Mystical shit, Value Time weeks and Hobo shit

I wish I had a laptop. Then I could write more. I'd sit at the coffee shop like those other assholes. I have so many options of other things to do at my house. I have a to do list 8 miles wide. Albums to record, songs to write, 4 or 5 unfinished movie scripts on my desktop, clean, work out....
I swear I'll never have enough lifetimes to do it all.
but i guess that's not fully honest. I don't write this as much anymore because something has significantly changed in me. In the past year I turned a huge corner in my mind and when i look back I can no longer see the person i once was. Age was never anything but a number to me before, but turning 35 has really clocked me like a lowhanging branch. I've always been introspective, but i used to be able to find some source of strength within, some thread of optimism. The subject of my writings has usually reverted back to the spiritual. My conflict between what I was taught all my life and what I was feeling. Although I always claimed to not have faith, I realized that I did the whole time. I was in total denial. I was a kid who secretly believed in Santa Claus.
   You see, I always thought about things with a mystical slant. I had this belief, because I felt different than other people that I WAS different, special in fact. I believed in the fairy tale, that if you wanted something bad enough you could will it to be so. I believed in destiny. I've had a series of inexplicable events in my life. Prophetic dreams, near death escapes and unimaginable coincidences that made me believe that there was something else going on here, that my friends and I somehow knew something that most people didn't know, that we were being edged down a path that had meaning.
   I don't believe that anymore. I realized that I might push my whole life and fail. Well, I guess that depends on your view of success or failure, but if I die poor, alone and mad, I will personally consider it a failure.
   It's a Hollywood idea that through perseverance and pluck everyone wins in the end, makes enough money, gets the girl and everyone high fives.
   Do I still have hope? Yes. I realize that anything can happen. I might inherit a sandwich empire from a long lost relative and live in a mansion made of sanwiches, boobs and hundred dollar bills.
   Then again i might get some sort of cancer at any minute and have to have someone wipe my ass for me while i waste away in agony. The chances of the latter happening are far greater. Please be prepared to bring me my pistol.
   Yes, I'm cynical, but it doesn't make it less true, does it?
   I guess things seem meaningless to me now, and It seems that we're all mad.
   I don't believe in inherent goodness anymore, just inherent randomness.
A bloom of opportunity springs up in your path and you ride it and flourish until a random wave of events throws you aside and smashes you with an impersonal violence.
   Yet we attach meaning to life's rewards and pitfalls, still clinging to the ideas of benevolent or vengeful gods.
   I never took certain falls in life as personal. Like death for instance. I've understood for a while that death, while sad is inevitable as sunsets and there's no sense in letting it destroy you. A god that took death away would also take meaning away.
   But cruelty, well that's a chosen evil. And humans are cruel creatures.
And mad. It seems everyone I know has varying degrees of madness. Some greater than others. Some thing they cannot see. I know I have my own, and I've been trying to dig for it and pull it out by it's root for all my life.
   I know pathological liars. I know people that every day is the worst day of their lives. I know people who constantly sabotage their own success. I know people afraid of nature. I know people that are emotional adolescents and will be for their entire lives. I know people that cling to unhealthy relationships out of a desperate fear of being alone. I know the paranoid. I know addicts.
   and on some level and at some point I am one or all of these things.
And I love people that are these things.
   But who on earth can we look up to anymore? Who can be a spiritual authority? If you say Jesus, I'll slap you. I mean here and now and incontrovertible.
We're all broken. We always have been. My friends and I used to be like a shattered windshield  You ever try to kick a shattered windshield out? It's hard as fuck. We were broken but we held together. Now we're all just broken bits of glass scattered about.

The past, the things I attached meaning to 20 or 10 years ago suddenly don't mean shit anymore. Now is all that matters, and now I don't have any of the things I thought I'd have. Now I have what I call "Value Time weeks". 20 bucks for groceries the whole week. Value Time bologna on Value Time wheat bread, no condiments. Value Time coffee, black. Ramen Noodles cooked in the microwave with a scoop of Peanut Butter (crunchy of course. and NOT value time. What, am I a heathen? but try it, it's delicious). I look around and realize I don't own shit. That everything I have was given or handed down. Computer, TV  couch, bed, record player, lamps, furniture. I have no attachments to these things. I am unfettered and poised like a drawn back arrow ready to let fly. At any moment I could fit the only physical things in this world I give a shit about, fit them in my truck and just go. And I would, but for money. I'm working towards it, but I can only save money at the speed of tectonic plates and the cash i need to set me free from this town might as well be a million dollars.
  
 I don't have a spouse or children like most of my friends do. I don't own anything. I don't have any of the things that society deems as success. I've been in some movies, I've written and played on some songs. Gone on some tours. I've had "experiences". intangibles. Experiences don't keep you full, warm or sane.
   But I've been rowing for shore my whole life. I don't just burn the candle at both ends, I put a blow torch to the whole thing at once. I work my full time job and then get home to my 24/ 7 job. I don't watch TV or go to bars all that much. I'm in the lab, trying to breathe life into this monster in my head. and I go through these cycles of furiously pushing and exhaustion. when can i coast? Just for a second?
   And I know i couldn't possibly push any harder. This thing's going to have to meet me halfway or not at all. It's made me cynical. I don't want to get old. I don't want to get stuck.

And i look back and try to think about what I could have done differently. I've stayed true to who I am wired to be. I couldn't have done better in school, because I hated it with every fabric of my being. My mind, body and soul rebelled at every turn. I felt stifled, neutered. I thought by pursuing the things I was passionate about that I was fulfilling my destiny, that I was MADE to be the way that I am and that to do anything else would be an insult to GOD. If we KNOW ourselves then we will know what GOD wants us to do, and therefore we MUST succeed. 

   This fairy tale notion was the most naive thing I ever thought, and has gotten me in the most trouble. 
Wow, this situation is so serendipitous that it must be DESTINY! I can't possibly fail because this is ordained by the creator and therefore TRUTH! Then when life pulls the rug out from under me, it's devastating. How could this go wrong? I've always done what I thought was right? Am I being punished?

I don't write as much as i used to because I don't want to create anything negative. Even these words I write now are not optimistic, they are not cheerful or inspiring. I just haven't wanted to add to the collective madness.

The other day I was walking my dog, going to the same place we walk 3 times a day. Up on the hill, in the tall grass I'm closer to the sky and up there I talk out loud. I ask for things. I carry on conversations with my enemies and friends. I guess the walking and talking is just working them out, but part of me imagines that up there, there is a better chance of them broadcasting to the ether, and that something will hear. On my walk the other day, some hobo had taken a shit right in my path, and wiped their ass with a sock. Just left it there for anyone to step in. 
I don't want to be a hobo shitting in people's paths. I would have gone off the path so that no one would see or smell or step in my shit.
I try my hardest to never have to lie. I try to not ask people for things. I try not to waste anyone's time. I try not to say things I don't mean, to make promises I can't keep and to think through my options before I act.
But so many people aren't self aware. Are we supposed feel sorry for them because they are sick or hate them because they are assholes?
If any of us are unaccountable, all of us are unaccountable. We all have excuses. We've all been subject to cruelty.
And it's back to cruelty. How many don't know that they're hurting you or just don't give a fuck that they're hurting you.
Was that hobo out of his mind because of the cards life dealt him, or did he just not give a fuck if you stepped in his shit or not?
Was he the center of the universe in his own mind?
And I hear a lot of talk about forgiveness, but how do you forgive people that aren't sorry? That won't admit that they are wrong and will continue shitting on yours or anyone else s path?
And does it matter? There's no universal force balancing the books. Sometimes the shitters win. Sometimes, no matter how cool you try to be, people will try to get their dump on your Keds.
and I'm supposed to be thankful this season. Who do I thank? We're all in this together, shitting on and wiping each other's asses. There's no them versus us. I'm insane because we're all insane.
No one wins. We all just get by until we don't. What's there to say about that?

Is there a point? No. You can attach whatever meaning you want to an insignificant event. You can turn hobo shit in to a biblical omen in your mind. The truth is, we shit and we step in shit. We win and we lose. We become famous actors and we paint houses for a living. You'd think that this would be getting the big picture, but i will still worry, I will still stress, I will still strive. Because that's what I'm wired to do.
I will also not give up.

Drifting Away

I do this really weird thing when I'm going through tough times. I do it because it was pounded in to my head at such a young age. I do it because I'd like to believe it has value. I do it because sometimes it's the only thing left to do, and I do it because I guess it can't hurt. Or can it? Sometimes I pray.

   I think it's a throwback to the days when we felt we had to appease God, and then we would be rewarded. Instead of blood sacrifices, we shower praise on a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient being and hope that if we are good enough or worthy enough it will grant us what we want. I've never understood that. The story goes supposedly that it created us and gave us free will and wants us to love it as it loves us. My question has always been: If it is all knowing, complete and all encompassing, why does it have a void that needs to be filled with our love? How can it need or want for anything? A need or want would suggest that it is not complete, not all encompassing and not all powerful. If that is the case, would that make it not god? Also, if something is complete, then it is no longer growing. Anything that is no longer growing is either dead or never was alive. Can there be consciousness without life?

I've never understood why people praise god in thanks for things, yet when bad things happen or we lose something that we love we just shrug our shoulders and say "It's all part of God's plan". I think it's a dangerous idea that I have fallen into before that, when things go my way, when everything seems to happen right and effortlessly and coincidentally that it must be destiny, or God is rewarding me for something. You see, that way of thinking plays into our egos. It plays in to the idea that we are special, or have done something good, or that god has a plan for us because I'm me and I'm important to this world. Then, when something goes wrong, or you lose something you loved you feel that you were not good enough or did something wrong or are being punished. Bad Religion wrote a great song about this called "only rain". Sometimes you feel like it's raining on you because of something you've done.

Rain fell like judgment across my windowpane.
Said it fell like judgment, but it was only rain.

In truth, the universe treats chicken shit and chicken salad exactly the same in the end.

I like when people praise god for things. Like when you sit down at dinner and you thank god for food. The truth is, the universe is working against you every day. The truth is, some poor farmer is busting his ass every day to make ends meet or some underpaid immigrant is working in the field for not enough money or some ecosystem is being spoiled to grow the crop, the earth is being poisoned by the pesticides that made it possible and monsanto is getting rich off all of us and owning our asses. The truth is, you bust your ass every day at a job you hate just to be able to buy that food. But, hey thanks God! No, to me, the world is working against us at all times and everything we can be thankful for is through our own struggle.

"Dude you're being a Negatron! You should be thank god you weren't born in a third world country!"

Ok, well I'm sure all those people who are suffering just for being born in a third world country pray every day for what they need. Why are their prayers not granted? Is my soul somehow more worthy than theirs? Did I do something good in a past life to deserve to not be born in to that? Is God racist and favorable to Americans? We have to realize that many of the luxuries we enjoy were bought with the suffering of others, and I'm sure those people prayed in the midst of their suffering. I'm sure that children born in war zones pray for safety and deliverance. I'm sure victims of genocides prayed for help.

"oh, they weren't praying to the right God".

I thought there was only one.

"Well they're heathens who don't believe in Jesus".

Oh. Gotcha.

I think what is really the cruel joke is that, the better you are, the kinder you are, the more you sacrifice yourself for others, the more the world will destroy you. In fact, it's a given. Jesus, MLK, Malcolm X and Gandhi were all killed for their work. The truth is, the better you are, the more you will be hated and that, is a cruel, cruel joke.

In fact, sometimes the people that I have been kindest to have been the most cruel and taken advantage of me the most.

Not that I will stop. The basis of my spiritual beliefs do not rely on God at all. I can sit and speculate on whether or not God exists for eternity and ask it for a sign so that I can anchor my faith on it and I will be talking to the ceiling for the rest of my life. Apparently, it is not as important to sway me as it is to convince some wedding attendees 2000 years ago with a vulgar display of alcohol creation. I mean, I just need a little help with my depression is all, I'm not asking for some element to be transmogrified.

Anyways, my point is that you can ask for the invisible guy in the sky to bestow mercy, love and compassion on you and it'll be like waiting for your sandwich at kwik check. However, you have the ability to create mercy, love and compassion in the world and bestow it on others, perhaps answering a prayer of theirs.

It's sorta like the DIY ethic i learned from punk rock. You can sit around forever and wait for some record label to discover you and some booking agent to book your shows or you can put out your own records and book your own shows. You have to be the things you want to see in the world, in spite of the world.

But sometimes I need a break. Sometimes I need a boost. I want to believe in the fairy tale, but as life has gone on all the fairy tales have been shattered for me. I've lost faith in everything we're supposed to believe in. The family unit, relationships, authority and God. I wish I could believe in them, but instead I'm just watching the world go crazy around me and perhaps I'm going crazy too. I don't know. It's so much easier to see other people's insanity. Tell me if I've lost my mind. It seems to me that insanity is the rule, and sanity the exception now.

"Dude, you should thank god for your friends and family"

Fuck that. I work to maintain my friendships and family relations

"you should be thankful for your health"

Or what? Is God going to cause me to get old one day and get cancer and die an agonizing death?

"Well, that's going to happen anyways"

Exactly. What happens if I don't believe? I'll never get my hopes up for special magic to be bestowed upon me? Maybe god will eventually take everything I love from me? All my relationships will fail? Myself and all my loved ones will get sick and die? Everything that is sacred in the world will get destroyed by cheesy, greedy motherfuckers? I'll have to toil every day for the rest of my life?

Oh yeah. All that's going to happen anyways.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy life and am happy to experience the good and bad. Any experience beats non-experience. I'm just not going to ask the ceiling for good luck anymore. I'll create my own, thanks....

I think I summed it up best in the song Drifting Away:

Betrayed by the things that I can't accept

A riddle that I must not get

For if perfection is complete

Then God, he must be dead

Take this from my hands

I'll collapse beneath the weight

Of things I'll never become

The guilt from what I'll never be

Is our only hope to clean the slate?

Or will patience and time still erase

Greed and envy from our eyes

Our regrets and our wasted time

Take this from my hands

Maybe this is not my fate 

To know what can never be known

To have even one ounce of faith

To have even one ounce of faith

Sometimes I envy the man who's got blind faith

Other times I want to laugh in his face

But he has an anchor upon which to weigh

His fears before he drifts away

But I have no solace for my soul

I can't believe what I can't hold (what I can't conceive)

They say that faith is truly blind

Well why the fuck did god give us eyes?

Faith's not enough

The ship's going down

It always been

The time is now

It always is

And never when

And never then

It's always been

How to not make your kid love Jesus

 

     I awake on a Sunday morning. I am 7 years old. The sun is shining through my window. It is a beautiful spring day. The possibilities are endless.
Suddenly the door bursts open "wake up, you little shit. get ready for church".
"But Mum, it's a perfect day. I was wondering if I could just go play in the woods with my friends".
"You ungrateful little retard. Jesus and the troops died for your sins so that those woods could be there. You need to fucking worship. If you do not, you shall be cast into hell where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Does that sound like party time to you? Do you want to gnash your teeth?"
"Well, no, but I've been thinking about this verse that I learned in Sunday School. I believe it's in Matthew, Chapter 18: "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Seeing as how I already am a child, perhaps you and Dad have a few things you can learn from me. I've also found this creek I want to explore. It's in the middle of the woods and it's teeming with life, evidence of God's goodness. There are fish and frogs and snakes, and my friends and I wonder at the beauty and complexity of the universe, and we dream our 7 year old dreams and talk about what we want to do with our lives that will have the most meaning". 
   "You worthless turd. Do what I say or I will gnash your teeth for you. Get dressed in your Sunday best and then brush your un-gnashed teeth".
"It's rather warm today. Do I have to wear trousers and a shirt and tie? Perhaps I could wear shorts and a t-shirt".
"What are you a fucking idiot? God will not love you if you're running around looking like a poor person. Plus, the Joneses will be there. Do you want the Joneses and God to think that we're poor?"
"But didn't Jesus say in Luke, chapter 6: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God"?
"If you keep smarting off to me your father is going to take a belt to you and I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap."
   There was nothing I could do. These people would not listen to reason.


   We piled in to the family Mercedes and drove to the church. I was sweating in my long pants, shirt and tie. I started to think that maybe Jesus hates me. We filed in to the building and took our seats on the uncomfortable pews. I looked around at the building. The structure was impressive, with the high ceilings, stained glass windows and all the icons, but to me, it was a paltry substitute for the forest, which God himself created. To me, everything created by man seemed tainted. My heart knew purity when I saw it. I thought about the underpaid laborers that constructed this building, and all the poor people that might have been fed with the money that it cost, or how many homeless people this building could sleep.
The priest started talking. He seemed a bitter, unhappy man, but apparently he was my go- between to God. He was also apparently related to Charlie Brown's teacher. He recited words I had heard hundreds of times by then. All memorized, and said without conviction. I was uninspired to say the least.
At some point they asked for money, and a collection plate was passed around. My dad clears his throat loudly as he drops a bill in to the plate, just to make sure everyone noticed.


   Later on that day I finally made it to the woods. In the silence, surrounded by the glory of creation, I felt an energy surge through me and a oneness with all things. I thought about how each consciousness is the center of it's own universe and how when we die, our matter and energy will be dispersed into all things: into the earth, into food for bacteria and fungus and bugs and about how nothing created will ever be extinguished, only changing forms so that in a million years, the universe will still know I existed.


    The next morning, Monday. I am awaken from a deep sleep by the door slamming open and the light being turned on. 
"Get up. You have to go to school".
"But, Dear Parent, I was hoping that today I might not go. I was thinking about how short life truly is and I feel the need to live it to the fullest, as if it were my only day on earth. I don't think I would attend school on my only day".
"Shut the fuck up, you waste of sperm. You're going to be a loser and a homeless person with that attitude. You'll never get a good job, and when you grow up you will not be able to afford a fancy, whites only religious school like you go to, but your children will have to fraternize with black people".
This logic was so retarded I didn't have the strength to argue. I got up and fumbled in my closet for my uniform.
"But I like black people. They invented being cool. They even invented the word cool. And why do I have to wear this uniform?"
"It's training. One day, you're going to have a high paying job where you have to put on a shirt and tie every day, so you better get used to it.You're going to be a doctor or a lawyer or a banker. What, do you want to have some shit labor job and live in a trailer park?"
"Wasn't Jesus a carpenter? and where would this trailer be? Somewhere with a nice climate? perhaps the mountains or the ocean? I could be happy with that."
"Shut up, you piss ant. You are going to get rich or die trying".
"But didn't Jesus say that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get in to heaven?"
"That's it. I'm getting the soap and washing your mouth out".


   I got to school, in my shirt and tie, mouth tasting of Ivory. I take my seat amongst the children of the privileged. This is a classroom that would have made Hitler smile. Not a hint of racial diversity. The bell rang. The teacher says: "stand up you little fucktards and pledge alliegence to this flag". I raise my hand.
"can I be excused from pledging alliegence?"
"Why the fuck for?"
"Well, I'm no theologian, but from my understanding of the teachings of Jesus, he wanted us love everyone as we love ourselves, and I think he would view nationalism as a hindrance to true unity. I don't think we need to draw up petty divisions between ourselves, but to rather celebrate our oneness and the fact that we are all God's children".
All the kids started laughing at me. Todd, the most popular kid in class wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at my head. All the girls looked at him approvingly. The girls never looked at me. Maybe Jesus didn't love me.
"If you do not stand up and salute this flag that Jesus and the troops died for then you will have to sit out recess for the rest of the year".
I stood up, defeated. Tina, the cutest girl in school snickered at my Kmart shoes.
"Make no mistake. Jesus was an American", said Ms. Teacher.


   Immediately after we had to go to church again. What the fuck? I just went yesterday. But that's what happens when you attend a private religious school. At least now I had my friend to sit next to.
   My friend and I spent the entire service trying to suppress our laughter. We had boundless energy. We were fidgety. We were 7. There was this old woman who attended church every day and sat in the back. The poor thing had a problem and always burped and farted loudly. It echoed amongst the cavernous sanctuary. It was nearly impossible for my seven year old self to contain my laughter. I tried so hard. A laugh escaped me so hard that i blew snot on the back of Tina, sitting right in front of me. She'll never fuck me now. I look over to see Ms. Teacher glaring at me. Looks like I'd be sitting out recess after all.


   Today was a special day. We would have our first confession. What the fuck? I'm seven! Seven year olds don't sin. The only thing a seven year old does wrong is mock shitty behavior they've learned from their parents and teachers. They line us all up to take turns going in to the little booth and spilling our guts. I don't know what to say. I'm a child. I'm inherently good. I start sweating. I see Todd come out of the booth from behind the curtain, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. I bet his sins were awesome. Tina bats her eyelashes at him as he goes to say his penance. I'm racking my brain. I always thought that being a kid got you a "get out of jail free" card. The line is getting shorter. I have to poop. until finally. It's my turn.
I shyly part the curtain and enter the little booth. There's no turning back now. The priest on the other side says: "Hello my child". I gulp. here goes: 
"Forgive me father for I have sinned".
"Yes, my son, what are your sins"?
"Well...you see, me and my neighbor Tony were playing war with my Star Wars figures. We were using Castle Greyskull and Snake Mountain as our bases. We explained this by saying that all these characters in the Star Wars universe were transplanted to the land of Eternia by the Beyonder, the God-like entity that made all the Marvel Super heroes and villains fight it out on a strange planet in the Secret Wars mini series. You know, the one where Spider Man got his black costume. Anyways, the Star Wars guys find themselves on Eternia and He Man and everyone are gone. Maybe it's many years after they've died or maybe the Beyonder sent all the He Man guys to fight it out on the Death Star. I don't know, we didnt think too hard in to it. My point is, we were hiding all of our guys preparing for war with each other and we promised each other we wouldnt look while we hid our guys. I looked. I totally saw Tony stick Grand Moff Tarkin in an upper level of Castle Greyskull, thus giving me the advantage. But don't they say, "All's fair in love and war"?
I hear the priest sigh and he just says: "Say 3 Our Fathers and 3 Hail Marys and an Apostles Creed".
   Wait, that's it? I can just go and pretend to say some prayers? Man, this is cool! My parents need to learn a thing or two from this guy.
"Thanks"!, I say and head out of the booth, walking a few inches taller. As I pass Tina, I do that thing where you lick your index finger and little finger and smooth your eyebrows down with one hand. She laughs at me. It's ok. Jesus loves me and I'm forgiven.


   Later on, in class. Ms. Teacher asks us what our favorite story from the bible is. My hand shoots up immediately. 
"I like the story of Lot and his family"
"ooh that's a good one. Lot and his family were allowed to escape from the wicked city of Sodom before it was destroyed by God because Lot was a righteous man. They were told that they couldn't look back at the city, but Lot's wife disobeyed and was turned into a pillar of salt".

He doesn't look that drunk to me

"Yeah, but i like the other part. The next part is like the Empire Strikes Back as compared to Episode IV. They hid in a cave and Lot's daughters were all worried since their mom was dead that there would be no male heir in the family to carry on the family name. So they got their dad drunk and totally boned him. Even though it's a gross incest story, it makes my boner tingle a little bit, but most importantly it is a record of the only time in history that a woman had to get a man drunk in order to have sex with him...not to mention a 3 way. Usually it's the other way around, I understand. I just think its weird that if God knows everything, then he would have known that he was sending them away from a whole city of butt fuckers, only to have a drunken family incest creampie party.


Needless to say I was sent to the principal. He seemed to take joy in the fact that he was going to paddle me. Sick mother fucker. He had a paddle all ready by his desk. I asked him if I could just say a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys instead, but he refused. He wasn't going to miss out on his sick pleasure. And as he whacked an innocent 7 year old on his tender backside with a huge piece of wood, I prayed anyways. I didn't pray for deliverance from this pain and humiliation though. I simply asked God:
"Forgive them, for they know not what they do".

Anti-social networking and the End of the World

Shawn told me i was being dramatic when i disabled my facebook profile. I was actually trying to escape drama, you see. I had recently been in a situation where I had to look at facebook all the time. It totally bummed me out. It's invaluable as a networking tool for someone who is in a business like I am, but lately I've been thinking a lot about communication and i'm constantly confronted with the idea that maybe this is as much as a hindrance to communication as it has value.
   I've been trying to recover myself lately. Trying to get on a more natural rhythm. To appreciate all the things I do have instead of those which i don't. I desire real communication with my friends. but when I get on Facebook or twitter, all i see are random songs, silly political cartoons that just perfectly back up your opinion on X or kickstarter pleas for money. It's not even original thoughts most of the time, just snippets of stuff culled from the interweb....sometimes funny, sometimes enraging.
I know, you're saying "you don't have to look at it if you don't like it", but like i said I have to use it as a networking tool.
   Real communication relies so much on subtext and body language. The other day I sat with Anthony on his porch enjoying a perfect spring day. We talked, i mean really got real with each other, drank beers and whiskey and when i left I felt stronger, as if i had done something constructive. Not once did he show me a picture of his cat, tell me what he was making for dinner, ask me for money or try to sway my opinion on a political matter. Now, i know I've posted plenty of shit on Facebook before. I understand I am a hypocrite. I've never claimed to be anything more.
   Often times we allow it to influence our emotions. I've got friends who may have polar opposite political views from me, and when they post some shit i deem ignorant, it enrages me. There was this one guy in particular. He would post the most deplorable right wing hate shit. i deleted his ass so i wouldn't have to look at it and i had no respect for him....until one day i ended up at his house....i saw the way he interacted with his family and the love he had for them. and i gained that respect back. all this shit is surface level, and i guess i'm trying to get below the surface. It's easy to swim in the shallow end, after all.
I've had grown men get butthurt when i didn't message them back in time, or i didn't accept their friend request or i deleted them which has now become the most insulting thing you can do to someone, worse than pissing on their mom. Some dude i never talked to in high school wanted to talk shit to me and tell me i thought i was too cool because I didn't accept his friend request. The truth is, if i see you out at a bar, i'll talk to anyone, but i really don't need to know every mundane detail of your life and you don't need to know mine and you've just proven yourself to be a whiny little bitch and I don't care anyways.

    The other day, when i got back on Facebook from my little break, i posted something to the effect of what I'm saying now. That it was such a nice break, that i was back begrudgingly, that i was going to do some deleting and that i don't care about pictures of cats, what you had for dinner or your kickstarter campaign. One of my "friends" got so offended by that, proclaimed i was "too cool" for Facebook and deleted me. I would like to thank her now.
Because the truth is, I've had a rough couple of months. I've been forced to take stock and try to find what makes me happy. And I desire real, honest, deep communication with the people i care about. I want to sit on your porch and drink beers and listen to the world and know what makes you tic. I don't want to miss real life while i have my head buried in my phone just to hear how stoked you are about the Grizz game. Facebook is not real life. it's a sham. a cheap imitation.

During the time I didn't look at it I would wake up with my thoughts, and go through the day without being bombarded by useless information. It's the same reason I don't watch TV. All that stuff effects you emotionally whether you want to be conscious of it or not, and I'd rather focus on what's really important.
   I also feel it may make us take each other for granted. If we are always a click away we may be tempted not to reach out to each other in an honest and meaningful way.

I've been trying to get on a natural rhythm with the earth. Since i moved to the studio, i have to walk my dog 3 times a day and every day I walk to the End of the World.
The End of The World, as I heard some kids call it back in the day, is this big hill right in the center of midtown. It's where, once upon a time they had this horrible plan to cut I-40 right through the heart of midtown. When i was younger, there used to be these bridges on the hill that just stopped....unfinished interstate ramps and you could sit on the edge of them and dangle your feet off and look west at the city skyline. We used to ride Gabriel's go cart up there back in high school. Now the bridges are gone and all that's left is a grassy plateau one block long and one block wide. As I walk there every day i notice the grass growing a little more each time, i see the little scrub trees trying to establish themselves. I see a hawk often, perched on one of these low trees. At night it's significantly cooler up there and i can look up at the moon and look down at all the houses and at the Sears building and it's beautiful and quiet up there. I watch my dog as he flops through the brush, legs and tail and ears and tongue all working independently of one another as if he has no control over any of them. I sit on this scar on the earth. a bad idea unfinished. The wrong road, begun but never fully traveled and I watch as nature embraces the scar and utilizes it for life. and i ask it, whatever it is to take my scars and use them for the sake of life.

I wanna be a bear

Sometimes I wish we still lived in the wild west. I like the idea of being able to blast a man for snoring too loud and be able to get away with it. I'd shoot a lot of people in the face. dig this:


   Last week. Work day. Sunny and 65 degrees. It feels awesome. I had been really sick and was still really recovering, but I can't really afford to be sick anyways. Really, the sunshine was making me feel better. Then I start to hear the loudest, most godawful drone. The folks across the street have a yard crew with two leaf blowers. It's painfully loud from at least this far away, if not just painfully annoying. This is what makes me long to blast someone. But I wouldn't shoot Paco and Juan. They're just poor dudes trying to feed their families. I'd kick the door in and fire on the homeowners in my fantasy world without consequences.
   Leafblowers? really? is that worth somone losing a face over? I think so. Many reasons.


1. Louder than holy god. 
Like a retarded bumble bee mic'ed and pumped through a 2000 watt amp at full volume. and droning. I once read a study on the correlation between areas with a lot of noise and cases of insanity. like people that live under flight paths. Or restaraunt cooks with the all the refrigerators and things humming everywhere. I've known a lot of cooks. batshit crazy. Noise interferes with communication, sleep, and work. The U.S. EPA says noise degrades quality of life by impairing communication and social interaction; reducing the accuracy of work, particularly complex tasks; and creating stressful levels of frustration and aggravation that last even when the noise has ceased.
The normally acceptable ambient noise level in residential areas is no more than 60 dB; 60-70 is conditionally acceptable; and higher levels are normally unacceptable. The decibel scale is logarithmic--each increase of 10, say 60 to 70, represents a noise 10 times louder.
The average blower measures 70-75 dB at 50 feet, thus louder at any closer distance. Leaf blowers are routinely used less than 50 feet from unconsenting pedestrians and neighboring homes that may be occupied by home workers, retirees, day sleepers, children, the ill or disabled, and pets.
The World Health Organization recommends general daytime outdoor noise levels of 55 dBA* or less, but 45 dBA to meet sleep criteria. Thus, even a 65-decibel leaf blower would be 100 times too loud** to allow healthful sleep (which often takes place during daytime hours for night workers and others). Noise can impair sleep even when the sleeper is not awakened.


Acoustics experts say blower noise is especially irritating because of its particular pitch, the changing amplitude, and the lack of control by the hearer.
Also, the leaf blowers are harmful to the ears of the operators. There's going to be a lot of deaf Juans out there.  A blower measuring 70-75 dB at 50 feet can reach 90-100 dB at the operator's ear. OSHA requires hearing protection for noise over 85.


2. regular pollution. 
Emissions from the two-stroke combustion engine include particlate matter (PM) as well as gaseous carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons (CO, NOx, and HC). Leaf blowers also raise (entrain) dust from the ground. And evaporative emissions of fuel occur during the refueling process, which sometimes spills gas on the operators, and from the fuel tank. 
Fine PM2.5 particles, which are man-made and do not occur in nature, evade the body's defense systems. According to the EPA and ARB they can increase the number and severity of asthma attacks, cause or aggravate bronchitis or other lung disease, and reduce our ability to fight infections.
Leaf blower motors are inordinately large emitters of CO, NOx, HC, and PM. Two-stroke engine fuel is a gasoline-oil mixture, thus especially toxic.According to the Lung Association, a leaf blower causes as much smog as 17 cars.
Street dust includes lead, organic carbon, and elemental carbon according to a study conducted for the ARB. The Lung Association states "the lead levels are of concern due to [their] great acute toxicity... Elemental carbon...usually contains several adsorbed carcinogens." Another study found arsenic, cadmium, chromium, nickel, and mercury in street dust as well. The ARB states that a leaf blower creates 2.6 pounds of PM10 dust emissions per hour of use.
The EPA and ARB, in their brochure "Particulate Matter Air Pollution: A threat to our health" advise us, "Avoid using leaf blowers."


3. It's pointless and in fact, counter productive to the way nature works.
   People are stupid. Nature however is not and had this whole system worked out. You see, trees drop their leaves in the fall. The leaves decay and enrich the soil, which the same tree gets it's nutrients from. It's a beautiful cycle whose purpose I understood when I was 3. When you take the leaves away, You're taking the tree's ability to feed itself. Now, the poor uneducated saps running the leaf blowers might not know this, but the homeowner with the nice job that can afford lawn service should. And it's not like people are out enjoying their yards anymore anyways. They're inside eating Cheetos and watching wrestling or pawn stars or some shit. So, the main motivating force in having a kempt lawn is vanity. keeping up with the joneses. giving a shit what your shitty neighbors think. And then they pay money for fertilizers for their yard. Some polluting corporation is taking your money and poisoning the earth because you wont allow nature to do what it does for free, and every once in a while you want to raise your head up from your mayonnaise trough and look out the window and see some neat, orderly bastardization of nature. 
   When did we decide that leaves were offensive? I have never been offended by leaves on the ground. Or any plants for that matter. my family always wanted me to spray poison on the ground to kill weeds. really? You're so offended by a plant that you'll dump something toxic on the ground. and bugs eat the plants and birds eat the bugs and cats eat the birds. Is your head so far up your ass that you can't grasp this concept? Of course the people in my family that wanted to throw poison on the ground were so naive that they believed that anything a company could sell you at a store could not possibly be harmful to anything. big corporations only have out best interests in mind, right?
I had a roommate for a while that would be offended by grass growing up between the cracks in the concrete and pine trees dropping needles in our front yard. I loved theses things, especially the little bit of grass. "It may take me a long fucking time, but slowly and steadily, I'm gonna bust this fucking concrete that you assholes put here."
4. Resources for disposal
At the end of the day there was about 30 garbage bags full of leaves on the curb. Trash bags are made from petroleum. Do I need to tell you how shitty our constant need for petroleum is? probably. You're stupid as fuck. Then it takes crews of men (that we have to pay) to load up all these bags and drive them all to the dump where they're dumped with all the inorganic matter, making a stew of toxic nauseous methane. Ever been to a city dump? everyone should have to go for educational purposes. There's two here in town that I have to go to frequently. I call them mount st. garbage. They stink. You'll smell it for days after you leave. There's buzzards and sometimes sea gulls (yes in Memphis) and those annoying plastic grocery bags are blowing around everywhere.


5. Clogged Storm Drains
There's always some asshole blowing all the leaves into the street. You ever been driving just to have some shithead blow leaves and dirt all over your car? I like to drive as close to them as I can without hitting them and try to blow that shit right back at them.


The yard crew finally left and I sighed with relief only to discover a block away there were two more fucking leaf blowers going.

   You still may say "yeah, it's annoying but is it really worth blasting someones face off over"? I say, it's the way of nature. If you stood by sleeping bear's cave and did the loudest, most pointless thing imaginable and that bear woke up and destroyed you, was the bear being evil? No. you were being stupid and got what you deserve. But the laws are made to protect the weak. People are weak as fuck. I wanna be a bear.

The world is my bible....

Hey! Guess what? People have been studying the bible and arguing about it's meaning since the thing was written. People can use it to agree with whatever their particular slant is and then damn you to hell for eternity for whatever it is you are doing that they don't agree with. I like to think of the bible as spirituality for dummies. Let's discuss.


spirituality is that which relates to or affects the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. 


The problem with discussing spiritual matters is that most texts on the subject are clouded by culture, or the want of power or mental influences. If one understands we are all intrinsically entwined with each other at our cores, all a part of this great oneness some people call god then it seems elementary to me that the best way to deal with spiritual matters is within...to shed the things that encumber our minds and to FEEL what is right or wrong. Some people call this meditation, others prayer, but I think generally spiritual truth is goddamn common sense. For instance...

Some of the "spiritual truths" in the bible. The Golden Rule for instance. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". No shit, Sherlock. I figured that out when I was 4. Did I need Jesus to tell me that? No, I learned it when some shitty kid took my Transformer and it made me feel like ass. How about the 10 commandments. Don't steal, don't kill, don't be jealous, don't fuck people's wives. What sort of idiot bumbles through life without feeling the results of most or all of these things happening to them without realizing it sucks?

Yes, my spirituality is based on human experience, because you can't argue with how things make you feel in the core of your soul, dumbass. I don't need a fucking bronze age bore-a-thon soap opera to teach me that. There are spiritual lessons around us at all times, every day. You're fucking stupid.

One of the reasons I've been thinking about this is the abortion issue. I think pro lifers are fucking dumb. You wanna know why? because you're getting all up in arms over that issue, but there is terrible shit going on all around you that you are ignoring. The world's population just reached 7 billion. We are destroying the planet and multiplying at a rate that is speeding us towards disaster. Yeah, abortion bothers you but you probably love driving to corporate wastelands like the wolfchase area and buying shiny shit for your dumb brain. How much of the world have you experienced as the way it should be before man pissed all over it? You ever hike into the back country of Yellowstone or Yosemite? You ever hiked in to the Grand Canyon? Have you ever gone to a place untouched by man and sat and listened, and truly felt the earth and your place in it? Probably not. You watch TV. You get your spirituality spoon fed to you the same way you do your entertainment. You've probably never been brave enough to question or wrestle with all the things you've been told, because you're a scared pussy. It's true. It is scary starting from scratch, to realize most people's motivations for telling you stuff is based on their fears and their need for power and control. It IS scary to say "I don't know" and then have to go through all the effort to find out. It actually takes *gasp* work.

 So the world is fucked and the system we have is shitting all over everything and enslaving people and you're gonna tell them they need to keep on breeding. I know some people who stand out in front of Planned Parenthood with signs and you know what? They come from a loving family. They are not living in poverty. but they're gonna stand out there and make people whose situation they do not know feel like shit in an already hard time. They're gonna tell someone from the hood that already has 3 kids that they're wrong if they decide to terminate. Fucking entitled white people trying to tell everyone how awesome the world is and how much God loves us and having more kids is rad. Well, I say fuck that.
I've listened to the core of my being to find out if it's wrong for me. It's not. It may be wrong for you and that's fine. Quit trying to control everyone's fate because when the shit goes down, you're not there to help them. They have to deal with their path on their own. If you don't like abortion, then why not try and fight some of the reasons people have them. Like poverty. Go fucking take care of poor people, instead of just trying to appear self righteous on a street corner. Go pass out condoms to High School kids. Go adopt. Just shut the fuck up about it. And don't quote me bible passages and argue your stupid mythology to me and say you know the true voice of god. God's voice could be in anything at anytime and most of the time it is voiceless, beyond voice. Feel what you know is right or wrong.

Spirituality is where true altruism lies because, when you discover our spiritual connectedness you discover the idea of a greater good. Sometimes you have to sacrifice things for the greater good. We need to figure out how to get things on the right path before we wantonly create more people in spite of our circumstances because we found it impossible to curb millions of years of survival instinct in our urges to procreate. You know what? I'd like to have some kids. Love to, in fact but I'm fucking dirt ass poor and I'm not in a stable situation where it would be a good idea, so I won't. I'm not gonna drag someone through life when I'm totally unprepared because Ward and June Cleaver told me that everything is gonna turn out rad and that god is gonna love me and take care of me forever. It may not. God may shit all over me. It sometimes does, so I'm not gonna count on it. I'll fucking do it when I know I'm ready. I weigh out all the options and in spite of the fact that I want to have kids, it would make my situation shittier which would make my kid's situation shitty and shitty situations equal shitty people. I didn't have to read that from a book, you fucking troglodyte. You're not smart enough to tell me what to do. Isn't there something dumb on TV you should be watching? When you've been brave enough to do some soul searching and wrestle with your spirituality and come up with an original idea that no one had to tell you, then you can sit at the adults table and have an enlightened discussion. Bitch.

The creature in my chest

Recently, a friend asked me why I haven't published any blog posts lately. Actually, this is a person that I've never actually met, but we bonded over my stupid writings. She said that she needed something to read on her boring lunch breaks. I never really intended this to be entertainment. I write as therapy, and lately I had this feeling like I've never felt before. Fulfillment.
You see, I've been doing what I felt like I was born to do. Making movies in the woods with people I love and respect. The setting was perfect, the action and the company. But as I sit idle on a break I am overcome with what something that I should look at as an old friend. A near crippling anxiety churns in my guts as if i'm hosting one of the little creatures from the Alien movies. I feel as if I could vomit. I want to crawl under my covers and die. I want to get in my truck and drive as far as the money in my pocket will take me.
   I think it's amusing to hear people's perceptions of me. Often it's so far from reality that it's amusing. People tell me all the time that i come off conceited and cocky. The truth is I've always been driven by this anxiety. It's a self loathing. I'm always pushing toward the horizon because in my mind my self worth is always tied up in what I create. I always feel that I will love myself once I accomplish X, or I will be happy when I can achieve Y. I guess that's what separates me from the truly arrogant is that in my mind I am an insignificant piece of shit. I'm not looking for reassurance. Sometimes I think this is a virtue. Striving keeps me alive. But at the same time this anxiety is also a sickness. It's a blessing an a curse. I can never rest on my laurels because I never feel that what I'm accomplishing is worth a shit. I'll always be striving.
   I have a friend that told me: "a lot of people think you're a mediocre actor, but I think you're really good". I've never thought I was a good actor. But I want to be. I'm hungry for it. I'll never be satisfied. I've never thought I was good at any of this. But i want to be. I'm trying....
   Recently I had one of those brief moments of clarity where I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Those are so rare, like the sun peeking through dark clouds, and I basked in this feeling while it lasted. It's amazing how I've learned to take happiness with my guard up. I look at happiness with distrust, always ready to get punched in the face at any time. I guess it's been learned over time. there's no ideal situation. Everything has teeth. You can take nothing for granted. Everything that can go wrong will eventually. I guess the key is to learn to enjoy the ride for both the ups and downs. Every fucking fall I took helped me to better stand. So why cant I enjoy the falls too? If I regret no pain I ever felt, why can't I just let my guard down? What's the source of the anxiety? I've seen the cycles and I understand they all come around. If I distrust happiness in anticipation of pain then why cant i distrust pain as well? Is pain greater than joy?
Ultimately, maybe this anxiety is a survival instinct. maybe it's what keeps me alive. Maybe it's the thing that has saved me from the fates of so many of my friends that didn't strive and gave up and lost their lives. I don't think I'm better than anyone and even if I did I know the universe doesn't give a fuck. The universe treats a million dollars and a pile of shit the same in the end. It'll all wash away from memory. The universe owes us nothing, but it doesn't mean we can't collect.
I know what'll kill it. I've got songs to write and movies to make. My brain is like an amp feeding back to drown out all the bullshit. That's all this is is feedback. Like the Tim Barry song says: "just know I won't go easy, man I'll kick and punch til there's nothing left". My creative output is just kicking and punching. I'm not here to entertain and I really don't give a fuck if anyone reads this or not. I write it for me. Not because I think I'm awesome but because I don't.
I guess the thing I had my guard up against most is myself. All the doubt and fears come from somewhere inside myself. All my chains are fashioned by myself and I take responsibility for all of them.