (or at least until some hacker comes around and fucks my page up.) It's a strange kind of power to have.
Honestly, I am surprised that people like Egger or Klosterman are willing to lay all this out when they themselves are so young. I used to think that people wrote memoirs late in life because until then, they didn't have enough to talk about to fill a book... Now, I think it's because they know most of the people they're writing about are dead, and they won't have to deal with the repercussions.
I saw a question on a dumb Myspace survey that asked, "Are you more in the past, the future, or the present?" The most common answer among the Myspace crowd is, "pREseNt!! LOLZZZ", but then they're fucking retards so I'm not surprised (and if you're one of the broads that writes like that, can you please post a shirtless pic so your page is worth looking at?)
For me, it's undoutedly the past. I'm too busy thinking about what's happened before to worry about what's happening now, and I'm so fearful of the future that I can't even comprehend the fact that I may be alive next week and yet my life will be different. All I can write about is the past, and what I write may make people feel like I'm using them for my own purposes.
Furthermore, where is the line drawn between writing and character? I create a character here on this page even though I don't mean to, and everything I write here is the honest truth (aside from the couple short stories that I wrote a couple months ago). Yet, there are things that I leave out, things I stress more, lines that I change around, incidents that I blend together simply because my memory sucks to begin with and I drink a lot on top of that. There are things in here that I couldn't say in real life, and there are things I say in real life that I would never put in writing no matter how big the contract. It's like being scizophrenic in a way, and trying to figure out where I stop and my writing begins. Sometimes they blend together, and sometimes they are completely seperate...
It's funny because Klosterman says at one point, "Artists who believe they have any control over the interpretation of their work are completely fooling themselves."
No shit.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Big C
We're sitting around watching the Bears murder the Saints (fuck!) and drinking beer from a two week old keg of Bud Light. One of my buddies busted the TV in the basement, so now we're crowded into two bedrooms watching the Saints shoot themselves in the foot with turnovers.
"So Big C went fucking crazy," Frank says.
A lot of us had heard about this, but not from Frank. Big C was his college roomate until he got thrown out a couple years in. He's a huge guy with blonde hair that was known for being as wild as Frank, but with a darker side that involved massed amounts of cocaine, acid, and other fun drugs made only for killing people. In the last couple months, Big C had moved in with Frank, and had been trying to get a job and straighten himself up after a massive coke binge that landed him in the hospital in a coma.
"I brought him over by my house for the holidays, and he was acting really strange. Then we came over here for the housewarming party, and he was so fuckin out of it that we thought he was fucking with us. I mean, I told him, "You gotta go on the deck to smoke, you can't smoke in here." So he sees everyone getting up and going outside and all that when they want a butt, and what's he do? He lights a fucking cigarette right in the kitchen. I said, "What the fuck are you doing? I told you ten times you gotta smoke outside!" He just looked at me and was like, "Ahhh, sorry bro, sorry."
"There was other times when me and Scottie (his roomate) would wake up, and Big C would just be standing over us, watching us while we slept. Again, I'd yell, "What the fuck are you doing?" And he'd just say, "I don't know man....where the fuck am I?" He would lose all conception of where he was. We'd come home some days, and he'd be cleaning everything obsessively, lining shit up all over the place...I mean, I came home, and I saw his shoes lined up next to each other, perfectly square with the laces tucked in them and all, right in the middle of my desk. He wouldn't remember putting them there."
"Later on, he got into lighting candles and shit, like, all over the damn house. Then, of course, he'd forget that he lit them, so they'd just be burning all over the place and he wouldn't be paying any attention. Last week he was wandering around Paterson, and that's when the cops picked him up. They threw him in the psyche ward, and he was trying to pound the fuckin door down to get out. Then they gave him sedatives, and he figured out that he could just sign himself out. So he leaves there, then calls me up from some random phone number...turns out he was talking to some black guy on the street and asked to borrow his phone so he could get me to come pick him up. All I heard him saying was, "Man, you gotta come pick me up. I'm at some barber shop, and everyone is different colors here."
Now, because he's so fucked up, he sees random colors all over the place, but that's probably not what these Dominicans at this barber shop thought he was talking about. That is, to say the least, potentially dangerous.
"So I go to pick him up, and he's on the corner in a button down shirt and it's like ten degrees outside....and all he kept saying was how bad that psyche ward was, and how he didn't want to go back there. He told me that they're all crazy in there."
So where is Big C now? In a mental institution trying to rip the door off, screaming about how he wants to see Frank and Scottie and that they'll take care of him. He may have permanent brain damage, and he might never be like how I remember him from a year ago. What caused it? Bad ecstasy and loads of yak.
"So Big C went fucking crazy," Frank says.
A lot of us had heard about this, but not from Frank. Big C was his college roomate until he got thrown out a couple years in. He's a huge guy with blonde hair that was known for being as wild as Frank, but with a darker side that involved massed amounts of cocaine, acid, and other fun drugs made only for killing people. In the last couple months, Big C had moved in with Frank, and had been trying to get a job and straighten himself up after a massive coke binge that landed him in the hospital in a coma.
"I brought him over by my house for the holidays, and he was acting really strange. Then we came over here for the housewarming party, and he was so fuckin out of it that we thought he was fucking with us. I mean, I told him, "You gotta go on the deck to smoke, you can't smoke in here." So he sees everyone getting up and going outside and all that when they want a butt, and what's he do? He lights a fucking cigarette right in the kitchen. I said, "What the fuck are you doing? I told you ten times you gotta smoke outside!" He just looked at me and was like, "Ahhh, sorry bro, sorry."
"There was other times when me and Scottie (his roomate) would wake up, and Big C would just be standing over us, watching us while we slept. Again, I'd yell, "What the fuck are you doing?" And he'd just say, "I don't know man....where the fuck am I?" He would lose all conception of where he was. We'd come home some days, and he'd be cleaning everything obsessively, lining shit up all over the place...I mean, I came home, and I saw his shoes lined up next to each other, perfectly square with the laces tucked in them and all, right in the middle of my desk. He wouldn't remember putting them there."
"Later on, he got into lighting candles and shit, like, all over the damn house. Then, of course, he'd forget that he lit them, so they'd just be burning all over the place and he wouldn't be paying any attention. Last week he was wandering around Paterson, and that's when the cops picked him up. They threw him in the psyche ward, and he was trying to pound the fuckin door down to get out. Then they gave him sedatives, and he figured out that he could just sign himself out. So he leaves there, then calls me up from some random phone number...turns out he was talking to some black guy on the street and asked to borrow his phone so he could get me to come pick him up. All I heard him saying was, "Man, you gotta come pick me up. I'm at some barber shop, and everyone is different colors here."
Now, because he's so fucked up, he sees random colors all over the place, but that's probably not what these Dominicans at this barber shop thought he was talking about. That is, to say the least, potentially dangerous.
"So I go to pick him up, and he's on the corner in a button down shirt and it's like ten degrees outside....and all he kept saying was how bad that psyche ward was, and how he didn't want to go back there. He told me that they're all crazy in there."
So where is Big C now? In a mental institution trying to rip the door off, screaming about how he wants to see Frank and Scottie and that they'll take care of him. He may have permanent brain damage, and he might never be like how I remember him from a year ago. What caused it? Bad ecstasy and loads of yak.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Bullshit
I am recovering from Friday better than I thought. I very nearly stayed sober last night because I had felt like such shit all day, but a couple beers led to to twelve and...ah, it was Saturday night. So I don't really care.
In my quest for some kind of peace of mind, I've been lifting like a horse and doing well- finally made a 120 lb. overhead press. Not much for most, I know, but very good for me. Right now I'm using the One Lift a Day written by Dan John, for those of you into lifting. Fuckin murderous, but it works. Gettin there...slowly but surely.
In my quest for some kind of peace of mind, I've been lifting like a horse and doing well- finally made a 120 lb. overhead press. Not much for most, I know, but very good for me. Right now I'm using the One Lift a Day written by Dan John, for those of you into lifting. Fuckin murderous, but it works. Gettin there...slowly but surely.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Shit
Ten hour drinking benders on the anniversary of your best friend's death are not good for the soul.
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